How My Brother's Best Friend Stole Christmas - Molly O'Keefe Page 0,51
champagne.
“Mom!” Wes cried, and we all turned to see my mother standing in the doorway to the kitchen, wearing a pair of jeans and a frown.
And just like that all the laughter dried up to coughs.
“I don’t mean to interrupt,” she said with a careful smile that did two things to me at the exact same time. Made me feel bad for her and made me tense every single muscle in my body like I was expecting to be punched.
“You’re not.” Penny stepping into the breach was the bravest thing I’d ever seen. “Can I take your coat?”
Mom hesitated, like she wasn’t sure if she was going to stay, but then handed Penny the coat. Joy tried to continue the story about the porn ornaments but the damage had been done. A thick black cloud was all over everything, my mother’s doing.
“Champagne?” Wes asked Mom, and she opened her mouth in that tight way that usually indicated she was about to say something awful. Something mean. But then, to my total shock, she took a breath and smiled.
“I think I should go,” Mom said. “I think, no matter what I do, I don’t do it right.”
She turned for the door, and in the silence she left behind Sam and I looked at each other, and I saw his support no matter which way I went with this. And it gave me the strength to take the high road, after so many years of taking no road when it came to my mother.
“Mom!” I said and chased after her, finding her at the door with Penny handing her her coat.
“Please stay,” Penny was saying, because she, too, was a good egg. “It’s a holiday and we haven’t had much of a chance to know each other.”
“Maybe we can have lunch,” Mom said, brittle and cool.
“Mom. Stay.” I stepped up, feeling Sam at my back. “I haven’t seen you—”
“Whose fault is that?” she snapped and then sighed. “I haven’t gone anywhere. I haven’t done anything. I’ve been here…waiting.”
“Mom,” I breathed and stepped forward. “Let’s change it. Right now. Let’s…change everything. We don’t have to be like this.”
Mom’s eyes went over my shoulder to Sam.
“He’s in my life, Mom,” I said.
“I know. And…I’m glad. And…” Her smile looked a little bit like it might break her face. Like her muscles didn’t work that way. “Sorry. For everything.”
“Forgiven,” Sam said, like it was easy. Like it was all just that easy. I reached back for his hand and he grabbed it. We could do that too. Mom and me.
“Mom,” I said. “If you leave, nothing is going to change. I know it. You know it. But if you stay…”
“Why is it on me?” she asked through a tiny pinched mouth.
“Because it is. And you know it. You’ve been mean my whole life and I’m done trying to make it right. You try, mom. Just stay and have a drink. And try.”
Mom glanced up into the corner of the hallway with such attention I actually turned to see if there was a spider or something up there. There wasn’t. Mom was just being …Mom.
I sighed and started to turn, not ready to give my mother any more of my holiday. Or my happiness.
“I was so scared of you being hurt that I ended up hurting you first,” Mom blurted and I turned back around, slowly. “I know that doesn’t make sense.”
“Well, no one is going to be asking you to write a parenting book,” I joked, but Mom’s face crumpled.
“I was just so unhappy and I should have been better to you kids, I know that. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Mom. Mom.” I took one step forward, and then another, and then I was hugging my mom. And she was hugging me back and I had only waited twenty-five years for this to happen with no idea how badly I needed it. My mom. Hugging me.
“Sam is a good man,” Mom said.
“I’m glad you noticed.”
“He won’t hurt you like your father hurt me. Hurt us.”
“No. He won’t. But you should get to know him better.”
Mom leaned back. “I should get to know you better, too, I think.”
“And Wes and Penny,” I said, because I was a loyal sister.
Mom nodded and stepped away from me towards the kitchen, where without my mother’s wet blanketness, Joy was finishing her story and everyone was laughing.
I didn’t follow her in and because Sam was with me whereever I might go, he lingered with me in the hallway.