Merrry Christmas Mr. Saunders

by Diane Strong

to me. It didn’t happen to you. You still have a child, a child you get to go home to and love on. You get to stroke her head at night and kiss her cheeks. You get to tell her you love her, over and over until she knows it. You get to watch her get married and hold grandbabies. I don’t. I don’t have any of this because I made a stupid mistake that I can never take back.”

  “I’m very lucky, Billy. You are so right.” Megan agreed, biting her tongue.

  “What am I supposed to do? What? I have nothing. This is my life.” Sweeping his arm to show off his house, Billy wiped snot from his nose with the back of his sleeve before licking his dry lips. He set the picture down gently, picked up a glass, and threw it violently at the wall, shattering it. Megan’s heart skipped a beat.

  “I have to go, Billy. It’s getting late.” Megan rose to her feet but before she could take a step toward the door, Billy raised his arm toward her. A snub-nosed Colt .38 revolver stared at her from his shaking hand. He pointed it at her face, “Sit down. I’m not done.” Megan stared into the barrel and gently lowered her body back into the chair.

  Lyndsy’s bookmark wasn’t really a bookmark at all. It was a two dollar bill she had kept since her eighth birthday. Her grandmother had given it to her. She had a special attachment to all the simple gifts Grandma Beth had given her. It felt like having a piece of her grandma there with her all the time.

  She had to take a break before the last chapter of her book. She didn’t want the book to end so she intended to drag it out as long as possible. Lyndsy left her book on the bed and glanced at her phone to check for new text messages. There weren’t any. She headed to the quiet kitchen to make some popcorn. She planned to eat up the last juicy chapter of her book just like the hot, buttery popcorn she was popping in the microwave.

  A chill broke out on Megan’s body and her face felt numb. A wave of nausea came over her. What is happening here? Regret flooded Megan’s thoughts. She should have left when she had the chance. Her mind raced to her mace. Did she have a chance against a gun?

  “I had everything, just like you do. I was even about your age, what are you, thirty-something?” Megan nodded methodically, still staring at the gun which now perched on Billy’s knee and pointed in her direction.

  “We had a nice house just outside Lexington, twelve acres, some goats and chickens. I worked for the University… maintenance, but it paid real well. Great benefits. My wife, she was a nurse. She made more than me, do you know that? I put her through school and she made good money.” Billy leaned forward as if to get closer to his audience. “She loved me so much.”

  Billy’s face warmed with the memory. “We tried for years to have a child. Lord, she used to cry at night when she would learn another month went by and no baby. She got pregnant two times before little Billy came along. There was miscarriages.” Billy stared seriously at Megan, the whites of his eyes showing.

  “One baby she showed me in the toilet. It had little arms and legs, blue dots for eyes. It didn’t look real but you could tell it was a baby. We flushed it. We flushed it and all the blood…we didn’t know what else to do. We felt real guilty after flushing, she started crying asking me why we flushed it and telling me to bring it back. She started hitting me, said she wanted to bury it like a real baby. But it was too late. We made the wrong decision too quick and just like that the chance was gone. I never got over that. I thought I could fix anything, but I couldn’t bring back that little flushed baby.” Billy took a deep breath and let his eyes search the ceiling as if the baby would fall into his lap.

  Megan caught bits and pieces of his words. With her mind in defense mode, his words drifted in and out of her consciousness as she contemplated ways to escape should he decide to attack her. She would use all her strength to push him away, kick his gun from his hands, and make for the door. But would he follow? Would he come after her? Could she outrun a bullet once he finally made it to the door? She has to get home to her daughter.

  “The other baby just disappeared. It was only six weeks along and maybe her body just absorbed it. Maybe it became part of her again. I don’t know how all that works. But she used to tell me, she’d say that the baby’s soul was still alive, that it was just waiting for a body it could live in. Those first two bodies weren’t good enough so the soul just waited around for a body that could handle its strong spirit.

  “Those first babies we lost was hard but we got through it together. We loved each other so strong, nothing could tear us apart. Those babies just made us stronger, made the wait for the real baby harder, but we knew it would come and it would be worth the pain and the hurt.

  “I used to kiss her goodbye every morning and every night I used to thank God for her. We spent the weekends together, every one of ‘em. We could sit and watch TV or go to the museum or we could go to the grocery. It didn’t matter, long as we was together. We didn’t care. It was all good.” Billy’s face lightened at the memory, the corners of his lips even curled up a little into a grin of pleasure. He studied Megan, wondering if she understood the happiness he had lived a lifetime ago.

  “Her name was Amelia, just like the lady that flew the plane, Air-heart. My Amelia, I used to say that: My Amelia.” Billy stretched his neck out and sang her name. Megan heard a gentle voice sing, ‘but Megan…’ in the back of her head somewhere.

  “She was the only woman who could tame me. I got back from Vietnam…all angry and wild. I ran around getting into trouble, sleeping with lots girls, trying to take away the pain. None of those girls made me feel better, but she did. Amelia did.

  “I’ll never forget when she told me about the third pregnancy. I had a feeling of dread at first, I swear I did, and I felt so bad but I couldn’t help it. I just wasn’t sure we could handle losing another baby. The doctor, he put her on bed rest right from the get-go. We didn’t argue, she took a leave from her job and propped her feet up in bed as if it was the best thing in the whole world. It wasn’t, she was crazy bored, especially at first when she didn’t look pregnant and still had lots of energy.

  “Every minute I was at home I spent waiting on her hand and foot. I made her big fancy breakfasts in bed, even put little flowers in a vase that I picked from the yard. She loved corned beef hash before she got pregnant. This one time, I made it for her as a surprise and brought it in the bedroom to her and I thought she was going to kill me. The smell made her sick, sent her to the bathroom even.

  “I musta’ gained as much weight as she did during that pregnancy. I spent so much time lying right next to her in that bed, watching the soap operas and reading magazines, whatever she wanted to do I did it with her. And I listened to her belly. I talked to that baby every night, trying to tell it that this was the body, this was the one and it should stick around ‘cause we had a big happy life planned for it.”

  Megan’s mind drifted to her pregnancy, spent alone without a husband there to kiss her belly and bring her breakfast. She had waddled from classroom to classroom at the community college in her hometown, students staring. She remembered the drive to the hospital, her mother holding her hand. The fear of the moment and the past mingled together one emotion that embraced her entire body.

  “When we found out we was having a boy I was so happy I cried. I mean, I didn’t care what it was. I would a loved a girl as much as any boy but, well, a son to carry on my name and teach to play baseball and hunt…well that just sounded so great. Then Amelia told me she wanted to name him Billy Junior. I was so worried, I was afraid that I wasn’t good enough for the boy, that maybe he needed a better name so he could be a better man.

  “There was a point we made it to in the pregnancy that meant we was really going to have this baby. I don’t remember how far along she was but I remember the doctor saying we wasn’t completely out of the woods but it looked like we was really gonna have this baby.

  “Amelia got so big. We were convinced maybe she would have more than one baby she was so big. She couldn’t see her feet so I painted her toenails. She had su
ch pretty feet. You know most feet is ugly but not hers, they were beautiful. And soft.” Billy glanced at the gun pointed in Megan’s direction and relaxed his arm a little, pointing the gun sideways away from her, then nodded to make sure she understood.

  “Classic Red, by Mary Kay, that was her polish color. She was so classy, even when she was laid-up in a bed nine months pregnant she was still classy. She put on her make-up every day even though I was the only one who ever saw her. She didn’t need make-up, though, she was perfect without it.” Billy closed his eyes remembering.

  Megan remembered rashes on her belly and an acne-filled face during her pregnancy. Perfect is the last word she would use to describe her face and feet. Distorted. That’s the word she would use. Her entire body took on a life of its own, turning her into a beast she didn’t recognize. Stretch marks ripped across her lower abdomen and her ankles swelled so much she could hardly walk. The only good thing she remembered was her hair. It was so thick and shiny.

  Megan shifted her weight in the chair. Her leg tingled from sitting in the same position. With the sound of her shifting, Billy opened his eyes and squeezed his pistol at the same time, then relaxed when he