“I was ten,” I start once, voice rough from cold and truth.“Mom worked nights at a bar not too different from Sno-Globes.Titty bar.”
“Sno-globes isn’t a titty bar.”
“So, it’s a cleavage bar?You’re right.This place wasn’t no wanna be Hooters.Anyway.Dad didn’t work at all.No legit work anyway.Christmas Eve, he came home drunk, mad that there weren’t gifts under the tree.He hit her.Cops came.She begged them not to take him because she thought I needed a father.But I was tired of his shit.In the bathroom, I broke the mirror, sliced my jaw so I’d bleed.I told the fuzz dad hit me, too.Showed them the blood… Man never touched me like that in my life.After that, dad bailed out, took the truck, and never came back.Mom never forgave me for lying.Said I was born bad.Soon she bailed on me.”
Carol listens, quiet as snowfall.No pity, no fake sympathy.Just that soft presence that makes it easy to keep talking.
“I figured Christmas was just a con after that,” I say.“A bright lie for people who can afford it.Anyway, thankfully my dad had a brother who had a wife who raised me right.Still never liked Christmas… When I got out of the Marines, I bought a Harley, was a mechanic for a while.”
“Aren’t you still?”
“Yeah.My own shop.I meant, for someone else.But they wanted to pin some shit on me.Went to my cousin Frost about it, and the Executioners helped clear my name.I joined the club, climbed the ranks.Trina was a club bunny, so I should’ve known better.”
“A bunny?Like Playboy?”
“Yes, and no.It’s what we call the club girls.”
Carol nods, even though she doesn’t understand.
“When I married her, Trina knew I hated Christmas, but she’d guilt me into it, year after year.Then one Christmas she ends up in bed with another man.With Santa Claus, actually.I caught her.Things haven’t been the same since.”
“Santa?”
“Her boss in a suit.”
Carol slides her hand into mine.“Maybe it’s not the season that’s wrong.Maybe it’s who you spent it with.”
I don’t answer.Can’t.Her fingers are small, strong, sure.They remind me what it feels like to be held without being owned.
She opens up.“My dad used to hit my mom, too.Bastard left on Christmas as well.But we were afraid he wouldn’t stay gone so mom packed up and moved us here.Sno-Globes was the only place that would hire her on account of who my dad is.”
“Who is he?”
She shrugs.“I was so young.Mom won’t tell me.To this day I don’t even know.I don’t want to know about a man so important that even the rich folks who own Evervale are scared of him.”
Carol
We get reckless.We meet in daylight now, behind his garage, in the diner parking lot, even once in the church lot where nobody looks twice at parked cars.He brings me coffee.He doesn’t even know I hate the stuff.I prefer cocoa.I bring him cookies I swear are for the club.Lies taste like sugar if you roll them in enough guilt.
But it’s not like I’ve fucked the biker again.He’s not stuffed his big hands down my pants again either.Without as much as another kiss, he’s been a perfect gentleman.
I’m still with Blake, going through the motions of a dead-end relationship.I know I should end it, but something is stopping me.
At work, I catch myself smiling at nothing.Sugar Plum notices.“You got a secret?”she asks, winking.
“Just tired,” I say.
But I’m not tired.I feel more alive than I have in ages.
He texts:Need to see you.
I text back:When?
Now.
It’s the alley again, snow falling soft as forgiveness.He steps out of the shadows, eyes darker than the night.
“People are starting to talk,” I say, even as I go to him.
