Merrry Christmas Mr. Saunders

by Diane Strong

first, her leaving or me going crazy. I looked up one day and she was gone. I may have told her to leave, I don’t remember, it’s all a blank.

  “I don’t recall much of what happened after the day I found my boy. I know I kept going to work for a while, acted like nothing happened, tried to just go on like normal. Then I woke up one morning and forgot to go to work. I never went back. My phone would ring and ring until one day it stopped and never rang again. When I went to use it to call the water company, it was dead.

  “I remember my mom. She stopped by every day, brought me food and told me to shower. She told me to call Amelia and I didn’t know what she was talking about. Finally one day she got real mad at me, told me to get my shit together and go on with my life. When I asked what she was talking about she mentioned Junior. It was like a slap in the face. It all rushed back at me and I got so mad. I yelled at her to leave and when she wouldn’t move I pushed her real hard and she fell. I haven’t seen or talked to her since. God, I regret that…wish it never happened. She was a good woman, the only one woman who still loved me at that point.”

  More than just denial fueled Megan’s avoidance of her mother’s death. It was also the fact that she was overwhelmed. Upon her mother’s deathbed she had learned more than she could handle. How could her mother keep this secret so long? How could her mother’s pride be so much more important than the truth?

  It was too much for Megan to wrap her brain around—losing her mother and learning about a father she never knew she had. Megan’s guilt was laced with anger. Her mother was young and stupid and had a one night stand with an army boy much older than her. She never saw him again… never wanted to. All these years Megan believed her father died at war.

  “I called her. I used my prepaid cell phone here and I finally got the nerve to call her. ‘Cause I need my mom. I miss her so bad. But she didn’t answer, I don’t think she can ever forgive me.”

  Lyndsy cut the conversation short with her aunt, insisting she didn’t need her help just yet, that she would call her if she couldn’t find her mom. She pulled on her boots and fluffy pink bubble jacket then headed for the door.

  As a new driver, Lyndsy was nervous about going out onto the snowy roads, but she knew she had to. Her mother could have sprained her ankle and be out there in this cold trying to walk three miles back to her car. Or maybe her car wouldn’t start. But she would have called if that were the case, unless she didn’t have good cell reception out on that remote road. Trying not to panic, Lyndsy pulled her old Honda Celica out of the driveway and onto the quiet road.

  Staring through Billy, Megan’s mind drifted to a gray place with two cold gravestones. On one she envisioned the name Bethany Ann Coldran, her mother. On the other she envisioned Lyndon Lane Sweeny. She saw: ‘Mother, Sister, Friend’ then she saw, ‘Son, Brother, Loving Husband’.

  Lyndsy reached the road she believed her mother had intended to run: Pokeberry. She turned onto it and barely let the car accelerate to twenty miles per hour. She had only had her license for two weeks and felt anxious driving on this tiny road. She worried about oncoming cars, wondered how in the world they would get around each other. She tried to be confident like her mother always suggested. She held her head high and relaxed her shoulders.

  As she drove she scanned the road ahead, hoping to spot her mother’s car. Lyndsy rounded a short curve and felt immediate relief upon seeing it parked in a driveway on the side of the road. She approached her mother’s car and crawled past it, hoping for a sign of her mother in the driver’s seat. It was empty. She drove further down the road to find her mom.

  “I lost my husband.” Megan stared blankly at the wall behind Billy, feeling numb as the words spilled out of her mouth. Billy sat up straight and leaned forward in his seat, surprised by her confession. He nodded for her to continue.

  “I was married very young, just out of school. Everyone had warned us against the wedding but we did it anyway and we were happy. We were so very happy. We both planned to go to the local college and get our degrees before starting a family. We hadn’t planned to get pregnant. I didn’t want to be pregnant; I wanted to go to school like I planned and get a good job and maybe have kids later.” Megan paused, trying to convince herself to go on. She never talked about this part of her past, and it felt like she was telling someone else’s story.

  “He was at work when I took the test and discovered I was pregnant, so I called him. I was so nervous. I thought he would be upset. I thought he would want to get rid of the baby but…but he didn’t. He was so excited. He could hardly speak. He told me he was going to leave work early and come home to be with me so we could celebrate.” Megan shook her head as if trying to get rid of the memory.

  Her mind fell back to the image of the wrecker hoisting his car out of the water, the image of the floating balloons cutting clear wet paths through the foggy rear window, the muddy pile of roses melting into the sludge on the front seat.

  “The driver was drunk. He crossed the line. Lyndon swerved to avoid the car and ended up going over an embankment and into a lake. He never got to meet his daughter.”

  Lyndsy held her cell phone in her hand as she drove, debating whether she should pull over and call her aunt. She had gone to the very end of the road and seen no sign of her mother. Now she headed back to the car, hoping to find her mother there. Maybe her mother ended up walking up to a house for help. But why hadn’t she called?

  Lyndsy pulled her car off the road and parked it behind her mother’s. Leaving her car running, she jumped out to inspect her mother’s car. She peered into the driver’s side window and saw her mother’s cell phone on the passenger seat. Glancing down she noticed tracks and strange prints in the snow, as if someone had crawled around on the ground near the front tire. She followed the footprints around the car and saw that they led up to the steps of the old trailer house. She followed them.

  When she reached the door, she knocked.

  Megan and Billy both startled at the sound of knocking on the door. Megan’s hand flew to her chest and she looked to Billy for guidance. She wanted desperately to get out of the house, leave the situation behind, but she didn’t want to upset the old man holding the loaded gun sitting in the chair across from her.

  Billy clutched his pistol and sat frozen. His mind in a panic, he didn’t know what to do. He stood-up and began to pace. There was more knocking.

  “Just put the gun down Billy. Let’s pretend this didn’t happen.” All Megan wanted was to get out of the trailer and go home to be with her daughter. She wanted to hold her and never let her go. She wanted to forget about this day, the pain, and the memories.

  Lyndsy clapped her hands together in an attempt to stay warm while she waited for someone to answer the door. She knew someone was inside. She could see smoke coming from the chimney. She knocked again and waited. She was filled with anxiety and confusion not knowing if there was an emergency or if she should be calling someone to help.

  Lyndsy turned and scanned the road again, hoping to see the figure of her mother coming toward her, but she saw nothing. She glanced around the empty yard in search of some form of life and spied an old rusted swing-set standing like a skeleton in the fresh snow. She noticed a planter with dirt to the left of the house and wondered when it last held a live plant.

  Then she noticed the glove beside her foot.

  It was her mother’s glove.

  Billy paced faster, scanning his tiny living room as if trying to find a place to hide. He stopped abruptly, stared at Megan, then closed his eyes and shook his head. He seemed on the verge of a breakdown. What would he do in a panic? What was he capable of?

  “Mom? Mom, are you in there?” Lyndsy rapped on the door as hard as she could, she could feel her cold knuckles throbbing whenever she paused to listen for movement inside. In a full panic now she needed to get to her mother. She knew she was in there.

  Billy walked purposefully to the corner of the room and set his gun inside a planter containing
a long dead spider plant, then rubbed his hands on his thighs as if removing evidence. He looked to Megan as if seeking an answer. Before Megan could speak, the front door opened and Lyndsy gasped, startled to see two people, one of them her mother, staring at her in surprise.

  “Mom? Mom, are you okay? What’s going on? Why didn’t you answer the door?” The questions spilled out one after another, her confusion turning to fear then panic. When she finally stopped, Megan cautiously answered.

  “This is Billy. Billy…” She left the words hanging in the air and waited for Billy to fill in the blank.

  “Billy Sauders. Nice to meet you!” He took three large steps toward Lyndsy and held out his hand to shake hers. Megan’s mind swirled unexpectedly, taken aback by the familiar sounding last name.

  Lyndsy looked at him carefully then glanced back at her mother for approval. Megan nodded methodically, at the same time searching her memory.

  “Lyndsy. Lyndsy Lane Sweeny…nice to meet you.” She reluctantly reached out to shake his hand. “What’s going on, is everything okay, mom?”

  “I lost my keys. I came back from my run and lost my keys. Mr. Sauder’s here, he was going to let me use the phone to call you but we got to talking