Christmas Eve

by Molly O'Keefe

  “Did you know she was in town?”

  The old man turned and had the grace to look guilty. “I talked to her some a while back.”

  “You hung up on her.”

  “She’s working for your old man. What have I got to say to her?” Ah, yes, that was truly enough justification.

  “So what? She’s trying her damnedest to stop that pipeline. And she’s your daughter.”

  Roy’s pale skin was paler. His shaking hands shakier.

  “Is she going to that party?” he asked. “She always did like it. She was a fool for that yule log. And you…playing music with you. She liked that too. She never said that, but you could tell. She just kind of glowed at that piano.”

  Something about this old dirty drunk talking about his daughter like that—like he knew her, like her feelings about the yule log and their playing music together was enough to fulfil the requirements of fatherhood—made him furious. Like… beyond furious. Like something actually broke inside of him.

  “You know, Roy.” He walked into the den and smacked the light switch. Oh, man, the den was worse in the light. He grabbed the first empty beer case and started to shove empty cans into it. “I stayed out of it with you and your daughter. I watched her kill herself trying to make you notice. To make you care.”

  “What are you doing?” Roy asked, coming back into the room.

  “I’m cleaning up.”

  “Why?”

  Dean stared at him incredulously. “Are you kidding? Because you are one step away from being a show on TLC. Because I am running your ranch and I could be robbing you blind. I could be stealing your herd and you wouldn’t even notice.”

  “You wouldn’t do that.”

  “No. I wouldn’t. But you are going to die if you keep this up.”

  Roy rubbed a hand over his face, the sound of his whiskers against his calloused hand audible in the hushed and closed room.

  “Your daughter is here. Your daughter has been in town for a year and she’s called you three times—”

  “She called once.”

  “Three times, Roy. Three. You don’t remember because you’ve been too drunk.”

  Roy didn’t say anything. He knew. Of course he knew. Guilt was a stench that just rolled off him.

  “She grinds herself into dust for you and you don’t even notice. And you’re running out of time.” We are running out of time. “You are going to miss out on your amazing, smart and driven daughter, who, her entire life, has only wanted you to notice her. To love her.”

  Dean picked up two empty bottles of rye and shoved them into the empty garbage can next to the threadbare recliner.

  “I’ve always loved her.”

  “Well, excuse me for saying but you got a crap way of showing it.”

  “I don’t…I don’t know how to do that right. I never have.”

  Dean stopped, gave Roy his attention.

  “Her mom and I, we were so young when we had her. We barely knew each other.”

  “That’s no excuse.”

  “I know. I know. But she just had those eyes, you know. Those level eyes that saw everything. And every time I looked at her all I could see was how much I was failing her.”

  “Well, you were. You did.”

  “So, how do I make that right? Huh? You got all the big ideas, you tell me how I start to make this right with her. Because I got no idea. Not one.”

  “Well, I imagine the first step is to stop drinking.”

  “Stop?” Roy laughed, a dry rumbly broken sound.

  “Stop. Or this is how you end. In this room all alone. And if that’s what you want, say the word and I’ll leave you to it.”

  Roy was silent, his mouth open. But he was standing there.

  Dean put another bottle in the garbage. A paper plate. Finally, the closer he go to the couch and the easy chair, the empty bottles turned into half-full bottles, and then mostly full bottles, and he grabbed as many of them as he could and shoved past Roy, who didn’t put up a fight.

  In the kitchen he cleared a bunch of junk out of the sink, throwing stuff on the floor. Cereal boxes and empty jars of peanut butter.

  Once the sink was clean, he began taking the caps off the booze and dumping it down the drain.

  Roy stood in the corner and watched him.

  “Then what?” Roy asked.

  “Call her.”

  “And say what?”

  “Say… let’s have lunch. Let’s have a coffee. Let’s go to church.”

  “She won’t go.”

  “Oh, you stupid son of a bitch, of course she’ll go.”

  It took him twenty minutes to drain all the booze he found in the den.

  “Is that all of it?” he asked. For a moment he felt bad for the man. Because he was a shell. Alone in a shitty, smelly house.

  Roy nodded. He could be lying, but since the man was living here alone, Dean wasn’t sure why he’d feel compelled to hide alcohol.

  “I’ve always liked you,” he said. “You are a mean, stubborn, blind son of a bitch. But I appreciate this job and the trust you’ve given me, running your land here. But—and I mean this, Roy, I really mean it—if you don’t stop drinking, I’m leaving.”

  Roy swallowed and ran a hand, wrinkled and thin, over his face.

  “Why are you doing this?” he asked, his eyes—Trina’s eyes—runny and mournful. There were a lot of regrets in those eyes.

  Because I love your daughter. I have always loved your daughter. And I’m never going to get a chance unless you start loving her too.

  Roy swallowed, as if he heard Dean’s thoughts. Or maybe he knew. Dean’s mother figured it out when he was a teenager. He’d never been very good at hiding his feelings.

  “Okay,” Roy said.

  “Okay you’ll quit?”

  “I’ll try. It will probably kill me.”

  It might.

  “You better get going if you want to make it to the party,” Roy said, sitting down at the kitchen table. Alone and lonely and surrounded by empty bottles and food containers.

  Dean shrugged out of his coat, pulled loose his tie.

  “I think I’ll stick around.”

  He cleaned up the house. Got the old man in the shower. Made him a sandwich.

  Looked up alcohol withdrawal on his phone and began to hunt down some supplies.

  They watched A Christmas Story on his old TV, and Roy wept, silent, awful tears.

  “I don’t know if I can do this,” Roy said.

  “Well, for your daughter, you’ve got to try.”

  It wasn’t the best Christmas Eve. But it was far from the worst.

  Chapter 6

  December 24, 2013

  10:32 PM

  Dean wasn’t sure where he should go. Which door was the right door? Why didn’t they mark these things better?

  But when he ran past the emergency room, the big glass doors opened, so he took that as a sign and sprinted in.

  It was warm in the emergency room. And quiet. The only sound was a tiny motion-sensor dancing snowman on the front desk to his left. It started singing “Jingle Bell Rock” the second he walked in.

  “Anyone here?” he called. It was the damn emergency room—where were the doctors?

  A nurse showed up behind the counter, wearing scrubs with wreaths on them. She had earrings wrapped up like presents.

  It was Christmas Eve.

  Briefly, because he couldn’t help it, because it was what he always did on Christmas Eve, he wondered where Trina was. If she was okay.

  “Can I help you?” the nurse asked.

  “I’m looking for Marion McKenzie. I’m her son.” The words were torn from his chest. He’d been a very bad son to his mother this last year.

  “Well, officially visiting hours are over, but since it’s Christmas and all.” The nurse dropped her voice and smiled at him. “I don’t think anyone will mind. Just follow the red arrows.”

  “She’s okay?” Dean asked, feeling like somethin
g was short-circuiting in his brain.

  “Well, she broke her wrist and the doctors are worried about a concussion.”

  “Concussion?”

  “Doctors are keeping an eye on her. There’s nothing to worry about.”

  Well, it sounded like doctors were worried about a concussion. He rubbed a hand over his face and the snowman started up again.

  Holy hell, he was going to tear that thing’s head off.

  As if the nurse knew, she pressed a button on the decoration, and the silence was blissful.

  “She’s on the second floor. Room 214. Go on up. She’ll be happy to see you.”

  Dean followed the red arrows to the elevator and punched the Up arrow. And then again, because the elevator was so damn slow. And then one more time, because it kind of felt good and he had a lot of fear and stress that had no place to go.

  Finally the silver doors opened. He stepped inside, then jabbed at the Close Door button.

  “Hold that! Excuse me. Hold the door.” He shoved his arm in the way of the closing doors, and they popped back open. There stood a woman in a silver ball gown. Something slinky and long that hugged a compact, strong body.

  Trina’s compact, strong body.

  “Dean!” She blinked at him, her arms full of soda cans and little bags of nuts and chips and licorice from a vending machine. “You’re here.”

  In jeans and T-shirt, in shapeless winter jackets, naked as a jaybird, she was and always had been the most beautiful woman in the world. And in that sexy, sophisticated dress she nearly dropped him to his knees.

  The sight of her was like getting bucked off a horse, a weightless sense of falling. And then a bone-jarring impact.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “Your mom fell,” she said, looking at him with wide eyes. “Didn’t you get the messages?”

  “I got the messages.” Three from his father. Two from Trina. He’d been cleaning his stuff out of Holly’s and missed the calls. “But you were fired.”

  “No. I quit. Big distinction. One your brother isn’t so keen on making clear.” The doors bounced back away from his arm again, and a buzzer started. “You gonna let me in or do I have to take the stairs?”

  He stepped out of her way.

  “You’re not family,” he said, and she blinked, stepping into the corner, like he’d put her there.

  “The nurse gave me a hard time about visiting hours, but you’re here and you’re not family.”

  “The nurse said it didn’t matter. Christmas Eve and everything.”

  Pretty lax around here with the rules, if you asked him.

  He reached past her and pushed the button for the second floor, and the silver doors slowly slid shut.

  I should have taken the stairs.

  It was claustrophobic and close in the elevator, and every breath he took tasted like her. No matter where he looked, he caught the flash of her dress in the corner of his eye. A mirage. He leaned back against the far wall as far from her as he could get.

  “You quit?”

  “Four months ago.”

  “But I heard—”

  “Josh has been telling everyone I was fired.”

  He told himself he didn’t care why she quit. Or why Josh was telling people she was fired. It was bullshit. Of course he cared.

  He looked at her and he…he just wanted her. And now, right now, he just wanted to grab onto her and hold her tight. And it hurt, a lot, that she didn’t want him. Not really.

  A piano version of “Silent Night” pumped out of the tinny speakers.

  He wanted to ask her if she’d played at the party, but he kept his mouth shut, the question stinging his lips.

  “They hired a harpist,” she said, watching the numbers switch over on the digital screen above the door. “She was good.”

  “Only the best for my folks,” he muttered with a darkness he couldn’t seem to control.

  She wrapped her arms over her chest as best she could with her hands full. He saw goose bumps on her shoulders and arms. And concern for her was a river he could not stop. No matter how hard he tried.

  “Where’s your coat, girl?” he asked.

  “Upstairs. I thought you’d be there tonight,” she said, over her shoulder at him.

  “At the party?”

  She nodded. Her creamy skin just a little pink.

  It would be nice to pretend, even for a second, that she’d dressed for him—in the hopes she’d see him. But he’d fallen victim to that kind of false warmth before. It was dangerous, that false warmth. It came right before hypothermia.

  “My invitation must have gotten lost in the mail.”

  The door slid open and she walked out of the elevator, leaving him in an eddy of her perfume. He’d never known her to wear perfume. It was nice. She smelled like rich flowers. And he wished he didn’t notice those things. Wished he could turn off the way he felt for this prickly, awkward woman who never ever looked at him the way he could not stop looking at her.

  The thin straps of her dress left her back bare, and he watched those thin muscles under her skin shift as she walked away.

  He followed her down a short hallway to a slice of light falling across the marble floor from an open door. She stepped ahead like she was going to push open the door, but he stopped her, his hand briefly touching her elbow. Just that, his fingers against her bare skin for a second, and electricity zipped between them.

  “Do you know what happened?” he asked.

  “You don’t?”

  “Just your messages. The texts. She fell?”

  “Ice on the steps. She fell, broke her wrist and hit her head. I found her—”

  “Found her?”

  “She was unconscious, just for a minute.”

  He took a deep breath and let fly with his worst suspicions. His darkest thoughts.

  “My father?”

  “Was inside the party. He didn’t…he wasn’t there. He’s not like that with her.”

  Dean knew that, but he lived with the fear that would change. That without Dean there to bully and slap, Dad would turn on his mom.

  “She’s okay?”

  “Fine. Really. Hungry.” She lifted the snacks she was holding in her arms.

  “Yeah, sorry. Let’s go.”

  Trina pushed open the door ahead of them. “Look who I found,” she said in a bright voice as Dean followed her into the small hospital room.

  Mom sat up in the bed, surrounded by pillows, wearing a blue silk robe from home. It was a run-of-the-mill hospital room. Pale yellow with nondescript pictures. But Mom turned it into something special. Something slightly regal. A queen’s sitting room, perhaps.

  “Dean!” Her smile was the same one she’d given him since he was a child. All warmth. All welcome. “You didn’t need to come out in this weather.”

  “Mom.” He leaned down to kiss her cheek, careful of her head and her arm in the sling. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here earlier. I got the messages late.”

  “Well, it’s a lot of fuss for nothing if you ask me.” She still wore her hair, white and snowy, up in a bun from the party. He touched one of the glittery pins that held it all in place. Her fancy hairdo seemed as out of place as Trina’s ball gown.

  “You would say that,” he said.

  Trina put the cans of soda and the junk food on the small rolling table beside Mom’s bed. “Here,” she said. “Let me get my stuff and you can have my seat.” She began to gather up all her things. A long cashmere coat. Black shoes. A purse.

  “No, honey, stay,” Mom cried, and Dean wondered when Trina became honey. “You were so hungry.”

  “I can grab something—”

  “It’s Christmas Eve. Nothing is open.”

  “Well.” Trina glanced over at him with unsure eyes.

  “Don’t leave on my account,” he said with just enough attitude that his mom cut him a surprised look.

  “Sit. Eat,” Mom said, and then looked over at him. “And you. Be n
ice.”

  “I’m nice,” he said, and sat down on the other empty bed. And once upon a time he’d been very nice to Trina. “Where’s Dad?”

  “Still at the party.”

  “What?” he cried, looking to Trina for confirmation. She’d cracked open the Cheetos bag and her fingers were covered with orange powder. She shrugged. “He let you come here alone?”

  “I’m not alone. Trina is here.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “There are two hundred people at our home tonight, Dean. Someone should be there.”

  “Yeah, and he should be by your side.”

  Mom sighed, heavily. “Open up those almonds for me, would you, Trina?”

  “Why are you acting like this is no big deal?”

  “Because there is no arguing with you about your father.”

  “That’s not Dean’s fault,” Trina said, shaking almonds into Mom’s open palm.

  Dean stared at Trina, surprised to hear her stepping up to his defense.

  “No,” Mom said with a sigh. “I don’t suppose it is. I swear, since the moment you were born, the two of you found something to fight about. If I put you to bed, you went down so sweet. If he tried bedtime it would be three hours of screaming and wailing. From the two of you.”

  He sighed, rubbed a hand over his face. He’d been a hearing a version of this story for as long as he could remember.

  “He’s the father,” Trina said, still staunchly defending him. “The adult. If anyone should rise above it, it should be him, don’t you think?”

  “Of course I think, but there’s no convincing Eugene of that.”

  Dean dropped his hand and stared at the two women. What was happening here?

  “I don’t think it’s fair to blame a child for something an adult didn’t do,” Trina said. She had a red blush climbing up from her neckline.

  “True,” Mom said. “But he’s not a child anymore, is he?”

  “You know I’m sitting right here,” Dean said. “I can hear you.”

  “Then hear this,” Mom said. “Your father is just a man, like any other. And the only power he has is the power you give him.”

  “That might work in your marriage, Marion,” Trina said. “But Eugene is Dean’s father. For years, he had all the power.”