by Anne Jolin
I lifted my head to look her in the eyes. “He’s so unpredictable. It’s like he forces me to grow. If I don’t adapt, he’d swallow me whole, and I guess I thought that would scare me, but it doesn’t really.”
“Why do you think it doesn’t scare you?” she inquired.
“He doesn’t treat me like I’m made of porcelain.” I thought about it. “He treats me like I can take him, like I’m just as strong as he is, and if I broke, he’d expect me to put myself back together again.”
I heard Henry’s voice in my head and I smiled. “He’s the man who should scare me the most, but he’s the one man who doesn’t scare me at all.”
Doctor Colby tilted her head to the side. “What do you mean by that?”
“I become a fearless part of me when I’m around him.” I looked at her. “No one can hurt me, not even me.”
She scribbled something down, and mumbled, “Interesting.”
I waited for her head to come back up.
“And Dean?”
My stomach knotted in the way that it always did when someone said his name.
“Dean is…” I struggled with the words. “Well, Dean is the middle, I guess.”
She waited for me to continue.
“There’s so much water under the bridge there.” I twisted my hands in my lap. “I guess at first I thought it was about closure, that somehow I’d feel differently after finding out what happened, and to a certain degree, I do… but then…” I winced. “We slept together, and that changed everything.”
Doctor Colby didn’t react for two reasons. One, it was her job to remain impartial, and two, she already knew I’d slept with Dean.
I had but one secret from her.
“Why do you think that changed everything, Charleston?” she asked. “Why do you feel like the need for closure didn’t end there?”
My mind worked double time, seeing flashes of him on my floor that night. “I couldn’t forgive him.” I shook my head. “He wanted my forgiveness, and I couldn’t forgive him.”
“Do you feel burdened by that?”
I rubbed my palms down the tops of my thighs. “Yes.” I nodded. “I want to be able to give him that, but I can’t.”
A tear slid down my cheek and darkened the blue of my denim jeans.
“Forgiveness doesn’t have a road map, Charleston, and neither does letting go.”
I choked on the lump in my throat.
“I think what’s important to remember is that you’re trying, and that is a very brave thing to do.”
Swiping at the tears with the back of my hand, I lifted my eyes to look into hers.
To tell her the one truth I’d kept from her in all these years.
“Henry talks to me.” I started to cry a little harder. “I hear his voice in my head sometimes.”
Her face drew the tell-tale signs of sympathy. “Oh, Charleston. For how long?”
“Since he left me,” I divulged. “It’s not like when I have memories of him. Those are different. But sometimes he talks to me.” I winced. “Am I crazy?”
Standing up, she moved and sat down on the table across from me. “Is that what you’ve thought all this years?”
I nodded.
It couldn’t be normal to hear the voice of your dead brother so often.
“Sometimes, our subconscious develops a way to help us through difficult times,” she started. “We all hear voices to a certain extent. Some of us hear our mothers reminding us not to eat that second piece of cake. Some of us hear our grandparents reminding us to smile. Some of us hear our teachers reminding us to study. It’s how the human brain copes with everything it’s seen.”
The tears came a little quicker now. “I’m not crazy?”
“No, Charleston. You’re not crazy. Your subconscious took on the voice of Henry, because you trusted him and you loved him.” I hiccupped. “The person you’re really hearing from is you.”
I broke down and leaned forward into her hug.
I wasn’t crazy, but I was sad.
It meant that Henry was still gone.
“I miss him,” I sobbed into her.
She rubbed my back and whispered, “And that won’t ever go away.”
“Will it get easier?”
Squeezing my upper arms, she pulled me back to look at her. “It may never get easier, but you will get better at managing it, Charleston. With all this work you are doing, you will get better at letting go.”
I prayed she was right.
“Grief is unpractised emotion. There’s no way to prepare yourself for it,” she said. “You just have to ride the wave and find your own way to make peace with that.”
“I’m trying,” I promised.
And for the first time in my adult life, I meant it.
I was trying like hell to find me in all the rubble of my suffering.
Our session concluded, and I confirmed my appointment for the following week with Maureen, also taking the time to advise her of the days I would be in Mexico.
Then, I walked one block from Doctor Colby’s office building to the small tree lot they’d set up on the corner. It didn’t take long to find a tree, this one as per Leighton’s request, but maybe a little less pathetic and larger than she’d have liked. The family running the lot seemed thrilled with my choice of the ugly tree.
“If I bring my car around, will you load it for me?” I asked the man.
He smiled. “Sure thing, Miss.”
It took me about fifteen minutes to walk back to the building, head down to the garage, and pull my Range Rover up the block. We struggled for a minute, eventually needing to lay the backseat down just to fit the poor spruce in there. After ten minutes, we succeeded, and I was on my way to the store in search of decorations.
I didn’t have any at home, given my growing dislike of the season, or if I did, I hadn’t a clue where they were and I always spent Christmas with my parents. They had a spectacular tree.
Settling on a tree stand, a few boxes of gold bulbs, some white lights, and a star for the top, I was on my way home. It was a weekend, and shouldn’t have taken quite so long to make the drive to my building, but for some reason, every winter season, the entire city forgot how to drive in the snow.
I mean, we lived in Canada, in a city that got so much precipitation year-round we could solely support the rain boot trade, but still, everyone acted as though they’d never seen rain or snow before.
Turning the engine off, I slid from my seat and popped open the backdoor, looking at the tree.
I leaned in, grabbing it by the trunk, and pulled. I underestimated the weight, my hands slipped, and I fell ass first into the slush on the road.
“Are you trying to kill yourself?” I looked up to see Dean standing on the sidewalk, arms crossed over his chest and a shit-eating grin on his face.
“You’re still here?” I groaned, using my hands to stand up, but soaking them in the process.
He laughed at my predicament. “I was about to leave until I saw you.”
“Lucky me.” I was being prickly.
Walking off the curb, he looked into my SUV and wrapped his hands around the trunk. He dragged it like it weighed nothing and set it down between us.
“You want some help?” he asked.
“I’m dating,” I blurted.
Apparently, I did a lot of that today where Dean was concerned.
“Okay.” He looked over the tree at me, clearly bemused.
“I just wanted you to know I’m dating,” I clarified, wiping my wet hands on my jeans.
“You’re dating,” he repeated.
“I’m dating.” I nodded. “You’re offering to help me with my tree, so I just thought you should know I’m dating.”
“Well, all right then.” He shook his head, still laughing. “You’re dating.”
Dean didn’t wait for me to say anything else. Instead, he heaved the tree into the air and started walking towards the entrance to my building.
I
scrambled, grabbing the bags of decorations and my purse before chasing after him. He didn’t have to wait though; he punched in his own obviously temporary access code for the building and motioned for me to open the door.
“Oh, right,” I mumbled lamely, and held it open as he, and my ugly tree, went inside.
It was hard not to think of all the great Christmas’ we’d had together before things got bad. Watching him all grown up and dragging that god-awful tree into the elevator, I remembered a time when I thought this was how I’d spend every Christmas for the rest of my life.
With him, and our children, and Henry.
Time could do a lot of damage to a dream.
The three of us, me, Dean, and my Charlie Brown tree, shoved into the elevator as the doors closed.
“This is kind of an ugly tree.” He chuckled, and I glared through the branches at him.
“It’s a Charlie Brown tree,” I defended the greenery.
He looked down at the tree and then back at me. “Isn’t it a bit big to be a Charlie Brown tree?”
“Shut up,” I said, as I stepped out onto my floor.
Running ahead of him, I unlocked the door and held it open while he brought the tree inside.
“Where do you want it?” Dean asked.
I looked around the room and pointed between two of the windows. “Over there.”
He laid my tree on the ground and stood over it, assessing. “You got a tree stand in one of those bags?”
Dropping the bags on the ground, I rummaged through them and pulled out the green stand I’d purchased. “Here.” I held it out to him.
Kneeling down, I watched as he began expertly affixing it to the bottom of the tree.
“Where’s Alycia today?” I blurted.
I was going to have to work on that.
The side of his profile tipped up and I could tell he was smiling. “She’s with her grandparents. Brooke’s parents,” he clarified, though he knew he didn’t have too. I knew Dean had no family.
“That’s nice that they help out,” I said, as I watched him.
He finished attaching the stand. “Yeah. They’re good people. Lucky to have ‘em.”
“Mmm,” I mumbled.
“Okay.” He looked at me. “I’m going to lift the tree up. I need you to stand over there and tell me if it’s straight.”
I nodded and moved to where he pointed.
Dean lifted the tree up, and I yelled over to him, “Looks straight to me.”
He let go, and to no one’s surprise, the tree remained upright.
“You’re all set, then.” He rounded the tree and smiled at me.
Suddenly, I felt awkward. I was reminded of our moment in the stairwell this morning and the fact he was now in my apartment.
“Uh. Thanks,” I mumbled.
He shoved his hands in the front pockets of his jeans. “I better get going. Alycia’s waitin’ on me.”
I waited until he started moving towards the door and followed a few paces behind him.
Walking through the open door, he stopped and looked at me.
I mean really looked at me, like he was studying me.
“You doin’ okay with the holidays and all?” He remembered about Henry.
That was nice.
I shrugged.
“Tell your parents I said hi?”
This caught me off guard. It seemed like such a casual thing to say.
“Sure,” I told him.
Reaching out a hand, he grabbed the front of my parka and gently pulled me to him.
“Merry Christmas, Charlie,” he whispered.
His lips brushed mine, slow and nostalgic.
Then he let me go and walked backwards down the hallway with a smile on his face.
For the first time, I watched him go. When he disappeared into the stairwell, I went back inside.
Leighton arrived a few hours later with all her luggage direct from the airport and Greek takeout. We completed a marathon that consisted of the first three Saw movies and decorated our Charlie Brown tree, which Leighton complained was not ugly enough.
I went to sleep that night feeling a little more like me than I had in a long time.
Christmas had been brutal, as it always was for the Smith family, my family.
Four chairs at the dinner table, but only three still held loved ones.
Four hooks on the fireplace, but only three stockings.
There was a lifetime of memories in that beach house, some bad but mostly good, and it took our three hearts together to survive each wave of reminiscing as it hit.
We all missed Henry, but it was my dad who seemed to suffer the most.
He was quiet, chewing down the edge of his glasses while we played cards and told stories. When he laughed, it had an emptiness to it that made my soul ache just a little bit more. I knew his misplaced guilt got heavier as the weather got colder.
Mom and I visited Henry on Christmas Eve, burying two Poinsettias in the snow at the base of his tree. We knew they’d wilt and die quickly with the chill, but we didn’t mind. Back when he loved Christmas, he’d cover every square inch of the house with them.
“It hurts to miss you so much,” I’d told him, my knees in the white.
“I know, Charlie bear.”
His voice had picked up in the wind, and even though Doctor Colby said it wasn’t him, it still felt like him.
“Watch over them for me, will you?” he asked.
I’d pressed my lips to the frost covering the bark and promised him, “Always.”
“That’s my girl.”
“Merry Christmas, Henry,” I whispered.
My tears had become ice in the snow.
“Merry Christmas, Charlie bear.”
The twenty-fifth came and went.
I left my parents with goodbyes and boarded a first-class flight to Mexico on the afternoon of the twenty-sixth.
Work had been obscene. I didn’t think I’d seen so many holiday parties in all the years since I’d started Smith & Co Productions. As a rule, and as a company, we did not plan any events between Christmas and the New Year. Of course there had been exceptions over the year, but typically we did not. It was something I found important, that my staff spend that time with their loved ones. They worked hard and we made good money. Mostly, I knew how precious time was, and I wanted that time for them.
As such, on the twenty-third of each year, our offices closed. Tina and Tom remained in the city, as both their families were local, and they offered to manage the emergency line while I was out of town. Every time they offered, I graciously accepted.
It was the thirty-first, six days into our vacation, and we were at Cancun’s best New Years Eve party on the beach.
Half naked bodies pulsed to the beat of the music, and a man on stage hollered out the five-minute warning to countdown.
“I’ll go get the champagne!” Leighton yelled into my ear, and I nodded. “You stay with him.” She laughed and pointed to Kevin.
He was feeling no pain and was currently on a small dance podium attempting to outshine two bikini-clad women. This, of course, was entertaining, because Kevin danced like an injured leather jacket. Limbs everywhere.
Leighton returned with three glasses of champagne, and I pressed the cool glass against my forehead. “It’s so hot.”
“I know.” She fanned herself and reached up to tug on the hem of Kevin’s barely there board shorts.
He looked down at us and grinned. “Get up here!” he screamed and shook his ass.
“No way.” Leighton laughed and held his flute up to him. He grabbed her by the wrist instead, hauling her up onto the little stage.
It was a miracle her champagne and his managed to stay mostly in the glasses.
She squealed and slapped at his arm. “Kevin!”
He twisted his upper body to the beat, not a care in the world, and looked down at me. “You’re turn.”
Putting my hand in his, I let him pull me up between the tw
o of them.
And we danced.
We danced so hard our thighs burned and we dripped with sweat.
I was sober.
They weren’t.
And that didn’t matter.
Kevin and Leighton were my people.
You know what I mean, right? The ones who notice that behind the makeup, your eyes are tired, and behind the laughter, your heart is heavy, and all the while know that your mind is no less in relentless pursuit of adventure.
Those were your people.
Those were the people who really mattered.
The announcer started to count down and the crowd joined him.
Ten.
Nine.
Eight.
Seven.
Kevin pulled me into his side and I wrapped my arm around Leighton’s shoulders.
Six.
Five.
Four.
I wondered if this year perhaps I wouldn’t find the man I wanted, but the woman I wanted to be.
Three.
Two.
She was something I could make happen. Someone I could love.
One.
“Happy New Year!” I shouted, as the party erupted around us.
Leighton kissed my cheek.
I kissed hers.
Kevin kissed me on the lips.
I kissed his.
Leighton kissed Kevin on the lips.
He kissed her.
We all clinked our champagne flutes together.
“May 2017 be the year I do nothing but shag and make money!” Kevin screamed.
We toasted again.
Leighton went next. “May 2017 be the year I never use internet dating again!” she shouted above the crowd.
Kevin and I laughed, but we toasted again.
My turn.
“May 2017 be the year I let go.” I didn’t yell mine; instead, I simply said it out loud.
“I’ll cheers to that, babe.” Leighton clinked her glass on mine.
Kevin rested his head on my shoulder. “Me too.”
The classic tune of Auld Lang Syne gave way to a newer beat and the dance floor was flooded with bubbles. The elated crowd started to pulse again, as the New Year had been officially rung in.
My hips swayed and my hands twisted their way into the air.
There was something powerful about not being able to hear your own thoughts over the music. You had nothing to do but move.
