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With her goldfish-bowl-sized glass of wine in hand, she curled up at the other end of her couch. Far, far away from him. “What makes you think I do?”
“It never occurred to you to include any Christmas elements in the magazine.”
“So?”
“So you notice details. You make lists. You made sure to include a small mention about adding a patriotic theme to your decorating for Veteran’s Day. Yet you forgot Christmas?”
Speaking of noticing details… Damn that laser-beam brain of his. She shrugged and focused on not stiffening up. “Just not a big fan is all.”
“You mentioned being unavailable the week of Christmas when you took the magazine job. Are you going to visit your dad? You’ve never said where he’s living now.”
That was because he lived all over the place, depending which friend he could mooch off next. She wasn’t going there with him yet. Maybe not ever. ”Don’t most people take the holidays off?”
“Sure.”
“But not you, Mr. Big Shot.”
“Well, I take off Thanksgiving and Christmas. Usually. Though last Christmas I ended up working that night. There was a scheduling problem in the Tarenton store and—” Catching her smothering a yawn, he shook his head. “Never mind. But even if I end up working, I like the holidays.”
So had she, once upon a time. “We’re just barely into fall. Can we take it one season at a time, please?” When he shrugged, she decided to humor him. “Why do you like them?”
He shrugged. “Well, there are the retail aspects. Good business. Lots of people want to finish their home improvement projects before winter sets in, and then there are those do-it-yourselfer gift givers. I like the smells, the music. Everyone smiles a lot more. Sometimes I even like seeing my family.”
“Sometimes.”
“This year may be different. It’ll be harder to want to be around them when they’re circling their nets to get me coupled off. Though maybe a couple of months of distance will help.” He dropped his hand to her knee like a spider dive-bombing off the ceiling. She had no time to react. “Evasion looks good on you, Ms. Townsend.”
She sank a little lower in the cushions. It had really felt like they’d turned a corner tonight until he’d made her question her decision to enter this relationship once again. And she wanted to tell someone why those three tiny words bothered her so much. Wanted to tell him. But that would cause more trouble than it was worth. He’d just dismiss her as a nitpicky female. Maybe she was.
She’d already agreed to lie. What were a few more embellishments to the story?
“You asked if I’m going to visit my dad. I should, but I’m not.” She waited for him to press her further, but he didn’t. Just waited.
She took a long sip before she spoke. “My mom left us right before Christmas. No warning. Well, there was some, but I wasn’t old enough to understand what all the silence between my parents meant. I was thirteen,” she added, expecting the inevitable follow-up questions.
That’s it? That’s why you’ve hated a holiday for twelve years?
But he didn’t say anything at all. The hand on her knee rubbed and rubbed, continuing even when a sound dangerously close to a sob escaped her mouth. Her eyes were bone-dry, but God, she was crying just the same. On the inside, where no one could hear.
“I got up one morning and ran into their room first thing. She’d told me the night before that she’d hidden mine and Melly’s presents and I was going to try to figure out where. I headed right for their closet, sure she’d yell at me to stop nosing around, but the only sound I heard was my dad. He was on the bed, his head in his hands, crying all over the letter she’d left him. His tears made the ink run.”
She could still hear it, the soft snuffling sound of a heart breaking. She’d vowed then and there never to love someone the way her father had loved her mom, not if it meant she’d one day be left behind.
“Christmas that year was hell. She’d written us all notes saying good-bye and that she was sorry. But it was different with Bryan. They’d been arguing over stupid shit and he told her he hated her the night before she left for good. He was always saying stuff like that back then. He said he hated me too after she left, but I knew it wasn’t true.”
“How could it be?”
She didn’t know what to say to that so she waited until she could speak without her voice wobbling. “He was so furious, so hurt that she’d never said good-bye to him. Those letters weren’t worth much, but they were something. And she didn’t even leave him that.” She looked down. Moonlight rippled over the pool of dark liquid in her glass. “At least th
at’s what he thought.”
“There was a letter?”
“There was.” It had been full of anger and blame, and she’d hidden it from her brother to protect him. She still had it in the bottom of her dresser, where it had been all these years. One day she knew she owed it to Bry to give it to him. But that wasn’t a story Vicky intended to share with anyone but her brother.
“She never came back,” he said in a low voice. He’d known the result of the story if not the beginning.
“No.”
