Chapter One
Vaughn
I hate Christmas because…
Sounded like the start of an essay for a fourth-grade class, except it would read I love Christmas. And, in fact, in fourth grade I did love it. I loved it all the way up until two years ago when everything went sideways and my world shattered two days before the holiday. My partner, lover, little…my everything was taken from me while I waited at home with hot cocoa to decorate our tree.
Every year before then, we’d done most of our holiday decorating a couple of weeks before Christmas, but both of us were working hard, and we kept putting off our personal plans for one job or another.
I should have known better. As a counselor, I constantly encouraged my clients to live their best life. Find time for their loved ones because there were no guarantees of tomorrow. Easy words to speak and soul crushing when I didn’t follow my own advice.
To be fair, my business held greater challenges than usual at the most festive time of year. Clients often experienced loneliness, sadness, isolation. Previous trauma could rear its head. There was no other season when they needed me more.
But in the past, I’d managed to balance my time better. My partner had just finished grad school and embarked on a career that required great deal from him, and that made it easier for me to let my professional obligations steal my personal time. I knew better. And, as a daddy, I should have been more mindful of how much time he put in.
Not that it would have stopped what happened. Still…every year, we’d had our own traditions like the tree decorating partyand attending the festivities put on by our club, Chained. Ms. Lily, who had the responsibility for the little room and many other things there, always set up a number of events around the holiday season. She seemed to be in charge of decorating as well, so the whole building was strung with greenery and tied with ribbons. The sparkle of glitter caught the light in every area, and even the more serious stations on the main floor where things like impact play took place had at least a sprig of holly or mistletoe. The little room had extra special refreshments, but there was usually an appetizer bar or something available in the bar.
Everyone looked forward to the charity events as well as the festive atmosphere Chained provided for its customers. For some, it was just fun and the usual release they could achieve with their preferred stations on the main floor. For others, a break from the stressful holiday celebrations with family or others who didn’t either didn’t know or wouldn’t appreciate their right to live as they did.
In any case, Ms. Lily and crew delivered. Bron and I were among those who just showed up to enjoy ourselves, without maybe enough appreciation for how much went into the program at Chained. We had been going there at least weekly since we had first been able to afford a membership.
The night it happened, we had planned to attend a little cookie party at the club, but we’d gotten so behind with our personal holiday stuff, we’d decided to forgo the group party and get the tree decorated before, as Bon said, “Santa will pass us by if we don’t have our stockings hung and the star on the tree.”
Of course, I’d never have let that happen. But since he was wearing his new favorite Santa footie jams and a Santa hat at the time, he was too adorable to argue with. Beyond saying, “No worries, my sweet boy. We’ve got this.”
“And cookies,” he said. “Even if we didn’t go to the party, Santa needs cookies and milk.”
We had decided that the jolly old elf would not mind bought cookies if they were extra good, so he was stopping at the fancy grocery store to pick up some goodies from their bakery case on the way home. In fact, he sent me a text when he parked there.
I had it printed out, saved in my iPad, my computer, and on a disc drive. Not many words but the last ones he’d ever say to me.
I hope they have those giant chocolate chip cookies. I hear Santa likes them best.
Just that, no personal words of love. Just two sentences that encapsulated the person my partner was. Thinking of others—Santa, but really me because I loved those cookies best—and being little-ish in the wording.
He never made it into the store. Witness statements claimed the driver came out of nowhere, but store camera footage revealed he had shot down a side alley entrance to the lot, never slowing, never watching for cross traffic, never noticing Bron carrying his canvas shopping bag on his way to buy cookies for Santa. For his daddy. For me.
They swore he felt nothing, died instantly, but how could anyone ever know that for sure? The driver was bundled into the back of a police SUV still insisting he didn’t have a stop sign and Bron was distracted and not paying attention.
Distracted by what? The glittering lights of the grocery store? Someone coming out pushing a cart?
I sat in the courtroom every day of his trial, just waiting for the end to be able to give a survivor’s statement, to speak for my lover who could no longer speak for himself. To share what his loss had cost not only me but Bron. He’d been young, fresh out of school, and beginning a life with so much promise.
My grief, while I mentioned it, mattered so much less than what he would never get to experience.
The driver had not been intoxicated or anything. Just an egomaniac who took nobody into consideration but himself. When the witness who had heard what he said had taken the stand, even the judge’s eyes looked suspiciously shiny. He’d killed an innocent person and accused the victim of being at fault. Who would do that?
The jury had taken just two hours to come back with a verdict that would put the driver, a young man himself, behind bars for a minimum of fourteen years. After I spoke, his mother did, his brother, friends I recognized from Chained, coworkers, people he’d gone to school with. So many people whose lives had been impacted by the man who had chosen to share his life with me.
The judge gave him the maximum sentence: twenty years. Of course, if he behaved himself, he’d be out on parole earlier, but his attitude during the trial gave no indication that he would do so. As he was led out, he was still spluttering that it wasn’t his fault. Well, he’d have plenty of time to think about it.
I turned my back on him and on Christmas. I couldn’t bring myself to celebrate when everything was a reminder of that night. The call. Driving to the hospital through a town filled with festive decorations, lights, and garland and…everything. Until that night, I’d been a Christmas junkie.
Our friends said he wouldn’t want me to grieve so hard, that he would want me to remember all the good times. They said time would heal…and in some ways it had. But Christmas? They’d have to deck the halls without me.
Chapter Two
Gunnar
