The harder I focused, the louder the soft hum of a song starting in my throat grew.
I had my tunes, I told myself. Mom thought it was a little stim of mine or whatever you wanted to call it, along with my humming, singing quirk. She’d thought it was cute. I always had an earworm niggling. Giving in to the urge to sing and or hum whatever tune held me in its thrall, I found it calming.
Music helped me focus. It lifted me up when I was feeling down. Music was my chill pill.
With that thought foremost in mind, I used voice command to get my phone to start my playlist.
As snow whirled around me, softly tumbling down, I sang along to my current favorite song, ironically involving winter-like lyrics, desperately struggling to ignore the impending doom looming. My voice kept cracking but I pressed on.
That’s all there really was left for me to do— just keep on flippin’ going.
Chapter 2
Pulling into the driveway and putting the car in park, I sat there for a long moment, staring at the modest little two bedroom with a small office, two bath I’d lived in for the whole of my entire being. We kept Christmas lights up all year long. Mom liked to turn them on when it snowed and stare out the big front window. “How can you feel blue with the snowflakes dancing and the lights twinkling?” she’d say.
It was so strange how quickly life can change, just turn on a dime and, bam, this is my new reality.
When I stepped inside the house, Dad wouldn’t be around back chopping wood or putting around in his office. Mom wouldn’t be putting on one of her old vinyls and swaying along to them as she dug out the boxes and boxes of Christmas crap she insisted it wasn’t too early to put up right about now.
Scrubbing at my face, I shut my engine off and reached for my purse.
My hand smacked the bag I’d tossed into my passenger seat, the one from Sunny.
Staring at it for a long moment, I shook myself and this fit of the blues threatening to overtake me, and nabbed it up.
Stuffing my cellphone into my purse, I popped the trunk, got out and grabbed as many bags as I could and then headed up the walk.
It boggled my mind, imagining not being here come Christmas. It was hard enough adjusting to Mom and Dad missing on the holidays. Soon, someone else would be calling this place home. Soon enough, this would be yet another string of ugly memories I struggled to forget.
Sometimes life flippin’ sucked. That was it, it just sucked sometimes, end of story, no happy ending, no what now, no and then, period.
Shit or get off the pot, the old man liked to say. Yeah, well, I will, as soon as I’m done with the shitting myself part. Gimme a minute to get over the mind fudge here.
Shaking off the thought, I hustled to open the door and dump my first load of groceries.
Three trips total later and all the groceries put away, I eyeballed that bag on the counter from Sunny.
My gaze darted back towards the fridge.
“I bought too much shit for a one person holiday,” I muttered to myself. I’d bought everything on Mom’s typical Thanksgiving list so I could make all the favorites, one last hurrah.
For a moment, I could pretend they were just out and late, just like I’d kept telling myself the night they didn’t come home. It felt like yesterday and yet an eternity all at once. They’ll be home soon, I’d kept telling myself. It’ll be fine. They’re just late. They got held up at the neighborhood Christmas decorating committee meeting thing or whatever they’d named it and their phones were still on vibrate.
For a moment, sitting before our traditional Thanksgiving feast and perfectly laid out table, like Mom insisted it needed to be, just perfect, I could pretend.
Scowling in what was surely a wonderful imitation of Elm’s curmudgeonly puckered puss at how silly— delusional, whatever you wished to call it— that all sounded, I grabbed the handles of the bag from Sunny and trudged over to the front window. Flipping the switch for the Christmas lights on, kicking out of my boots, I plopped down onto the window seat, shrugged out of my coat, and begrudgingly peeked inside the bag.
My scowl deepened as I pulled out a small, hand painted envelope nestled in amongst fat bags of those little old fashioned sugar sanded drops hard candies I’m semi obsessed with. Watermelon, root beer, apple, raspberry, they were all there. Never bothered with the cinnamon flavored ones. Dad was deathly allergic.
With food obsessions, in order of importance, it was potatoes, any way you could make the tasty buggers, mashed, roasted, boiled, stuck in a stew, potato salad, all of it, taters were the MVP. Everything else fell second, including anything caffeinated. Candy drops were directly after that.
Eyeing the envelope, I stared at it like it might bite me. I couldn’t help it after her comment about the house while we were near my car. What gut aching sensations would the contents of this envelope produce?
“What am I doing?” I muttered. It was as much over the envelope as it was mentally reevaluating my life. What did I want to do? Not what did my parents want me to do, what they expected of me, what I thought they wanted to hear in a bid to please them after years of trying to get me to do something, nudging, shoving, pushing me in a well-meant direction, and stick with it… No. What did I, me, want to really do?
Whatever it was, I needed to figure it out, and soon, and hope and pray I could pull it off.
Opening the envelope, I paused, took a deep breath, and forged ahead. A letter and another envelope were within. Unfolding the letter, I read it out loud.
