You Had Me At Christmas: A Holiday Anthology(142)

Roy didn’t say anything. He knew. Of course he knew. Guilt was a stench that just rolled off him.

“She grinds herself into dust for you and you don’t even notice. And you’re running out of time.” We are running out of time. “You are going to miss out on your amazing, smart and driven daughter, who, her entire life, has only wanted you to notice her. To love her.”

Dean picked up two empty bottles of rye and shoved them into the empty garbage can next to the threadbare recliner.

“I’ve always loved her.”

“Well, excuse me for saying but you got a crap way of showing it.”

“I don’t…I don’t know how to do that right. I never have.”

Dean stopped, gave Roy his attention.

“Her mom and I, we were so young when we had her. We barely knew each other.”

“That’s no excuse.”

“I know. I know. But she just had those eyes, you know. Those level eyes that saw everything. And every time I looked at her all I could see was how much I was failing her.”

“Well, you were. You did.”

“So, how do I make that right? Huh? You got all the big ideas, you tell me how I start to make this right with her. Because I got no idea. Not one.”

“Well, I imagine the first step is to stop drinking.”

“Stop?” Roy laughed, a dry rumbly broken sound.

“Stop. Or this is how you end. In this room all alone. And if that’s what you want, say the word and I’ll leave you to it.”

Roy was silent, his mouth open. But he was standing there.

Dean put another bottle in the garbage. A paper plate. Finally, the closer he go to the couch and the easy chair, the empty bottles turned into half-full bottles, and then mostly full bottles, and he grabbed as many of them as he could and shoved past Roy, who didn’t put up a fight.

In the kitchen he cleared a bunch of junk out of the sink, throwing stuff on the floor. Cereal boxes and empty jars of peanut butter.

Once the sink was clean, he began taking the caps off the booze and dumping it down the drain.

Roy stood in the corner and watched him.

“Then what?” Roy asked.

“Call her.”

“And say what?”

“Say… let’s have lunch. Let’s have a coffee. Let’s go to church.”

“She won’t go.”

“Oh, you stupid son of a bitch, of course she’ll go.”

It took him twenty minutes to drain all the booze he found in the den.

“Is that all of it?” he asked. For a moment he felt bad for the man. Because he was a shell. Alone in a shitty, smelly house.

Roy nodded. He could be lying, but since the man was living here alone, Dean wasn’t sure why he’d feel compelled to hide alcohol.

“I’ve always liked you,” he said. “You are a mean, stubborn, blind son of a bitch. But I appreciate this job and the trust you’ve given me, running your land here. But—and I mean this, Roy, I really mean it—if you don’t stop drinking, I’m leaving.”

Roy swallowed and ran a hand, wrinkled and thin, over his face.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked, his eyes—Trina’s eyes—runny and mournful. There were a lot of regrets in those eyes.

Because I love your daughter. I have always loved your daughter. And I’m never going to get a chance unless you start loving her too.

Roy swallowed, as if he heard Dean’s thoughts. Or maybe he knew. Dean’s mother figured it out when he was a teenager. He’d never been very good at hiding his feelings.

“Okay,” Roy said.

“Okay you’ll quit?”

“I’ll try. It will probably kill me.”

It might.

“You better get going if you want to make it to the party,” Roy said, sitting down at the kitchen table. Alone and lonely and surrounded by empty bottles and food containers.

Dean shrugged out of his coat, pulled loose his tie.

“I think I’ll stick around.”

He cleaned up the house. Got the old man in the shower. Made him a sandwich.

Looked up alcohol withdrawal on his phone and began to hunt down some supplies.

They watched A Christmas Story on his old TV, and Roy wept, silent, awful tears.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” Roy said.

“Well, for your daughter, you’ve got to try.”

It wasn’t the best Christmas Eve. But it was far from the worst.





Chapter Five





December 24, 2012

10:32 PM

Dean wasn’t sure where he should go. Which door was the right door? Why didn’t they mark these things better?

But when he ran past the emergency room, the big glass doors opened, so he took that as a sign and sprinted in.

It was warm in the emergency room. And quiet. The only sound was a tiny motion-sensor dancing snowman on the front desk to his left. It started singing “Jingle Bell Rock” the second he walked in.

“Anyone here?” he called. It was the damn emergency room—where were the doctors?

A nurse showed up behind the counter, wearing scrubs with wreaths on them. She had earrings wrapped up like presents.

It was Christmas Eve.