For Life

by L. E. Chamberlin

  “He was just here in Nov—” But then I realize that isn’t right. Ryan wasn’t here last month. He hasn’t been here since before we went to Delaware for the funeral, which was in October.

  “Yes,” Chloe says when she sees my confused expression. “Exactly. It’s weird. I know he and Caden are still talking, because I see them together sometimes, but he doesn’t seem happy. I think something is wrong.”

  How could I have missed my son’s best friend no longer coming to the house? I realize that’s something I should’ve picked up on. Caden has mentioned him, but only in passing, which is also strange, but I confess I paid no attention to that until Chloe said something.

  She looks like she has more to say, and I wait, but then her phone rings, and she leaves the room. I head back to my closet, determined to call Heidi Lewis just to check in. Or maybe it would be better to just ask Caden directly, I think.

  But then I get caught up in the closet again, and soon it’s time to get dinner ready. Like the worst mother in the world, I forget all about my son’s best friend.

  * * * *

  Even though we’re going to be in Delaware for the entire Christmas break, Grady insists on getting a Christmas tree, so just three days before we’re set to leave for Donna’s, we drive to the Christmas tree farm to do something we’ve never done before - select and cut down our own tree.

  Chloe is so happy she insists on playing the holiday station in the truck all the way there, and she and Caden sing along to every tune. When we arrive it’s snowing again - big, fluffy flakes - and we trudge through the woods in our bright parkas looking for the perfect tree. Such a difference from our usual routine of driving to the home improvement superstore, finding something overpriced and half-dead in the garden section, and then wrestling with it all the way home.

  Instead, we select a beautiful, fluffy Douglas fir, and Grady shows Caden how to saw through the trunk and wrap the tree so it can be carried easily back through the woods. My son is delighted to have cut down our tree himself. Today he looks the spitting image of Grady at sixteen, right down to the way he walks and moves. It’s disconcerting and comforting all at once.

  Back at home, I make us all hot chocolate to warm us up as we pick through the boxes I hauled out from the attic. We decorate with my substantial stash before Grady surprises me by breaking out his own box of decorations.

  I’m completely unprepared for what he pulls from the plastic tote. There are many ornaments the kids made in school, some identical to the ones they brought home to me. Others are hand painted frames with photos of the kids at various ages. “Merry Christmas Daddy,” reads one made of Popsicle sticks. I recognize Chloe’s careful scrawl. She must have made it when she was about seven or eight.

  Every handmade keepsake is a stab in the heart. Each one is a reminder of the years we spent apart, our children forced to make two family ornaments instead of one. By the time Grady pulls out the pinecone ornament with the pom-poms glued haphazardly all over it, there’s an ache in my chest.

  “He made that in pre-school,” I say sadly. “The year we—” I can’t say the words.

  Grady nods and hangs it on the tree, then comes to me and wraps his arms around my shoulders, squeezing me tightly. “It’s okay, baby,” he whispers. “It happened. We all made it to the other side.”

  “We made Dad all the same ornaments we made you,” Caden says proudly, oblivious to my heartache. “We didn’t want him to feel left out.”

  I blink back tears and nod at my sweet son. “That was good of you,” I manage to choke out, and Grady squeezes me tighter.

  “You know Mr. Tibbles is gonna tear this tree up when we leave, right?” Chloe asks, and as if on cue our cat saunters into the room and perches on the arm of the sofa nearest the tree, eying some of the decorations with interest. We all look at each other in horror as we realize she’s right and immediately begin rearranging the ornaments to protect them from being batted off the tree.

  “Our tree looks awesome this year,” Caden observes when we’re finished. The branches are laden with way more ornaments than necessary, but everything the kids made for us hangs together. I steal a peek at Chloe, who is radiant in the colored glow cast by the strings of lights criss-crossing the branches.

  “Perfect,” Grady agrees, and though I thought it was impossible to love him more, my heart swells.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Christmas Eve, 2003

  Cassie

  I can’t move forward, and I can’t move back.

  Grady has been gone for 54 days.

  On the tiny Christmas tree in the corner the little white lights blink on and off. Blink-black. The kids are in bed, their small pile of gifts artfully stacked in a way that makes it look more abundant than it is. I can’t bring myself to read or watch Christmas movies or do anything else but sit here and stare at those damn lights. Blink-black. Blink-black.

  As per our custody agreement, Grady will pick up the kids at noon tomorrow and have them at his house for four hours before he brings them back to me. His mom and brother have flown in from Delaware to spend the holiday with him, and it’s likely that Donna will be the one to knock on my door tomorrow. Dear, sweet Donna, the only real mother I’ve ever had. I’m sure she hates me for ruining our family, but if she knew, if she really knew what I went through, I think she might understand. Even though he’s her son, I think she just might.

  I still love him. I will always love him, that’s the thing of it. I didn’t have his babies and pledge my life to him because he’s a man I can forget. And how does that work? Will I always feel a crushing in my chest every time I see him? Will my hands still shake when I hear his voice twenty years from now? Will I cry myself to sleep every night for the rest of my life, missing the warmth of him in my bed, the even sound of his breath, the safety of his presence?

  On that last night he came back much earlier than he usually came home from the bar, and he was already three sheets to the wind. I realized he drove like that - shit-faced and with no regard for his life or anyone else’s - and I was filled with unspeakable rage. He didn’t seem the slightest bit sorry for it, either, and that both terrified and infuriated me. How many times had he driven like that before? Had he ever put our children at risk?

  He missed Chloe’s piano recital, stayed at the bar, and then drove home wasted. Drunk men aren’t supposed to be able to perform, but obviously no one gave Grady the memo, because when he came up behind me I felt him hard against my backside. He wrapped his arms around me and rained hot kisses on my neck until I wanted to scream. I could not have been less aroused. If I could have physically killed him with my bare hands then and there, I would have.

  “I can’t do this,” I said, but he didn’t hear me. His ice-cold hands slid into my shirt and he moaned against me.

  “I’m glad you’re still up, babe,” he slurred. “Wanted you all night.”

  He wanted me all night? When, exactly? Did he want me when I was waiting for him like a fool at Chloe’s recital, assuring Caden that Daddy was coming soon, when all the while he was knocking back beers and playing the guitar for his adoring fans? Did he want me when I was sitting at the restaurant afterward with two tearful children, trying not to worry that he was dead on the side of the road somewhere, while he was ignoring the time, ignoring everything but his selfish ego?

  The rhythm of the blinking lights soothes me as much as the glass of wine I’ve allowed myself tonight. I’m as exhausted as I was that night. Blink-black. Blink-black. I want all the pain to just go away. I don’t have it in me to fight it anymore. I used my last bit of energy that night, when he turned to kiss me and I shoved him and told him to get the fuck away from me.

  Shock spread across his face when I said that to him, because somehow it didn’t occur to him that missing the recital and dinner without so much as a phone call and then coming home wasted would put a damper on my mood. Somehow the man who tenderly took my virginity as a boy and held my hand when I deli
vered our babies and pledged his life to me with tears in his eyes was suddenly living on an entirely different planet from me.

  That realization hurt worse than getting the kids ready for bed knowing he wouldn’t be home to tuck them in with me, worse than smelling alcohol on his breath when he climbed between the sheets at two or three or four in the morning and wondering if he’d been unfaithful to me. There was a cavernous divide between us that night, and it just been getting wider every night since. It ached, as if that cavern was gouged from my own flesh.

  When I told him to get out, he looked at me like I’d slapped him, and the reality of his oblivion pissed me off all over again. He stared at me while I ordered him on borrowed breath to get out, take his shit with him, and not come back.

  “I’ll explain what’s happening to the kids. I want full custody. You can visit them whenever you don’t have something more pressing to do down at Jake’s.” My voice had started to tremble, and I was afraid if I didn’t shut up I would be unhinged, vomiting words I could never take back. I didn’t want him to hate me. I didn’t want a fight, and I didn’t want to make up. I just wanted him gone.

  And now he’s gone.

  I knew that night that if I didn’t stay strong, we’d have been playing out that same scene for years to come. My anger, his apology, my tears, and then sex that felt good but fixed nothing.

  I deserve more. The kids deserve more. I knew that then and I know it now, but knowing it doesn’t make it any easier to stare alone at this Christmas tree and wonder where I could’ve changed it. Did I have that power? If I’d asked him not to play, if I’d demanded he be with us on the weekends, if I’d moved back to Delaware when he asked me - would it have been different? Could it have worked?

  Did I give up too easily?

  Christmas Eve, Present Day

  Cassie

  I’ve spent every Christmas Eve since Grady left the same way. Some years have been easier than others, but I’ve had this tradition so long I don’t know how to abandon it. And I don’t know if I should, even if Grady is here with me and I’m not tamping down loneliness once again while the kids are fast asleep.

  “I can’t go to sleep yet,” I whisper to Grady after we’ve managed some very quiet sex in the cramped bed of Donna’s guest room.

  “Mmm?” His eyes are closed as he nuzzles into my hair, his thigh slung across my hip.

  “I have this crazy thing that I do,” I confess. “It’s weird. But it helps me. It’s my Christmas present to myself every year, and I haven’t done it yet.”

  His eyes pop open and he fixes his sleepy blue gaze on me. “What is it?”

  “I count my blessings.” He doesn’t say anything, so I press on. “I make a list of all my blessings, big and small. All the things that I’m thankful for, right now. Some people do it for New Year’s, but I started mine at Christmas years ago, because—” My voice cracks a bit but I press on. “I needed it. After you left, that Christmas, I didn’t think I could go on.”

  “Cass…”

  “No, we have to be able to talk about it. If you weren’t the man who broke my heart eleven years ago and I had a boyfriend, some other guy…” At this he tenses and I squeeze his hand. “You know what I mean. I would have to explain this. There are things you don’t know about me now.”

  “Did you explain this to Adam?” he asks.

  I shake my head. “No, because I never spent Christmas Eve with Adam.”

  His mouth quirks up in the corners. “Good.”

  “But see, an example of something you didn’t know about me.”

  “Yeah.” That sobers him back up. “So tell me. What are your blessings?”

  “Will you do it with me?” I ask shyly.

  He nuzzles my ear. “How, like tell you?”

  “I’ll write mine down and you write yours down.”

  “And then what, we trade or something?” Oh, God. His breath in my ear when he says “trade” is really, really distracting.

  “We can. Or not.”

  “Mmm. I like the idea of trading.” He trails his finger along my thigh, and I see where this is headed and push his hand away.

  “Don’t be a sex distractor,” I scold him. “This is not a sexual matter.”

  “It would be a lot easier to make my list if we made it a sexual matter,” he teases.

  “Be serious.”

  “Cass,” he groans. “I don’t need to write a list. My blessings are pretty easy. I’m alive and healthy. I still have my mom and I have pieces of my brother in every one of his kids. I have Caden and Chloe. And I have you.” He shakes his head as if he’s just realizing something he hadn’t considered before. “I have you. I never gave up hope that somehow we’d find our way back to each other. I thought maybe at Chloe’s wedding or one of our grandchildren’s high school graduations or something.”

  “You never gave up hope?” I breathe.

  He shakes his head. “No. Never.”

  “Even though…” I don’t want to say it and bury my face in his chest.

  “Even though you barely spoke to me? Yeah. Crazy, I know. But no. Not even that could stop me.”

  When I lift my head to look in his eyes I see that he’s completely serious. “You’re insane.”

  “Probably,” he agrees.

  “I thought Renée was just playing matchmaker when she said it, but she wasn’t, was she?”

  “You’ve lost me, babe.”

  “The picture.” I choke on the words. “Renée knew.”

  “What picture?”

  “You look at it. Our wedding picture. Renée told me and I didn’t believe her until I saw you do it. You look at our picture every time you pass it in your mom’s house.”

  “Yeah,” he admits. “Yeah, I guess I do. I love that picture.” He’s quiet for a minute.

  “Grady?” I say softly.

  “Mmmm?”

  “That’s pretty much my list, too.” I snuggle closer, my Christmas Eve ritual no longer important. He’s absolutely right. My greatest blessings are under this roof tonight. All I need to do is enjoy them for every minute that I can.

  * * * *

  We arrive back from Delaware late, and my plan to sleep in and spend the day relaxing is thwarted by the shrill assault of the phone ringing at 8 a.m. Grady’s the one who gets out of bed and plods to the kitchen to answer it, and I’m glad he’s the one who gets up. I would’ve let it go to voicemail. I’m annoyed, not for the first time, with his insistence that we keep a land line. If anyone’s calling the house phone this early it’s sure to be telemarketers. Everyone I know calls my cell.

  I haul myself up to pee and brush my teeth, but when I come back to bed, Grady still isn’t there. It’s not until a few minutes later that he comes back into the room, his face grave. He’s clearly shocked and underneath the shock is a powerful undercurrent of anger.

  My heart seizes in my chest. “What’s wrong?”

  “That was the Sheriff’s department,” he says carefully. “They’ve opened up an investigation on Coach Woodson, and they’re going to be by later this afternoon to ask Caden a few questions.”

  “Why, what happened to Coach Woodson?” Please, God, not another death. Caden’s coach has a wife and two college-age daughters. He’s been coaching for years and the kids love him. It’s unthinkable.

  And so is what Grady says next.

  “He’s been arrested, and he’s being held without bail for his own protection.”

  “I don’t understand,” I say slowly. “What happened, Grady? He did something? What on earth did he do?”

  “He raped and battered Ryan Lewis last night,” Grady says. “And apparently it wasn’t the first time.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Cassie

  In my room, the shades drawn, I feel safe. My kids are watching Mrs. Doubtfire together in the living room, and I can hear their giggles as they bond over their childhood favorite. I’m too full of rage to go out there. I’m afraid I’ll poison the
m with my hatred for Gregory Woodson. It’s leaking out of me, seeping from my pores, surrounding me like a mist.

  The day passed in a blur. I kept both kids home because the rumors were already all over town and I didn’t want Caden and Chloe walking into a mob scene. In the afternoon, two officers came with a social worker and took Caden’s statement. The social worker stayed to talk with us after the police had left.

  Caden was beside himself. Yes, he had known that Ryan and his coach had a “close relationship.” He and Ryan had talked about it earlier in the season, and Ryan had dismissed it, saying that the coach felt sorry for him because he had no dad. But lately Ryan had been pulling away from Caden, making excuses to break plans. He’d had unexplained bruises on his neck and refused to tell Caden where they’d come from. Caden thought it was some boys who’d bullied Ryan back in middle school, but Ryan had sworn it wasn’t them and begged Caden not to say anything.

  Caden had suspected it really was those boys, so he kept a closer eye on them. Initially, he had never imagined that his coach had done anything to injure Ryan. He was hurt that his best friend was shutting him out, but he had attributed it to other things until he saw the two of them together one day, kissing in the coach’s car.

  And then he’d gotten confused. He knew Ryan was gay, but he didn’t think the coach was. He absolutely knew what the coach was doing was wrong, because Ryan was underage and Woodson was married and a teacher. But he didn’t want either of them to get in trouble. He hated knowing the secret. He wanted to be wrong about the whole thing.

  That was the day he’d come home so upset.

  “I just thought it was two different things,” he told the social worker, his eyes full of tears. “I knew Ryan was involved with Coach, and that those kids were bullying him because they knew he was gay. But I just thought maybe Coach would stop it somehow or help him.”