by Kaira Rouda
Poor Piper, Marni thought. As soon as she graduated, Marni was gone. She’d applied to several study-abroad programs that awarded college credit and began in June. She could be happy with any of them—a summer in Spain, England, or Honduras of all places, teaching children English. The money was growing in the bank each month. Marni had so much fun learning about interest. Who knew how much you could make by just having a chunk of money sitting in the bank? She’d make sure to keep in touch with Piper. She’d help her stay focused on her future, as much as possible. And when the time was right, sometime during the beginning of Piper’s senior year in high school, Kiley had promised a check would arrive for Piper as it had for Marni.
“You’ve applied for all of the financial aid you can get, right?” Carol asked, hollow eyes looking at Marni over her laptop screen.
“Yes, I told you, I’m all set,” Marni said, turning and walking to the kitchen sink. For a moment she wished the white twinkle lights she saw out the window were decorating their yard, but it was the neighbor’s across the street. She appreciated their cheer, at least. She opened the refrigerator and Carol appeared behind her.
“There isn’t much. I meant to go to the store, but . . . ” Carol said, her voice trailing off.
“We could order pizza. Christmas pizza,” Piper said, appearing in the kitchen, illuminated by the light of the open refrigerator door. She was cute, Marni realized, much more mainstream in her looks than Marni had ever been. She’d be fine in high school if she stayed pretty and kept playing volleyball. The stigma of their family could give a popular girl a certain edge. Isn’t that hot chick an attempted murderer’s daughter? Marni imagined a high school guy saying.
“Sure, festive,” Marni said. “You order.”
“Okay, and do you want to watch a Christmas movie?” Piper asked, her face hopeful, eyes blinking at Marni.
“I’d love to,” Marni said. “This will be a Christmas Eve to remember.”
As the sisters walked into the family room, both of them avoided their dad’s chair, instead sitting side by side on the couch. Why her sister always made them watch It’s a Wonderful Life Marni didn’t know. It was old, cheesy, and black and white. Piper called for pizza as Carol marched into the room and sat down in the chair, his chair, squirming around to get comfortable.
Marni stared at the TV. Jimmy Stewart was about to jump off the frozen bridge. She looked at her mom and suddenly realized she was doing the best she could, probably all she knew. And then Marni started crying, big, fat, wet tears rolling down her cheeks. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to stop.
ASHLEY
Ashley and her mom finally finished decorating the tree and it was almost 9 p.m.
It was their family tradition to have a big tree trimming night on Christmas Eve, and Ashley wouldn’t let her mom down by not being here for it, not on her mom’s first Christmas alone. Well, she wasn’t really alone. She just wasn’t with Ashley’s dad, which they all knew was a good thing. And she also wasn’t with that weird rebound Coach Tom, which they both agreed was also a good thing. So, she wasn’t alone. She was with her only child, and being that said child, Ashley was being patient and reminiscing as much as her mom over every little ornament, every piece of kid art, every photo pulled out of their tree trimming box. They’d started at sunset. This was a big production.
Ashley noticed an edge had come into her mom’s voice lately, something that sounded like anger when she talked about her dad. Dane said it was good, one of the stages of grief they’d been learning about in psychology class, and she supposed he was right. It was much better than the doormat stage she’d been living in most of Ashley’s life. She liked to see a little spunk, a little anger in her mom.
Because, truth be told, her dad was an ass. When he called and used that baby voice talking to her, she almost wanted to throw up or hurl the phone at the wall, or both. Maybe she was in the anger phase, too, she thought. At first, she’d been understanding. He’d needed to come out of the closet. He had moved on so quickly, so thoroughly, it was as if their little nuclear family here in Crystal Beach never existed. His Florida life, from what Ashley could tell from her online snooping, had been complete for a long time. Now that his lover Tom had moved in, her dad was set. It was his part-time life while he was with her mom, and now he’d just moved into that life full time. She wondered about the man who would wait on the sidelines like that, waiting for a long-term marriage to fall apart, causing it to crumble. Her dad wanted to properly introduce them next month. Ashley was certain she would not let that happen.
She’d researched him, too, of course. Tom, the home-wrecker. He was younger than her dad, had grown up in the next town over. It didn’t really matter where he’d come from. He’d met her dad and the rest, well, was this new life. Her mom gave her a sweet smile, and Ashley stopped thinking about her dad and focused on the moment.
“Let’s take a selfie with the tree in the background,” Ashley said, grabbing her mom and pulling her close while extending her phone out in front of them.
“Merry Christmas,” Sarah said. “I’m so blessed to have you as a daughter, my perfect girl.”
“I love you, Mom,” Ashley said, and she did, promising herself to never take her mom for granted again. In fact, she was starting a list of all the wonderful things in the world that she would never take for granted: The smell of a puppy, the feel of her favorite old sweatshirt, Dane’s smile when she’d surprised him at his locker, the shocking beauty of the sunset.
Just this afternoon she’d jogged down to the beach and decided to sit on a bench where, as she knew from looking out her window while doing homework, an elderly man sat with his caretaker and watched the sunset every night. She wouldn’t take his bench, of course. She’d taken the next one down.
Behind her, their big oceanfront house loomed large, the twelve-foot Christmas tree in the window making Ashley feel at once embarrassed—she’d always felt like they had too much—and sad, because it was now all over. Her mom was planning to sell it after the holidays, and Ashley agreed. It was too big for just her mom. And so she’d made the decision to earn her real estate license and sell it herself, while launching a new career. That was her mom, she’d always been the rock of the family. The person Ashley could most depend on, for everything.
Her dad, well, she’d give it time. It was fine between them. But she missed his presence, or more precisely, the promise of his presence when he’d return from a trip. Now, with her dad living and working in Florida, of all places, Ashley felt the weight of their breakup. Christmas Eve made it real. Soon she knew it was her time to build a life separate from both of them. Both of her parents, before she knew it, would become the seniors on the bench, except they’d be on separate benches, staring at different oceans. She hoped they’d be happy.
Ashley took a deep breath and looked up at the Christmas tree sparkling through the window above her. And she smiled, just as the old man had given her a small smile and a nod before turning his attention back to the setting sun. It was the promise of another day.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To my family, especially my husband and my dogs, who put up with my prolonged writing sessions and always welcome me back to the real world with joy. To my friends who add the wonderful to my life—I am blessed to know you.
Thank you to Crystal Patriarche for being as stubborn, passionate, and as driven as I am. I’m glad we are still having fun working together. We do, right? Thank you to my fabulous editor and friend, Laura Garwood. It is wonderful working with you and sharing this journey. Special thanks to my assistant, Nancy Stopper, for her help with everything. I’ve been blessed by the the support of the incredible women fiction writers community as a whole, and I’m particularly grateful for the bloggers who have embraced my novels. Special thanks to Jennifer Tropea O’Regan from Confessions of a Bookaholic, Andrea Katz from Great Thoughts, Great Readers, Marlene Engel from Book Mama Blog, and Melissa Amster from Chick Lit Central. Love to you
all.
And finally, to you, the reader. I couldn’t be living the life of my dreams without your support. Thank you for reading my books and for all of your support. Please find me online at KairaRouda.com. Oh, and if you liked The Goodbye Year, a positive review means the world to us authors!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
KAIRA ROUDA is a USA Today bestselling, multiple award-winning author of contemporary fiction and sexy modern romance novels that sparkle with humor and heart. Previous contemporary fiction novels include Here, Home, Hope, All the Difference, and In the Mirror. A magna cum laude graduate of Vanderbilt University, before turning to fiction she worked in journalism, public relations, advertising, and created a national real estate brand, the inspiration for her nonfiction title, Real You Incorporated: 8 Essentials for Women Entrepreneurs. She lives in Southern California with her husband and four almost-grown kids, and is at work on her next novel.
CONNECT ONLINE
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If you enjoyed the story, please enjoy this excerpt from Here, Home, Hope.
HERE’S HOW I KNEW SOMETHING ABOUT MY LIFE HAD TO CHANGE.
I was sitting in the dentist’s chair, waiting for the topical numbing goo to take effect on my gum, so the dentist could jab a needle into the same spot. My only choice for entertainment was to stare at the light blue walls surrounding me, or flip through the channels available on the television suspended on the sea of blue. I chose the latter and discovered an infomercial: Learn to Preach in Spanish. The sincere narrator promised to tell me how many souls needed saving, and what an impact I could have, after I took their course, of course.
Maybe this was the answer to the problem I couldn’t name, the cause of the sadness I felt just under the surface of my life? I could become a successful Spanish missionary. I stared at the screen transfixed until Dr. Bane appeared to administer the shot of Novocain.
Unfortunately, I missed the rest of the infomercial as my tooth’s issues took center stage.
I was at my dentist’s office because, overachiever that I am—even when it comes to grinding my teeth—I had ground down through a thick plastic mouth guard and cracked a tooth. I knew it was not healthy, but it was simply a fact of my life. Or was, up until that moment when I knew something had to change. Which, as I said, was just a moment ago.
At age thirty-nine, just, and dreading forty, I have one gray eyebrow hair that angrily grows back when tweezed, two adorable boys—a teen named David and a tween named Sean—and a husband named Patrick. I also have two loyal and trusty steeds: my dog, Oreo, and my car, Doug. I am in the middle of life. In a suburb in the middle of America. And I cracked a tooth because I am too busy being restless in my subconscious—“chewing things over,” as Dr. Bane put it. And whatever that busy subconscious had been doing at night, during the day it was drawn to infomercials about preaching in Spanish even though I’m not particularly religious and I don’t speak Spanish. I’m a mess, actually, but I have to say, especially compared to some of my neighbors, I’m lucky.
On the misery scale, far beyond tooth-grinding people like me were the people who were unhappy. And then there were the truly miserable like my neighbors the Thompsons. Heidi Thompson departed yesterday to I don’t know where, the tires of her black Lexus sedan screeching as she reversed out of her driveway. She fell in line behind the three moving vans that had showed up at her house as I was taking a shower and left fully loaded before I headed out to run errands. Heidi’s kids seem not to have made it either on any of the vans or in her car, though it appears that the family dog did make the cut. Heidi’s husband—well, soon to be ex-husband—Bob was sitting alone on the front lawn of his empty, furniture-less house this afternoon when I left for the dentist. That was miserable.
So at least I know I’m not Thompson miserable. I am just in the middle. Middling. Muddling. I’ve looked ahead and thought, wow, there are so many things I want to do. I’ve looked behind and felt proud of what I’ve accomplished, especially how my kids have turned out so far. After Patrick and I married and I got pregnant with baby boy number one, I gladly gave up my job as an account executive at a public relations firm. Sure, I had loved my friends at work and the creativity at the office, but I knew I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. And Patrick’s career path at the law firm has been remarkably smooth. It’s worked out as planned, and he’s a partner now.
We have a wonderful standard of living based on Patrick’s success, my sons are reasonably independent these days, and everyone is healthy. We’re doing well. So what’s the problem? I feel stuck. Between what I’ve done and what I want to do. There was a time when every moment of my day revolved around my kids and their needs, but not anymore. And that’s the question I need to wrestle with, the cause of the restlessness: What’s next?
The thought of reentry into the PR field is daunting. Regardless of how much progress women have made—and we’ve come a long way, baby—stepping back into that world after a long hiatus would mean, if I were lucky, a job behind the receptionist—literally behind her, filing. Actually, interns hold those jobs, not somebody like me. And maybe there isn’t even filing anymore? It could all be digital, paperless. So obviously, that field isn’t it.
I’d once dreamed, in my most private of dreams, of being a television reporter. I think it’s time to finally cross that one off the list. Taking up a whole high-definition television isn’t flattering, even for the twelve-year-olds who anchor the local news every night.
Other women found answers. A friend of mine started her successful restaurant while raising four kids after her divorce.
Another friend of a friend makes healthy meals and delivers them to busy working moms’ houses in time for heating and serving. Who am I kidding? I get overwhelmed cooking for just the four of us.
I attended a luncheon last week featuring jewelry made by women in Kenya. The beautiful woman in charge of the program spoke passionately about how our purchases will make a difference in these burgeoning jewelry designer’s lives. How was I going to make a difference, though, aside from buying jewelry made by a woman in Kenya? In fact I am, at this moment, wearing a gold ring with an elephant carved into the center. The artisan who made it did so with care. Looking at it now, I could almost cry because of its simplicity and beauty. I hope I helped the artist’s life in a small way; but what can I do to help mine?
I can’t feel my chin, that’s disturbing in and of itself, but what’s most disturbing is the fact that my two sons will arrive home from camp at the end of the summer and ask me what I’ve been doing. They’re busy sailing, shooting things, fishing, climbing mountains, swimming, building campfires, and eating really unhealthy food. Me? I’ve been stewing, thinking, pondering, grinding my teeth, supporting other people’s passions, and—eating really unhealthy food. Patrick says I’m using carbs and my summertime spending sprees—elephant ring included—to replace the comfort of kissing the boys good night, driving them to practice, and basically caring for them.
After seventeen years of marriage, I’m not about to admit he might be right.
Each summer David and Sean are gone, I manage to pack on at least six pounds, not an insignificant amount of weight on a 5’5” frame. I also tend to indulge in shopping sprees that fill my closet with assorted clothes and accessories I don’t need. A check of my closet right now would already reveal a few hangtags. I rationalize that if I keep the tags on, I can always take the clothes back.
The weight is harder to return, though. This summer I’ve already gained two pounds, and we have another six weeks to go before I get my babies back. They—whoever “they” are—say that once you hit the big 4-0, you gain up to ten pounds a decade just doing what you’ve always been doing. At that rate, plus the annual camp pounds, I’m headed for obesity land, or maybe just the Deep South. Today’s paper claimed that Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana have t
he highest rates of obesity in the states. Perhaps I’ll find my future there?
Drool just made its way to the crease below my chin. Maybe it’s a crease between my double chins? Here’s the thing: too much time on my hands is making me care about small things and lose sight of the big ones. Ever since I opened that seemingly innocuous letter on December 15 last year, I’ve been torn between trying to be happy in the moment and focusing on my future. I guess that’s what happens when you get a wake-up call.
Mine came in the form of a letter from my doctor instructing me I needed a diagnostic mammogram. And that I should schedule it right away. Two things I’ve learned since: Don’t have your screening mammogram right before Christmas. Waiting for results during the holiday season was hell. And the second? I am so lucky. After a double needle biopsy; after stitches for the one site that wouldn’t close, just below my nipple; after waiting for four days including the weekend before Christmas; after Googling and finding everything tragic and horrible about ductal cancer; after crying on my couch and trying to be brave; and after the call came telling me that all was benign, I was fine.
I know I need to do something—something more. For me; outside my comfort zone, just like my boys are doing while they’re at camp. Sean, for instance, left for camp sure he’d conquer waterskiing this year, and that was his biggest fear. What’s mine? What am I going to tackle? A friend of mine just climbed Mt. Everest, for the fourth time. But that’s not my dream: I hate heights—and cold weather.
My New Year’s resolution was to seize my year. I’d been given a gift: a cancer-free breast. But here I sit, six months into the year, with drool working its way under the blue paper shield around my neck and tracing a line down between my breasts. Maybe I could invent a better dental drape?
