We talked before about the lean Christmases after my Dad died. During that first holiday without him, I experienced one of the most disappointing Christmases of my life. Believe it or not, it was even worse than Christmas 1980. Dad had died, yes. And there were presents under that tree, from Mom and Dad, that broke my heart to look at them. When I unwrapped those presents, they were meaningless in the whole scope of things. Without Daddy, nothing mattered. Nothing made sense. Nothing eased the ache.
Because Dad died so close to Christmas, his final arrangements took priority, so it wasn't even like it was Christmas at all. Looking back I can see I was probably in shock.
Fast-forward to 1981, and I had a little distance. I had done a little healing. I was ready to throw myself into my favorite holiday. I let myself get caught up in the excitement of things. I needed the perpetual hope that the holiday season always seemed to bring. For a twelve-year-old, that meant I really wanted to get something good under the tree.
At the time, I wanted a pair of roller skates. Rollerskating was still a "thing" in 1981. All my friends would go to the skating rink and hang out, and all I wanted in the world was to fit in among them. That painful year had taught me a lot about how I stood out, and nothing made me stand out MORE than the fact I wasn't like other kids. Not only had I matured early, with all the things that come along with puberty like body hair, boobs and acne, I wasn't quite a kid in all the ways that counted back in those days. I didn't know how to swim or skate. I couldn't do the monkey bars. I failed routinely at any sport I dared try. I can't even TALK about Duck, Duck, Goose. The only thing I had managed to do was teach myself how to ride my sister's old discarded bike a few years before, so I was determined I was going to get a pair of skates and I was going to reclaim the cool that had always come so effortlessly before.
Funny thing about cool. You can chase it all over the world, but you never catch it until you realize you don't need to chase it at all. I didn't know this at the time, of course. Just like every other prepubescent kid on planet earth, I just wanted to fit in with everyone else, people that I now accepted were better than me, (like the aforementioned Beth.)
There were several presents under that tree, some in boxes large enough to contain a pair of skates. I thought for sure Mom had come through for me and got me what I wanted, like so many Christmases before. I told her confidently that one of those boxes definitely contained some skates. She, instead, told me to pull back my expectations, but I thought she was bluffing. That was until I opened said box, and it had a lamp in it. Other gifts that year had included a puzzle, some perfume and a little blue diary that was fit with its very own key.
As you can see from the above pic, I was able to smile through the puzzle simply because the *big* gift hadn't been opened, and I didn't realize how bitterly disappointed I would be.
Used to be I'd look at this photo and see a kid who was about to get her heart broken. This year I see something else. I see the tiny black and white television on the stand behind me, which didn't even get cable. As an adult I can see how we struggled just to have the little joys in life, and there I was sitting in the midst of half a dozen presents my mom managed to buy me, even when she had to buy for my sister's family (including her four kids,) like the luckiest kid on earth, and I didn't know it.
In other words, I see how much my mom tried.
We don't see that as kids sometimes. Our tunnel vision filters out those things we can never understand, like juggling a budget, paying bills, and managing single parenthood the very best one knows how. Recently my sister told me that of my Dad's $10,000 life insurance policy, my mom got $4000. She spent quite a few years paying off his final expenses, which included nearly two weeks in the hospital before he died of a heart attack.
I knew these things then. But I didn't understand them. I was just a kid. I didn't even realize that the dairy she gave me, where I could use my newly discovered writing skills to work through my thoughts and feelings in a private, judgment free zone, WAS the best gift she could have ever given me.
Looking back, I can tell you that was far more useful to me than some old pair of skates I probably wouldn't have used much anyway.
Mothers. They just know. And sometimes we forget that, particularly when we're young.
Recently my son expressed his gratitude to me for always filling the space under the Christmas tree as best I knew how, even those lean years where we struggled, when he was too young to realize how much of a financial burden the Happy Holidays can place on a parent with limited means. That meant a lot to me, especially since I never got to say that to my mom, not directly.
Instead, I make it up in the work, where Mother/Daughter issues can rear their ugly heads sometimes, like COMIC SQUAD, or BACK FOR SECONDS.
I'll probably never stop working through all those complicated feelings, but that is what art is for. We get to make beauty from pain, and something important from something seemingly insignificant. It's not a bad way to make a living, and I'm very lucky to do it - even if it means I still struggle to put Christmas presents under the tree.
Fortunately for me, the important parts of the holiday will never be found there.
Definitely one of the top five Christmas songs of all time comes from one of my top two bands of all time. Don Henley melts my heart with this one.
Since we're kinda sorta celebrating the 1980s... how about some Bloom County?
Okay, I haven't been able to bake, but I do have a few more recipes to make before Christmas. Here's what's on the agenda... if I can fit in in between all the last little holiday errands I have yet to run today. Yes, I'm going grocery shopping two days before Christmas. I can only pray they have spiked eggnog ready the minute I walk in the door. O_o
Today's treat: CHOCOLATE CRINKLE COOKIES
(Although the PECAN PIE COOKIES look mighty tempting after talking about nuts for DAY NINE'S blog.)
I'll Instagram whatever we choose to make later on tonight. If, that is, I'm not completely drunk on spiked eggnog from having to deal with holiday shopping.
It's entirely possible. I'm just saying.
Because I like to dig deep in emotional issues, particularly where family is concerned, many of my romance titles have deeper meaning than just BOY meets GIRL. In ENTICED, it was about family. A traumatized teacher takes a job in California, to tutor the son of a very powerful man. As the product of a particularly nasty divorce, Jonathan Fullerton is a problem child by design. He figures as long as they're mad at him, his parents are not mad at each other. It takes meeting this no-nonsense teacher, Rachel, to pull him back from the brink.
This isn't easy to do. Drew, Jonathan's father, is a domineering alpha who will do whatever he needs to do to get his way. Alex, Jonathan's uncle and Drew's estranged brother, will do whatever he can do to stop him. Rachel is thrown into the fire between these two warring brothers, with one vulnerable boy caught in the crossfire.
A Christmas excerpt:
“Ho, ho, ho!” Alex greeted jovially. We turned to see him in full costume as Santa Claus, complete with a full bag slung over his shoulder. “Merry Christmas, y’all,” he added as he glanced at me.
“What are you doing?” Drew hissed.
“Spreading joy and cheer,” Alex answered with a wide smile. Nothing made him happier than putting his brother off his game. “Tis the season and all that.”
“You look ridiculous,” Drew muttered. “Why must you take every family function and make a mockery of it?”
“How can you expect anything else when you insist on parading around our mockery of a family?” Alex challenged. “Unless, of course, your miracle worker has fixed that, too.”
Drew put his arm around me to pull me close. “I don’t think that is any of your business, Alex.”
“Of course not,” Alex sneered. “I’m just a Fullerton, after all.”
“Alex, please,” I said under my breath. “Don’t make a scene.”
He laughed. “I’m a big fat guy in red velvet. Santa doesn’t exactly play it small, sweets.” He put the bag on the ground. “But I come bearing gifts.” He withdrew a stocking for Drew, which happened to be full of charcoal. “Bad luck again, old man,” he said with a shrug. “Guess you’ll have to get all your goodies from your good pal, De Havilland. He owes you after your generous donations to his campaign and Entrepreneurs for American Liberty, don’t you think?”
“That is none of your concern,” Drew hissed through clenched teeth.
“Of course not,” Alex repeated. He dug around in the bag and brought out a gift-wrapped box. “And for the good teacher,” he said as he handed me the gift. His eyes were hard on me as I opened the flat box and withdrew the one-way ticket back to Texas. “It’s the gift that keeps on giving. You get your freedom, and Elise gets her son back. It’s a win-win.”
Drew was livid as he tore the ticket in half. “I want you out of my house, Alex.”
Alex laughed as he hoisted the bag back over his shoulder. “No can do, brah,” he said. “You can’t kick Santa out of your house on Christmas. It’s the one time the trespasser is more welcome than the thief,” he added as he glared at me. He spun on his heel and went into the ballroom, hollering, “ho-ho-ho” like he was a part of the venue entertainment.
Drew stalked to his study and slammed the door shut. I honestly didn’t know which brother to chase after. I decided to curtail as much damage as possible by tracking down Alex, who was bestowing gifts to his favorite nephew near one of the majestic trees in the ballroom. Jonathan had no clue how much of a problem his uncle’s presence caused for his dad. All he knew was that all the people he loved were in the same place. I let them interact for a few minutes before I gently interrupted and pulled Alex out of the ballroom.
Since the common areas downstairs were open as a holiday showcase, I had to pull him into my office so that we could speak privately. “You’ve made your point,” I said after I closed the door. “Can’t that be enough for once?”
Alex laughed. “You are something else. Not only are you Jonathan’s governess, but you’re a party planner, hostess and now… bouncer. You take multi-tasking to the next level, princess.”
“Look, I know you don’t like me…,” I started, but he was quick to interrupt.
“Who says I don’t like you?”
“You do. Every chance you get.”
He walked to where I stood at the door. “If I didn’t like you, I wouldn’t care what happened to you,” he pointed out as his eyes swept across my face. “You may not see it now, but I am trying to save you.”
“From what?” I challenged.
His eyes slid down to my mouth. “From us.”
I backed up a step, but he pulled me back. “Elise… Nina… my mother… Fullerton men always destroy the women that they love. You think you can save us, but you can’t. You’re just prolonging the inevitable. Especially where Jonathan is concerned. You want to give us a gift? Leave. Let this house of ruin fall to decay like it should have done years ago.”
“I know you’re bitter,” I said softly, and he chuckled in response as he pulled away. “I don’t need the dirty details. I know it’s bad… poisonous… between the two of you. But you are still a family. You just need one person to give a damn. To fight.”
“And you think you’re that person, is that it?”
“I think you’re that person,” I told him as I squared my chin. “You’ve got a good heart, Alex. I’ve seen it. With Max, with Jonathan, with complete strangers at the mission. And I know you got that from your mom.” He looked away. “She did everything she could to save her boys by binding you both together. All this fighting and bitterness, it can’t be what she wanted for the both of you. Nothing is worth the hatred. Not the money, not the women, not the kids. It just takes one of you to decide to be the bigger man. You want to prove to me how sincere you are? Let it be you.”
He turned to stare at me for a long moment. Clearly he was dissecting what I had said, looking for something, anything, to use against me. I no longer cared what he thought about me. It was time to end the bitter feud between these two brothers once and for all.
I turned to leave, but his words stopped me.
“Don’t you have a gift for good ol’ Saint Nick?” he asked softly.
I turned back to face him. “What did you have in mind?”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a sprig of mistletoe as he approached. He stopped a breath apart and held it above his head. His eyes dared me to defy his request. Maybe it was a test. I had come to expect that from him. Instead I stepped closer, braced myself on his arm and stood on my tiptoes to plant a soft, lingering kiss on his stubbly cheek. “Merry Christmas, Alex,” I said as I pulled away.
His eyes engulfed me. “Merry Christmas, Rachel,” he murmured. He hoisted his bag onto his shoulder and slipped through the door. I followed him down the hall, but instead of going into the ballroom, he walked right out the front door.
Check out my bestselling, most highly rated, and most beloved (and/or most hated) series with ENTICED, free on AMAZON, B&N and iTUNES.
No comments:
Post a Comment