Haley
P.S. I know that you were planning to pay back the loan within the next six months. But please, please consider it an additional Christmas gift, and the least I can do for you under the circumstances.
Lucia runs into her room with her handful of treasures, and Alex follows her. I take the opportunity to hurry into the bathroom and use toilet paper to wipe my eyes and blow my nose.
I’m know I’m overreacting, here. I’ve been watching too many cheesy Christmas specials with the kids. But I can’t help getting emotional. I hope that Sara and Haley liked the gifts I got them. And even though I can’t talk to them anymore, I can still hope that they’re having a good Christmas.
Sara
I felt bad about turning down Gero’s offer to go to Mass, but I can’t stand church. It’s too damn boring. No offense.
But at least I went over there on Christmas Eve and gave them all presents. They acted like I gave them stuff they wanted, so that was good. Gero gave my kids little toys, and she got me a bottle of perfume.
Then they had to take off for Mass, and I didn’t know what to do after that. I used to always go to my mom’s, you know? But I couldn’t do it this year. So I put the kids in the car and just drove around town. Angelica wanted to go to IKEA, and I had to tell her it was closed, like everything else. Then we saw that the movies were open, so we went and saw that one about the mouse that helps Santa Claus. Then, when that one was over, we snuck into Speed Chase III. After that we ended up going back to the apartment. Geronima had given us some tamales to microwave for dinner, and I cooked some rice and beans to have on the side.
Yeah, it was weird to hang out with the kids all day by myself. Weird but good, you know? Definitely better than being at my mom’s.
Yeah, I felt a little bad about going off on her and not talking to her anymore. But then again, no I didn’t. What was I going to do—drag my kids over to her house so we could watch my stupid brother get drunk with my cousins and their crackhead friends? Listen to my mom bitch about everything? Fuck that.
Sorry. I mean, forget that.
I thought about calling Jorge—Monique and Baby Junior’s dad—but then I thought forget him, too. The last time we spent Christmas with him, we ended up sitting in his truck in the park at eleven at night, with Junior crying because his teeth hurt. I got Jorge a bottle of good cologne that year, and he didn’t get us anything. He was too broke.
Really, I don’t care about Christmas. I never did. People talk about how it’s the most wonderful time of the year, when everybody’s supposed to suddenly pretend like they give a shit about each other. But that’s how it is for rich people, not how it goes in real life.
Speaking of rich people…Haley finally called me, a couple of nights before Christmas. She was trying to act like she was happy to be back with her husband, but I could tell she wasn’t.
I kept thinking about her that night, on Christmas Eve, wondering what she was doing. Probably eating a big old turkey dinner with her family, next to one of those fancy real Christmas trees that cost more than all the normal ones. Not a shitty little fake tree from the thrift store, like ours. I wanted to go buy a better one from Target, but I waited too late. I just never felt like getting into the Christmas spirit, you know?
I wanted to be mad at Haley, thinking about her sitting there under her fancy tree. But then, instead, I thought about her old-ass husband putting his arms around her and kissing her all over, and I felt bad for her. Which was stupid, since she should’ve been happy to live in a nice house with a rich man who wanted to give her money. But now I can see how she didn’t want to live like that, with some old dude touching her and telling her what to do all day. Honestly, I don’t think I could either.
Oh, so I didn’t tell you…When we got back to the apartment, we saw that Natasha had left us presents. They were in a bag, hanging from our doorknob. It was just a few little things, and the tags said they were from her kids and not her. But still, it was nice. The girls got a kick out of it. I wasn’t expecting it, you know? Haley had given us presents before she took off, but I didn’t think Natasha would do anything.
So I was really glad that I had gotten them presents, too, back when I went shopping for Gero and Oscar. Because I’d been feeling stupid about it, and I was planning to take them back to Ross Dress for Less and get my money back. But I never did, so we wrapped them up real fast and put them in the same plastic bag they’d used for us. Then I made Angelica run out and stick the bag on their doorknob. I already knew they weren’t home, because I hadn’t seen Natasha’s Blazer in the parking garage. But I told Angelica to come back fast so nobody would see her. She got a kick out of that, I think. She likes doing sneaky stuff—pretending to be a spy or whatever.
The next day, on Christmas, I tried to call Geronima, but she never answered. Angelica told me she’d been feeling sad about the holidays, because she wanted to see her daughter but couldn’t. Something like that. I didn’t really pay attention when she first told me, but I wish now that I had.
We went back to the movies, and every time we’d go in or out of the parking garage, I’d check to see if Natasha’s car was there, so we wouldn’t run into her in the hall.
Why? Well, because. She’d said she didn’t want to see me anymore, and I didn’t want to see her either.
Yeah, I know. But I figured that was only because it was Christmas. You know how people get all mushy and emotional at Christmastime. I thought it was probably just her kids wanting to get gifts for my kids, you know? I didn’t think she wanted to mess with me, so I left her alone.
Yeah, so Christmas ended up being pretty crappy for us this year. But in a way it was better than all the ones we’ve had before. I don’t know what that says about us. Maybe you can tell me.
Alex
I didn’t want to go to Missy’s house today, because I was scared it’d be even more boring than Grandma’s. But so far it’s been pretty good. These waffles Missy made us are good, especially with the whipped cream and strawberries. Everything’s decorated with those little funny nutcracker soldiers and fake berries. I told Lucia the berries were real, and she tried to eat one. That was funny, too.
I’ve had three waffles, and I don’t think I can eat any more. Missy’s picking up our plates and putting them in the sink. She’s still wearing her apron with red Christmas flowers all over it, and she now has a gold bow in her hair. She looks nice.
“All right! Present time!” Dad says. He stands up, and Shepherd throws his plate down on his high chair and sticks his arms out, like Dad’s going to carry him.
“Wait, wait,” Missy says. She goes to the sink and comes back with a wet towel that has Santa Claus’s face on it. She makes me and Lucia wipe our hands with it. “Okay. Ready!” Then she gets Shepherd out of his chair, and we all go to the living room, to the big tree with all the purple and gold ornaments, where all the presents are.
“Find the ones with your name on them!” Dad yells. “Find them and tear them open!”
Lucia screams and runs to the tree. Of course she trips and lands on one of the presents. And of course it’s one with my name on it. “Watch out, dummy!” I tell her.
“All right, calm down,” Dad says. “Alex, why don’t you help your sister find her gifts.”
I go through every gift under the tree, checking the names. I make two piles of gifts next to the couch, one for Lucia and one for me. I tell her she has to wait for me to find all of them before we can open them.
My dad laughs. He says something to Missy, who’s standing next to him, watching us. The only part I hear is, “just like his mother.”
I tell Lucia, “Okay, let’s just tear them open now.”
Dad got me a Cowboys helmet, a Cowboys jersey, a bunch of new comic books, and an electronic dart game. He also got me a new video game, but it’s the same one that Mom gave me last night. Should I tell him that? No, I’d better not. Missy gave me a remote-control truck, but she wrote that it was from Shep
herd. Lucia got a bunch of girl stuff. Missy gave her a baby doll with yellow hair. It has a scary face.
I’m going to take my stuff to our bedroom. Maybe Dad will hang up the dartboard and show me how to play.
“Hold up, Alex, Lucy,” Dad says. “One more thing. Missy, would you sit with me on the couch, please?”
We stop and look at him. Missy looks at him, too, like she doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I don’t think she wants to sit on the couch either, because her apron has waffle dough smeared on it and she doesn’t like when people get food on the furniture. But my dad’s waiting, so she sits on the couch next to him and puts Shepherd on the floor. He starts crawling toward our stuff, but I push Lucia’s baby doll in front of him, and that makes him stop.
Dad says, “Kids, I have a surprise for you, if Missy will go along with it.” Then he sticks his hand in the pocket of his jeans and pulls out a little box. He holds it up so Missy can see it. I think I know what it is. “Missy, will you do me the honor of being my wife? And my kids’ stepmother?” He opens the box. There’s a diamond ring in it, just like I knew there’d be. Just like on TV. Now’s the part where Missy says yes and hugs him, and he puts the ring on her finger. But she doesn’t do that.
She looks at the ring for a long time. Then she says, “Oh, Mike.” Then she starts to cry.
I guess it’s because she’s happy. Sometimes people do that on TV, too.
Natasha
This has to be a bad omen for the New Year. I can’t believe I’m almost late to the first freaking mediation meeting. Traffic sucking, my online map totally wrong, no parking…But here I am, damn it, two minutes before five-thirty. No strikes against me yet.
It looks like a building full of dentists’ offices—silent hallways with beige carpet and rubber trees. Crooked letters on the directory say S. GRAHAM—SUITE 210. I can’t find the stairs, so I take the elevator.
At the door that says 210, I push the buzzer, and after a few moments it opens and I see a woman standing there.
“I have an appointment with Susan Graham,” I say.
“You must be Natasha. It’s good to meet you,” she says.
She’s older than I expected, this mediator. She’s wearing a Talbots sweater and flat sandals and looks like she might have been a hippie back in the day. She leads me through a short maze of rooms, all full of couches, tables, and tissue boxes. It’s a little like the office where we had the pre-divorce mediation, but nicer. Warmer.
Ms. Graham offers pleasantries that I barely hear. I’m nervous. I’m not here because I want to be, I’m here because I have no choice.
At least Mike isn’t here. That special torture doesn’t take place until our next appointment. So I get a chance to make a first impression that doesn’t include me arguing with him.
Susan Graham and I sit at one of her tables, and she asks me to tell her about myself. I keep it brief: Born and raised here in Dallas, working at the law firm, raising my two kids. Divorced, obviously. Nervous laugh.
She tells me about herself, and it’s a much longer story. I can’t listen. I wish we could fast-forward to the real part of this interview. Let’s get this show on the road. Quit wasting time with the small talk. She’s saying, “…so once I earned those certifications, I became a counselor at my church. And I’ve been doing that for the last two years, in addition to running this business.”
Wait. Stop. What? “You’re a church counselor?”
She smiles a congenial-older-woman smile, her eyebrows lifting her fluffy goldish hair. “Technically, my title is outreach minister. I specialize in counseling couples and adults for Spring Lake Church.”
Uh-oh. A Spring Laker. What does that mean? I don’t even know. Maybe she’s modern and open-minded and everything else they say on their billboards. Or maybe she smells the catechism classes on me and has already counted the first strike. But it’s too late to worry about that now. It is, as they say, in God’s hands now.
Once the formalities are finished, she opens the file on the table and pushes out a few papers. Among them I recognize the last e-mail Mike sent to me and to our two attorneys.
“This is quite a list your ex-husband has put together,” she says with a twinkle in her eye, Santa Claus style. She’s trying to be funny. Or trying to put me at ease before she swoops in for the kill, the way they do. She reads, “Prostitutes and drug addicts for baby-sitters. Illicit sexual relationship. Forcing Alex to participate in too many feminine activities. Neglecting Lucia.”
I’m ready for this. “None of it’s true. First of all, there’s no prostitute or drug addict. He’s talking about two women who live in my apartment complex, who’ve never even baby-sat for me. Second of all, Mike himself is living with a woman he’s not married to. And—”
Before I can say more, she interrupts. “Natasha, don’t worry. I’ve seen hundreds of lists like these. I’m sure you could make up your own list that sounds at least as bad.”
Where is she headed with this? “I guess I could, if I wanted to be that way,” I say.
“Obviously the children are well cared for. They’re doing fine in school, and there are no third-party reports of abuse or neglect.”
“Of course not,” I say.
“So let’s put this away for now,” she says, literally pushing the file to one side. “What I want to know is, how would you say that you’re doing?”
This is it. The big question. And I have to be really careful how I answer. I learned that during the divorce. Sound too confident and she won’t like me—she’ll think I’m an uppity career woman. Sound too pathetic and she won’t like me—she’ll think I’m a whiner who can’t handle responsibility.
So what do I try right now? Because I’m not going to fall into the same traps this time, when it’s more than just child support. I’m not going to lose my son based on some church lady’s first impression. This is like a freaking job interview, where they ask you about your strengths and weaknesses. But way more stressful and way more crucial.
How about I try the truth? “I think I’m doing really well, considering the circumstances. Considering how little child support we get and the fact that this is the first real job I’ve had in a long time, I think I handle our finances pretty well and provide well for the kids. They aren’t wearing designer jeans, but they have plenty of clean clothes to wear. I cook them healthy food. Lucia was getting chubby for a while, when we were still married, but that’s under control now. The kids are doing well in school. I help them with their homework and projects. Alex is good at art and math, and I’m looking into a special program for him this summer, at an arts organization in our neighborhood. Lucia might be good at sports, like I used to be, so I want to put her in soccer. But nothing too competitive—just for fun and so she can meet more girls her age. Um…” What else can I say? “I monitor the kids’ TV and video games and make sure they aren’t watching anything inappropriate or spending too much time…I read to them. Not every night, not anymore, but…” Okay, stop talking now. You’re not helping yourself anymore here. You’re starting to sound desperate.
Susan Graham laughs. She’s laughing at me. Oh, God. This is not good.
“No, no. I’m sorry,” she says. “Natasha, I meant, how are you doing? You personally. It must be stressful, to go from being a homemaker to a single mother, working full-time. How are you handling the stress?”
“Oh. I thought you meant…” I laugh, too, to show her that I’m free and easy and likable and confident in my ability to be whatever she’s expecting me to be. But I don’t know how to answer her question. How am I doing? How do I handle the stress? I say, “I don’t really handle the stress. I just do what needs to be done.”
She makes a face at me. Partly a smile, partly the face you’d make if you were looking at a puppy who’d just fallen on its face. I gave the wrong answer, didn’t I?
I’m starting to have a sickly feeling. It’s circling my stomach, under the stupid button-down blouse I put on to i
mpress this woman, that’s now too tight in the waist and forces me to sit here holding my breath. It’s the feeling that things are swirling out of reach, and I can’t control what’s going to happen. I want to vomit. I want to get up and leave the room, but I can’t. I have to sit here and face this woman and do whatever I can to sway her to my point of view.
“Listen, Ms. Graham…”
“Please, call me Susan.”
“Susan, fine. I just…I don’t want to whine to you about my problems, okay? I really just want to find out what’s going to happen with my children. I want them to stay with me. Can you tell me what you think your decision is going to be? Or tell me what I can do to keep my kids? That’s all I care about. That’s why I’m here.”
She sits back and smiles that eerily serene smile at me, like a saint on a postcard. Why? Does she want me to have a panic attack here?
She says, “You know I’m not going to decide whether Alex and Lucia stay with you.”
I sigh, because I do know that. But what the hell do you want from me? is the unspoken question between us. And furthermore, Why am I paying to be here?
She opens the file on the table in front of her, reads something inside, and says, “Your divorce was finalized more than a year ago, correct?” I nod. “And since then you and Mike have been in and out of court several times.”
“Right. Mostly at his request, though, so he could lower his child support.”
She says, “Right. But my point is these are issues between you and Mike. There’s nothing serious going on with the kids that requires the judge’s immediate intervention. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yes. Of course.” Yes! She sees it my way! I’ll be out of here in no time, and Mike will be sorry he ever started this.
She leans forward again and puts her hand on the table, almost like she’s reaching for mine. But I stay still, hands on my lap. She says, “My job here is to work with you and Mike to decide what’s best for Alex and Lucia. To keep you from having to drag this into the courts.”
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