I cleared my throat and gathered some courage. “Trev… Trevor, I am so sorry for what I said at Thanksgiving. I wasn’t myself and I hate that I just unloaded on you like that. I’ve been under so much stress ever since Grady. Well, you know that. I guess, I’m just… I’m heartbroken. I don’t think I’ve had a single clear thought in over a year. I was rude and hurtful and what I said was uncalled for. Please forgive me. I hate that there is this distance between us.”
He didn’t say anything for a long minute. I held my breath, waiting for him to explode at me or agree with me… or I didn’t know what. I braced myself against his retaliation though. I’d picked at his flaws and the weak point that had been magnified by Grady’s death, but I knew I had plenty of my own. He could rip me apart if he wanted to, shove all of my shortcomings in my face and remind me what a terrible mother I had been in Grady’s absence.
But he was a better person than me. Instead of doing any of that, he took a deep breath and pulled me into a tight hug.
“I get it, Liz,” he promised. “You’re right. I was… I was messing things up. And I’m sorry. It’s just that sometimes I miss him so much… you know? I don’t even know how to get out of bed some days or how I’m going to survive another day in that office. It hurts down to my bones. Losing my dad was something else, but I’ve never known anything like losing my brother.”
His words ripped and tore at my chest, puncturing my heart with the agony I heard in them. “I know, Trev. I know.” We both sniffled, desperately trying to hold ourselves together.
It wasn’t just Christmas that had left me emotionally raw and fresh with grief. I hated having anything between Trevor and me. Other than my kids, Trevor was the closest thing to Grady I had left. Sometimes that hurt more than it helped, but I knew that I wouldn’t always feel this way. One day, my grief would soften and I would be able to enjoy Trevor because he reminded me so much of my husband. I couldn’t imagine not having him as a big part of my life.
After long moments, we pulled back from each other. I felt his forgiveness slide into place between us. Most of my spirit and heart were still in complete upheaval, but with the closure of this conversation, I felt some of those important pieces return home.
“I bid on a new job,” he told me conversationally. “It’s looking pretty good too. It’s for a new strip mall near Hartford. Nice, long job with a great paycheck.”
“That’s great, Trevor! That’s really exciting.”
Trevor’s smile faded some when he said, “You know, he really did teach me everything he knew. I like to pretend that I don’t know what I’m doing because then I don’t have to think about him, think about all the time he spent grooming me to take over. But I am prepared for this, Liz. I can do this and do it well.”
“I never doubted you, Trevor. Grady believed in you and he had every right to. You’re one of the smartest men I know.”
“I’ve always felt the same way about you, Lizzy. From the first time I met you, I knew that if Grady chose you, then you were someone worth knowing.”
Hot tears pooled in my lashes and I couldn’t swallow around the lump in my throat. “He was the greatest guy. I just miss him so much.”
Trevor pulled me into another hug. “Me too. But we’re going to get through this. I know we will. We have each other. He didn’t just prepare us to run his business or raise his kids; he prepared us to go on living without him. We can’t let him down in any of it.”
I nodded against his broad chest but couldn’t bring myself to say anything. I had lashed out at Trevor for letting Grady down, but what about me? How had I been as a mother? As a grieving widow?
Failure.
I felt the word brand itself on my skin. It burned hot and final.
Trevor stepped back, patting my shoulder one last time. “We should get back, yeah?”
I nodded, “Thanks for not hating me.”
He chuckled good-naturedly. “Never, Lizzy.”
He led the way back into the house. We joined the rest of the family seamlessly. There was a subdued excitement buzzing through the air. The thrill of the season was with us, but we restrained it out of respect for Grady.
Abby and Blake had the hardest time. They couldn’t help but look forward to the morning, but the painful ache for their daddy held them back.
By the time we moved to the living room for the traditional opening of grandparent presents, Abby had started shaking, struggling not to cry.
“Abs,” I whispered just loud enough for her to hear it. She looked back at me and I beckoned for her to squeeze onto the couch with me.
She jumped at the invitation. She snuggled into my side and wrapped her arms around my waist. I kissed the top of her head and stayed there a moment, breathing in her wild red curls. Her hot tears started to fall on my forearm and then she sucked in a gasping sob.
Blake had been staring intently at the tree, but as soon as Abby’s cry broke the silence, he whipped around and leapt to join us on the couch. His face was haunted with grief. I could see the battle inside of him not to cry, not to ruin this happy night. But it was no use.
Lucy joined us next, tears streaming down her freckled cheeks. Jace crawled on my lap too, making himself at home on top of the pile. His chubby little arms wrapped around my neck and squeezed tight. He didn’t mourn for Grady the same way we did. He had been too little when Grady died to remember much of his daddy. I hated that for him. I hated that he couldn’t have the memories that the rest of us did.
It was a little awkward, breaking down like this in front of my parents, my in-laws and my sister. We had a lovely dinner and even though my make-up with Trevor was emotional, it was nothing like this.
This was our grief and pain at our deepest. This was our hearts and souls scraped raw. This was desperation so intense I felt it in my bones, in the broken places of my soul. And that my children shared this grief made it so much worse.
I didn’t know how to deal with their pain. Their little bodies trembled against me and I was soaked with their tears. The worst part was that I couldn’t do anything to stop this hurt.
In that moment I would have done anything to stop the moment. I would have given up anything and everything to have Grady back with us. I would have traded places with him in a heartbeat if I could just give my children their daddy back.
“I have an idea,” I finally announced when the worst of the crying ebbed. “Before we open presents, why don’t we share something we miss about daddy? It’s hard not having him here with us, but maybe if we share our memories, it will feel like he’s not so far away.”
“That’s a lovely idea, Liz,” Katherine agreed in a soft voice. I looked up to see her face wet from her own tears. She nodded at me graciously.
“I’ll start.” I wiped at my face with the back of my hands and tried to speak words that would hurt like physical blows. “I miss how he used to come home from work with Christmas-themed baked goods or ornaments he spotted and had to buy. He always wanted to add things to our house. He started a new tradition every year. He just loved Christmas so much and he wanted the kids to experience every single thing they could. Last year, we had to give up most of them because he was so sick, so he had the kids and I bake about three hundred sugar cookies and then he took us around from room to room passing them out and giving them to nurses. I burned half of them. I was a mess last year. Not that I’m any better this year…” I wiped at my face and rubbed my nose on my sleeve. My mom stood up and handed me a tissue. “I was so mad at him. I didn’t want to think about other people. We were hurting so much, I just couldn’t take anymore. But by the end of the evening, he had made me laugh so many times that I had forgotten why we were there. He turned that horrible time into a week filled with happy memories. Memories that we will keep with us forever.”
Blake lifted his head and laughed, “Remember when that old guy made us sing to him.”
I chuckled too, thinking about the dying elderly man that had wanted a Christmas
carol. “I think he regretted asking us. Your dad couldn’t carry a tune for anything.”
Lucy and Abby started giggling too, remembering the terribly off key rendition of We Wish You a Merry Christmas Grady made us perform.
“I didn’t know you did that,” my mom hiccupped.
I nodded, it was just one of many things Grady had done to make Christmas special last year. “It was the week before you came up.”
“Remember when we built that monster snow fort?” Blake sat up with excitement. His green eyes were bright from tears and memories. “It was so big! He made tunnels and it had different rooms! It took us forever, but it was so cool when we finished it.”
“It did take you forever. You guys worked on that for days. You were just a little thing, Luce. You could stand up and walk right through it.” She smiled at me, not remembering the actual fort, but loving that she was included.
“He got stuck in the door,” Abby added. “He didn’t make the hole big enough!”
We laughed again. He had nearly collapsed the entire thing trying to get out of it.
“One year when we were kids,” Trevor started. “He wanted to build the biggest snowman on the block. He was always like that, always building things, always wanting them to be bigger and better than everyone else’s. So he enlisted me and the help of two of the guys we used to run with, Johnny Gillette and Bryan Fall. We spent all day working on that thing, building the base and then the middle part. It was huge. I mean…” Trevor held out his arms wide, “huge. But by the time we got to the head, we were all too tired and cold to put much effort into it. So the head ended up about the size of a baseball, sitting up on top of this monstrous body. It didn’t even look like a snowman. It was just this big old blob of snow.”
On and on the memories went. We couldn’t seem to stop. Everyone had a great memory of Grady, even my parents.
By the time we opened presents, we all had to dry our eyes, but there were smiles on our faces.
I hadn’t remembered Grady like this yet. Whenever I thought about him over the last several months, I had been too racked with grief to let my thoughts be good ones. And I couldn’t remember a time when any of us had spoken so openly about him, remembering the great man that he was instead of the man we all wished was still alive.
My kids smiled and laughed and screamed for joy while they opened presents. Most of the gifts were still hidden away in my closet, bought online and shipped straight to my house. All of the years before, Grady and I had made special shopping dates to pick out presents for the kids.
This year I had nearly given up before I even started. I was too overwhelmed with the responsibility of making this holiday happy for my kids. I hadn’t felt the desire to celebrate anything.
But just like all the years before, it was never me that made this holiday special. It was Grady. It was always Grady. Even in death he put smiles on our faces and love in our hearts.
This holiday was especially hard because he wasn’t here to celebrate with us and yet, we could make it through today and tomorrow and all the days after because of the memories he had given us that would stay with us forever.
I closed my eyes, completely overcome with devotion for a man I would love forever and beyond. Thinking about Ben in this same context seemed silly. How could any man compare to the husband I’d loved and lost? How could I even entertain those ridiculous feelings? They were so incomparable to what I felt for Grady.
After presents and more cheesecake, my parents took my kids upstairs to help them get ready for bed and I walked Katherine and Trevor to the door. Trevor threw his arms around me and squeezed me in a tight hug before hurrying to the car to warm it up for his mom.
“That was really a lovely evening,” Katherine told me as she put her coat and gloves on. “I have been dreading today for so long, I just… I never expected to enjoy it so much.”
“I know exactly what you mean. What are your plans for tomorrow?”
She hesitated with her hand on the frosted screen door. “Trevor is going to come over in the morning and then we’ll go to my brother’s house. Clay has five children of his own and sixteen grandchildren. It should be busy enough to keep us entertained.”
“Thank you for spending tonight with us, Katherine. I know things have been strained lately… I just wanted to apologize for my behavior on Thanksgiving. I should never have said those things to Trevor. And I feel terrible for ruining your meal and-”
“Liz, please don’t bother apologizing to me.” Her gloved hand landed on my shoulder. I lifted my eyes to meet hers wet with new tears. “I know how hard it is now that Grady is gone and I know how frustrated you must be with my son’s behavior. But do you know what I saw on Thanksgiving?”
I shook my head; I couldn’t even imagine what she saw. A woman crazed with grief? A hot mess that should seriously consider therapy? I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer.
“I saw you treat Trevor like family. And even though you were furious with him, I saw that you still love him. He doesn’t have Grady anymore, but he still has you.”
“Katherine, of course. You are my family still, even if Grady isn’t here to legally tie us together.”
She smiled warmly at me. “When my husband died… well, I didn’t see much of his family after that. We all got too busy or moved on or I don’t know what, but it hurt me that his parents didn’t reach out more or spend time with their grandchildren. Now, I can see that they were probably too torn apart by their own grief. Besides, my boys had been much older. They were teenagers and difficult to connect with. I suppose I’ve been waiting for you to pull back too.” She cupped my face affectionately. “I couldn’t bear it, Liz. The idea of not just losing Grady, but you and the kids is too much for me. So, yes, please yell at Trevor as often as you’d like. Ruin as many holidays as you want to. Just don’t shut us out of your lives, please.”
I threw my arms around her and hugged her tightly. “I won’t,” I promised. “You are my family. Grady brought us together, but I’m going to keep us together.”
We hugged each other for a couple long minutes and then separated ways. It was easier tonight than it had been in the past. We were both hurting, but she was right, we were family too. And we would help each other get through this together.
Chapter Sixteen
By lunchtime the next day, I had thrown away at least three thousand feet of wrapping paper, dealt with approximately six hundred batteries and cried too many times to count. But we survived Christmas morning.
It helped that my parents and Emma had come to share the holiday. I didn’t think I could do this without them.
My kids endured a large part of their grief last night and the excitement of Christmas morning overrode their sadness, for which I was eternally grateful.
The morning had been insanity, as usual. But things had quieted down now that we’d enjoyed a great Christmas morning brunch and they all had brand new presents to occupy their time.
I finished up the dishes and then checked my phone for the first time all day. I had bunches of texts from various relatives wishing me happy holidays, but one stood out above all others, a text from Ben.
Merry Christmas. He had texted about an hour ago.
Merry Christmas to you too. Hope you had a great morning! I wrote back.
I moved to the couch in front of the tree and tucked my feet underneath me. There were lots of things I should be doing, but I couldn’t find the motivation. And this time it wasn’t because grief had weighted me down.
For the first time in a long time, my children were happily occupied and I had a couple minutes to myself in my own home. I decided to take full advantage and enjoy this quiet moment in front of my beautiful tree before I had to take it all down.
It was a fake one, but still pretty with all the lights and ornaments hung around it. When Grady was healthy, he would make a big night out of going to pick out a real tree- the perfect tree. Then I would spend the next month vacuuming up n
eedles. Of course, he didn’t care. He loved the fresh pine smell and the wide-eyed wonder the kids had the night we shopped for it. And to be honest, I loved it for those reasons too.
Last Christmas, when he was too sick to leave the hospital, Emma and my parents had surprised me by decorating my entire house while I was at the hospital. They had enlisted my kids’ help and had outdone themselves by making every room festive. They’d bought the fake tree because we’d all been too busy going back and forth to the hospital to deal with a real one.
I was thankful for it this year, when the same thing was true, but for different reasons.
My phone buzzed on the cushion next to me. I picked it up to find another text from Ben. I’m celebrating with my parents tonight, so my morning has been pretty lazy so far.
I grinned when I texted back, Pop-Tarts?
You got it. But they were the sugar cookie kind, so that’s festive, right?
You should have come over for brunch with us. My stomach dipped after I pressed send. Why had I told him that? How inappropriate! My fingers started shaking. I had to stop sending him the wrong messages. At least it was over now though, so I didn’t have to worry about following through with the offer.
Thankfully, he didn’t acknowledge the invitation. Instead, he wrote something even more perplexing. Are you busy now? Or do you think you could spare a few minutes?
I debated how to answer, but curiosity got the best of me. The kids are pretty quiet right now. Lots of new toys to play with. What do you need?
You.
His one word answer caused my heart to spiral into overdrive. I felt my face heat with a flush and a shiver tingled down my spine.
But then the rest of his text came in and I forced myself to calm down.
You to come over. I have something for you.
What is it?
I’m not sure you understand how Christmas works.
I smiled at his teasing words. You want me to come over to your house?
Yes…
“Who are you texting?” Emma plopped onto the seat next to me and pulled her knees to her chest.
The Five Stages of Falling in Love Page 15