New Year's Day

My mother must be in a good mood. She's blasting her old U2 records on the stereo. I got in earlier this afternoon with my aunt, uncle, and Enid. The family left Ottawa on Saturday, and I went into Toronto yesterday to spend New Year's Eve with Enid. We started out at the Reindeer Restaurant, and then went to the Neutral Zone for the rest of the evening. She's broken up with her boyfriend, although I don't know how long that's going to last.
Christmas was a mess. Once we all got to Ottawa, things started to get bad. My parents had a fight over Duncan. Actually, it was a fight over Duncan's present. My mother asked about what Duncan gave me, and I said he'd had Charles Wallace put stuff he'd written on my iPod (Charles Wallace overdid it, and I had to delete all the stuff he'd duplicated and put my backup files on). My father decided at that point to mention that he'd done something like that once, too.
"Like what? I don't remember you doing anything like that," my mother said.
"Oh, it was earlier. I wrote a song for my girlfriend in first year. I think I still remember it..." He started to hum, but then noticed that my mother looked like she wanted to club him with my iPod. Luckily at that point Arne came in from taking Charles Wallace to the Byward Market for some freelance illusioning or whatever it was he said he was doing.
Things continued on like that all weekend, then it got worse. It started snowing lightly on Christmas Eve. My grandparents had taken Charles Wallace out to Parliament Hill, and Arne was out doing something near the National Mint. My father was trying to find hockey scores on the television, and I was reading parts of the Globe and Mail as my mother finished them. She looked out the window, saw the snow, and had a memory fit of her own.
"The first snow of the year. Sandra, did I ever tell you about the boy I knew who got pneumonia during the first snow one year in Whitby?" This didn't sound good, but the pneumonia could have been a lead-in for a cautionary medical story, so I fell for it.
"No, you never told me that. What happened? Inadequate clothing for the season?"
"No. He was leaving for Saskatoon the next day, and wanted to see me. My father kept him out waiting on the front porch, but he didn't leave. We walked through the park for what seemed to be hours, then he went home. Then I heard he had pneumonia as soon as he arrived in Saskatchewan. No one's ever sat through a blizzard for me since." She looked wistful at that point, and I glanced over at my father. He was watching the sports channel with a slightly apologetic look. The rest of the family came back around that point. Charles Wallace changed the television channel and started reading the weather report for the country aloud.
"There's snow falling in Winnipeg. Snow has covered the Trans-Canada Highway at the Ontario border. There's snow in Halifax. There's a light snow cover in..." At that point Arne told him to shut up.
After dinner that night Charles Wallace sat on my bed and asked why I had to make our parents fight.
"It wasn't my idea, you know. Duncan's Christmas present just set the two of them off about whatever it was years ago that the other didn't do. Mom's loved Dad all this time for being sensible and then she gets upset when she finds out he did something stupid and romantic once and it wasn't for her." Charles Wallace then settled down with a book and I started to read Heart of Darkness (since we're doing it next term in English).
The snow didn't last the next day. We opened presents, had dinner, and my parents managed to speak to each other. Arne went off somewhere after dinner and wouldn't take Charles Wallace with him, which made Charles Wallace even more eager to find out where he went. He pestered me until I gave in and said I'd borrow a car to follow Arne. My mother seemed relieved, or preoccupied, or something--she gave me the keys to the Honda.
We found Arne parked next to the Mint on the banks of the Ottawa River. He had a metal detector and pieces of a diving suit.
"What the hell are you doing?" I asked.
"What does it look like? I'm trying to pull gold out of the river. There's loads of shavings down here from the Mint." He sounded sort of plausible. Too plausible, in fact--some security guards were coming down the hill. "Quick, into the car!"
"I'm taking Mom's car," I yelled as Charles Wallace beat me to the car.
"Try to head them off! I'll go to Hull!" Arne yelled. He really needed to take lessons on making a quick getaway. The National Capital Commission security guards were following him over to Quebec as I drove back to my grandparents.
"You know, Sandra, hanging around Arne when he's about to get arrested is more fun than watching Mom and Dad right now." I agreed.