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Rae was apparently made aware last year that Santa isn’t real, so we don’t have to get up and set out special presents for her. We just lie in the dark in a loose hug and whisper quietly about this and that; she asks how I’m doing with the Lolly stuff, and I say I’m okay but expecting to feel my loss pretty intensely here soon.
We start talking about Christmas memories. She already knows my family always opened gifts on Christmas Day rather than Eve, and she’s been doing that with Rae, too, so we don’t have to adjust the tradition for ourselves. I’ve also told her what Lolly and Pop liked to cook this time of year. Now we talk about random things we remember from our pasts.
She only had two decent Christmases thanks to whoever her mom was with at those times, but the stuff ended up stolen or sold for her mom’s drugs of choice. I’m deeply saddened by that and so is she, but we agree it’s awesome Rae doesn’t have to live that life, too. She asks what my best present ever was, so I tell her about Pop passing his truck down to me when I was sixteen. And we talk about the huge ice storm that came through when we were kids, how it was equal parts bullshit and excitement because of all the snow…indeed, we recall how snow used to be a given in the wintertime.
Thinking about that has us tuning in to what we thought was more rain outside the window—it actually sounds like sleet now. We ooh-and-ahh over that for a second, glad we won’t have to travel anywhere on the slick roads tomorrow.
Then I’m reminded that we ordinarilywould’vedriven to see Lolly tomorrow, but she’s gone now. And before I know it, I’m tight-chested and watery-eyed.
When I fall back asleep, my head is on Liv’s shoulder and her arms are tight around me, her lips pressing soothing kisses to the top of my head even though I’m pretty sure she’s crying, too.
Another difficult part of the weekend—the first of the holiday.
It’s still sleeting in the morning when we wake up to daylight and Rae bounding into the room with her antler headband on. She’s undeniably heartwarming after the rather emotional night Liv and I had, so we’re chuckling as we get out of bed. She’s gone as soon as our feet hit the floor, allowing us a few seconds to kiss and check how each other is feeling—and the truth is, we’ve both been better.
We’renotbad, though. In fact, I whisper to her that the suckiest part of this particular minute is how she can’t get in the shower with me; blushing, she agrees.
Rae is bouncing off the walls by the time showers and breakfast are over with. At first, she was too excited to even eat, and then she was so excited she inhaled her food. I have to admit I’m eager, too, because I got my girls some good stuff.
Liv helped me pick out two-thirds of Rae’s gifts, so she’s not surprised when the hairbows and art supplies are happily unwrapped. And of course she knew about the few articles of clothing Rae got, because they were from her. But the purple-cased tablet Rae opens last is a special surprise just from me, and both of them gasp loudly over it, then turn wide blue eyes on me and start chattering excitedly.
“This kind is just for kids, so it’s all yours,” I tell Rae, smiling. “I don’t know if it’ll play Netflix or not, but it’ll still be really fun. You can do a lot of cool things on it.”
Yeah, she and Liv are thrilled about that.
And it’s funny: I can tell Liv is used to her niece getting all the attention on Christmas, because she’s equally thrilled when she opens the mall gift card from Rae and me. She’s genuinely grateful for it, clearly not expecting to get anything as expensive as the tablet.
Well, she’s about to learn—she’s got a small box to open next. I also have a stun gun I’m going to give her later so Rae won’t see it and get too curious the way children can.
Indeed, Livalmostcusses when she opens the velvety box and sees the plain white gold band inside.
“It’s not an engagement ring,” I tell her quickly, although I hope she already knows I wouldn’t propose to her with an utterly diamond-less ring. “It’s just something simple for you to wear every day—it’s engraved on the underside.”
Her eyes are luminous as she extracts the delicate ring from the box. While she lifts it close to her face, Rae wants to know, “What is‘engraved’?”
I explain, “When you have something engraved, it means you’ve written words on it that’ll never, ever come off.”
Her mouth falls open in disbelief. “You wrote on that little ring?”
That has me chuckling. “Well, kind of. I had someone else do it, but they wrote what I wanted them to!”
“Oh. With a marker?”
“Nope, something even more permanent than that. They used a special tool that wrote right into the metal of that ring.”
“Wow! Cool! What does it say?”
I tip a smile at Liv, who is still gazing at the ring. Her eyes are full of tears now. She touches the back of one hand to her trembling mouth, then aims a look of joyous love at me. She returns my smile when she sees it.
“Annie, Annie!” Rae prompts. “What does it say?”
Liv shows the ring to her and replies in a wobbly voice, “He wrote,‘I would do anything for you.’Can you see it?”
While Rae peers at it, Liv and I share a meaningful look. I wondered if I’d have to remind her of what those words mean, but I don’t think so now.
I said them to her the night she told me about her sexual abuse. I meant them wholeheartedly at the time and still do now, and I never want her to forget it. I’ll be patient with her and support her no matter what’s going on. I’ll help her give Rae a good life—because doing anything for Liv means doing anything for Rae, too. I’ll protect them, cherish them, make them happy. I’ll do the big things and the little things, the fun things and the difficult things.
I don’t know when the right time to propose will be, so it’s important to me that she has a solid reminder of how I feel until then.
