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“I’m not being irrational. Maybe if you actually apologized, things could be different at some point in the future, but you couldn’t even do that.” There was a long pause, and then Tori laughed, but it was far from being a happy laugh. “Nothing to apologize for? You made your own granddaughter cry on Thanksgiving.” Another short pause. “No, she doesn’t need to grow up. You do.”
When there was an extended silence, I figured that meant Tori must have ended the call. I waited a few more seconds then walked into the kitchen.
Tori cringed when she saw me. “How much of that did you hear?”
“Enough to know that your mom’s an asshole.”
Tori rolled her eyes, but a small smile parted her lips. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
“I think you’re an amazing mom. Did you know that?”
“Nope. Totally didn’t know that. It’s not like you remind me every single day.”
“Speaking of children…” I looked down at my phone that read 8:42 a.m. “I can’t believe ours are still asleep.”
“I’m not surprised. I heard them giggling together for a long time after we put them to bed last night.”
“You heard them? I thought you went to bed right after they did.” I tried my best to hide the hurt in my voice. It really felt like Tori was avoiding me, at least at night time.
Tori shrugged. “I tried. I couldn’t sleep.”
I wanted to tell her that she could have come to my room if she couldn’t sleep, but apparently, that wasn’t something we were doing anymore. “So, I was thinking about Bella’s birthday. I know you’re obviously having that party for her at the barn in January, but I thought maybe the four of us could do something this week for her actual birthday. Maybe go on a little trip or something?”
“The four of us?”
I didn’t know if Tori was honestly confused or if she was playing dumb to try to avoid the question. I had a bad feeling it was the second option. “Yeah. Me, you, Emery, and Bella. The barn is already closed down for the holidays. We have a half day on Wednesday then I’m off until after New Year’s. I could even see if they can find a last minute sub for Wednesday morning for me. Then we could leave on the night of Bella’s birthday.”
Much to my disappointment, Tori shook her head. “I don’t think that’s the best idea since we’re hosting Christmas on Sunday, then have Willow’s party at the barn two days later.”
Coming from anyone else, you might have believed they actually thought that was too much to pack into a short amount of time, but with Tori I knew it was a lie. She was always up for an adventure. Whenever she came up with a crazy idea when we were younger, she would say, “Come on. We can sleep when we’re dead.” After Willow died, she changed it to, “Let’s go. We need to live like Willow.”
“All right. No worries. Just thought I’d ask. I’m going to go make sure the girls are actually breathing.” I turned to walk away, but after only a few steps, I thought better of it. A voice inside my head (which sounded a lot like Willow’s) was telling me that if there was something on my mind, I needed to just say it, so I turned back around. “This might be a silly question, but you’re not avoiding me, are you?”
“I see you every day. If I was trying to avoid you, I’d say I’m pretty bad at it, wouldn’t you?”
“Yeah, I guess so.” I smiled to try to make it seem like I believed that, but I didn’t. Not one bit.
***
By the time Christmas Eve came, I was fully convinced Tori had lied to me. She insisted on shopping for the long list of items we needed to host Christmas on Wednesday morning when she knew I could have gone with her if she just waited until the afternoon. When I offered to stay home with her and Bella on Christmas Eve rather than going to the Christmas Eve Service at the Stones’ church, she insisted that I go. At first, I assumed she was just trying to be nice since she probably thought I wanted to go, but when Emery and I got home from the service (which wasn’t that late), Tori and Bella were already asleep.
When I woke up on Christmas morning to both Emery and Bella jumping on my bed and screaming about presents, I assumed Tori was probably hiding in her room. I was surprised when I noticed the smell of bacon then found her in the kitchen making breakfast for all of us.
“Merry Christmas, everyone,” she said as we entered the room. “Did you see that Santa came?”
I wanted to be annoyed at Tori for the fact that I was the reason Santa had come, but she looked unfairly cute in her dinosaur Christmas onesie. Any residual anger melted away with one look at her. So unfair.
When I walked over to see what she was cooking, Tori leaned in to whisper to me. “Thanks for setting out the presents. Please accept all of this food as an apology for how weird I’ve been acting lately.”
There it was. “Ah, so you’re finally admitting that you’ve been weird. Care to admit why that is?”
Much to my chagrin, Tori shook her head. “Don’t worry about it. Just know that it’s going to change. I promise. No more weirdness.”
I guess that was going to have to be good enough. I didn’t want to push it. Plus, it’s not like I had time to. As soon as the girls took two bites of their breakfast, they both shouted that they were done and ran into the family room to open presents. By the time that was over, we had less than two hours to get ready and start cooking before everyone arrived. Everyone was actually just my parents and Willow’s parents. Phil had spent last night with his parents so he was with his in-laws, and obviously, Tori hadn’t invited anyone from her family.
Both sets of parents arrived within five minutes of each other and immediately took over in the kitchen, which I was more than okay with. Once Tori and I were sure they had everything under control in there, we went to the family room to check on the girls. It must have been a Christmas miracle because the two of them were playing nicely with all of their new toys. I threw myself onto the couch and Tori followed my lead, plopping down right beside me. When her leg bumped into mine (something I was acutely aware of), I realized it was actually the closest she had been to me in a really long time.
I expected her to quickly move away, but instead, she stayed sitting pressed up against me. “Would it be weird if I said that I missed you this week?”
