Those Christmas Angels (Angels Everywhere #5)(76)

Beth read his comment and nearly laughed out loud. My mother said almost exactly the same thing to me.

Where do you live?

This was the most personal question he’d ever asked and she hesitated before replying. Seattle.

Get out of here! I do, too.

No way! It was hard to believe they’d been playing this game for nearly six months and yet they’d just discovered they lived in the same city. Gotta go, she typed quickly. I’ll be back in half an hour.

See you then, Peter wrote.

Beth put Borincana and Spot, her animal companion, in hiding, where they’d be safe from attack, and reluctantly reached for the phone. Even as she punched the speed-dial button, she knew that the conversation would have little to do with Christmas. Her mother was trying to find out if Beth was seeing anyone.

As if she’d been sitting by the phone waiting for her call, Joyce answered on the first ring.

“No, Mother, I’m not dating.” Beth figured she’d get to the point immediately. That way, she could bypass all the coy questions about coworkers.

“What makes you think I’d ask you something like that?” her mother returned, obviously offended by her directness.

“Because you always do,” Beth countered. She loved her parents and envied them their marriage. If her own had gone half as well, she wouldn’t be in this predicament. She and John, her college boyfriend, had been young, barely twenty-one, and immature. Everyone had advised them to wait, but they’d been too impatient, too much in love.

Within six months of the wedding, they’d hated each other. Beth couldn’t leave fast enough, and John felt the same. He was as eager to escape their disaster of a marriage as she was.

It was supposed to be a painless and amicable divorce. Everything had gone smoothly; she’d filed because John seemed incapable of doing anything without her pestering him. If something needed to be done, she had to take responsibility because John was utterly helpless.

They couldn’t afford attorneys, so they’d gone through the legal documents with the assistance of a law student on campus. They had no material goods to speak of. He’d kept the television and she took the bed. Still had it, in fact, but she’d purchased a new mattress a couple of years ago.

What surprised Beth, what had caught her completely unawares, was the unexpected pain caused by the divorce. This wasn’t like breaking up with a boyfriend, which was how she’d assumed it would feel. This was failure with a capital F.

Following the divorce, she’d gone to see a counselor, who’d described her emotions as grief. At the time she’d scoffed. She was happy to be rid of John and the marriage, she’d said. Nonetheless, she had grieved and in some ways still did. It was perhaps the most intense pain she’d ever experienced. It’d left her emotionally depleted. Nine years later, she was unable to put her failed marriage behind her.

Twice during the divorce proceedings she’d hesitated. Twice she’d considered going to John and making one last effort to work it out. The problem wasn’t that she’d found him in bed with another woman or that he’d been abusive, physically or mentally. He wasn’t an addict or an alcoholic—just completely irresponsible and immature. She’d had enough, and in the end she’d walked away. Her failure to try again was one of the things that still haunted her.

“Marybeth, I was asking you about Christmas,” her mother was saying.

“Oh, sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.”

“I noticed,” Joyce said sarcastically. “Your father and I thought that instead of the big fancy dinner we do every year, we’d have a potluck.”

A potluck on Christmas Day? Beth didn’t like the sound of that, although she understood the reasoning. Her mother spent most of the day in the kitchen and that couldn’t be much fun for her. Beth decided she’d do her share without begrudging the time or expense.

“Aren’t you going to complain?” her mother asked as if taken aback by her lack of response.

“No. Actually I was thinking I’d bring the turkey and stuffing.”

“You?”

“I can cook.” Beth thought the question in her mother’s voice bordered on insulting.

“Is that so?” Joyce Fischer asked. “When did you last eat anything that didn’t come from a pizza delivery place or the frozen food section at the grocery store?”

Living alone, Beth didn’t have much reason to stand over a stove. Not when it was convenient and easy to order takeout or grab something from the deli. Her microwave got far more use than her stove.

“Okay, okay, I’ll order a cooked turkey. We have to have turkey, Mom. It’s tradition.”

“I’d like to begin a new tradition,” her mother said. “I want to enjoy the day with my grandkids—speaking of which, when can I expect more?”

Beth was amused by the transition from dinner to her absent love life in one easy breath. “Probably never.”

“Marybeth!” She seemed horrified at the prospect. “You’re a beautiful woman. You need to put your divorce behind you and move on with your life. You know John has, and more power to him.”

Mentioning the fact that her ex-husband had remarried was a low blow.

Lisa Carroll, a college friend of Beth’s—correction, acquaintance, and an unfriendly one at that—had gleefully shared the news of John’s marriage a couple of summers ago. Beth had taken it hard, although they’d been divorced for seven years by then. John was perfectly free to try his hand at married life a second time. She was happy for him. Thrilled, even.