12 Deaths of Christmas

by Paul Sating

  “I’m surviving.” Her words were soft, her touch lingered. “The town has been good to me. The ladies have been great, of course. Taking turns coming over, bringing food that I didn’t eat. You remember the ladies, don’t you? You know how they can be.”

  He bit his comment off short. I know how they can be, he thought. “Yeah, that’s cool of them.”

  The ladies were Rhonda, Cecilia, and Jane, three busybodies who spent more time worrying about how others lived their lives than how to improve their own. Even back in high school, he found their intervention annoying and, sometimes, upsetting. The ladies had caused arguments between his parents, almost every time they interjected themselves into a situation. Their meddling was behind a lot of the unpleasant voice messages his mother left him when she found out that her son was never going to bring home a ‘nice, young lady’. They were the types of friends who changed people, even people like his mother. One thing Sam and his father saw eye-to-eye on was how this “Council of Ladies” changed Bethany, and not in a good way. Sam doubted the three were any less vexatious now.

  Bethany pulled away, turning back and heading into the kitchen, “Go put your things away and join me for coffee. You look like you need it.”

  He wasn’t about to argue.

  As with the rest of the homes around the town of Silver Plume, his old room looked as it had all those years ago. Only the absence of music posters, replaced by pieces of Americana art, indicated life had moved on without him. Knick-knacks, ranging from the gaudy to the horrendous, cluttered the room. This was a shrine of anything and everything Western themed. The room was an offense to God.

  Sam collapsed on the bed, promising himself he would get up in a minute and join his mother for coffee.

  But he didn’t. He fell asleep and didn’t wake up until the sun cut off the mountain tops.

  “Good morning, honey,” Bethany smiled when he walked into the kitchen. Eggs crackled on the stove top.

  “I’m sorry about falling asleep on you,” Sam apologized, scratching his head.

  Bethany’s face scrunched, “No need for that. You were exhausted from the flight. And you’re a busy boy.”

  Her expression betrayed her words. Sam came around the counter and gave Bethany a kiss on the cheek. He felt like shit. “I’ll take some of that coffee though.”

  Bethany pointed to the cupboard behind her. “I moved the cups over there. You know where everything else is. This isn’t one of your fancy New York diners or anything, so you’ll have to fend for yourself. That’s how —”

  “We do it out here,” Sam finished the oft-repeated sentiment with a sly smile. His father, Roger, was a champion of traditional values and often bemoaned that the rest of the country could learn something from ‘times before.’ There were a lot of outdated and ugly sentiments buried in his ambiguity. That’s probably what kept him in this crevice of the world, Sam figured. And resisting that mindset was exactly what got Sam out of Silver Plume.

  Soft whimpering drew his attention away from thoughts of this dead town and his dead father. Bethany leaned on the counter, the smell of burnt eggs filling the kitchen, sobbing into her shoulder. Embarrassed.

  Sam put an arm around her, squeezing her to him. “I’m here, Mom.”

  Bethany wiped her tears on her blouse and shook her head without meeting his eyes. “Don’t mind me. I’m being silly.”

  “No you’re not, stop that.”

  She collapsed. “I can’t believe he’s gone,” she bawled. “It’s Christmas. How am I going to get through Christmas without him?”

  Sam had no answer. The holidays were always a special time for her. She loved decorating, hosting friends—mostly the ‘council of ladies,’ a nickname his father gave to her tight-knit group of three women who spent more time with each other than their own families—for dinners, gift exchanges, and leading the church’s music ministry caroling events. Roger had always been there with her, complaining the entire time, but always by her side. Now she was going to have to do it alone.

  She did nothing alone.

  “I know. I can’t either.” It was all Sam could think to say. How else could he deal with the fact that his mother was out here alone and that his father was gone? The suddenness stripped the situation of sense. Sam never planned on coming back to Silver Plume … or even seeing his father again. But he couldn’t find it within himself to miss a man who’d been so hard, so cruel. So callous. Even now, holding his grieving mother, he found it difficult to mourn. A character flaw or part of being a human, finding the motivation to miss someone who rejected him at every opportunity was useless.

  Still, something wasn’t sitting right.

  Bethany continued sobbing into his chest. “I just—I wish you two had made peace. He wanted that. Now he’ll never get it.” Sobbing racked her body and she sagged against him. Sam walked her over to a chair, pulling it out without dropping her.

  He squatted. “It’s okay. We had some talks from time to time, and everything turned out okay.” Sam squeezed her hand and gave her a tight-lipped smile to hide his lie.

  Bethany’s head shot up, her eyes growing large as she tried to blink away the tears. “You did? But … he never said anything.”

  Sam patted her leg. “You know how he could be.” All good lies are grounded in truth.

  His mother nodded, wiping away a tear with a fat knuckle. “His pride was strong, throughout his life. He better work on that before I see him again,” she cry-laughed, a bubble of mucus expanding from her nostril. Sam fetched the tissue box. “I’m so glad you two talked. Who—how? What happened, Sam? Please tell me.”

  Sam gave her hand one more squeeze. “I will, just not now.” He nodded toward the crispy eggs in the pan sitting on the stove top. “I need to rescue those eggs from their suffering and get you some breakfast.”

  Bethany coughed a second laugh. This one weaker. Sam’s chest swelled, the blizzard of guilt subsiding slightly. A few days of support, he thought. That’s all she needs. Then I can head home.

  The scrambled eggs were as hard as shotgun pellets. Sam tossed them in the garbage and made French toast instead. French toast cured everything, from adolescent skinned knees to high school broken hearts. It was the family’s staple comfort food. The pair ate in relative silence, interrupted only by a smattering of conversation about how things were going in New York. Sam couldn’t resist the feeling that she was actually interested in his life in the big city. Before long he was sharing more than he thought he would. Was this the new world without his father? Freer? All the resistance to his other life dissipated now that it wasn’t anchored in his father’s aversion to it? The breakfast chat quickly became the deepest conversation they’d had in years. Sam shared details of his life he never thought he would—what he did for fun, the work at the charity; even his love life. And he did so without fear of condemnation from a man who didn’t want to understand it in the first place.

  It was good to connect with her like this again. Very good. He should have written and called more often.

  But doing that would’ve put her in a difficult position. It didn’t matter if she’d been braver and accepted who he was, because Roger never would have, even if he’d outlived everyone. And Roger’s word was law. Judge. Jury. And executioner. How much verbal poison had Sam willfully swallowed to avoid putting his mother in an unenviable position between the two men she loved? But only one of those men had been around, day-in and day-out. And that was why he vented to friends in New York while avoiding being vulnerable with his mother in Colorado.

  For the first time in his life, he was being real with the woman who believed she knew him better than anyone in the world. He didn’t have to hide anything, except the sudden joy he felt at their growth. His father was taken in a car accident and he sat at that man’s table, bursting at the seams to tell the world that he was finally free.

  “Well, this was wonderful, Sam,” Bethany reached out and touched the back of his hand. “I’m very, ver
y happy for you.”

  Sam squeezed her hand in return. He could feel it coming, the cloud of guilt, returning. His chest clutched, squeezed with the urgency of need. What if she became ill a month from now? Colorado winters were harsh. What if she was taken in the blink of an eye like his father? And what if he never had the opportunity to be completely honest with her? Would he be able to face himself again? His father? He wasn’t relevant anymore; undeserving of the honesty Sam wanted to share with his mother. “I’m sorry I didn’t come home more. It’s just that … that …”

  Bethany squeezed his hand even tighter with surprising strength as if she didn’t want him to explain because explaining would strip the innocence from their conversation. “I know he wasn’t easy on you and I’m not going to make excuses for him; not anymore. I’m very happy for you and I understand you did what you felt you needed to do. No mother would ever fault her son for that.”

  For the first time during this visit, Sam fell tears burning his eyes. “Thanks, Mom.” Mechanical, Sam had to force his gratitude through a constricted throat to stay strong for her.

  Bethany stood, moving on from the tender moment he thought she longed for and straightened her blouse. “What do you say we get cleaned up? The ladies will be by in a short while and I don’t want them to see the kitchen like this. They’d think I’m incapable of cleaning up after myself. Then I will never get them out of the house.”

  Sam laughed. “Deal. I actually wanted to go out for a little bit anyway.”

  Bethany stopped what she was doing. “Oh … to see your friends?”

  Sam didn’t have friends in the area. He lost contact with most of them as soon as he came out. I didn't lose them, he reminded himself. They chose to ostracize me. They couldn’t abandon him fast enough. God, he hated Silver Plume. “No, I …” he drew a slow breath, “… I want to run out to where it happened, Mom. I need to see it.”

  I just don’t want to tell you why.

  Bethany’s bottom lip quivered. For a second Sam thought that all the hard work they’d done to give her a reprieve from her mourning had unraveled. But his mother stopped, biting down on her bottom lip and blinking away tears. She was a rock, pain corralled once again. “Okay. Don’t be gone for too long.”

  On second thought, should he stay? What if she felt abandoned again?

  “I won’t,” he said, cleaning up the table and kitchen. “Why don’t you sit out front? It’s a beautiful morning and you deserve to relax. I can bring your coffee out to you.”

  If she was outside when her ‘council of ladies’ showed up, he might avoid having to deal with them. This entire situation was miserable enough; he didn’t need those old hags teaming up against him, reminding him of his duties to his mother.

  Before he could even finish cleaning the dishes, a Chrysler whipped into the driveway, kicking up a small cloud of brown dust behind it.

  The ladies were already here. Like clockwork. Jumping in the shower would be a great way to avoid them, but Bethany would find that rude. They weren’t going to deny him a visit to the accident site; he needed it. Rudeness be damned. Sam needed to process everything. These ladies were capable of marathon visits when he was younger, and the way the three of them bounced out of the Chrysler indicated they hadn’t lost any of their spryness.

  Right now he needed this to be about him and his own style of mourning.

  “Are you taking care of your mother?” Rhonda, a woman two sizes too large for good health, professed in full sorrowful spirit. No greeting. No pleasantries. An actress on a stage. She crossed her arms, almost challenging Sam to defy her.

  But he wasn’t interested. The three of them were exhausting. He never understood what his mother got out of this circle of friendship but, whatever it was, he wanted no part of it. They could piss off back over to Georgetown for all he cared.

  But his mother needed these ladies more than ever now. They were there for her when he wasn’t, and they were going to need to be over the next few months as she mourned. Sam tried to not focus on the attraction to drama this group of women had. That would get them deeper into his business, and that wasn’t going to happen anymore.

  Mom needs them. That’s all that matters.

  Coming back home wasn’t in the cards, and she would need someone until he could convince her that her future was on the East Coast. For the sake of their relationship, to support her, he was curt without being rude. “Listen, I’m sorry, but I have a few things I need to take care of. Do you mind hanging with Mom until I get back?”

  That would appeal to their small-world self-importance. Providing them with a sense of purpose they’d already determined for themselves would give him a chance to break away.

  Rhonda scowled. Jane and Cecilia mirrored her expression as if an invisible puppet master controlled all three. The light of judgment loomed large. After a moment of uncomfortable examination, the three ladies nodded in unison. “Of course,” Rhonda’s face jiggled. Her dark eyes didn’t waver. Sam clutched his jacket closed. “You be careful. Your mother needs you now, more than ever before. Don’t forget that.”

  Cecilia and Jane nodded in rapacious rhythm from their support positions behind Rhonda.

  Sam accepted Rhonda’s stern guidance without much thought, grateful to be away from them. As soon as he closed the rental car’s door and started the engine the weight pressing down on him dissipated. Without waiting for Rhonda to move her car, Sam navigated around it, backing out of the driveway.

  It wasn’t until he was already heading out of town that he realized he hadn’t kissed his mother goodbye. That was going to hurt her. Even though he’d be back in an hour or so. Dumbass.

  Too late now, he thought as he got off the interstate and weaved through the square neighborhoods of Georgetown, heading out towards Guanella Pass Road. He’d make it up to her when he got home. He sure as hell wasn’t going back there to face their scrutiny after he’d just confirmed his selfishness to her visitors.

  Rolling hills rose up to meet soft mountain peaks on both sides of the road. Everything became trickier here. The mountain pass was littered with sharp switchbacks. Even natives were careful with them, especially in the middle of the winter.

  Which was why his father’s accident didn’t make sense. Roger was a life-long resident of Silver Plume, as native as any Coloradoan of European descent could be. Sam rode along with him enough to know that switchbacks weren’t an issue, not when he was drunk and not even on icy roads.

  The day before the accident was unseasonably warm, according to the report. Sunlight heated the surrounding snowpack, which melted onto the road and froze overnight. Sam’s father took the turn too fast, the sheet of ice sending him and his truck careening down the mountainside.

  His father fished every weekend. Over his life, he must have driven the s-curve thousands of times, half of them while he was blitzed out of his mind. As bad as he handled Sam’s sexuality, Roger knew how to handle these roads.

  The accident shouldn’t have happened.

  But his truck had careened off the switchback straight off the edge of the world, diving and tumbling over boulders, through the ponderosa pine trees, and back down to the pass.

  Sam was careful to park as far onto the shoulder as he could so that anyone whipping around this hairpin turn didn’t take out his car and leave him stranded. Standing at his father’s death site, the scars of the accident were plain to see. Two parallel black lines traced the trail off the road. Chipped and cracked boulders would now serve as eternal markers of Roger’s memory. Below, a dozen ponderosa pines showed their scars, the victims of a vehicle propelled too fast into them. The wreckage was gone but the wounds it inflicted on the world wouldn’t be so easily erased.

  The mountain peaks watched over him as he contemplated the last moments of his father’s life. Griffith Mountain and its partner, Alpine peak, side-by-side, fellowshipped with him in the serene loss. Off to the northwest, Silver Blue Mountain beckoned him home. A few miles wes
t, Grace Peak, unseen but omnipresent, an anchor to his origins, watched him. This was home, the foundation upon which his mother built him into the man he was. The irony was, her efforts were what allowed him to leave this area and chase a life he’d always dreamed of living.

  Could he do it? Could he take her away from this place that served as her universe? Could he be that selfish to take his own mother away from everything she knew and needed?

  That wasn’t true. She needed him and in a few days he would return to New York and leave her to fend for herself. He wasn’t taking her away; he was walking away. Sam was sick to his stomach, not at the memory of a father lost, but of the mother he was about to lose.

  But this was his chance to convince her that a new start might be exactly what she needed. Maybe his only chance. Once she fell back into her routine she would never leave Silver Plume. It was now or never.

  From below, Sam could hear the roar of a car engine as it strained to make the climb up the pass. He shook his head. Probably someone from Denver screwing around. People from the city often considered the Rockies to be their personal playground. They never showed concern for the people who actually lived in the small towns that dotted the ranges and valleys. The car was speeding. If they didn’t slow down they were going to be in a world of hurt. The approaching switchback would be a pointed reminder why city people needed a dose of humility when they came out here.

  Sam judged the roar of the engine, the speed at which the car approached from below. It approached too quickly to decelerate in time unless it was a very experienced and skilled driver. But they would have to be familiar with this pass, they would have to know the danger they were putting themselves in. Natives didn’t drive the passes like that. They knew the inherent danger.