Faking Christmas(76)

She cleared her throat and wiped at her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be doing this.”

“Mom, I need to see you cry.”

Her face looked up to mine. “What?”

I stared at her, collecting the thoughts that suddenly rang so true in my mind. It wasn’t that I couldn’t find it in me to be happy for her or even try to get along with Russ. After this week, I truly felt like I could do that. But I needed to know my dad was still a part of our lives.

“I need to see that you miss Dad. I’ve been dreading Christmas because I didn’t want to feel like we were forgetting him. I don’t go home anymore because Dad’s not there. And it doesn’t look like he’s ever been there. Which…I get it, but you’ve got someone new, and you seem so happy all the time, and we never talk about him, and I…” I broke off, willing my emotions to settle, but this conversation had been too long in the making. There was too much that needed to be said.

Her hand grasped my arm. “I have been happy. Russ is a good man. He’s brought fun into my life that I never imagined having again. But I’ve also been sad. I’ve been worried. I’ve felt guilty. I’ve been crying for your dad while married to another man. I’ve been trying to put on a happy face for you kids. I’ve been so many things that I don’t know what I am anymore.”

I turned to face her, both of us clasping the other’s arms while we released our built-up emotions.

“Do you think you jumped in too soon? Should you have waited to get married again?” I blanched as soon as I said the words. Perhaps I was pushing things too far.

“No,” she said gently. “You have to understand. I was so tired.” Her voice broke, and she took a minute to wipe her eyes.

“You had every right to be tired, Mom. You had just buried your husband.”

She shook her head. “No. It was more than that. I began grieving him when the doctor said the word terminal. It was the slowest and most torturous way to watch somebody you love die. Two years of getting your heart broken every day was almost more than I could take.”

She leaned forward, wiping her eyes. The whiffs of her coconut shampoo next to my nose made her seem so human somehow. It was easy to forget that moms could be human.

“I know. We were all part of that.”

“Even with all of that, do you know what the hardest part was?”

I wiped at the hot stubborn tear making a run down my cheek. “What?”

“Watching my children watch their dad die.”

Hot tears fell from both eyes now, drenching my cheeks. Her arm slipped around my waist and pulled me to rest on her shoulder. It got to be too much to keep wiping the tears away, so I let them come. I wondered if it was possible to cry all the tears out. I’d certainly had my fill the past twenty-four hours. I had always allowed myself to cry in private. But outside my doors, I was a rock. A machine. Holding myself rigid so as not to break. Any cracks or flaws at all and I would be done. Broken. I refused to be broken at work, or with my family. Only alone. Only at home.

But now I started to wonder if maybe being broken wasn’t a flaw. Maybe it was a beautiful shard of glass that could one day be made into a vase again. Maybe the flaw gave it character. It couldn’t be whole again, but it could be pieced back together—each unique shard helping to press and hold the others into place, some glue around the edges. Almost like new.

“When your dad passed away, I was devastated. You have to know that.” She waited until I looked over at her, finding her through the blur in my eyes. “But I was also so relieved. For me. For him. He was finally out of pain. And our family could finally start to rebuild.”

My dad’s looming death had been this weight pressing down on our family for two years. I remember, at the funeral, being able to breathe deeply for the first time in a long while. In the end, his death hadn’t scared me. It was the change of it all that frightened me, left me crippled. What would happen to our family now that he was actually gone?

“I know my relationship with Russ happened fast. I know you’ve all had a hard time catching up. And I’m so sorry for that. I didn’t expect it myself.”

“It’s okay,” I whispered. “I’m going to try harder to get to know him better—just as long as we still keep Dad around every once in a while.” My words came out like I was half teasing, but I was very serious. For the first time, I could start to envision a path for myself that included Russ in my peripheral view. But I needed to know that my dad would still be a part of our lives.

“I just want to make sure we still talk about him. I want to meet up at his favorite restaurant to celebrate his birthday. I want to watch Home Alone every Christmas. And make Poor Man’s Sloppy Joe’s every once in a while, just because he would love it.”

Mom laughed at that. “We all hated that meal—including him.”

“I know, but lately, I’ve had a weird craving for it.”

I draped my head gently on my mom’s shoulder. The tears leaking from my eyes were of the peaceful variety now. We re-hashed old memories and phrases my dad used to say. Through sniffles and smiles, she smoothed my tear-soaked hair, her fingers lightly brushing my cheek as we talked of moments with my dad that had stayed with us. Her words spilled out in a contemplative whisper, and ever so slowly, a healing balm began to spread over my dry, cracked heart.