A sob breaks free from my chest, and tears leak into her palm.
“What did I do?” I moan. “Did I . . . should I . . . I don’t . . .”
“Shhhh.” She pulls me close, the Chanel perfume she’s worn for decades a reassurance that breaks whatever tendrils of control I have. My tears pour out, an unrelenting, inconvenient storm. “It’s okay, baby. Let it out.”
She rocks me in an ancient maternal rhythm that no one teaches; the same one she used when I fell and scraped my knee. When I experienced my first heartbreak. When I buried Will a year ago. After a few moments, she pulls away, hands on my arms so she can look into my face. I sniff and pass my coat sleeve self-consciously under my runny nose.
“No, honey. That’s not how it works.” She gives a sad shake of her head. “Will was obviously a troubled man, and I know it feels like cause and effect. Like you broke it off and he ended his life. We experience life, all of us, in the bad and the good times and the good people and the ones who hurt us. Everyone does. There are some people life is just harder for than others. Will was one of those, but you told me before how he struggled and didn’t always take his medication.”
“I don’t want to make this about how he failed as a person. I don’t want to blame him,” I rush to say. “I’m not trying to ease my guilt.”
“Well I am.” My mother’s eyebrows elevate. “Because you have nothing to feel guilty about. Will hurt in a way that we will probably never understand, and for that there is no one to blame. But there’s a difference between blame and responsibility. We are each responsible for ourselves. And what Will did, he was responsible for.”
That’s a distinction I’ve tried to make to myself more than once, but I always seem to come back to my part in it, and anything I could have done differently. I nod, leaning forward to kiss her cheek before fastening the buttons left undone on my coat.
“I hear you, Mama.” I walk to the door and give her one last look over my shoulder. “I’ll be back.”
“Hey, you aren’t planning to tell Mrs. Hattfield that, are you?”
Was I? On some level, I feel like I need to get it off my chest; like I owe her an explanation.
“You told me,” my mother says, gripping my hand. “I’m glad you did, because I think you needed that, but that situation is already complicated enough for her. Knowing you and Will broke up only makes it more complicated. May just make it harder, and right now she feels you are the only one in the world close to understanding her pain.”
I think of our conversations over the last year. Not many, but each one, a release, a relief for us both.
“Don’t take that away from her with information that makes no difference,” Mama says. “That does no good. It might make you feel better, but it does nothing for her, and she’s your first concern now. That note was to you and you alone. Private. I just want her to be able to move on and accept your comfort. It wasn’t your fault. She’ll know that, but knowing this would only raise more questions, and she already has enough of those.”
I’m playing Mama’s words in my head when I pull up to Mrs. Hattfield’s. I park my father’s Tahoe in the driveway, noting the dying rose bush in front of the house. The grass is longer than the last time I was here, even though it’s winter. Her house, always neat and perfectly kept, appears slightly disheveled. I ring the doorbell, waiting. When there is no answer after a few moments, I walk over to the garage, peering in and finding the Cadillac Will used to tease his mother about.
“Are you a pimp, Ma?” he’d ask laughingly. “Rolling around in your Cadillac.”
I mouth the words, smiling at the image of Will seated in the living room just beyond the doors of this house. One year we helped Mrs. Hattfield trim her tree. Will roasted marshmallows in the fireplace. His mother and I had hot chocolate, and Will had cider. My life with him rushes back to me in vivid detail; the colors, the scents, the touches, the laughs, the tears, the good and the bad. All of it inundates my mind and blurs my vision.
And I miss him.
Not all the hurt we caused each other at the end. I miss the boy I met at a public library, who crushed on me for years without letting me know. Who took me trick or treating with his twelve-year-old cousin for our first date. I laughed with my friends about it, but we all thought it was sweet.
“God, Will.” I shake my head, blinking at the tears freezing before they fall. I turn to leave, my steps dragging toward Dad’s SUV.
“Avery?”
I turn at the sound of my name, and Mrs. Hattfield stands at the front door, her chin wobbling and her face already streaked with tears. I run, avoiding little patches of ice, needing to get to her. As soon as I’m close, her arms stretch out and she pulls me into her. Her sobs vibrate into my chest.
“I miss him.” Mrs. Hattfield weeps unashamedly, her head buried in the collar of my coat. “I miss him so much.”
“I know,” I whisper, my pain communing with hers. “So do I.”
And it doesn’t matter if I was wearing his ring. If we were lovers or friends at the end. If he cheated or how we injured each other. All that matters is that I loved him, and so did she. That besides the woman I’m holding, I was closer to him than anyone else on the planet. She and I knew his strengths and his weaknesses like no one else ever did, and can console one another uniquely.
We stand like that for I’m not sure how long. Long enough for the winter cold to bite through my gloves and whip beneath my coat. I pull back and look through the open front door. It’s dark in there. No sign of life. No savory smells of food cooking or the pine scent of a live Christmas tree.
“Get your coat, Mrs. H,” I command gently. “You’re coming home with me.”
I didn’t get to tell my mom I was bringing someone home for Christmas dinner, but when I arrive, Mrs. Hattfield in tow, she doesn’t look surprised and already has an extra plate at the table.
“How’d you know?” I ask her quietly while we set out side dishes.
“I know you.” She smiles, pride in her eyes that has nothing to do with anything I’ve achieved or a goal I’ve crushed. She’s proud of me for who I am, not for what I’ve done. Mrs. Hattfield and I share a tearful smile at dinner before we say grace. Still sorting through the tangle of guilt and shame and pain and fury, I hope one day soon I’ll know me, too.
14
Decker
“I’m stuffed.”
My daughter flops onto the couch beside me in our hotel suite, curly golden hair fanning around her and onto my shoulder.
“Your eyes were bigger than your stomach,” I reply, brushing the hair back from her face.
“Grams always says that.” Kiera’s eyes, the exact color and shape of mine, laugh at me from her mother’s face.
“Sure does.” I nod and sink deeper into the cushions.
“I wish we’d gone there for Christmas like we were supposed to,” she says softly. “To Atlanta to see Grams.”
My teeth clamp around the caustic response that springs to my lips. Tara, my ex, used some trumped up excuse about a cheerleading camp Kiera is supposed to attend to make things hard for me. I suspect Kiera doesn’t even care about the camp, but she loves her mother.
As she should.
I used to love her mother, too.
I guess.
Sometimes I’m not sure if it was love, lust. Habit? Whatever it was, in the end it wasn’t enough.
“Next time.” I shoot her a quick smile. “Maybe we’ll go see Grams for Spring break.”
She tips her head back and smiles wide, baring her braces, tracks of rubber banded metal glinting in the dimly lit hotel room. I glance at the silver domes covering the remains of our holiday dinner. Not exactly how I wanted to spend Christmas – in a hotel room on the West Coast when everyone who matters to me is on the East. Except my daughter, who matters most of all.
I wonder if it snowed in D.C. Avery’s there at her parents’ place. I promised myself I wouldn’t think about her, but it’s easier said
than done when you wake up with a throbbing cock, an aching heart and one woman on your mind.
I pull my phone from the pocket of my jeans and open Instagram. She and the other SportsCo anchors are pretty active on social media. It’s practically expected, and all of them post for holidays. No new posts from Avery for the last week, though.
“Who’s that?” Kiera asks, leaning closer for a better look at the phone. “She’s pretty.”
I hesitate, never one to lie to my daughter, but unsure how to categorize Avery. If it were up to me, the answer would be easy. Obviously it’s not up to me since she and I haven’t spoken since that night in the hotel.
“Her name’s Avery.” I toss the phone on the hotel coffee table. “And we said no phones today, so don’t go pulling yours out.”
“You started it,” she reminds me, eyes bright with curiosity and humor. “Drooling over your girlfriend.”
“She’s not my . . .” I stop myself because dammit if I don’t want Avery to be my girlfriend. “She’s a friend.”
Kiera shrugs like it doesn’t matter, but she’s intuitive, sharp. I’ve had one-night stands and booty calls since Tara and I divorced, but none of it ever touched my daughter. She’s never even seen me date or express interest in anyone, but she’s picked up on my interest in Avery. She’s growing up. I hate that our choices, mine and Tara’s, in many ways made her grow up too fast and deal with things too soon. Like the fact that love isn’t always enough. That sometimes it fades altogether, even for your parents, and it changes your world forever. I know how sad she was when Tara and I divorced; how helpless she felt. She tried to hide it, but it came out in counseling, and we’ve been open about our feelings with each other ever since.
“Hey. Look at me.” I tip up her chin until our eyes meet. “Talk to me. If Avery and I were dating, how would you feel about that?”
She blinks a few times and lowers her lashes.
“It’s cool.” She presses her lips together tight before looking back up at me. “I mean, since you and Mom . . .”
There’s a hundred hopes and a dozen questions peppered in the sentence she leaves hanging, and none of my answers would be what she wants to hear.
“You are the most important thing to your mom and me,” I assure her. “We’d both do anything for you, but our life together, our marriage, you know that part’s over.”
“Yeah.” The smile she offers seems hard to do. It’s not easy. Not natural and mostly for my benefit. “It’s cool.”
I’m about to dig further when my phone vibrates on the table, drawing my attention and Kiera’s. The photo, the contact’s name, are clear for us both to see.
Avery.
I grind my teeth together and force my hand to remain still at my side.
Shit.
A week with no word and she calls when I’ve promised Kiera my complete focus. We agreed to silence our phones before dinner.
“You’re not gonna answer?” Kiera asks. “Isn’t that your girlfriend?”
“She’s not—” I cut myself off when I see the laughter back in her eyes. “We said no phones.”
The phone vibrates again, and I can only hope when I call Avery back after Kiera leaves, she’ll answer.
“I’ll make you a deal,” Kiera says. “You get your call. I get my Candy Crush, and then we’re back.”
I calculate. Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t release her from our bargain, but we’ve both been disciplined and maybe she deserves a little break.
“Deal.”
I press the green button to answer my phone, but press it to my chest and give Kiera a wink and smile. “Love you, baby girl.”
She rolls her eyes and glues her gaze to the phone already in her hands, but grins and mumbles, “Love you, too, Dad.”
I step into the bedroom and close the door behind me.
“Avery, hey.”
The silence on the other end swells, and I wonder if I caught the call in time or if she hung up.
“Av–”
“I’m here,” she cuts in. “I just wasn’t sure . . . I’m here.”
“Oh. Okay. Uh . . . Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas to you, too.”
The line goes quiet again. If she’s unsure of where this conversation should go, I have suggestions. Number one being that we meet halfway between our coasts and screw all her doubts away. If she agrees to suggestion number one, the rest of the list becomes irrelevant. But I’m not suggesting shit. She wanted space, which I completely understand. As hard as it’s been, I’ve afforded her that time. Ball’s in her court. I remain silent, signaling that the next move is hers.
“I, um . . . I saw Will’s mother today,” she offers stiltedly.
There’s a note of sadness, a familiar tremor in her voice. I can only imagine how hard that must have been. She has a lot to work out, but the fact that she’s calling me after what had to be a difficult conversation encourages me.
“How was that?” I ask.
“It was . . .” In the pause that follows, I envision her shrugging and biting her bottom lip, dark hair spilling around her shoulders. I wish she was standing in front of me now so I could see if I’m right. “It was tough, but good for us both, I think.”
Her chuckle comes across the line and warms me. “She was home alone and that just wasn’t right. Will would have wanted . . .”
I’m waiting for her next words, but she lets out a frustrated sigh first.
“I’m sorry. The last thing you want to hear about is Will or his mom or—”
“I want to hear anything you want to tell me, Ave.”
She pauses again, her sigh this time one of resignation.
“I didn’t tell her about breaking up with Will or how things were between us at the end,” she says. “My mother thought that might only make things awkward with the one person Mrs. H feels understands what she’s going through.”
“Your mother sounds like a wise woman,” I tell her, keeping my voice even and free of anything that might shut her down. “So you told your mom? How do you feel?”
“Lighter. Between telling you and my mom, I feel lighter.” Her laugh is a stunted breath of uncertainty. “Just seeing Mrs. H and crying and us both remembering Will the way we loved him, made me feel better. Does that make sense?”
“Of course, it does. You both probably needed some closure.”
“You’re right. Closure. I think I got some,” she says and then goes quiet for a few seconds. “Oh, Deck, I’m just playing that back in my head and hearing myself. When I said I loved Will, I meant—”
“Whatever you meant is okay.” I’m not that much of a selfish, jealous jerk to hold her feelings for Will against her. “Whatever you feel, or felt, is okay.”
“Thank you,” she whispers, so low I barely catch it. “I’ve been sorting it all out. I know we had something good once, Will and I, but you were right when you said I couldn’t have stayed in that relationship. I think I’m finally starting to forgive myself.”
She sniffs and clears her throat.
“And to forgive him. I’ve been so angry with Will, with myself. I’m getting there, but I’m still not . . . I’m not ready, Deck.”
“For me, you mean?” I ask, my heart taking a nosedive.
“For us. I’m not ready for anything except tomorrow.” Her voice wobbles a little. “And then the next day. And then the next. I need to take it one day at a time for a little longer. I still feel raw in so many places, but I’m getting there. I just think I’d be a hot mess if we . . .”
I gulp down the disappointment and clear my throat.
“Uh, yeah, I get that. Of course,” I say, hoping I’ve disguised the deflation I’m feeling. “Well, I wish you the best and—”
“You are the best, Deck,” she interrupts softly.
All the words I had queued up to assure her I understand why she needs to walk away from this, from us, wither.
“What does that mean, Avery?”
&
nbsp; And why the hell did she call? Just to ruin Christmas? Mission fucking accomplished.
“I’m screwing this up,” she says.
“Yeah, a little,” I reply, a bit of bite in my words. “If you’re just calling to let me down easy, you don’t have to. We had a great night, like you said and—”
“I wanted to tell you,” she interrupts. “Today felt like I had a breakthrough or something . . . shifted. Like I took steps forward when I’ve felt like I was standing still ever since I found Will. In some ways like I was still in that bathroom with him.”
She stops to draw a deep, shaky breath.
“And you were . . . you were the only person I wanted to tell. To call.”
Her disjointed explanation sucks all the air out of the frustration swelling inside me, diffusing the irritation and hurt – yes hurt – when I thought she called to stop what had barely started between us, but I desperately wanted to continue.
“I’m glad you had that,” I reply simply. “And I’m glad you called, that you called me.”
“I think I’ll take more steps forward, and that I will be ready, but I want . . . I’m just asking for a little more time to clear this fog,” she says. “I want to be healthy, whole, when we do this.”
When, not if. Good sign.
“Are we ever really whole, Avery?” I ask. “If you figure that shit out, share your secret because most of us live with cracks. I had a career-ending injury, and it healed, but I’ll never be the same. I’ll never play ball again. Not the way I did before. That spot hurts like a summabitch when it rains. I don’t know that I’d call that whole, but I’m walking. I’m not asking you to be whole. I just want to walk with you, baby.”
“I think I can do that soon.” Her words are so soft, but they fill my ears and land in the vicinity of my heart. “But I’m asking for the time to make sure. My last relationship turned out to be the worst kind of shit show, Deck.”
“Ours won’t be,” I promise without hesitation.
I hear her breath catch, and I want to crawl through the phone, across time zones and kiss her senseless. Fuck her until she forgets everything but us. Fuck the fog away.
Hoops Holiday Page 9