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Hello! Merry Christmas, everyone! Hope you’re all having a great holiday whatever you’re doing. Some time off from school afforded me the chance to redraft and finish the chapter that I had been working on so long ago. Enjoy.
Chapter Back To December
Every year Justin and his mother indulged in the same pointless argument; it was important to both of them that their family was together for the holidays, but Lynn was insistent that any celebration would take place in her home in Tennessee. After years of hosting such family gatherings I can understand why she wanted to stick with tradition, but as newlyweds with a seven year old son, it was neither feasible nor desirable to spend Christmas anywhere else but our own home. Really, the argument was between me and Lynn, with Justin fighting my corner, since if it were left up to him, he’d have relented to his mother’s wishes without a word. Eventually it was agreed that we would go to Tennessee for Thanksgiving and Lynn and Paul would stay with us in L.A for Christmas; and by Christmas, Lynn meant from the 19th to the 27th of December. It was an uneasy compromise made more uncomfortable by Lynn’s passive-aggressive digs at my parenting, cooking, gift-wrapping and general housekeeping. The boys didn’t seem to notice because...well, they’re boys and they don’t register thinly-veiled bitchiness the way females do. In an odd way being deemed sub-par by Lynn made my life easier, since she thought it necessary to take over the majority of the cooking and gift-wrapping, which stopped her from monopolising my family, and left me free to spend time with my boys.

I was particularly keen to trap my husband in any available closet/bathroom or corner; by Christmas we had been trying to conceive another baby for almost a month and emotions were kind of heightened in anticipation of the pregnancy test we kept postponing for fear of a negative result. We had seen the necessary specialists before Justin underwent his treatment, and we had the choice to take the insemination route, but conceiving the natural way just seemed more...natural?

Every time I looked at Trace’s wife, Elisha, who was just about ready to pop, I could feel unwarranted jealousy in the pit of my stomach. I don’t regret having Logan when or in the circumstances that I did, but besides wanting another baby because they’re awesome in every way, I was kind of looking forward to being both pregnant and married.
That year Logan was the perfect age to really anticipate and enjoy Christmas, and if I’m honest, having his grandparents there was part of what made it special for him, even if it did make it a little awkward for me. Despite the fact that I was now officially and legally part of the family, I still felt like an outsider when Justin’s parents were around. It wasn’t anything that anybody particularly said or did, in fact, on the surface everyone was perfectly nice, but I still had the feeling. Maybe part of me was jealous that we were always surrounded by Justin’s family and seldom mine. My mother was in France with Liam for the holidays, and I hadn’t heard from my father in months. I was happy for my mom and becoming indifferent to my dad, but I couldn’t help but feel a little out of place in my own home.

Keeping control of a seven year old boy was difficult enough without being undermined all the time, but Lynn continued to permit Logan to do, say, and eat things that they both knew I would never allow. Justin insisted that grandparents were created for the very purpose of undermining the kid’s parents, but it really bothered me when Lynn reneged on things that I had expressly forbidden, like the BB gun that Logan unwrapped on Christmas morning. It was even more irritating that Logan was so excited and grateful for his grandparents’ gifts when I had spent months buying what I had thought were cool, useful and thoughtful presents from Santa, Justin and myself. It would have been cruel to take the gift away from my son when he’d already opened and freaked out about it, nor did I want him to see me bickering with his grandparents, so I bit my tongue and let my annoyance boil quietly until I got Justin alone, leaving the trash outside.

“They bought my kid a gun!”

He tutted as the trash-bag hit the bottom of the can with a soft thud, “You’re overreacting.”

“It’s a gun,” I repeated.

“A BB gun,” He specified, “All the kids at home have ‘em,” He shrugged, setting the lid carefully back on the trashcan, “I’ll send it back with mom and dad and he can use in when we’re in Memphis.”

“He can’t use it at all,” I specified, “It’s so dangerous. Who gives a gun to a child and thinks it’s going to end well? He’s going to grow up to kill somebody, if he doesn’t do it by accident since he’s only seven and has no business playing with a gun!”

“I had a gun when I was his age. It’ll teach him to be careful and responsible. He’s just going to be shooting cans and bottles and stuff.”

“You had a gun in Memphis,” I emphasised, “While you were in Orlando playing with Mickey Mouse. And cans and bottles is how it starts!”

He looked towards the roof of our house, exasperated, “You are overreacting.”

“Am not,” I whined, “She did this to bother me, she was standing next to me when I said I’d never let him have a gun.”

“Believe it or not, my mom doesn’t go out of her way to bother you, she might actually have been thinking about Logan, and not you, when she picked out his gift.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” I huffed, “It wouldn’t kill you to support me.”

He gave me a withering glare, “Don’t give me that shit when you know you got your way with everything this year; we’re in L.A aren’t we?”

I was silent for a second, thinking back on when we- or I -made that decision, “You agreed that it would be easier here!”

“Yeah, because I thought you wouldn’t bitch the whole time like you would if we were in Memphis.”

That stung a little, “Don’t be rude.”

“Don’t be so fucking boring!”

Ouch, again.

“It’s Christmas, my parents bought their grandkid a cool not to mention expensive gift, and you’re just sitting there, silent, looking like you wish you were anywhere else but with your family. That is rude. Now I don’t care if it makes you uncomfortable, I don’t care about whatever paranoid bullshit is in your head right now. Stop overreacting, paste a smile on your face if you have to, get in the house and pretend to enjoy Christmas for your son.”

Okay, that did make me feel like kind of a miserable jerk, and I was letting little things irritate me, but she bought my kid a GUN!

The whole thing made me want to have a huge, screaming tantrum that would certainly ruin everyone’s Christmas. I managed to swallow my annoyance for the rest of the day, but by the time the sun was going down, it was becoming increasingly difficult not to get emotional and I was starting to feel a little weak and sore and generally pissed off, so I took some time to myself upstairs. Justin had dumped gifts on our bed which had to be tidied away before I could lie on it. I lifted the cosmetics and toiletries and took them into the bathroom. It was only when I saw the toilet that I had the urge to go, and then came the moment when I saw blood on the crotch of my underwear. I looked at it for a second, disgusted both from a hygiene and a heart point of view. The worst that it meant at that moment was that we kept trying, and ultimately we could still use what we had frozen, but at that moment, it was like defeat.

I could hear laughter from the living room as I descended the stairs, making a quick left turn to head into the kitchen. There was a bottle on the sideboard that was missing about a glass-worth of wine and I helped myself. I fixed my eyes on the swing set in the back yard because I knew if that my gaze shifted at all my cheeks would be wet with unwarranted tears. The taste of wine didn’t numb much, but the feeling, the act of actually drinking it comforted me somewhat. I swallowed another glass, quickly followed by a third, which I used to wash down some chocolates from a box that Lynn had opened and left on the kitchen table. I straightened my hair and wiped my eyes before walking around the kitchen table and through the doors that led into our living room. Justin’s hand grabbed mine as I tried to pass by him, pulling me into his lap. Usually I didn’t like PDA in front of his parents, but I enjoyed the comfort of being close to him and it was my house and my Christmas and my husband and if his mother didn’t like it she could add it to her list of complaints and I would care about it later.

I turned my head towards the kiss Justin dropped on my cheek, and felt his posture stiffen. He shifted me on his lap so that our gaze met, “You drinkin’?” He whispered above the noise of the movie and his parents chatter.

I swallowed and looked away, reluctant to take my horrible mood out on him, especially after the lecture he gave me that morning. He up-righted both our bodies, muttering something about cleaning up the already-spotless kitchen and ushering me into it, pulling the door tight closed behind us. I walked further into the room towards the refrigerator, opening the door and staring blankly at its contents.

I heard the clink of the wine-bottle settling back on the sideboard from where Justin lifted it. “I thought we weren’t drinking,” He said, a forgiving smile on his lips, “I know my mom can be hard to take sometimes but I didn’t think she’d drive you to drink.”

“Can we talk about it tomorrow?” I asked quietly, reluctant to make a Christmas memory that included me being irrationally bratty.

His eyebrows arched in concern, “You okay?”

“Yes,” I pulled my mouth into my most convincing smile, “I’m fine.”

“How would you feel about watching ‘Home Alone’ in the basement? Logan’s fine with mom and dad.”

That sounded perfect, and I told him so. It turned out that when Logan discovered where we were, he wanted to watch the movie too, and left his grandparents upstairs while the three of us cuddled underneath a blanket. A small victory for me, but a victory none-the-less. I woke up as the credits to the movie were rolling, and quietly woke the boys, sending them upstairs together as I switched everything off and picked up around the room as best I could. After finding the ground floor of our home quiet, Lynn and Paul apparently asleep, I headed upstairs to make sure Logan was in bed, before going to find his father, who was washed up under our covers and dozing already. When I climbed in beside him I wasn’t expecting to be grabbed in the way I was.

“No,” I put my hands over his, “Not now, babe.”

I couldn’t see his face but I’m sure I heard his eyebrows raise, which is an understandable reaction since I had been jumping his bones at every opportunity and had rarely refused him at any time in our relationship.

“I don’t feel good,” I explained, turning my cheek into his hand as it tucked my hair behind my ear.

“You’ve been in a fucking horrible mood all day,” He started, “Is it just because of my mom, or-“

I felt a tiny bit bad when he said that, because I knew it wasn’t easy for him to listen to me complain about her, “No,” I said quickly, “I-“

“It’s okay if it is her, she should have asked us about the gun.”

“It isn’t the gun,” I sighed, “Well-it is, but,” I swallowed and took a deep breath, “I think I’m just emotional because it’s my time of month and I have cramps and a sore back and, oh yeah, because I have my period clearly we aren’t pregnant.” My strangled laugh was met with silence. “Sorry,” Was my attempt at filling it.

His lips met my cheek, “We knew it wouldn’t happen this quickly,” He consoled.

“I know, but, it just would have been cool if it had, I mean-“

“I know,” He finished, kindly removing the need for me to explain further.

“I guess chugging your mother’s wine wasn’t my smartest idea,” I relented.

I heard him chuckle through the darkness, “I think it’s allowed, you’ll be bleeding for five to seven days anyway.”

I smiled even though he couldn’t see me, “True.”

“And it means we can get drunk in Abu Dhabi, what what!” I felt his body shift on the mattress in what I assume was some kind of a horizontal celebratory dance.

For the past couple of years we had met my mom and her husband in Vancouver for a skiing vacation over New Year, but in 2011 Justin had been offered a ridiculous amount of money to play a show in Dubai on New Year’s Eve. Other than the fee, Abu Dhabi was supposed to be pretty cool, it was a great networking opportunity and served as something of a warm-up for the tour he was hoping would happen in 2012. Lynn was somewhat placated by having Logan stay with her; we could have taken him with us, but Lynn was insistent that he would be better off with his grandparents than in a hotel room with his mother, something I was doubted now that I knew he was packing a gun. I guess in a way it was nice of her to let Justin and I have a couple of days alone, even if most of that time would be spent travelling.

Our journey was comfortably silent and perfectly luxurious. Our honeymoon in Hawaii had been relaxed and understated and romantic, but Abu Dhabi was a little more exciting, lavish and sexy. I spent most of my daily life running after Logan and working in between times, but on this trip I was determined that we would be a hot young couple just like everybody else.
It turned out to be kind of like old times; standing side of stage with security, wearing a purposely eye-catching outfit, dancing like no one could see me, and getting all giddy over my boyfriend. Except now he was my husband and I was old enough to be both giddy and drunk. I wore the dress I picked out for my Christmas present from Justin, somewhat of a necessity since anything nice in my regular wardrobe was inappropriate for a Muslim country. The show was finished by ten and we were in the crowded hotel bar for eleven o’clock. There was only one seat left at the bar, so I perched on it and Justin stood in front of me. My feet hurt and it was too hot and we were both exhausted from travelling but I was determined that we weren’t going to end up watching movies in a hotel room when there was so much going on outside.

Most of the people in the hotel were Western so the shove I gave Justin when he grabbed me behind the knee was more playful than chastising. “I think that’s frowned upon in Abu Dhabi.”

He set his drink on the bar to grab my hips with both hands, “Can’t nobody tell me not to feel up on my wife.”

There had been a retort on the tip of my tongue, but it faded into a shy smile as he bent slightly to drop a kiss on my lips.
“I’ve made a decision,” I announced, taking a long sip of my martini before setting my glass next to Justin’s on the bar. I took his raised eyebrow as my cue to continue, “This year, no matter what happens, baby or no baby,” I held a hand up to silence his emerging response, “We...are going to have fun, like the attractive young couple we are. We are happy, we are healthy, we are blessed.”

“We are drunk,” He teased, smirking from behind his glass, his eyes twinkling with amusement.

I grabbed his tie to coax him closer, letting my lips hover close to his, “We are together, this hotel is fabulous, and this dress might cover a lot of skin, but it gave me a really visible panty line,” I slid my hands from his upper arms, to rest on his chest, feeling the muscles tense as I did so, “So I didn’t wear any.”

“I don’t believe that you,” He suppressed a smile, “Lady and supermom, would go out without underwear. I think you’re going to have to show me.”

I stood, boosted closer to his height by my fanciest footwear, steadied myself with one hand on his chest, and used the other grabbed his wrist and smooth his hand across my hip and over my bottom. His forehead met mine, teeth pulling at his bottom lip, “Happy New Year.”

I giggled, the alcohol and the closeness of him flushing my face, “Happy New Year, baby.”

These silly little moments were what I cherished, what I felt made our relationship - our partnership - a foundation for our shared life and our family. And this is what I thought about on the 31st of December 2012, as I sat wrapped in the Slanket Justin’s mother had given me for Christmas, so that I would be warm while I sat by her son’s bedside, and waited for him to die.