You Had Me At Christmas: A Holiday Anthology(27)

“Shut up!” The baby looked up startled, and Jared laid a reassuring hand on his son’s head. “The truth,” he said in his inside voice, “is that you undermine Kayla because you’re an entitled * who’s threatened by strong women. I’m not having you poison my daughter’s self-esteem the way you try to poison your sister’s. Not only that, you’re ungrateful. How many times have you stayed with us when you’re in L.A. on business and boasted about pocketing the company dime?”

He put his hands over Rocco’s ears. “Bring your sister some f*cking flowers, at least.”

Outraged, Greg looked at Kayla, who’d been sitting perfectly still through the exchange. “Are you hearing this?”

“Yes.” Now she blocked Rocco’s ears. “And I would appreciate some f*cking flowers.”

Greg’s face darkened. “You’re taking his side? Fine.” He shoved his chair back and stood up. “Just don’t expect me for Christmas.”

Kayla stood, too. “Yes, you’ll come for Christmas. You’ll do it for Mom.”

He grabbed his coat from the back of the chair. “Mom won’t come either…she’ll choose me over you.”

“No, Greg, she’ll choose her grandkids.” Kayla stood. “And she’ll be unhappy doing it. Do you really want to make Mom unhappy when she’s still mourning Dad?”

“That’s emotional blackmail,” he blustered.

She led the way to the hall. “Not so much fun when it goes the other way, is it?”

As they left the room, Jared picked peas off the floor under Rocco’s high chair and kicked himself for forcing a stand-off. Maddie returned with her present list and a bunch of cat stickers from the collection in her bedside drawer.

“Where’s Uncle Greg?”

“He had to go to work.” On his attitude.

Kayla re-entered the dining room and looked at Jared thoughtfully. “What happened to, ‘Don’t let him get to you, he’s not worth it?’”

Advice he used to give Kayla when he was a nicer guy. He squirmed.

“Maddie.” She bent to their daughter. “Go get ice cream out of the freezer.”

The little girl’s eyes rounded. “But I still haven’t eaten my vege’bles.”

“Special occasion.”

“I’m sorry,” he said when Maddie had scampered to the kitchen. “I shouldn’t have interfered.”

To his surprise, she hugged him so tightly his ribs ached. “Kayla?”

“I appreciate you standing up for me.” She released him and wiped her eyes with the back of her palm, waving aside his murmur of concern. “Sometimes I need an outsider to say, ‘it’s not acceptable, how Greg talks to you.’ Because when you grow up with it, it’s too easy to think it is you. Overreacting, being too sensitive…”

“I always got the impression you wanted to fight your own family battles.”

“I do. But once in a while it’s nice not to have to.”

“What about Christmas?”

“He’s an *, but he loves Mom. They’ll be here. I think he’ll be better behaved, too. You really shocked him.”

“Good.”

Rocco squawked to get out of his highchair and she walked over to him and started wiping his small hands clean. “The other day when you looked at that photo of us in Musique magazine you said jokingly, ‘What did you see in me?’. I saw a guy who encouraged me to be myself, without ever thinking my strength diminished him as a man. A guy who helped me appreciate that all the qualities my father and brother called my faults, were my virtues.” She looked up at him and smiled. “Someone who saw marriage as an equal partnership—”

Jared couldn’t take any more. “Stop!” he said savagely. “That’s no longer true and you know it.”

Maddie bounced into the room holding a tub of Ben and Jerry’s. “Ice cream!”

Incapable of pretending everything was fine for his daughter, he walked out of the room.

*

“That’s great, honey.” Unfazed, Kayla finished cleaning up Rocco and added the debris from his high chair to Maddie’s uneaten vegetables. In this, at least, she understood her husband’s behavior. It was nice to be the one with answers again.

The front door slammed.

“But doesn’t Daddy want some?”

“He’s got a couple of things to do first. How about we go eat the ice cream at the counter in the kitchen? We need bowls and spoons.”

Maddie looked at the plates of uneaten food. “But you haven’t finished your dinner either!”

“So, we’ll be rebels together.” She picked up Rocco. “C’mon, I’ll clean this up later.”

As it happened, she didn’t have to. An hour later, when she walked into the dining room after putting the kids to bed—not that Maddie would stay in hers, she was still trying to milk her cold for all it was worth—the dining table had been cleared. She found Jared in the kitchen, piling leftovers into Tupperware containers.

“Well, at least tomorrow night’s dinner taken care of,” she commented, taking the empty plates to the sink. “Feeling better?”

Jared put the leftovers in the fridge and slammed the door. “Ask me.”