There wasn’t much else to say. Our time was in the past. He’d been my best friend once but now Rush was my everything.
“Take care,” I said, knowing I needed to get back to Rush before he decided we’d talked too long.
“You too, Blaire. Send pictures of the baby. Granny Q will want to see them,” he replied.
I turned and headed back to Rush who was standing on the edge of the dance floor with his eyes locked on me.
RUSH
Normally I spent Christmas drunk in a ski resort with whatever girl I was dating at the time and some friends. It was my go to place for the holidays. Growing up my mother didn’t decorate a tree or bake cookies. I had only seen those kinds of things on television.
The smell of pine trees, apple cinnamon, and cookies filled our house. The biggest ass Christmas tree I could find in Rosemary filled our living room and was decorated with bright colorful decorations and twinkling lights. We had live garlands and berries on our mantel and three stockings monogrammed with the letter F hung by the fireplace. Two big wreaths with red velvet bows decorated our front doors and the house was filled with Christmas carols as they played through the sound system. Blaire had found a Christmas station on the satellite radio and she threatened me if I touched it.
Gifts with colorful paper and sparkly bows were piled up under our tree and I couldn’t get rid of my friends. They were always here. Eating the sweets that Blaire kept making and drinking the apple cider that she never let get low. It was like Santa Claus had thrown up in our house. A year ago this would have sounded like hell to me. Now, I couldn’t imagine ever doing Christmas any other way. This was Christmas done Blaire’s way and I liked it. No, I f**king loved it. She sang along off-key to the Christmas carols as she pulled cookies out of the oven and rolled those peanut butter balls in powdered sugar while I waited for her to put one in my mouth.
This was going to be what my kids grew up believing Christmas was all about and I loved it. Cuddling on the sofa watching Christmas movies and drinking hot cocoa while I laid my hand on Blaire’s stomach and enjoyed feeling my boy kick. This was something money couldn’t buy. Not this kind of happiness.
“Do you think we’ll see your dad before Christmas?” Blaire asked, walking into the living room where I stood enjoying the tree while listening to Blaire sing “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.”
“Doubt it. He just left last week,” I reminded her. She frowned then nodded. “Okay. I guess we need to mail his present then. I have Harlow something that I need to mail too. I was hoping you’d help me think of something for your mother and Nan. I don’t know what to buy them. I’ve never spent time with them.”
My mother and Nan? She’d bought my dad a present? And Harlow? Damn. All I’d done was buy things for her and the baby. I hadn’t thought to buy anyone else something.
“Uh, yeah, um, I guess. But they won’t be expecting anything. We don’t really exchange gifts. It’s not really a holiday we celebrate as a family.”
Blaire’s face fell and she looked at me with sad eyes. I didn’t like seeing her sad. I liked the off-key happy singing she had been doing just minutes before. “But it’s Christmas. You buy the people you love things on Christmas. Doesn’t have to be much. Just something. It’s fun to give things.”
If she wanted to give my evil mother something and my sister then I’d f**king go buy them whatever the hell she wanted me to and ship it off with a smile. “Okay, baby. I’ll find them something and we can ship it off with the other things.”
That seemed to appease her and she nodded. “Oh good. Okay.” She started to turn around and stopped. “I have Kiro something too. We need to mail that when we mail the other things going to LA.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. She’d bought Kiro something. Everyone was going to think I’d lost my mind when they all got packages from me. “Kiro too. Got it,” I replied.
The one good thing about Blaire’s endless shopping was that it gave me time to prepare her surprise. She kept saying that after Christmas we needed to think about a nursery. I kept agreeing with her. But I also kept the last room on the left, the one with the view she loved, locked.
BLAIRE
Last year I’d let my mother sleep late because she’d been up late sick the night before. I had gotten up and fixed her favorite breakfast, strawberry waffles with whipped cream, and turned on the tree lights. It would be my last Christmas with her and I had known that. I’d made sure everything was perfect.
When she had walked into the living room she had been greeted with a fire in the fireplace, a stocking full of her favorite splurge items, Christmas music playing, and me. She had laughed then cried and hugged me as we sat and ate our breakfast before opening gifts. I had wanted to buy her so much but money had been tight. Using my sparse creative abilities I had made her a scarpbook of Valerie and I growing up. Mom had been buried with it in her hands.
This year I had done everything I could to make my mother proud of me. There were times when her favorite Christmas carol would play and I had to fight the urge to go curl up in the fetal position and weep. But she’d made me promise her something last year. She had known it was her last Christmas too and she’d asked me to do her a favor: that next Christmas I would celebrate enough for both of us. I had tried my hardest.
My eyes had opened before the sunrise this morning and I’d eased out of bed without waking Rush. I needed some time alone. Time to process things. To remember. I knew that if Mom could see me now she would be so happy for me. I was married to the man I loved. I was going to be a mother myself and I had forgiven my dad. I held my coffee close to me and pulled my legs up under me as I sat on the sofa facing the colorfully decorated tree. This picture of my life would have been what Mom wanted for me.
I didn’t wipe away the tears on my face because they weren’t all sad. Some were happy. Some were thankful and some were memories.
I enjoyed the silence and watched the sunrise through the window. Rush would want me in bed when he woke up. I would need to sneak back in after I finished my coffee and brushed my teeth. This year I wanted Christmas to be perfect for him. It was our first one and this was me setting a precedent for years to come.
“Waking up on Christmas without your favorite present in bed sucks bad.” Rush’s sleepy voice startled me and I glanced back to see him walking into the living room. He had pulled on a pair of sweat pants but that was it. His hair was messy from sleep and his eyes were still half closed.
“I’m sorry. I was going to sneak back in bed after I watched the sunrise,” I told him as he sank down on the sofa beside me and pulled me over against his side.
“I would have gotten up and watched it with you if you’d asked,” he said with his chin resting on the top of my head.
I was almost positive that he would do anything I asked of him. That hadn’t been why I’d left him sleeping. “I know,” I replied.
Rush trailed his hand up and down my left arm. “You needed some alone time?” he asked. The understanding in his question told me that he didn’t need details. He knew.