But then again, it was the same with the women, too—our first mediator, the clerks, the woman who stood in for the judge, that one time—I had to be super careful about everything I said and did in front of them as well. I worried about my clothes and my makeup like I was wearing a costume in a play. I couldn’t look too sloppy, too slutty, too successful, too feminine, too severe, too young, too old, too anything. While Mike could walk in wearing a trash bag and it wouldn’t matter. He’d flirt with the women in the court. He’d cry in front of them, and they’d eat it up. Oh, look—a dad who cares about his children! How sweet!
I couldn’t cry, though. Joanne said they wouldn’t like that. “You know how women are,” she said. “They judge each other more harshly than they do men.” Freaking women. It makes me sick, the way they do that.
Maybe I should hire a detective, like Mike did. Would that help? Would my detective be able to dig up enough dirt on Mike to counteract all the dirt that Mike’s dug up on me? Enough to make it worth taking out a loan for two or three thousand dollars to pay his fee?
Joanne said there’s no use bringing up Mike’s relationship with Missy unless I want to give him an opening to talk about my hotel visits with Hector. She said the best thing to do is lie low. Stop all contact with Hector, Sara, and Haley. Wait and let the mediator sort it all out.
But she didn’t sound very confident. Sometimes I wish I could talk to her in person instead of over the phone. Does she look down at the phone in disgust, wondering what kind of mother she took on as a client? Wishing she’d billed me sooner, since I’ve already lost the case?
If looking at the paper will make me sick, then rereading the words will kill me. But I don’t have to reread them, because I know exactly what the words mean: I failed. I messed up. I picked the wrong women to befriend.
I picked the wrong apartment complex, probably. The wrong school. Wrong life.
It all makes sense when you consider that I picked the wrong man to marry, which is what brought me to this point to begin with.
What was the last thing I did right? If I had a time machine, how far back would I have to go to undo all the mistakes I’ve made?
This is stupid. Stop thinking this way. Why would I go back and undo anything? I wouldn’t want to live my life again without having Alex and Lucia, would I? No. And there’s no such thing as a time machine, so shut up. Get back to reality. Plan your next move.
The problem is, my next move will probably be planned by someone other than me. The judge. Mike. Joanne. The mediator. Someone I’ve never met. Any one of them could decide to take my kids away.
What if that someone is right? Maybe I’ve failed the kids one time too many and I’m not a good enough mother to keep them.
Maybe I should just ask Alex point-blank if he wants to live with his dad. Save us all the drama.
No, don’t do that. Don’t put him in that position. Why, when there’s no way he wants to live with Mike? Why would he want to, when he and Mike have practically no relationship at all?
Unless it’s because Mike’s trying to bribe him. I know Mike’s trying; of course he is. And what if it’s working? What if the mediator asks to speak to Alex and he tells her that he wants to leave me?
Oh, God. Okay, stop thinking about it now. There’s nothing you can do about it right now. Just wait until you see the mediator, see how it goes.
God, help me get through this without going crazy. At least help me make it home through this damned traffic, and then through dinner without letting the kids see how stressed out I am, and then to bed, where I can finally cry alone.
Alex
Wish List
A better game system, if Mom can afford it
A new computer, but only if Dad will buy it without making me live at Missy’s house
Comic books
New colored pencils
My own room, in a house where nobody’s fighting
Natasha
This is the second time this horrible country version of “Jingle Bells” has come up on the CD player. I don’t know why my mother insists on playing Christmas music when she only has the one CD. This time the annoying song is made more so by my mother’s voice.
“What’s wrong with you, crabby? Let me guess—I’m embarrassing you, right? You’re embarrassed by your sad old mother?” She’s saying this to me, practically whining it at me like a spoiled child begging for attention. I look up from the doll I’m trying to remove from its packaging, in order to gauge my mother’s drunkenness. I thought we still had one or two cocktails to go before she became unbearable, but maybe I misjudged.
“Mommy, is Grandma being funny?” Lucia asks.
I say, “Yes. She’s joking around.” Alex looks up from his toy truck to see if I’m joking around, and I give him the cheeriest smile I can manage.
Mom’s aged a decade in the past year. Or maybe it only seems that way because she stopped dying her roots.
No, she’s definitely withered some, shrunk a few inches in her easy chair and in her perpetual purple robe with the quilted yoke and embroidered flowers. Next to her the giant fake Christmas tree doesn’t have enough ornaments to cover the metal sticks holding up its branches. It looks like she gave up on it halfway through the job. When we were kids, Mom was a Christmas-tree Nazi. We weren’t allowed to help her decorate it, because we couldn’t do it right. No one could.
The room is gloomy and dim, because one of the bulbs in the ceiling fixture is burned out. Which is probably good, because it helps disguise the dust on everything, including the big brass lighting fixture itself. My brother, Daniel, and his wife are supposed to come over every other week to check on Mom, since they live way up here near her suburb. I can tell they haven’t been doing it.
I can’t blame them. Mom’s always been rude to Tisha, and visiting her—listening to her complain and criticize everything—is sort of a downer. I’m getting situational depression just sitting here, as a matter of fact.
When was the last time we had a good Christmas in this house? Before Mom and Dad got divorced? Back when Daniel and I were kids, probably. Yes, it was the year I got my Barbie Dream House and my bike, back when I thought Mom and Dad’s arguments were just jokes.
When was the last time I had a good Christmas at all, in this house or any other? When I actually felt everything they say you’re supposed to—the love and the joy and the light—aside from the manufactured holiday cheer that I work so hard to create for the kids? Maybe way, way back when Mike and I were first dating, before I really knew him. Not the last few years with him, for sure. We’d fight on holidays more than the rest of the year, and always about the stupidest, pettiest things. Mike always complained about the plans I made, about everything I wanted to do, calling me “too much of a perfectionist” or a “spoilsport.” If I wanted to wait until Christmas morning to open our gifts, he’d argue that we should open them Christmas Eve. If I wanted to make a special breakfast, he’d say he wanted to sit on the sofa in his boxer shorts and eat cereal instead. I wanted to take the kids somewhere—to see Santa or to a festival or a parade—and he wanted to stay home all day and watch sports on TV. It’s true that I may have been a little OCD about Christmas sometimes, maybe even a little control-freakish. But at least I cared. At least I wasn’t a selfish pig, like he was, as evidenced by the gifts he’d give us. Oh, Lord Jesus, the crappy gifts…
Mike gave two kinds of gifts: the selfish ones and the hints. He had the nerve to buy himself a TV surround-sound system and claim it was for me. He’d buy season tickets for the Cowboys every year, wrap them up, and write my name on them. Then, if I complained, he’d accuse me of being a hypocrite, saying, “You always want me to spend more time with you, so I’m trying to find something we can do together, and look how much you appreciate it!” Then there was the year that he gave me the StairMaster. And the year he gave me the gym membership. And the year he gave me a gift certificate for pole-dancing lessons.
He might as well just have
wrapped pieces of paper that said “I don’t care what you want” and “I wish I were married to someone else.”
But I was used to Mike’s assholery, after years of putting up with it, and I managed to find good things about Christmas, despite him. I always liked wrapping gifts for other people. I’d do the first batch with the kids, letting them decorate the packages for their grandparents and teachers and their dad, watching them giggle with glee over being entrusted with the secrets of who got what. And then there’d be the second batch of gifts, the gifts for Alex and Lucia that I’d wrap while they slept. And then, on Christmas Eve, I’d fill their stockings and sneak them into their rooms to find when they woke on Christmas morning. I didn’t mind that Mike didn’t help me, with the wrapping or with the shopping, because I enjoyed doing it so much.
And I liked the baking, back when we had that big kitchen. And I liked decorating the tree with the kids. And, of course, my favorite part of the whole year was always watching Alex and Lucia open their presents. Watching their faces. Their expressions in that moment were the payoff to my months of planning, searching, and shopping.
This Christmas is awful so far. I admit it: I’ve failed. I took a week off to spend it with the kids, and all we’ve done so far is laundry, errands, and watching TV. And then we came here to eat ham and dressing that smell as if Mom sneaked a cigarette while cooking. Daniel and Tisha have been bickering all evening. Mom pulled her yearly stunt of buying toys for Alex and nothing but clothing for Lucia. Good thing Tisha bought her the little dolls, or Lucia probably would’ve had a meltdown. And now we’re sitting here watching Mom get drunk to Miracle on 34th Street.
Being a single mom sucks. I hate it.
No, this sucks. Being here, doing this. Why are we doing it? Why do we have to?
I stand. “All right, Mom. We’re taking off.” The kids follow my lead and start gathering their gifts. I can tell by Alex’s face that he’s relieved. I walk over to Mom’s chair and bend down to give her an almost-hug on her shoulder. “Bye. Love you. Merry Christmas.”
Instead of hugging me back, she glares up at me. “Let me guess—it’s something I said, right? It’s always me, isn’t it?” She’s more petulant than angry. She’ll probably pass out soon.
“Say good-bye to your grandma, kids.”
They say it in unison. I pick up the sweater Mom gave me, which, like Lucia’s, is a size too small, probably on purpose. I grab the pot holders and kitchen towels bestowed upon me by my brother or, more likely, his wife. We hit the door.
On the way to the Blazer, I see Daniel and Tisha standing in the front yard, in the dark, arguing. I wave good-bye to them, and then we’re gone.
As we drive home, Alex says, “What are we going to do now?”
I say, “Whatever we want. What do you guys want to do?”
That puzzles them for a second, but Lucia rallies quickly and says, “Go to sleep so we can wake up and open presents!”
Alex scoffs at her. “No. It’s not bedtime yet.” He looks at me in the rearview mirror and says, “Can we see a movie?”
“Sure. We’ll have to rent one, though. I think the theaters are closed until tomorrow.” There’s a DVD vending machine at the McDonald’s by our apartment. We’ll stop there.
“Can we draw pictures?” Lucia says. “Can Alex draw me a pony? Can we read our book? Ooh! We can dance!” She’s clapping her hands, popping up and down in her seat with excitement over the possibilities.
I say yes to all that, then, “Maybe, if you’re good, Santa Claus will bring one of your gifts early and you can open it tonight.”
Alex says, “You mean one of the presents you bought us?”
“Yes. Exactly.” Hell, maybe I’ll let them open all of them. There’s no use waiting until morning, like we used to, if Mike’s going to pick up the kids tomorrow at noon. We can open all our gifts now and stay up all night. I’ll sleep tomorrow, when they’re gone.
In the parking garage, I check for Sara’s car. It isn’t here.
I wonder if Sara and Geronima got together for Christmas Eve after all. I should have asked Geronima yesterday, when she called. But if I had, she would’ve tried to convince me to be friends with Sara again. I can hear her now: Sara and Haley are good girls, Natasha. They’re not like you, but they do the best they can. And it’s hard enough to deal with this situation without Geronima pulling at my heartstrings.
It must be awkward for her, with all our kids constantly together at her apartment and me not hanging out with the others anymore. I don’t like putting her in the middle of my drama. I wish there were no drama at all.
Do I care if Sara’s a stripper? Not really, now that I’ve gotten over the shock of it. What she does for money is her business. She’s taking care of her kids, isn’t she? It would bother me if she were a crack whore and the kids were starving or neglected in some way. But they obviously aren’t. Shoot, considering the kind of mom Sara had, it’s a wonder she’s doing as well as she does. At least she was discreet about it—I never would’ve suspected if Mike hadn’t told me.
As for Haley…I have to think that Mike was exaggerating or that the detective—if Mike really did hire one—got the story wrong somehow. I’ll believe that she smokes pot. Big deal, a lot of people do. But partying with drug dealers? I can’t imagine that. Not from her. Not that it matters anymore what I think. Geronima said she went back to her husband’s house, so I no longer have to worry about avoiding her. I hope she’s doing okay. I hope she’s finding a way to be happy.
As we walk past Sara’s door, Alex moves close to me and whispers, “Do you think they liked the gifts we got them?”
I say, “I hope so.”
The bag isn’t on her door anymore, so I’m assuming Sara found it. I hope she found it and took the gifts inside and opened them, and that they weren’t stolen from their door. I used a plastic grocery bag so it’d look like something innocuous and so, as Alex noted, they’d be surprised.
Maybe I should’ve gone with the gift certificates in the mailboxes after all. That way I wouldn’t have to worry about them getting stolen. But that would’ve been so impersonal.
Then again, maybe it should have been impersonal. I wanted to get them something, for the kids’ sake, but I don’t want there to be any obligation factor, for Sara to feel like she has to reciprocate in any way. And I don’t want her to come over to the apartment to thank me.
No, I did the right thing. That’s what you’re supposed to do on Christmas, right? Give without expectations. I gave them gifts because I wanted to. That’s the only thing that matters.
When we get all the way down the hall to our own door, we see a bag hanging from the doorknob. A plastic grocery bag. Did Sara return our gifts? Were they insulted or offended? But there’s also a thin box leaning against the door.
The kids are squirming with curiosity. I let Alex carry the packages into the apartment. Lucia says, “Open them! Open them!”
Alex opens the bag. “They’re presents. For us!”
He’s right. It’s three gifts, wrapped and labeled with our names and signed with Sara’s kids’ names. There’s also a sheet of paper. A note? “Let me see that, Alex.”
He says, “It’s for me.” It’s a drawing, seemingly of a superhero doing something dramatic. It has Alex’s name on it, but this time in a child’s writing. Angelica must have drawn it for him.
They beg to open their presents. I say yes, and they rip off the wrappings like madmen. Lucia gasps when she sees the tiny set of lip gloss and glitter nail polish. Alex’s is an action figure, some kind of robot fighter. He studies it thoughtfully.
“Open yours, Mom!” Lucia commands.
Mine is a soft, irregular-shaped blob of red paper, practically shining with Scotch tape, the work of someone unaccustomed to wrapping gifts. It’s also signed “Angelica, Monique, and Jorge Jr.” in what must be Sara’s blocky handwriting. I unwrap it. Inside is a folded square of silky fabric. Unfolded, it’s a sheet of sheer blue,
green, and gold. A scarf, like a Gypsy would wear. It’s beautiful. Looking at it makes my eyes water.
My impatient daughter is ready to move on. “What’s in the box, Mommy? Can we open that, too?”
Haley sent us books. Beautifully illustrated books for the children that look like they belong in royal nurseries somewhere—The Little Mermaid and Robin Hood. And beautiful, obviously very expensive stationery for me, engraved with my name. She must have been planning to do this for a while, then. And she must have paid a fortune to have the package delivered to us on Christmas Eve. Just as Sara and I did, she signed her gifts with Jared’s name only. We all used our kids as fall guys, as if we needed excuses to be nice. To care.
“There’s a letter, Mom,” says Alex. He hands me an envelope that was left in the box. It says my name. I open it and read.
Natasha,
There’s no way I can express how sorry I am for what’s happened or for the effect my actions have had on you and your family. I can only hope that, in my absence, things will work out for you in the best possible way and that eventually you’ll be able to forgive me. You were a good friend to me during a difficult time, and for that I will always wish you the best.
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