Billy shook his head and took off out of the garage, into the cold air of the winter night and then through the back door into the heat of the kitchen.
A cake sat on the counter. At least he thought it was a cake, it was all decorated to look like a log. Leave it to Joanne.
For a second he didn’t see Joanne, sitting in the dark corner of the kitchen. But then she lifted her hand, which was wrapped around a beer. He’d never seen her drink anything alcoholic before and it stopped him in his tracks.
Disapproval made the air taste burnt.
“Have you seen Maddy?” he asked and Joanne leaned forward out of the shadows. Looking at her, it was real obvious that she was no ally. That he had been totally misguided thinking she was.
“You don’t know the mistake you’re making,” Joanne said, her eyes flat.
“I … I don’t think it’s a mistake. Neither does Maddy.”
“You sure about that?”
Billy rocked back on his heels.
“Mom.” Maddy stepped into the kitchen from the doorway that led to the den. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” she asked. “Don’t try and stop him from ruining your life?”
“Mom, he’s not ruining my life. I’m making a choice.”
“I would never hurt her,” Billy said, feeling like he needed to make his case. “I respect your daughter. I love her.”
“Would you give up hockey for her?” He blinked at her, stunned by the question.
“Mom, I would never ask him to give up hockey for me.”
“Really? Look what you’re giving up for him. College, your last semester of high school—”
“Those things don’t matter to me as much as Billy does.”
Joanne squeezed out from behind the banquette, her face white, her eyes red. “If I told you that if you marry him, you are no longer my daughter, would it change your mind?”
Billy felt his heart sink. How could she do that? How could she make her daughter choose?
“You know who I would choose, Mom,” Maddy said, her head held high, and he loved her at this moment more than he ever had. More than he thought he could.
Joanne nodded like her neck hurt, like her whole body hurt, and then she walked by him without another word, climbing up the stairs.
Across the distance of the kitchen, his eyes met Maddy’s and he knew the victory he felt was wrong, but it was there. She chose him. But as he watched her, that flinty strength seemed to soften, falter. Then she turned and headed back into the den where the Christmas tree glowed in the darkness.
Billy had always loved the Christmas tree in the Baumgarten house. Maddy and Joanne decorated it with blue and white lights and hung a thousand ornaments from each branch. Maddy had made most of the ornaments in grade school, and half of them were falling apart—with the glitter worn off or only a tiny piece of macaroni clinging to the red felt. It was the kind of tree a family should have. A tree that told a story about the people who lived in this house.
And the tree told a story about Maddy. About how much her parents loved her.
There were also a lot of Snoopy ornaments and Billy had never really understood what kind of story they told.
Maddy sat on her knees in front of the tree, presents in front of her like a wave she was holding back. Without saying anything he sat down beside her. Her face looked older in the blue and white lights. Different. A Christmas version of her he didn’t really know.
“I love you,” he said, because that was his strongest argument.
As he watched, a tear filled her eye and spilled down her cheek. “I love you, too,” she whispered, her voice cracking.
“Did you mean what you said? In there? That you’d pick me?”
“Of course.”
Suddenly, he realized what she would be giving up if Joanne made good on her threat. She would be giving up this tree and the decorations and the stories behind each one. He could feel her slipping away from him, inch by inch. It infuriated him. Anger reached for him with comforting hands.
Her dress had a pocket; he could see it gaping at her side and he reached for it. Shoving his hand inside.
“What … Billy?”
That pocket was empty and he shifted her, lifting her, using his strength to get her to do what he wanted. And it felt bad, but all of this felt bad, wrong. Fucking Christmas. He hated it. He’d told her he hated it. He’d told her he didn’t want to do this; he didn’t need this. He just needed her.
In her other pocket he felt the ring and he pulled it out, grabbed her finger and slipped it over the knuckle.
“Billy! You’re hurting me.”
“You’re hurting me!” he cried and then, at her horror, he turned away. “Your dad gave us permission to get married,” he finally said.
She laughed, dry and without humor. “My mom certainly didn’t.”
“You said you choose me!”
“I didn’t say it didn’t hurt!”
Just like that, the fight ran out of him and all he was left with was her sadness. His worry. And enough doubt to fill the house.
Suddenly, sitting beside her under these lights, in the house where she grew up feeling safe and cared for—where she was told she could be anything she wanted, do anything she wanted—he realized the mistake he was making.
“I’ll wait for you my whole life,” he told her. “My whole life.”
Her eyes, as they swung to him, were swimming in tears.
“We can get married on your birthday or ten years from now. It doesn’t matter to me. You.” He cupped her face, touched her eyelashes so the tears could fall and they did, a silver ribbon down her cheeks, over his thumb. “You are the most amazing person in the world. I love you more than anything and that is never going to change.”
“Billy—” She leaned forward, kissing his lips. She was salty and he savored the taste of her. The taste of her grief and confusion, because it was hers. He would take it away from her if he could, but she had to make this decision on her own.
Reluctantly, he pushed her away, smiling, as if to say it was all okay, when it felt just the opposite. “I don’t want to stand in your way.”
“I know, Billy. I do.”
“I want you to go to college and be a journalist. I want all of that for you. But if marrying me right now means that you might not do it, then I agree with your folks; we shouldn’t get married right now.”
She gasped, leaning back, and he smiled at the look on her face. “Again, not because—I don’t want to.” The tears fell faster over her cheeks and he had to go. He had to. He couldn’t sit here and suffer through her pain, not when the end result might be more pain for him. “I’ve … I’ve got an idea.”
“Uh-oh.” She smiled as if to show him she was joking, but he didn’t feel like laughing.
“On your birthday, I’ll be at the courthouse, just like we planned. And I’ll wait … all day. I’ll wait. Between now and then, you decide if you want to do this. Have Christmas with your family. And I’ll … I’ll do the same.” Her eyes closed and he pressed one more kiss to her mouth. “Two days for you to make sure this is what you want … that I’m what you want.”
“You’re always going to be what I want,” she said, her fingers twining into his shirt. She came up on her knees holding him to her with a grip of iron. Her lips crushed against his.
She would always want him. He understood that, but he noticed that she wasn’t telling him she didn’t need the two days. She wasn’t pushing away his plan with her declarations of love. In her silence she was agreeing that she needed the time and distance. She was agreeing that she wasn’t sure.
“I’m so tired of feeling this way,” she said. “One minute I’m sure and the next I’m scared and I keep thinking, maybe that’s normal. Maybe I’d feel that way if I was thirty. But I’m not, and … I don’t know what to do.”
It was like getting checked into the boards at full speed. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t think. Numb, like he’
d been standing outside for days. He stood up, and she fell over slightly at his feet.
“The day after Christmas,” he said, as much of a promise as he could make. And then, unable to look back at her, so beautiful under the Christmas tree, he walked through the house, grabbed his coat and hat and stepped out into the snow and dark.
After a block he put his coat on, tugged his hat over his ears, and jammed his hands into his pockets. At the corner of Spruce, he looked at his house, all of the windows dark. His sisters were gone. Denise had probably taken his twenty bucks someplace to get herself high or drunk, and Janice … maybe she was over at Aaron’s. Maybe she was down at Mickey’s Bar on the other side of the block.
If given the choice, he wouldn’t pick his sisters as family. He wouldn’t pick them as anything.
He’d pick Maddy, over and over again. His Christmas wish, every single year.
The building where he grew up wasn’t his home.
Maddy was.
Tucking his head down against the wind, he kept walking past his house, into the dark and swirling snow. He wished he could just walk for the next two days.
Chapter 4
Christmas morning dawned with a snowstorm that Maddy watched from her bed. There wasn’t any sleep for her, so she decided to head downstairs. There was no smell of bacon frying, no Christmas carols on the radio, so she had to guess that her mom wasn’t up yet. But it was seven according to her watch. Her mom should have been up by now.
She walked past her parents’ room. Nothing but silence behind the shut door.
Maddy had managed to ruin Christmas. Fantastic.
She crept down the stairs to the kitchen, where her dad stood by the counter, wrapped in his old gray robe, waiting for the coffee to brew.
“Morning, Mad,” he said with a smile. “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas, Daddy.” She collapsed into his familiar hug, wrapped in his warmth and the smell of Old Spice.
“Coffee?”
“Sure.”
Dougie picked out one of the Christmas mugs and filled it, adding a splash of milk before handing it to her. He poured some for himself and they stood there, watching steam rise from the top of Santa’s ceramic head.
“Mom’s not coming down?”
“She didn’t sleep last night.”
“She’s upset.”
Dougie laughed. “That’s one way of saying it.”
Maddy slumped, pushing her coffee onto the counter.
“Hey, hey,” Her dad said. “Come on, get your coffee. Let’s go sit down, look at the tree for a while.”
Wrapped in a blanket, Maddy sat in the chair she always sat in on Christmas morning, like everything was normal. Humming, trying so hard to keep the façade in place, Dougie reached behind the tree and plugged in the lights and the room was illuminated by the white and blue bulbs, shining and reflecting off the ornaments she and her mom had so carefully hung last week.
“It’s a real pretty tree.” Her dad sighed, balancing his mug on his knee.
“You say that every year.”
“Do I?” She nodded. “Well, every year, it’s a real pretty tree.”
Her mother’s spot at the end of the couch was glaringly empty and Maddy couldn’t help but look at it, her heart in her throat. What had she done to her family?
“You want to open presents?” he asked, and she laughed, the idea ridiculous.
“I wish your mom would come down. I don’t …” he rubbed his forehead. “I don’t do this as well as she does.”
“No,” she joked, putting forth the effort because her dad was trying so hard himself. “You don’t.”
The silence suddenly turned awkward and she rolled her hand into the edge of the red and black blanket over her shoulders.
“Is she okay?” Maddy asked. Her mom wouldn’t even talk to her after Billy had left.
“She’ll be fine.” He rubbed his thumb along the handle of his coffee mug and Maddy thought about what her mother had said last night. About how love had nothing to do with marriage.
“Do you … do you wish you and Mom—”
He held up his hand. “Stop. Right there. I love your mother. I would have married her whether or not she was pregnant.”
Maddy put her head in her hand, smiling at him, feeling something bright pierce her heart. “You love Mom.”
“Of course I do. No matter what.”
“She told me last night that there were things she wanted to do that she never got to do.”
Her dad twisted his lips. “Honey, I think … maybe … that’s life.”
“That’s life?” She sat forward, the blanket sliding off her shoulders. “That’s your advice?”
He shrugged. “I haven’t been able to do all the things I wanted to do, either. But I’ve also been able to achieve things I never even dreamed of. It seems to me that everything balances out. Maybe for your mom it doesn’t.”
That seemed so sad; the saddest thing in the world to her. That her dad could be so devoted and grateful, while her mom was full of regrets. Had it always been that way? Was their beginning so badly colored?
“Do you like Billy?” she asked, and her father nodded.
“Do you think we’re making a mistake?”
“I think you’re young. You don’t see it like your mom and I do, but you’ve got a lot of life ahead of you. And Billy … Billy isn’t going to be easy.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“I think you don’t have any idea what’s ahead of you.”
“But … I love him.”
He nodded. “You do. It’s true.”
“What if we didn’t get married?” She said. “What if I just moved—” The look on his face made her stop. It all seemed ridiculous to her. She and Billy were having sex, and her parents knew it. Why would it matter if they lived together while having that sex? Well, her dad apparently cared, and for some reason Billy was all fired up to make things official.
“Is … is loving him enough?”
Dougie took a sip of coffee. “No one can answer that but you, honey.”
Right. She’d had a feeling that would be his answer.
“Dad,” she groaned.
“Look, honey, this is your decision. Yours. I tell you to do it, and maybe you’ll dig in your heels and say ‘no’ just because of what I said. I tell you not to, and maybe you’ll get mad at me and marry Billy in a temper. This is between the two of you; I got nothing to do with it. You want to make an adult decision, make it like an adult.”
From the pocket of her robe she pulled out the ring Billy had given her and put it over her finger, sliding it back and forth over her knuckle.
What matters? she thought. What really matters right now? Time? Age? No.
College? She could do that. Marriage wouldn’t eliminate that possibility.
Mom’s opinion? It hurt, but she could do this without her. That was true.
“Can I tell you something?” Her dad asked.
“Yes. Please.”
“Any promise you make, whether it’s to your school, or your family, or to Billy, half of the promise is commitment and the other half is faith. Faith that your commitment is enough. There’s no right or wrong answer, honey. None.”
She stared down at her ring, his words ringing in her head like bells.
“I’m going to make some breakfast,” Her dad said, his knees creaking as he stood up from his chair. As he walked by he leaned down to kiss the top of her head before passing her.
Without a doubt that was the longest conversation she’d ever had with her father. Perhaps the longest conversation anyone had ever had with her father.
Faith, Maddy thought. The word starved her doubts, slowly killing them, filling her with nothing but the power of her own commitment. She was strong. Tough. Her promise could weather a lot of storms.
She wanted desperately to call Billy, to hear his voice, let his strength lift her up, but she had to come to him with enough fa
ith on her own.
The stairs squeaked and she heard, from the kitchen, the soft rumble of voices. Her mother was awake. Maddy put down her coffee and silently stepped into the doorway.
Her dad was running his hand over her mom’s back in wide strokes, as if he was touching as much of her as he could.
Her mom held herself away, so hard, so brittle. For the first time in her life Maddy realized her parents might not be happy. Their marriage, the framework of her entire life, might be rotten. It was so shattering that she couldn’t breathe.
“Hey,” Dougie whispered. “She was going to leave at some point.”
“Eighteen, Dougie …”
“I know. I know. But if we stop her, or try to stop her, or make her choose—”
Maddy held her breath.
“I know,” Joanne sighed, ducking her head slightly into his chest.
“Hey, honey.” Her dad was wearing his work pants, Maddy noticed, even on Christmas morning. He shifted, walking her mom to the front door, underneath the mistletoe.
“It’s Christmas,” he said. Her mother lifted her face, round and splotchy, to look at the mistletoe. Her smile, though weary and rueful, was there. It banished some of the darkness. Some of the doubt that had crowded into the edges of the house.
And in her heart.
That smile gave Maddy permission to do this, to make this crazy step. To try even though it seemed ridiculous.
Joanne wrapped her hands around Dougie and kissed him under the mistletoe.
Maddy felt tears prick her eyes, heartbroken because she’d hurt this woman who loved her so well, and because it was inevitable in some ways. Already, she felt herself pushing away from the shoreline that was her family, out into open water, where Billy waited.
Her mother caught sight of her and smiled, sad and knowing, as if she saw all of that on Maddy’s face.
There was nothing to say.
“Merry Christmas, honey,” Her mom said. “You want some breakfast?”
Billy got to City Hall before security had even opened the door. The sky was blue and purple, snow heavy in the air. His breath clouded around his head. He wanted to be hopeful, he wanted to truly believe that she was going to be here, but … but now he didn’t have that faith. The roller coaster of the last few days was starting to make him sick. Truly sick. Waking up in that house this morning, with Janice’s cigarette smoke already poisoning the air, he felt like he was drowning. After years of having Maddy beside him, if not in the flesh, at least in spirit, this morning he had woken up alone.
All I Want for Christmas Is You (Short Story) Page 4
