An Underestimated Christmas

by Jettie Woodruff

  “Okay, now you’re starting to worry me. You trying to take my job?” Nicole teased, sitting with us. “You guys got me in trouble for the doughnuts.”

  “Good morning. Did you see my boys? Did you tell them I loved them? Did you take a picture?”

  “Yes. Yes. Yes. Geesh, hang on,” Nicole said, retrieving her phone. “He’s supposed to be an angel,” Nicole explained, showing me Tadpole holding two wings at the end of his hands. “He didn’t want to be an angel. He wanted to be T-Rex.”

  “A T-Rex doesn’t fly,” I smiled a mouth-hurting smile, thinking about Tadpole insisting he was a T-Rex.

  “Super-power T-Rex does,” Nicole assured me, sliding out of her coat.

  I swiped my finger across her phone to see my big boy Nicky. He was on his knees with his eyes squinted. Dasher’s paw’s rested on his chest and he licked his face.

  “Oh, my god. That’s freaking adorable. Look at this, Carlie,” I said, showing her the photo. “You’re sending these to my phone, right?” I asked. I couldn’t wait to get it back.

  “Yes, now let’s get back to therapy. I have to be back at the barn this afternoon.”

  “What are you doing?” I asked, knowing I was missing it all.

  “We’re making Christmas cards for Mommy and Daddy. Now, funny you should mention your mother. That’s what we were going to discuss today. Who wants to start?”

  Carlie went first and we listened to how she was always close with her parents but mostly her mom. It wasn’t until her senior year of high school that things got crazy. Typical teenage stuff, drinking, smoking weed, sex—well, for most girls, anyway. Not me. My mind focused more on that while Carlie talked about her middle-class upbringing.

  I didn’t get to do a lot of things most girls did. I skipped my fun years to be a sex slave for Drew while he fucked someone else for half our marriage. Wait. Wasn’t I just telling Carlie she had to forgive? I’m sure Carlie wasn’t treated the way I was, though. Was I still holding on to that? Maybe it was knowing I never had that chance. The most freedom I ever had was the two years I was Rylie Murphy. I was too afraid to do anything then, until Dawson, anyway.

  Dawson and I wouldn’t be having these problems. I was sure of that. Dawson and I would never argue, let alone in front of our children. Hindsight. But it still made me wonder what he was doing, how his little girl was, and whether or not he and Loren worked things out.

  “And you said you’re close with your mom now, Morgan?” Nicole asked, pulling me from my Dawson thoughts.

  “No, I mean, sort of. We talk, I just don’t talk to her like I would like to.”

  “Tell me why?”

  I shrugged both my shoulders. “I don’t want to.”

  “I thought you said you’ve forgiven her,” Carlie questioned.

  “Oh, I have. I’m extremely happy she found Jason and she had Caroline. She got her second chance and she’s an amazing mother and wife now. That doesn’t change the fact that my little brother and I were the ones to suffer for that second chance. I have forgiven her, I love her and I am happy she’s happy. I don’t want to be her friend. I’m here if she ever needs anything and I know the street goes both ways, but I’m fine with it left right there.”

  “That doesn’t feel like forgiveness to me. I think you’re holding a lot back that you haven’t told her. You’re angry that she was so able to pick up and start over without you. Where’s your brother? Do you talk to him?”

  “Yes, on occasion. He was adopted to a very nice family right before I married Drew. He’s going to school to be an engineer. The last email I got from him said he was dating a very nice girl and he thought he was in love,” I explained, smiling. The Justin topic was easier than my mother topic.

  “Tell me what you’re angry at your mother for,” Nicole coaxed, glancing at me over the brim of her cup. Her eyes were very pretty, a dark green color, like pine maybe. I wondered what my hair would look like short like that. Drew would kill me, but I liked the short, choppy look. It looked easy.

  “I’m not angry,” I said after my observation of her eyes and shoulder length dark hair.

  “Okay. Give me an example of something she has done in the past to make you angry.”

  “She probably didn’t get to pick out her boarding school,” Carlie teased.

  “Actually, I grew up in the mountains in West Virginia. A poor coal town in a mobile home not fit to live in. My mother was a drunk slut and had two children that neither of them belonged to her husband. Actually, I took care of an infant baby when I was too young to take care of myself,” I spewed at Carlie. I watched Nicole slide her hand under the table and knew it went right to Carlie’s leg, telling her not to talk. I didn’t stop. I just kept going and going, explaining who I was in some sort of angry blabber.

  Minutes passed with me throwing it all out there. Right there on the table for two strangers. What the hell was wrong with me? By the time I was finished rambling on and on about the things my mother had done to Justin and me as kids, I was angry. I was pissed.

  “Drew didn’t buy me. My mother sold me,” I said, standing and storming out.

  “Morgan,” Nicole called after me. My feet took long strides and I didn’t turn back, not until she caught up to me in the hall.

  “I want to leave. I don’t want to be here anymore,” I exclaimed, jerking my arm.

  “And go where, Morgan? You could go running back to Drew. He’s weaker than you think he is. He told me he gave you pills because he couldn’t stand to see you wanting them. He’ll enable you. Is that what you want? You just did exactly what I wanted you to do. Are you done? If not, lay it on me. Get it out right now, because it’s time for you let that go and move on. Stop carrying that weight. It’s too heavy for you.”

  That pissed me off. She had no clue and she didn’t know me. “You know nothing about the weight I’ve carried on these shoulders. No clue, lady!” I yelled.

  “Oh I think I do. And I think you do, too, but guess what, Morgan? You’re not that eighteen-year-old girl anymore. All this anger, this victim mentality, and your inability to see that your attitude is your biggest problem…that’s what is standing between you and everything you want. You didn’t become a drug addict because your mother sabotaged your life. You didn’t become a junkie because Drew did things without you.

  “When was the last time you sat down and asked him, ‘hey, Drew, what did you do today?’” Nicole simulated with a pretend Morgan voice.

  “Drew doesn’t work that way. I’m not allowed to know Drew’s business. That’s his job. He would never let me pick up his phone and go through it like he does mine. He would never let me see where our money was, or know what we have going out every month. You don’t know Drew,” I assured her.

  “When was the last time you tried? Have you ever said, ‘hey Drew, can I look through your phone?’ Have you ever said that?”

  I snorted. Like I would ever do that with Drew.

  “No, you haven’t. So how can you sit here and tell me Drew keeps you from anything. One of the biggest things you’re going to learn from Nicholas is meaning what you say. You have to say what you mean, and mean what you say.”

  “So you’re saying just deny my past and forget it, right?”

  “No. I’m not saying deny your past. I’m saying don’t live there, Morgan. You’re about to make a very big decision based on your inner beliefs. Your intoxicated and poisonous beliefs. Get them clean and then rehash it. Don’t make any decisions on a whim.”

  “You didn’t bring them, did you?” I asked, crossing my arms.

  “Yes, but I’m asking you to at least wait until after the holidays.”

  Nicole handed me the real estate papers from a house four miles from Drew. I could walk that in the summer. Turns out, the guy that Dasher came from was selling his house. The son knew his dad wasn’t coming back home and was eager to sell.

  I walked away with the listing papers, ending this session before I checked myself out.
<
br />   I was a nervous wreck all morning. I felt like it had been months since I had talked to her. What was I supposed to say to her?

  “Come on, get your shoes on, Nicky. You want to go see Mommy don’t you?”

  “Well, this shirt’s all itchy,” he complained, fidgeting.

  “It’s fine. Let’s go.”

  “How many minutes, Daddy?” Tadpole asked. I licked my thumb and wiped the strawberry jelly from his face.

  “About one hour,” I replied, dreading the sixty minutes of the time game.

  “I don’t think Dasher likes to stay home alone,” Nicholas complained when I went around to fasten him in, too.

  “I think he does. I bet he’s already on your beanbag, closing his eyes,” I said, trying to soothe his worries. I didn’t need a meltdown right now. I was having a hard enough time not having one myself.

  “What if he wants me? He won’t know where I went. He might think I’m not coming back like Mommy. We better take him, okay, Dad?” Nicholas wagered. I adjusted the heat for the back and backed out. What the hell do you say to that?

  “Remind me when we get home and we’ll look up some stuff about dogs being home. You don’t see people with their dogs unless there at the park, do you?” I questioned, looking at him through the rearview mirror as I backed up. His eyes went to the ceiling while he processed what I was saying.

  “Well, sometimes I do.”

  “Yeah, but you don’t see people bringing their dogs to work.”

  “Yes I do. The policeman have a dog at work.”

  Smarty pants. “But the dog is working, too. I mean like in restaurants or the mall.”

  “Mommy hate a mall,” Tadpole said, kicking the back of the seat.

  “Stop doing that. Mommy doesn’t hate the mall.”

  “Her do, too,” Tadpole sang in a silly voice. I waited to see if he was specifically talking about something, but he wasn’t. He had already moved on to the crane being hauled down the road on the back of a semi. He wanted to follow it and see where it was going.

  Nicole met us downstairs in a very nice lobby. I guess I wasn’t expecting it to look like a five star resort. It wasn’t anything like the hospital I’d left her in at all. No wonder she wasn’t going crazy without the boys. She was getting massages and being treated like a princess.

  “You okay?” she asked. I wasn’t sure if it was a greeting, or if the apprehension of seeing her was showing in my expression.

  “I push the button,” tadpole said.

  “Number two,” Nicole told him. He pushed G, one, two, three, and four. Thanks to Tadpole, the anticipation was prolonged while we rode to the ground floor, stopped, let someone in, stopped on the first floor to let him out, and then finally to the second floor where Morgan would be waiting in the dining room.

  “Drew, hang on,” Nicole said, holding my arms while the boys walked in front of her. “Why don’t you go find something to do for an hour or so?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, not understanding.

  “She only wants to see the boys. They’re going to have lunch with her and then you can pick them up.”

  “Why?”

  “Drew, you need to give her some time. She’s dealing with a lot right now.”

  “Something other than what I know about?” I questioned.

  “Hang tight and I’ll go have a cup of coffee with you downstairs.”

  I watched Nicole walk the boys down a wide hall covered in burgundy carpet toward a very elegant dining room. I followed, needing one glance. If she would just look at me I could tell her with my eyes.

  I stood to the side and glanced in the etched glass window. Morgan dropped to her knees and hugged them both tight. Tadpole was bouncing up and down with excitement. Morgan never looked at me. She took their hands and led them to a table with a girl about her age and a little girl.

  “I told you stay away for a minute. You’re as hardheaded as my aspie. Don’t tell him I said that,” she ordered, turning back to glare at me with a straight finger and narrowed eyes.

  “She looks nice. She has new clothes,” I stated. Morgan was wearing tight jeans with a white button up shirt tucked inside. The brown leather belt wrapped around her waist told me something else I hadn’t noticed. She’d lost weight. She looked hot with the brown leather boots going all the way to her knees. I liked Morgan in winter clothes. She was sexy as hell.

  “Yeah, it’ll be on your bill,” Nicole assured me.

  “Okay, tell me what’s going on. What’s she saying?”

  Nicole took a folder from her briefcase. What the fuck? “She wants you to pay for this house. She’s already got an approved bid, she just needs you to take care of the finances until you figure out how to divide them.”

  “No. Why would she say that? That’s not what she wants. I just need to talk to her,” I demanded, trying to convince myself more than her.

  “I’m just the messenger, but I can’t let you go back there if she doesn’t want to see you. You’re just going to have to give her some space, Drew. Let her figure all this out on her own.”

  “Does she have her phone now?” I asked, remembering the five day rule.

  “Don’t, Drew,” Nicole tried with useless words to stop me.

  Drew—Can I have five minutes? Please.

  I waited for ten minutes and texted again.

  Drew—I know you have your phone. Nicole told me.

  Morgan—Just stop, Drew. I need for you to back off and let me work this out on my own. Can you understand that? For the first time in my life, can I decide what I think is best for me?

  Drew—Yes, I’ll give you that if you give me five minutes.

  Morgan—Fine, but I don’t want to.

  Her voice ran through my head of her saying that and I smiled. I could practically hear her whiny, pouty tone.

  I paced the floor while Nicole and I talked. She told me things I wasn’t aware of, things Morgan never talked about.

  “She holds a lot of anger from her past.”

  “Which past?” I asked, “Hers before me, or hers with me?”

  “Both. Did you know she never wanted to buy a beach house close to her mother?”

  “Yes she did. She went there a lot when she was pregnant with Nicky. She stayed with her for over a month when she found her.”

  “She was rebuilding a relationship that she never had. She thought she needed to mend a broken fence in order to move on. She wasn’t expecting to find her mother happy, doing so well without her or Justin. She thought she needed a healthy relationship with her mother, but she quickly learned that it was more toxic than good. She couldn’t get past the neglect she felt from this imposter, pretending to be her mother. Did you know she sometimes ate popcorn for supper, because nobody came home to feed her?”

  I nodded my head. I didn’t know Morgan held this much hurt and anger toward her mother.

  “That’s why she was so eager to move to California when you bought a store there,” Nicole explained.

  “She wasn’t eager to go there. She fought me tooth and nail.”

  “No, she fought you because you did it without consulting her. She was planning on talking to you about moving away. She’d been doing a bunch of research on a cotton plantation outside of Savanna Georgia. She was planning on talking you into buying it and restoring the house back to its original history. She had it all planed out, you guys were going to plan every room together, make it a home for the first time ever, something you both did together.”

  “She never told me. How was I supposed to know?” Fuck. I would have done that with Morgan in a heartbeat.

  “You changed her plans. I think you’ve done that a lot in this marriage, haven’t you, Drew?” Nicole accused.

  “Probably,” I admitted.

  “Give her time, Drew. Let her make this decision on her own.”

  Morgan crossed her arms at the end of the hall when she saw me. Tadpole sprinted toward me and Nicholas stood beside her. I caught Tad
pole midair when he leaped into my arms.

  “I eat chicken nuggets,” he informed me. I smiled, but not really at him. Morgan took Nicky’s hand and tried not to see me. She tried to look away, but her eyes locked with mine.

  “Who wants to go see if we can find some ice cream?” Nicole asked, catching Tadpole the same way I had to. You either caught him or let him hit the floor, which he had a few times. Nicholas hesitated. He wanted the ice cream, he just didn’t want to leave his mommy.

  “I’m going to be right here when you get back. I promise,” Morgan assured him. Nicholas nodded and followed Nicole out.

  “Hi,” I spoke first.

  “Hey,” she reservedly replied.

  “You look nice.”

  “Thanks, what do you want, Drew? I can’t do this with you right now.”

  “Morgan, please don’t do this.”

  “You don’t do this, Drew. Don’t you think we’ve been through enough? Maybe it’s time we stop trying. What’s so wrong with that? People do it every day. Just because we don’t live together doesn’t mean we can’t be good parents.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? I would have followed you to end of the earth.”

  “When was I going to tell you, right after you told me you just bought a house and a store?”

  “I’m sorry, love. I’m an ass, but we don’t have to split up our family because of it. I’m always going to be an ass, but I’m never going to stop loving you. You want to move to Savannah Georgia and remodel a house, I’ll do that with you. Let’s go.”

  “I don’t want to do that now. I want to stay here. I like it here.”

  “Then let’s stay here. You’re not, I mean, I don’t want you to buy a house. You have a house. You even said yourself you loved the house.”

  “How’s Nicky?” Morgan asked without asking. I knew she was speaking of the nightmare he witnessed with the glass, the blood, and then the ambulance. She didn’t ask it that way, though. She didn’t have to. That’s why we belonged together. I knew what she was thinking.