With the fireplace going and the logs crackling, we could be a family straight out of a feel-good holiday movie, but I know better. There’s tension in my mom’s shoulders, and my dad is avoiding looking at me. Does he know that I know about him and his young blonde secretary? She has to be younger than my mom. The woman might be younger, but she’ll never hold a candle to my mom’s beauty, with her big blue eyes, rich dark-chocolate hair, and beautiful smile.
“Open, Trace.” Sorrow’s excitement cuts through my suspicion and growing anger.It was a difficult conversation. My parents were home, and Dad was barbecuing near the pool while Mom swam on her back, her face tipped to the moon.
What she did reminded me so much of mine and Sorrow’s time in the pool that a dam broke inside me, and I tore into my father, in front of my mother, and accused him of having an affair with his secretary. That’s when my parents dropped the proverbial bomb on me. I would be a big brother by fall with twin sisters on the way.
Why the fuck isn’t my mom enough for my father? It’s me. It has to be me. They stayed married because of me. Once I graduate, they’ll drop the godawful news that they’ve decided to part ways. At eighteen, I’m a grown-ass adult and won’t need to be shuttled from one house to the other. Then why not divorce already? I turned eighteen fucking months ago.
“Trace?” A small hand touches mine.
“Yep, opening now.” I pull out tissue paper until all that’s left inside the bag is a box. I gingerly remove the box. It’s somewhat heavy. I put it to my ear and shake it, earning laughter from Sorrow.
I smile back. “What is it?”
She rolls her eyes. “You’ll know if you open it.”
“You sure it’s not a box of coal?”
She laughs. “It could be.”
“Fuck me, Sorrow.”
My dad tsks. “Language, Son.”
“Sure, Dad.” I smirk. “You open yours first.” I nudge the big bag closer to Sorrow’s knee. “Then I’ll open mine.”
“Or we open at the same time.”
“I can go along with that. On the count of five.”
We count down. My parents join in. On five, Sorrow and I open our gifts. She laughs. I stare at her gift for me. No girl has ever given me something so precious that it’ll remind me of her every time I look at it.
“Thank you, Trace. I love it!” She hugs the stuffed toy frog to her chest. “Look, it even has your signature smirk.” She thrusts the frog in front of my face. Sure enough, the dang thing is fucking smirking. “Do you like my gift?”
Holding the snow globe in my hands, I shake it. “I love it, Sorrow.” Snow falls on the girl with dark hair and the guy with a beanie as they hang their heads out of an old red truck with a tree in the bed.
“Let’s see.” My mom extends her hand. I hand over the snow globe.
“We went to the tree farm for a tree. It took Sorrow forever.”
She pouts. “It had to be the perfect one.”
My dad’s gaze shifts from the snow globe in Mom’s hands to the tree. “It is. Best tree we’ve ever had, Sorrow. Thank you for convincing my son to go with.”
“If I didn’t, she’d get lost and get eaten by a bear.”
She swats my shoulder. “There aren’t bears in the Pacific Northwest.”
“There are,” Dad says. “And coyotes and mountain lions.”
Sorrow gulps. “Duly noted.”
Mom pats Sorrow’s knee and hands me the snow globe. “Not in Cambridge, though.”
Sorrow blows out a sigh. “Thank goodness.”
“Trace, would you mind grabbing the two envelopes on the tree, please?”
I rise to my feet and untuck the envelopes from where my mom tucked them between the branches.
