Chapter Six
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A few nights before Christmas, when it's late and everyone is asleep, I'm lying underneath our lit tree.
I like looking up through the branches, seeing the twinkle lights and the decorations from the outside in; it's like being enfolded in the arms of a beautiful secret. I only do it at night when it's quiet and I'm alone, though. Otherwise, I might not feel the magic when I close my eyes: when the scents of cinnamon and vanilla hit me so strong that I could swear I've just eaten a sugar cookie; when I hear the sound of sleigh bells in the hush of the night if I hold my head just-so; when I feel Santa's smile.
Which is the feeling I'm after now, but it's not coming like it usually does. I try deep, slow breaths and sing Silent Night in my head. There's a star in the sky brighter than any other, and a silver-haired angel with these gorgeous, out-flung wings hovering over our house, and I'm about to ask what her name is when my stomach growls.
I officially suck at capturing the Christmas Spirit this year. Like everything else lately, it makes me want to cry. I haven't believed in Santa for years, but my memories of what it felt like to believe in him have never deserted me before. And if this is what growing up feels like, I don't want any part of it.
I made Mom a memory book for Christmas—an album of photos that I arranged just so, with little captions to go with each picture. There are various little kid photos of Edward and me in embarrassing poses, me in my dusty Wildcats uniform after I'd just slid across home plate, Edward with a fierce expression in his fencing gear, the night we all made gagging faces together at one of Mom's cooking experiments, and the year we went to the Grand Canyon, when Dad told us that we were being chased by coyotes, and Mom peed her panties.
She's been back for more than a month, but the only thing I want for Christmas this year is to have my mom truly back.
"Hey." Edward sinks down beside me and crosses his legs. His hair is light enough that the tree lights shining down give it every color of the rainbow, and wow. I do a double-take because he looks amazing, like magic, so much so that I've suddenly got a lump in my throat.
"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you, but I saw that the tree lights were still on. What are you doing up?"
I look away from him, back up into the tree. "Looking for Santa's elves."
"What?" I can hear the smile in his voice, but I don't care. I'm all about believing in the idea of magic right now.
"I found one in my jacket pocket today," I continue. "A little guy wearing a long, striped stocking cap, and he had red hair like yours. He sat in the palm of my hand and told me he was looking for his brothers and sisters, and that they were hiding in our tree. So," I shrug. "I'm looking for them."
Edward stretches out beside me, and then we're shoulder-to-shoulder. It feels nice. "Maybe they only peek out when you turn your head away," he says, playing along, and I don't even try to hide my smile.
"That red-headed elf was a tricky one. He made me close my eyes and make a wish and when I opened them, he was gone."
I sneak a look at him, but he catches me because he's looking, too. "What did you wish for?"
"Can't tell you that," I sigh. "But I think he was lying because I haven't found a single elf."
We're quiet, just looking up into the tree branches, and I'm pretty sure he's wondering if I've lost my mind. But then he sits up and before I know what he's doing, he's grabbed one of the ornaments off the tree, and is pressing it into my hand. As he lies back down with one of the biggest smiles I've ever seen on his face, I raise my hand and see that it's a little wooden elf. I didn't even know we had one, and he found it just like that?
I turn on my side to face him, but can't see anything through the tears in my eyes. All I see is bright color, but it doesn't matter at all because now . . . now, it feels like Christmas.
. . .
Rose and I have a sleepover at Alice's the day after Christmas. We're all wearing footy-pajamas that the McCarty's got us. Rose's is red with polar bears wearing scarves, which makes me think of the Pepsi commercials, Alice's is a pink leopard print, and looks like something barfed all over her, and mine is light blue with yellow smiley faces. Mrs. McCarty seems to know our likes—to know me—very well. Definitely better than Mom lately.
Alice has the neatest bedroom. The walls are painted a light violet, and there are two huge, ornate gold-framed mirrors that face each other from opposite walls. They are draped with heavy purple velvet and made to look like windows with the curtains open. Her bed is a four poster hung with more of the thick purple velvet and lavender sheers. It's like being on the inside of a jewelry box. Plus, she's got one of those curved TVs, a new Christmas gift.
It's extravagant, but I guess that's what you get when your dad is a bank VP and your mom is a Financial Director for a clothing chain. Mine and Edward's gifts were more along the lines of iTunes gift cards and sweaters. Which I don't mind, but it's not the reason for my bad mood this year.
Mom didn't react like I thought she would at my gift. Her face, when she looked at the album in her hands, was almost one of surprise. Like she couldn't believe what she was seeing. She burst into tears and said she loved it, but she put it down and never picked it up again; it's still sitting on the far end table next to the couch. Dad held me as I cried about it later that night and told me if she couldn't see that I'd put my heart and soul into that album, that she would soon. I just had to give her time.
But I wondered how much time was going to be enough.
"How was the soap making class with your mom?" Alice asks as she pops a chocolate Santa head into her mouth.
"Fine," I say. "It wasn't as fun as I thought it'd be, though."
Mom and I had been surrounded by all kinds of wonderful smelling oils, and the prettiest dried flowers, but she'd ignored all of that for something with too much black pepper in it that makes us all sneeze. When I'd deliberately chosen an aphrodisiac blend of sandalwood and jasmine, she hadn't even blinked an eye. So I'd made ten bars of it.
Now all three bathrooms at home have dishes of the aphrodisiac blend, although I haven't told Dad that that's what it's called, because he'd blow a gasket. But he winces every time he has to use it—good lord, Bella, what were you thinking?—so apparently, it's not working the way I hoped it would.
"Oh!" Rose gasps. "How'd your mom like the scrapbook?"
"I bet she loved it," Alice says. "It's so cool. I'm going to make one for my mom. She's gonna die!"
"Um," I say and then hesitate, because there's just no easy way to say that Mom broke my heart. "Well, she didn't exactly die, but she liked it."
In the long pauses that follow, I'm afraid to look up at them. I don't want them to see how hurt I feel. It's bad enough they hear it.
"That bitch," Rose breathes.
"Rose!" Alice says.
"I don't want to talk about it," I tell them. "It happened and now it's over. Let's just watch a movie or something, okay?"
They both squeeze the stuffing out of me, and then we watch A Christmas Story, even though we've all seen it more than 20 times already over the years. We take turns saying our favorite movies lines to each other.
"Fra-gee-lay. Must be Italian," Rose says, and me and Alice nod sagely in agreement.
. . .
Mom comes home one Saturday in January with her hair all chopped off. It's shorter even than Dad's, and I'm horrified at the sudden change in her appearance.
"Don't you like it?" she asks us with a tremulous smile. Dad and Edward close their mouths, then look at me because I guess a cat got their tongues.
"I-I-I like it," I say weakly. "But you're gonna be cold. The back of your neck is showing. Oh, God, Mom. Why?"
Mom's expression crumples, then immediately morphs into a forced smile, and I. Am. Crushed.
"I needed a change, that's all," she says and abruptly dumps the contents of her purse onto the coffee table. She continues talking as she starts to sort through it all. "It will grow back, don't any of you worry. And meanwhile, I have this totally new look and won't have to spend so much time in the bathroom. Dad should be thrilled."
I don't think Dad's thrilled, but at least he doesn't look quite so shocked anymore.
"C'mon, Renee," he says. "I'm not worried. You're more than the hair on your head. You just took me by surprise is all, although—" he laughs here, but it sounds forced and wooden, "—not as bad as when you told me you were pregnant again last year."
Boy, what a fiasco that was. Mom side-swiped Dad's cruiser pulling into the garage, and tried to make a joke out of it all by telling him she was pregnant instead. Only she didn't count on him being happy about the idea of having another kid, and it had doubly blown up in her face.
And now, because he's brought it up again, she totally loses it. Her face turns red, and then she bends over, grabs her purse by the handles, and hurls it at his head. Thankfully her aim is off, and she doesn't get anywhere near Dad, but we duck as Chapstick, coins, pens and papers fly everywhere.
We're gaping at her for an entirely different reason now, because I've never seen her this way before . . . I've never seen her be violent. When Dad stands, I see his legs wobble. She raises her hand as if to push him away, and I flinch.
"Don't," she says. "I . . . I need a few moments."
She walks over by the TV and retrieves her phone off the floor, and then she's stomping up the stairs.
"Lie better next time," Edward tells me, then includes Dad in his stare.
Dad brushes a hand across his face and sighs heavily. "Yeah."
In February, Mom begins yoga classes after she's encouraged to do so by her psychiatrist. For a while, it seems to help with her anger issues, but she loses weight rapidly. When Dad says she's not eating enough, it sparks another argument that ends with her leaving us to stay in a hotel for a few days.
By March, she's given up yoga in favor of making jewelry, and soon I have more necklaces and bracelets that I can ever wear. This lasts until the end of the month, when she decides she wants to try fencing. But she's not very good at it—Edward said she doesn't have the patience or focus to keep the steps straight. When mid-April rolls around, she's into origami. There's not a scrap of paper in the house that hasn't been folded into a some sort of animal or flower shape. She even folds the ends of our toilet paper.
All the while, she keeps Dad and Edward at a distance. It hurts to see her do it, but Dad has always been good at giving her space, and it seems as if Edward is going to follow him in this. It's like they both expect her to keep them at arms-length, but I don't know why, and I'm afraid to ask.
I won't allow her to keep me away, though. I force my time onto her, I make myself into the carefree and loving daughter who doesn't ask questions—the daughter I think she wants me to be.
In May, things come to a head when Mom says she's not eating dinner with us. And not because she doesn't care for bacon-tomato linguine, but because she's got to go to work.
"You're seeing him again," Dad says, and a part of me dies inside at just the tone of his voice.
I look over at Edward, but he's looking at Mom with the same expression Dad is: like a wood plank has just been slammed into his stomach.
Him WHO?
But Mom's got her iron jaw face on. "I work with him, Charlie. Of course I see him."
"Don't be stupid. You know what I mean. And this time, there's no coming back. You either tell him goodbye, or—"
"Or what? What, Charlie?"
"I'll leave you," he says, and I lose my breath. Everything goes gray, including Dad's face. No. No, no, no. He can't. He can't give up on her.
He doesn't want to, either. His soft-but-fierce eyes, his body language with arms wide open, tells me he doesn't want to, but then his mouth goes and says something else: "Not that it matters, since it seems as if you've already left us. But I'll take the kids if they want to come with me, and I'll divorce you."
The words repeat in my head, only they're all distorted.
Ah'll . . . duhhhhh . . . vooooooorsh . . . you . . .
The roof of my house is caving in, and my happy little life, which hasn't been even sort of good for months now, is disappearing faster than my numb mind can understand.
"No, Mom," I choke out. "No, Dad."
And when they look at me, I tell them no again, but I can see by their faces that it doesn't matter, that not even Dr. Phil or Ellen or a pack of hyenas—who I read once are supposed to be brilliant problem-solvers and teammates—could possibly save us.
Something warm wraps around my wrist: Edward's fingers. He shakes his head at me, then pulls me up and and away from the table. I tell him no, too, but Dad comes to hug me and says that he and Mom need to talk, and makes me go with Edward. We walk over to Alice's and Emmett's house, and I think their mom feeds us and we stay overnight, but I'm dead to it all.
How can Mom and Dad look at each other like strangers when they used to be best friends, when they used to do everything together, when they used to happily embarrass me in front of Rose and Alice by how much they loved each other? It can't just be all the sudden gone.
Mom's not there when we come home the next day. Dad says she went to Phil, to the guy, but that she will always love us: us being Edward and me, because we are her children. I write it down in my notebook over and over until my hand cramps and I can't read my own writing anymore.
Mom loves me because I'm her little girl.
Mom loves me because I'm her little girl.
Mom loves me because I'm her little girl.
It's an act of blind faith, like still believing in Santa and The Tooth Fairy, but with none of the expected reward. Especially when she doesn't return my phone calls or texts. And especially, the day she moves out of the house when Dad's at work, and Edward and I are at school. We come home to find pictures on the walls missing, that she left all our family photo albums behind, and she forgot the memory book I made. The huge Oriental rug in the living room is gone, and so are Grandma Higginbotham's bone china tea cups with the matching saucers. All the fancy, wood-carved candlesticks above the fireplace? Gone. All her clothes? Gone.
It has to be a mistake.
A few days later, Dad comes home with the divorce papers she had delivered to him while he was at work, and I begin to learn what helplessness and betrayal feels like.
I tear the handwritten note she left me into little pieces and keep them in a baggie beside my bed.