by Allie Kay
“You know what we need to talk about before we go planning a wedding?” Jack set Mateo down. “Thanksgiving.”
“Right,” I agreed, but my heart wasn’t really in it. Holidays were supposed to be about family. My parents might have alienated themselves, if unintentionally, from my life, but I desperately missed my sister. I’d never missed seeing her on a holiday and this year, without her, was going to be a hundred times wrong.
“You have plans?” Jack asked.
“No, not at all.” I poured Mateo a bowl of cereal. “We can’t exactly go home, so I suppose we will do something low-key here.”
“Mind if I join you?”
“You don’t have anywhere to go either?”
He shook his head. “I haven’t spent a holiday with my family in close to a decade.”
“Part of that past you’ll have to tell me about someday?” I fished for hints. Jack was amazing. I couldn’t believe his family would choose to exclude him.
“Yeah. I’m kinda persona non-grata with my family.” He shrugged as if it didn’t bother him, but that nonchalance didn’t reach his eyes. “Not that I blame them. I really fucked up and they distanced themselves from me.”
My heart ached for him. I’d chosen to leave my family, it seemed like the choice wasn’t his though. “Was what you did that bad?”
He rubbed the back of his neck and grimaced. “Yeah. It was.”
“Was it something to do with your time in prison?”
He puffed out a breath and walked to look out the window. While staring out into the yard, he began to speak. “It was a Tuesday in May. My job back then was driving a truck. Short runs, mostly. You know, day trips. After driving all day, hooking up and dropping off in the pouring down rain, I finally delivered my load to the end destination. The road conditions had made an eight hour shift turn into twelve. I was drinking heavily in those days, and after a high stress day, I needed a drink. So, I stopped for a beer. Three hours and one hundred and twenty-three dollars in alcohol later, I wobbled my way out of the bar. As a bartender myself now, I’m appalled they let me walk out with keys in my hand, but they did. But I never made it home. About a third of the way between the bar and my apartment, I drove my truck into someone’s living room.”
“Oh!” Words completely failed me. I stared at his back, hoping he’d say something else while I relearned how to use words.
“Did anybody get dead?” Mateo asked, his mouth hanging open.
“No. But I can only think it was a miracle no one was hurt. Well, and the fact that it was nearly midnight so no one was in that living room.” He spun and the pain in his eyes nearly made me take a step back. “I haven’t had a drop to drink since that night.”
24
Jack
Fog covered the yard, obscuring the street from view. The mist shrouded the vehicles with a shimmering moisture. Thanksgiving dawn looked pretty darn good on this crisp Tennessee morning.
I sipped my coffee and watched the sunrise from the window. Joy puttered around next door. I hadn’t spoken to her in person since spilling my guts about my past. She’d texted me a few times, mainly about today.
Apparently, all I needed to bring was rolls and drinks.
And maybe a bag for my head so that I could hide my shame.
Chirp. Chirp.
I grabbed my phone off the charger.
Joy: Up yet?
Me: Am now. Thanks to some weirdo morning person who insists on texting me at ungodly hours of the morning.
Joy: Haha! I just put the turkey in the oven. You can come over any time, but plan on eating about 1.
Me: Okay. Mateo up yet?
Joy: No.
I stuck my phone in the pocket of my jeans. I needed to talk to Joy without Mateo. See how she really felt after my revelation.
Walking to the back unit, I tapped on the kitchen door. Joy let me in and where a few days ago I would have taken her in my arms for a kiss, today I awkwardly shoved my hands into my pockets.
“Hey.”
“Hey yourself,” she said softly. “Was wondering when you’d show up again.”
“Wasn’t sure I was welcome.” I let out a sigh. “You didn’t say anything and I just didn’t know where we stood. Are we okay? Do you hate me because of my past? We cool as neighbors, but the idea of more is so far off the table that it’s in the next state?”
She brushed her fingers against my jaw. “You have a past. I have a past. We both made mistakes. What I need to know is this—have you learned from it?”
“Hell yes. I’m done with liquor.” I tentatively reached for her. When she didn’t resist, didn’t reject me, I wrapped my arms around her and held her close.
Tears flooded my eyes and I swiped at them with a rough hand. I’d already had one miracle in my life when I’d managed to not hurt anyone in my drunken crash. But to have this beautiful woman still accept me, despite my past, was almost more than I could take.
This was the first time in my adult life that I felt truly loved.
Accepted, flaws and all.
I’d been falling for this woman since our first interaction, when I’d built her up in my mind to be a perfect goddess. But the more I knew her, the more I saw the scars on her soul. Rather than making her look imperfect in my eyes, it gave me something to hold on to. Knowing her heart was as broken as mine gave me a goal to aspire to reach. Because being with her was already taking down the protective walls I’d built around my heart.
I buried my face in her hair and just held her close for a moment. Sometimes, I don’t think about what I missed in my years in prison. But other days it will be there, slapping me in the face with the brutality of my truth. Not only did I miss nearly a decade with my parents, but I could have been married and had a family of my own by now.
I’d tried to forget. Tried to put it all out of my mind, tell myself that my entire life’s in front of me now.
But in this moment, I realized just how starved I was for human affection. Not sex, but this pure, honest affection. It was such a simple realization, one that smacked me in the face with its obviousness.
I opened my mouth to speak but came up with only a mouthful of air and empty words. When I tried again, sounds came out, a gush of words that sounded suspiciously like “I love you”.
“What was that?” Joy leaned back to ask, looking up at me with soft, trusting eyes.
I covered with an awkward laugh. “I don’t even know. I need more coffee, because I am not making sense to even myself.”
“I’ll make a fresh pot.” She squeezed me in a tight hug before going to start the coffee pot. Grinning over her shoulder at me, she added, “It’s almost time for the Thanksgiving Day parade! I can’t wait to share it with Mateo. He’s never seen… Well, Ricky thought it was ignorant, so we were never allowed to watch. I’m going to wake him up in a few so that he doesn’t miss it.”
“Ricky’s the ignorant one,” I grumbled. “The parade is awesome.”
“I know.” She smiled at me. “But now I get to share everything I’ve always wanted to, with no fear of censure or reaction.”
“As long as there’s football later, it’s all good.”
She stopped, coffee pot in hand. “Football? You expect me to watch some guys in tight pants wrestle over a ball all day?”
“Uh… yeah.” I hope.
She raised a brow at me. “Really.”
“Yes,” I said, feeling less confident that football was in my cards for the day with every quirk of her eyebrow.
“I haven’t seen a football game since high school.” She grinned mischievously.
“You got me good there.” I laughed.
“You walked right into that one.”
“Yeah, I did.”
She looked at her watch, rubbing her finger over it with sadness in her eyes. I started to ask when she brightened up and said, “It’s time to wake up my boy!”
After a sleepy, super hero pajama-clad Mateo joined us, we settled onto the
couch to watch the parade.
We sat at the tiny kitchen table Joy had bought at the second-hand store and ate the delicious, if scaled down, holiday meal she lovingly prepared for us.
The table wobbled.
Most of the serving dishes didn’t match. She even used a few of the throwaway foil kind, probably because she didn’t have enough real.
But I could not have been more content.
Because we were happy.
Ricky was forgotten, at least for the moment.
And in that kitchen, for that meal, our pasts stayed in the past. Neither of us worried about the future. Only the present mattered.
25
Joy
Years ago, I’d enjoyed the holidays. All the foods, the desserts. Extended family coming from across the state until the house literally groaned at the number of occupants within its walls. Everyone talking, laughing, at once.
Mateo had never known the thrill of having eight cousins within two years of his age. The games you could play with that many kids in one yard… The fights you could have…
He didn’t even have a cousin. Not a single one. And at this rate, even if my sister gave him a cousin, it wasn’t like Mateo would get to know his cousin like I’d known mine.
Today had been different. This holiday was nothing like the noisy, family-filled adventures of my childhood. But it was good.
Quiet, but filled with love and acceptance.
A wide grin covered my face as I lay in the dark, alone in my bed, and reflected on the day. Mateo’s face when he’d seen the first parade float come across the television had brought tears to my eyes. He’d loved every moment of the parade, just as I’d hoped he would. I spent more time watching him than watching the parade myself.
And Jack… Oh, Jack. Somehow, he’d become an integral part of my day. Of my family. I sighed, wrapping the blanket tighter around me, wishing it were Jack’s arms. I stared over at the door that didn’t open and wished Jack would come through it. Come through and take me in his arms, kissing me, loving me, and not stopping until the morning light.
One interrupted time with Jack had been more satisfying than years with Ricky, and now I was obsessed with Jack. An addict… A tiny giggle escaped me. I’d have never guessed I’d be happy about an addiction.
Scratch.
The loud out of place sound screamed danger to my brain. I sat up, eyes scanning the dark of the room for the source of the noise. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Easing over to the window, I peeked out the blinds into the backyard. The tiniest bit of light from the moon cast deep shadows around the yard, turning the winter bare branches into twisted, gnarled fingers, but nothing appeared out of the ordinary.
Creeping as silently as I could across the hall, I winced when the hardwood creaked beneath my foot. It filled me with a tormented dread. A twig snapped in the darkness, just outside the house. Stepping into the bathroom, I peered out of the window. A scream burst free from my throat as I came eye to eye with Ricky. A chill seeped into my bones as I took in his shadowy countenance. My hopes of being free from that man disappeared. I backed away, shaking my head no.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
He rapped on the glass with a crow bar, his teeth shining white in the dark of the night as he smiled. He scraped the metal tool down the edge of the glass and it made an awful sound.
Screeeeeecchh.
My throat burned as fear filled my lungs, choking the air from my body. I wrenched myself backward, my legs unsteady. The monstrous face in the window kept my gaze hostage.
My entire body shook with fear as I mentally prepared myself to return to the bowels of hell with my worst mistake. The silence was at odds with the horror of the moment.
A door behind me opened. Jack appeared, wearing only a pair of low-slung sweatpants. “Joy? Are you okay, I heard a scream.”
I pointed at the window, but nothing but dark glass reflected back at me. The emptiness of the pane mocked me. I swallowed hard. “Ricky…”
“He’s outside?” Jack put a hand on my shoulder.
I nodded. Despite Jack’s normally soothing presence, I was close to panic. Thoughts of not making it through the night alive were speeding through my brain like rockets.
“Son of a…” He started toward the door. “Stay here.”
“Please don’t leave me!” I clung to his bicep, desperately seeking his strength to comfort me. My body shivered from the sudden intense spike of fear that shot through me. “Don’t go out there. Stay here tonight, with me, in case he comes back.”
Jack caressed my cheek. “I just wanted to make sure he is actually gone.”
“He had a crow bar. He could hurt you.” Tears poured from my eyes. “I can’t… If he… Jack, please.”
“Shh… Hey, don’t cry.” He cradled me in his strong embrace, comforting me, his touch taking the edge off my fear. “I got you. Shh…”
I pressed my face against his bare chest and inhaled deeply, trying not to hyperventilate. One good day, that seemed to be too much to ask.
“Shh. It’s after midnight. Yesterday was a good day. You had a good day.” Jack nudged my nose with his. The sweet gesture tempted the smallest of smiles to my lips, in spite of my still panicking heart.
“Did I say that out loud?”
I felt him shrug. “I’m half asleep, if you didn’t, we are both thinking it.”
The tiniest of chuckles slipped past my fear. “My sleepy protector.”
“At least let me look out the windows, make sure he’s gone?”
“Okay,” I murmured, uncertainty in my tone.
Jack moved confidently through the house, checking that each window was locked and peering out into the inky darkness of the yard. “I don’t see anything. I’m going back through to my unit and make sure he’s not sitting out front or something.”
“You came through the ‘door that doesn’t open’.” A hysterical sort of giggle burst out of me. “Mateo was afraid someone would come through it in the night and I lied to him. I told him that would never happen and then it happened. How can he trust me if I can’t even tell the truth about a door?”
“Joy.” Jack stepped in front of me, tilting my chin up with his hand. “Hey. Listen to me. You didn’t lie to him. I would have never come through that door except I thought you needed me. You screamed, right? I came because I thought you were in danger, and I was right.”
“Why do you have the key to that door?” I flipped on a lamp and blinked at the sudden brightness. “I don’t understand that.”
Jack sat down on the couch and tugged my hand until I sat beside him. “I own this house.”
“What?” The thought wouldn’t comprehend. “No, the lease had a different name. It didn’t say Jack… God, I don’t even know your last name.”
“It said Timothy Jackson.” He squeezed my hand. “That’s my full name.”
“Oh…”
I’d nearly had sex with a man and I didn’t even know his name. And he turned out to be my landlord. Pretty sure I could get on a reality show for that.
He raised an eyebrow. “Just ‘oh’?”
Mateo stumbled down the hall half asleep. “What was all that noise, Mama?” He climbed up on the couch, wedging his little self in between Jack and me.
“Your father was outside again.”
“Jack!”
“What? I’m not going to insult the kid by lying to him. Doesn’t do either of us any favors.” He hugged Mateo close. “I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure you all never have to deal with him again.”
“Jack…”
“Shh… Not tonight. How about I sleep over? Then we will all feel safer, I think?”
26
Jack
“The weather outside is frightful,” I sang. as I shook the snow off my jacket and stomped off any clinging to my boots. I knocked lightly before stepping into Joy’s kitchen. “But the fire is so delightful. And since we’ve no place to go, let it snow, let it snow, le
t it snow.”
Sean had closed up Garden early due to the threat of inclement weather. The forecast was calling for three to six inches of accumulation. He wanted nothing to do with liquor and dancing and everything to do with being home with his wife. Personally, I wanted nothing more than to get a fire going in Joy’s fireplace and settle in for a nice night with my two favorite people.
I’d spent the night at Joy’s last night. Even slept in her bed, sadly with a four-year-old snuggled up between us. Maybe tonight I could get Mateo in his own bed so that Joy and I could have hers to ourselves.
“Mr. Jack! We got a Christmas tree! Come see the Christmas tree!” Mateo grabbed my hand and drug me into the living room. A small tree sat up on the small table I’d ‘found in the shed’ for her living room. “Look it! Okay, only look at this side, cause the backside’s all mushed up.”
I raised a brow at Joy.
She flushed a bright red and muttered something along the lines of, “I might have dropped it.”
“It’s still a nice tree, huh?” The tree had no more than a dozen ornaments on it. With only a single strand of colored lights wrapped around it, it looked pretty bare. It was maybe a half-step up from a Charlie Brown tree.
Mateo tilted his head and looked just like his mama as he scrutinized the scruffy little tree. “It needs more hornaments.”
I choked back a laugh. “I think you mean ornaments.”
“Oh…” He mulled the word over in his head for a second. “That makes more sense.”
“The pickings were slim.” Joy smiled sadly at me. “We got the last pack of bulbs and lights they had at the tree shop. With the snow coming in, and the way people were panicking, I didn’t want to attempt Walmart.”
“We could make ornaments,” I found myself saying. “Pretty sure we would have the ingredients to make salt dough. I saw you guys had some Christmas cookie cutters the other day.”
Every Christmas growing up, my mom, sister, and I had made homemade ornaments from salt dough. Some years we painted them. Some years we left them natural. The last holiday I’d spent with my family, there had still been a few remaining that hadn’t crumbled. I wondered if my mom still had any of them or if they’d all pretty much disintegrated by now.