there was a christmas we could not, as a family, account for. it sat in the early eighties, between a christmas we remembered very well (the year of the snow, the burned goose) and a christmas we remembered slightly less well (the year of the grandfather's first stroke). the one in the middle, we did not remember at all.
we noticed this only as adults, comparing photographs. there were two albums and the years ran in order and one year was missing. our mother said she could not recall what had happened. our father said the same. our oldest aunt said only, after a long pause, that it had been a difficult winter and that we should be glad to have forgotten it.
we did not press her. there are years that are kept in a family the way a closed box is kept in an attic — not for opening, only for the small comfort of knowing where it is. we know where the missing christmas is. we will not ask it down.