by Megan Rivers
“Actually, this one is your roommate,” Meadow said, wriggling herself out of the girl’s grip and pointing in my direction.
“Oh, great!” she exclaimed, beaming. This girl was even more smiley than I was that morning. “I’m Allyssa, but everyone calls me Ally. Please call me Ally. I thought that since I started in January I would already have roommates that would have been here for a semester, but it looks like you and I are on the same page, isn’t it great?”
She shook my hand vigorously. “Wonderful. I’m Christie.” I smiled back at her, and, once my hand was free, gestured to the other side of the room, “This is our other roommate.”
“Hi, I’m Allyssa, but please call me Ally as well,” she said, waving at Candacie with a smile that showed off her perfectly white teeth.
“Candacie.” She nodded from her corner of the room.
“I’m sorry?” Ally’s smile faltered, confusedly, “Can they see what?” Allyssa asked looking at Meadow and me and back to Candacie.
I looked at Meadow who was trying hard not to laugh. “That’s my name. Ken-day-see.” She pronounced each syllable slowly, as if she were speaking to a child. I was getting Cece DeLourt flashbacks.
“Oh, I am sorry. Candacie. Candacie.” She repeated the name to remember it. “Can I just call you Candy?”
“No.” Candacie’s face fell with such a suggestion and then pulled on a pair of large headphones.
Ally turned back towards the door as her parent’s entered, laden with luggage and boxes. Ally’s mother looked just like her daughter, but with short, blonder hair. Her father was extremely tall and had graying, light brown hair and his eyes looked as if they were always smiling. “Jeff Swanson,” he introduced himself to Kevin with a two-handed handshake. “This is my wife, Sophia.”
“Excellent. Great to meet you. Kevin Langston. This is my daughter Meadow, and this is Christie Kelly, your daughter’s newest roommate.” I loved how both Kevin and Meadow beamed in my direction. I held out my hand and shook hands with both Sophia and Jeff.
“Is Christie your daughter, then?” Jeff said, uncertain if the question needed to be asked, but I could understand his confusion by the difference in our last names.
He looked at Meadow and smiled. “Practically,” he replied.
Meadow linked her arm with mine. “Come on, let’s go explore.”
After walking around the campus and finding where my classrooms were, we ended up eating dinner at a restaurant nearby. Though it was within walking distance, we drove because it was so cold. With full bellies, we got in the car and ended up parking adjacent to a park. “Let’s get some fresh air,” Kevin said, as he turned off the ignition and unbuckled his seat belt.
I followed Meadow out of the car. Kevin sat at a bench a few feet away and Meadow ran towards the snow encrusted swings. “Can I talk to you, Christie?” Kevin asked, motioning for me to sit next to him.
I sat down in the space beside him. Meadow was nearly thirty yards away but I watched as she started kicking her legs on the swing, taking her higher and faster on every kick.
“You know I’m proud of you, right?” Kevin asked. He was slouched over, his elbows resting on his knees.
“Thank-you, Kevin,” I smiled. It felt great to hear it.
“I want you to know that if you ever need anything while you’re at school, you let me know. I want you to have fun in college too.” He looked at me, nudged me with his elbow, and jokingly said, “But not too much fun, young lady.”
I smiled. “Okay.”
His tone changed now, to a deeper, more serious one. “I tried what I could to get you come to Chicago for summer break, but your dad is 'thinking about it'. But after you turn eighteen, you’re welcome to stay with us whenever you want to. We miss having you in the house. Meadow’s beginning to teach me NSYNC dance moves… and I don’t dance.”
I laughed. “Seriously, Kevin, thank-you for everything you’ve done for me. I really, really appreciate it. I wish I could show you how much I appreciate it.”
Kevin waved his hand. “It’s nothing.” Several moments of silence passed between us. “Christie, there are two things I want you to know before Meadow and I leave for Chicago. They are two things I’ve been waiting to tell you and I need to tell you before time gets the best of us.”
I didn’t say anything, but listened. He put his hands together so that the gloved fingertips on one hand touched the fingertips of his other hand. He stared at the shoveled walk when he spoke. “Before… well, before your mother died, we talked about you. We talked about you a great deal. She was worried about you so much when you were in Australia. She was a complete wreck when she couldn’t get you on the phone and hated waking up on Sunday mornings without seeing you hovered over a bowl of cereal in the kitchen. She loved you so much.” He looked over at me, his eyes burrowing into mine, “I hope you truly know that. We would watch TV and she would say, ‘I wish Christie was here to see that,’ and we wouldn’t get to watch the rest of the program because she would tell me a story about you that led to another story that led to another story.”
I smiled. Telling stories and not being able to get through a whole television program with her were two things that Mom was excellent at. “When Meadow and I got word that you were coming home we were extremely nervous. The way your mother talked about you, it was like inviting the Shah of Iran into our house. Meadow, of course, was more lax about it than I was, but I still caught her cleaning out from under her bed and doing a few loads of laundry so that we could once again see the floor of her bedroom.
“And then we met you. You were a huge entity in this tiny Christie body when you walked through the door. Meadow automatically took a liking to you and she is unbelievably picky when it comes to choosing friends. In such a short time you grew to become my daughter and Meadow’s sister―you truly were this remarkable person that completed our little family.
“After your mother and I became engaged, I asked her permission to adopt you.”
“Wait. What? Adopt me?” I asked. The news shocked me, but filled me with warmth.
Kevin nodded. “She was going to adopt Meadow as well. We were going to ask permission from the both of you on New Year’s Day and then, well…” He closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. “Forgive me, Christie, but I was selfish enough to actually hope that your aunt didn’t want you. I told anyone that would listen that I would adopt you, right there, on the spot, no questions asked. But your aunt wanted the money and your dad refused my help and guidance ever since.”
“That’s not selfish Kevin.” I entwined my arm with his. “That’s, well, that’s the nicest thing anybody has done for me, ever.” I paused for a moment and leaned my head on his shoulder. “I knew you loved my mother, Kevin, but I had no idea how much. I know it was hard, but thank you, thank you so much, for telling me all this. It... it really, really means a lot.”
With the memory of my mother, a tear fell down my cheek. It left a hot trail down my cold, pale face. Kevin put his arm around me and gave me a hug. “You’re a great kid, know that.” He leaned back, keeping his arm around me. I welcomed his warmth and looked at Meadow who was now sitting on the swing and twisting the chains so that she spin in circles when she let go. I hoped she knew how blessed she was to have a father like Kevin.
After a few moments, I asked, “Kevin?”
“Yeah?”
“What was the second thing you wanted to tell me?”
“Come with me.” he said. We stood up and he lead me into the car. He started the car and put the heat on, so we could begin to regain feeling in our limbs. In the passenger seat, I looked at him, fully attentive.
“Your mother told me a great deal of stories, as I’m sure she has told you. She used to tell me that her grandfather would pull her aside and say, ‘Listen, I’m old. I’ve got a lesson to teach you so remember it and you can preach it when you’re as old as me.’ She said that her grandfather’s greatest lesson was that ‘In life, people can ste
al your car, they can steal your house and they can steal your money, but they can’t steal your education. So learn as much as you can because the three most important things in life are family, love and education.’
“Your mother would have loved to be with you today, to see you off to college and see you furthering your education. Your mother was always asking questions, researching new topics and reading about things that she didn’t know about. She went to get her Master’s after college and her Ph.D. after that. She really wanted to see you go to college and know more than you could ever know. She wanted you to see the world, which is why she was so keen to have you live with your father, and, whether you know it or not, you’ve learned something from that too.
“The first time she asked Meadow, ‘What did you learn today?’ and Meadow said, ‘Nothing.’ Your mother taught her, in great detail and length, how different America would be if the south had won the Civil War.” I smiled because I knew better than to say “nothing” when Mom asked that question. I always had something stored away in memory to tell her. She once spent two hours teaching me the process of photosynthesis... when I was in second grade.
“To help you, your mom ordered you a Christmas present that she had to send back because it got damaged in transit. She wrote you a card and I was going to give it to you when a new one arrived in the mail. She had scrimped and saved for a long time, but was proud of you and had faith in your patience and endurance. It arrived at the house the day we moved you to Camden.
“I had every intention of giving it to you before we left, but after meeting your aunt, I decided to hold onto it, for the sake of it, you, and your mother. I thought now would be the best time to present it to you.” He pulled a latch under the steering wheel and I heard the tailgate pop open. “When you’re ready, it’s in the back.”
He smiled and I opened the side door. The cold air attacked my warm face and toasty limbs. Meadow was lying in the snow, making her third snow angel that I could see. I walked to the back of the Hummer, excited to see my mother’s gift. The fact that I was getting a gift from my mother, a year after she died, touched me so deeply. I wanted the anticipation to last. This present was a gift and the last one I would ever receive from my mother. Once I opened it, it would be gone.
Sitting in the back of the trunk, half covered by a brown fleece blanket, was a box in snowmen wrapping paper. My mother collected snowmen at Christmas. I would buy her a snowman pin every year at the school’s Holiday Market. The wrapping paper sparkled in the dark interior and a silver bow sent a spectrum of color around the tailgate when I pulled it out into the light. An envelope was taped below the bow, and in her equally spaced, bubbly writing, was my name.
It was my name in the same style I remember printed on my Barbie lunchbox in grade school, on notes she left me around the house, and on the banner she hung in the living room every year on October second to wish me a happy birthday. I took it off the wrapping paper gingerly, as not to wreck it. I hadn’t thought of my mother’s writing until now, what else was I slowly forgetting about her?
It was a Christmas card. A child, bundled in layers of clothes looked up at a beaming snowman on the cover. The snowman shimmered with subtle glitter that came off on my coat and gloves. Her distinct handwriting was inside the card as well.
Dear Christie,
I wish words can express how proud I am of you. Every mother should be proud of their daughter, but you’ve been exceptional, considering the circumstances of this past year. This gift is to help you go further in life and for you to always ask yourself, ‘What did I learn today?’ even though I won’t always be sitting across from you at dinner.
As for my Christmas 2000 advice (did you think I would forget?), here is a quote by Rainer Maria Rilke that I discovered in college and of which I kept dear to my heart: “Be patient towards all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers which cannot be given to you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will find them gradually, without noticing it, and live along some distant day into the answer.”
I love you, forever.
Mom
My eyes blurred with tears and I wiped them away with my gloved hand. Every Christmas Mom gave me a card with some quote or advice in it, since I’ve been able to read. She would leave it in my shoes, halfway under my pillow, on top of the toilet seat, or in a box of cereal. I hadn’t noticed that I hadn’t gotten one last year, or maybe I wrote it off to a change of tradition. But now, more than ever, I was determined to make my mother proud of me.
Very carefully, I put the letter back in its envelope and picked up the heavy box. Had some company wrapped the package? Did Kevin wrap it, not knowing I wouldn’t open it for another year?
I slipped my fingers under the flaps and tore the tape from the ends. I ran my bare finger across the back of the box until the last piece of tape released the wrapping paper’s hold from the box. It fell into the trunk and saw myself holding a brand new laptop.
It felt like my mother was there, to cheer me on as I started my first day of college.
MEGAN RIVERS is a writer who graduated from Northern Michigan University with a degree in writing and literature. She currently lives in Illinois with her spoiled pup, Gracie. When not writing, she loves to visit thrift stores, bask in the outdoors, read books, or cook delectable vegan dishes.
Her website is meganrivers.weebly.com. You can also follow her on Facebook @MeganRiversAuthor, on Pinterest @MeganRiversAuth, on Instagram @MeganRiversAuthor, or on Twitter @MeganRiversAuth. You can also follow her on Linked In, Smashwords, Youtube, and Amazon.
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