Not that big a deal?
Remembering how Meg used to make a chart to count down the days until they bought the tree, Anna felt inexplicably like crying. The child’s excitement had been infectious. When are we going to the forest? Can we go right now? She’d been telling herself that there was plenty of time before they left home, but there wasn’t, was there? The conversation tonight had made her feel as if they were already halfway through the door.
She wished it were possible to grip tightly to time to stop it disappearing.
Were the lovely family Christmases she cherished so much now a thing of the past? Was that part of their lives gone forever?
“You don’t want to choose the tree?”
“I mean, obviously I’d love to if life wasn’t so busy,” Meg said in a bright voice. “But let’s be honest. You usually decide anyway. Dad says too tall, get a smaller one, and you say no, I want a big one. If Daniel and I pick one it’s always lopsided, or not bushy enough—you know what you want and you get it. Same outcome, every year. Cut out the middleman, I say. We don’t need to be part of it.”
But wasn’t that the whole point? Being part of it? Arguing over the tree was part of tradition, but it seemed she was the only one who saw it that way.
She imagined picking up the tree herself when she went to the farmers’ market. No input from anyone else. No smiles and anticipation because the whole thing, from the scent of pine to the prick of the needles, was about creating a festive atmosphere. Just another item on her shopping list. Carrots, potatoes, bag of apples—tree. Nothing special about it.
“It’s something we’ve always done together. I don’t want you to miss out.”
“Don’t worry about that.” Meg waved a hand. “We’ll love whatever you get.”
Anna searched for a flicker of regret in her daughter’s face and failed to find even a glimmer.
It seemed Anna was holding on to something that everyone else had already let go.
And right then and there she made the decision she’d been struggling to make.
“Right. Dad and I will buy the tree. We’ll need to do it this weekend because I’m going away in the middle of December, with Claudia and Erica.” Even saying it felt wrong and she waited, half hoping for appalled looks and a chorus of What? Don’t go, Mom!
That was the week they did all their Christmas shopping, wrapped gifts, decorated the house.
No one said anything, so she tried again. “I’ll be away for the whole week. The full seven days. But don’t panic.”
No one appeared to be panicking although Pete sent her a quizzical look. Although she’d mentioned rearranging the book club when her usual summer trip with her friends had been canceled back in the summer, he’d obviously forgotten that Christmas had been mentioned as a possible date. Or maybe he hadn’t thought she’d actually choose to go away at Christmas.
The kids didn’t react at all, and for a wild moment she wondered what would happen if she didn’t come back for Christmas. If she didn’t arrange all the food, and string lights and winter wreaths and garlands around the house, and help everyone hang stockings above the fireplace for Santa. Would they even bother doing it themselves, or would they just treat it like another day of the week?
She gritted her teeth. “Are you hearing me? I’m going to be away for a week.”
Meg helped herself to garlic bread. “Sounds great, Mom. I think it’s great that people of your age still have friends.”
People of her age?
“Friendship isn’t just for the young, Meg.” If anything, you needed your friends more as the years passed; at least she did.
“I know. That’s what I tell Dana and Maya. Don’t sweat the small things because we’re in this for the long haul and we’re still going to support each other when we have wrinkles and no teeth. Although I don’t intend to ever have wrinkles, which is why I asked Santa for high-factor sunscreen. Have fun, Mom. And say hi to Erica. Lucky you spending a week with her. She is so cool.”
Erica was cool, it seemed, whereas Anna was boring old Mom whose mere presence at a school concert was an embarrassment.
Hurt gnawed behind her ribs.
“What has Erica done to earn the title of cool?”
Meg shrugged. “She’s the boss, isn’t she? I mean, she flies all over the world first class, and people pay her a fortune to give them advice on stuff. She stands up and gives presentations to thousands of people. That talk she did has had like sixty million views on YouTube. She has focused her life on her career and doesn’t ever apologize for it.”
Anna considered Erica’s lifestyle to be bordering on the unhealthy but maybe that was because she knew much more about Erica than her children did.
She knew that one of the reasons Erica had focused on her career was because her mother, disillusioned and struggling after Erica’s father had vanished from the scene when she was born, had drummed into her that she should never, ever rely on anyone except herself for anything. She knew that although Erica would never admit it, her childhood had left her so focused—she wouldn’t use the phrase screwed up exactly, or maybe she would—on the importance of independence that she wasn’t capable of sustaining a romantic relationship. Erica never leaned on anyone, or relied on anyone, although she was more than generous with her own time. When one of her friends was in trouble, she was there to provide whatever support they needed.
Anna glanced at Pete and felt a rush of love. If she stumbled, she trusted him to catch her and she knew he felt the same way about her. She didn’t ever doubt that he’d be there for her. Some people might have thought she was naive, but she knew she wasn’t. She trusted him completely.
She’d felt this way right from the day she’d met him. She’d been working in the college library and seen a gorgeous man with ridiculously long eyelashes so absorbed in a book that he hadn’t noticed the girls hovering close, sending him longing glances. She’d just finished the same book, so she’d handed him the next in the series and he’d invited her back to his room to share a bottle of wine and discuss it.
Twenty-two years and two kids later, they were still drinking wine together, laughing and talking about books. Right through college they’d been “Anna and Pete,” and they were still Anna and Pete.
Erica, who had flitted from partner to partner even at college, had never understood how the two of them could be so content, but Anna thought that was probably because Erica had never been willing to fully trust someone. She’d never had a truly intimate relationship.
Erica had never put herself in a position where a man could walk out and ruin her life, the way her father had.
Anna thought about it sometimes. She thought about Erica’s father and wondered what sort of man would walk away from his wife and newborn baby. She tried to imagine Pete doing the same, but it was impossible to imagine it because Pete would no more walk away from his children than he would walk away from Anna.
Over the years she’d entertained hopes that Erica would meet someone and fall in love—Claudia blamed Anna’s addiction to romances—but it had never happened. And now Erica was forty.