Christmas Season 2018
“I don’t know what’s got your dander up,” Jackson said on the way home from the barbecue restaurant.
“I’m sure you don’t,” I said, arms and legs crossed, jaw clenched so tight I was sure to need a TMJ specialist by Monday.
“Honestly, Felicia, you are a wonder, you know that?”
My head whipped around to face him. “What does that mean?”
“It means,” he said without looking at me, “that here we are, parents of three great kids, twenty-one years from all that high school drama, and you still let Monica get you riled up.”
I shifted to fully face him. “Are you going to sit there and tell me that her showing up was coincidental? That she just happened to come to This Little Piggy on her own?”
“Maybe she was meeting someone there.”
“Yeah. You. She looked as smug as—”
“Would you listen to yourself? Seriously?”
“You probably let it slip that we were having dinner there.” I turned forward in time to see our home—my home—come into view. “Or maybe you told her. Maybe you said, ‘Honey, I’m having dinner with Felicia on Friday so we can talk about the kids’ Christmas.’”
Jackson pulled the truck in front of the house, and I immediately reached for the door handle. “You have lost your mind, Felicia Morgan.”
I popped the door open and unbuckled my seatbelt in one movement before descending from the truck. “That’s right. I have. But I lost it a long time ago, Jackson.” I started to slam the door shut, but caught myself. “Oh. And you be sure to tell her that my last name is still Morgan.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning you best remind her that we are still married.”
Fury crossed Jackson’s face. “I tell you what, woman. When you calm down—when you get your brain back—give me a call. Maybe then we can talk about this like adults.”
I slammed the door hard enough that the truck rocked slightly, then stormed up the front porch steps and into the house, grateful, at least, that the first floor greeted me in quiet darkness. If the boys were still up, they were upstairs, at least. I closed the front door slowly, then locked it, aware of Jackson’s truck lights cutting through the sidelight windows as he turned in the semicircular driveway, heading out. Back to his mother’s where he’d been staying since we’d separated.
Or maybe back to the restaurant. Back to Monica, who waited there for him.
Tears stung my eyes, but I blinked them away. He wasn’t going to get the better of me. Not when it came to her. At least, not anymore.
“Mom?”
The voice of my daughter coming from the dark living room startled me. I stepped into the arched doorway. She sat sideways in a wingback chair, bathed in muted light from the outside street lamp. Her pajamaed legs were draped over one of the chair’s arms. Her feet, clad in thick fuzzy socks, crossed at the ankles. “Sara?” I reached for the light switch.
“No, don’t,” she said with a sniffle. “I don’t want the light on.”
I moved closer to her, dropping my purse in the matching wingback chair before sitting in it. Even in the absence of light I could see that she’d been crying. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
She brought an oversized coffee mug I’d not noticed before up to her lips and took a small sip. The aroma of warm milk and cinnamon wafted over and I frowned.
Her comfort drink.
“Billy. He—I—”
The old fear washed over me. My breathing stopped. Had he . . . had they . . . and had he then dumped her? “What,” I whispered. “What did you do?”
Her eyes widened. “Not that.” Then she sniffled again as new tears came down her cheeks. “Gosh, Mom. Is that all you ever worry about?”
Yes. “No, of course not.” I waited until she was ready, which seemed hours but was only a minute.
“He broke up with me, Mom. Billy. Billy broke up with me.”
“What? Why?” And why right at right at Christmas? How could he hurt my baby like this? “I thought you two were—I didn’t know there was a problem.”
“There wasn’t.” She sniffled. “At least I thought there wasn’t. But . . . he wants to—he says he’s got so much more school to go before he can get his medical degree and he doesn’t see how—how we can keep dating if we’re going to have to wait so long to get married.”
I didn’t know whether to cry with her or sigh in my own relief. “Oh, I see.”
“Oh, Mom . . . I love him so much,” she wailed, broken down from the weight of such heartache. I rose from my chair, stepped over to hers, and gathered her in my arms. Within seconds she sat cradled in my lap, clutching her mug of hot milk, crying as though she’d just lost her best friend.
In some way, I suppose she had.
In some way, I suppose, I had too.
So I cried with her.
I put Sara in my bed, telling her she didn’t need to be alone. Once she got settled in, I went into her bedroom and plucked her favorite stuffed animal—Mr. Snuggles—from where the nearly dilapidated bunny lay in a mound of throw pillows on her bed. “Here you go,” I said, placing him in her arms.
“Oh, Mom,” she whimpered. “You always know the right things to do.”
I kissed her temple, then whispered back, “I’m going to take a long, hot soak. I’ll be just through that door if you need me.”
Sara nodded. “I’m just going to sleep now,” she mumbled.
I stood a moment to look at her. I paused, remembering how she’d looked in her crib, thumb stuck between two moist lips. In her toddler bed, soft blond curls crowning her head. As a barely-in-my-teens-but-a-teen-nonetheless—hair long, stringy at times. Freckles fading. And now . . . lashes moist with tears from heartache. Lips in a tiny pout.
She looked so much like her father . . .
After a wistful smile, I went into the bathroom and prepared my bath, complete with lavender salts, in a claw-foot tub. While the tub filled, I lit a candle and turned on the vintage-looking small radio I kept on my vanity. As orchestrated Christmas music filled the room, I twisted the taps off and stepped in, then sank all the way to my neck, breathing in the scent.
My eyes closed as I gripped the sides of the tub. What a night . . .
2014
Jackson rested against the kitchen counter, holding a cup of coffee with a curl of steam rising upward while I finished the dinner dishes. “I don’t think I like the idea of my daughter going out with some boy to a dance.”
I gave him my best get-over-yourself look. “Jackson Morgan,” I said with a chuckle. “She’s fifteen. And it’s not some dance. It’s her first Christmas black-and-white ball.”
Jackson shook his head as he brought the cup near his lips. “She’s fifteen. What’s so great about some guy asking you to a dance at fifteen?”
“Don’t you remember fifteen?”
He swallowed hard. “Yes,” he said looking at me directly. “Which is why I don’t want her going out with—how old is this boy?”
“Sixteen.”
Jackson groaned. “It’s worse than I thought.”
“Jackson . . .”
“I guess it’s started, huh?”
I wrung out the dishcloth and laid it over the sink divider. “I guess it has. Besides, she’s so excited. We went out after school and bought the dress—which you’ll approve of, I promise—and she wants to get her nails done and curl her hair . . .”
He groaned again. “Do we even know this boy? His parents?”
“She’s in Holy Hands with him,” I said, pouring myself a cup of decaf at the coffee station. “He’s a good kid. Besides, I’ve met his parents and they’re very nice people.” I sat at the kitchen table and Jackson ambled over to join me. “What’s more, Tiffany approves.”
“Well, by all means, then.” He swallowed another sip of his drink. “Which kid is he?”
“The really tall one. Very blond. Grayson Pearce.”
Jackson ran a hand over his head. “Blond is good.”
“Fathers . . .”
“I guess there’s no way to stop this, is there? She’s growing up on us.”
I nodded. “Well, there is one thing we can do.”
Jackson raised his eyes in question.
“I volunteered the two of us as chaperones.”
Jackson grinned. “Does Sara know that?”
I grinned back. “She will . . .” I brought the mug to my lips. “Soon enough.”
But Sara, always full of surprises, shocked us by being pleased when she learned that Jackson and I were chaperoning her first dance.
“I can’t believe I’m so nervous.” She held her hands out to demonstrate as I stood behind her and zipped up the flowing knee-length black dress with rhinestone-accented one-inch straps we’d purchased. She stood in front of the floor length mirror in the corner of my bedroom as I smiled at her reflection.
“Well, you look lovely,” I said, bringing my hand to fluff the blond hair that hung in spiral curls to her waist. “So what’s there to be nervous about?”
She turned to face me. “Mom,” she whispered. “What if Grayson tries to kiss me?”
I had to swallow back a giggle. “You don’t have to, you know.”
Her natural blush overshadowed the light pink she’d brushed on earlier.
“Oh,” I said. “I see.”
“Now, Mom . . .” Sara grabbed my hands. “Please, please don’t let Daddy do anything to embarrass me.”
We turned and started for the door. “I’ll do my best. But you know your father.”
“Okay,” she said as we neared the landing. “Grayson will be here in ten minutes. Go find Dad now and tell him to not say anything to embarrass me when he gets here.”
“Sara,” I admonished as we descended the staircase. “Would your father do anything to . . . yeah. Okay. I’ll find him.”
True to his word not to embarrass his daughter that evening, Jackson doted without smothering. He gave firm instructions to Grayson without being overbearing. Once at the dance, he stood at the gymnasium’s door as a “bouncer” and gave Sara her space, while I stood at the refreshment table and doled out fruit punch. Later, as the holiday dance neared its end, Jackson came up behind me and whispered, “This reminds me of prom.”
I leaned against the familiarity of him, resting the back of my head on his shoulder. “Remember the party afterward? At the Tuckers’ barn?” I pointed to the twinkle lights around the makeshift dance floor. “Remember the lights?”
Jackson spoke lightly into my ear, sending shivers up and down my arms. “I only remember how beautiful you looked.”
I turned slightly. “And I remember how you kissed me before we went into the barn.” Jackson’s eyes widened playfully. “You’d never kissed me like that before.”
His arms circled my waist and I nestled in. “It was time. If I remember correctly, we’d been arguing about some girl—”
I turned again, mouth opened. “Some girl, my eye. You know good and well—”
Jackson placed a finger to my lips. “Now, now Mrs. Morgan. Don’t make me kiss you like that again in front of all these children . . .”