A Cross-Country Christmas(41)

Another pause in the dark.

“How’s. . .um, the bed? Over there?”

Lauren did the same stretch and same mouth noises back at Will. “Good, good, I’m just living the dream.”

A pause—then they both laughed.

The darkness made her brave. “My dad left on my birthday,” she said quickly, ripping off the emotional band-aid.

Even without seeing him, she could tell he’d gone still. He didn’t say anything, yet his silence only encouraged her to go on.

“I was turning twelve.” She spoke to the darkness, a hotel confessional. “It was right after the summer you started hanging out with Spencer, actually.”

“Ahh…I was such a punk,” he said. “Wait. Didn’t we steal your plastic horses?”

“Uh, yeah,” she said. “You created an impressive war zone in our back yard with my horses as some kind of army.”

“Cavalry,” he corrected. Then, in an epic voice, “And they turned the tide that day.”

“You’re such a dork. It rained before I realized you used them, so when I found them, they were all covered in mud.”

He laughed gently. “Sorry about that.”

She rolled over and hugged one of the pillows to her chest. “I was deep in my horse phase.”

“Okay, out of context, that sentence would sound really weird.”

“It sounds weird to me saying it now,” Lauren laughed. She found it way easier to talk to Will in the dark.

She took a deeper breath and held it for a moment before letting it out, the same way a bullfighter might before giving the signal to release a two-and-a-half-ton animal. She’d never talked about this time in her life out loud—not to anyone. Not even Maddie knew how deeply this birthday had affected her.

Lauren spoke. “My parents had been fighting for a long time by that point, and I knew other kids whose parents had gotten divorced, but I guess I never believed that would happen to us.” She shifted in the warmth of the bed. “I woke up that morning, and I got everything ready for the party—it was in our backyard. Pony decorations everywhere. It was quite the sight, let me tell you.”

She expected Will to make some joke, but he didn’t.

“All my friends were coming. The only thing left to do was decorate and pick up the food. We were going to have stacks of pizzas from Joe’s and a big white cake with white icing and a frosted horse on top. It was a special order, and we never got special orders. It wasn’t like the ones you get at the grocery store where the person behind the counter writes your name on it in that gross gel frosting.”

She paused, then added quietly, “I couldn’t wait for that cake.”

Her mind spun back to that day. She thought it was strange that her parents weren’t there when she woke up, but she told herself it was fine. Maybe they were buying party favors or more likely, picking up her cake. They’d gotten all the decorations already. She could set up on her own. She hung the streamers and blew up the balloons, set up the food table and the gift table, and when she finished, she sat on the deck and surveyed the yard. It was perfect.

But when people started to arrive before her parents were home, Lauren began to panic. She was an independent kid, but she’d never hosted a party. Some of her friends’ moms hung around when they realized her own mother was nowhere to be found.

Lauren took gifts to the gift table, arranging them neatly around the space she’d left for the cake. A half an hour went by, and her heart hadn’t stopped racing for at least that long. Where were her parents?

She’d left messages on both their phones, but neither of them called her back.

One of the other mothers tried to take charge, organizing a few party games, and doing her best to keep Lauren’s spirits up, but it was no use. Lauren understood what had happened.

Her parents had forgotten her birthday.

At the end of the two hours, her father’s car pulled in the driveway, her mother close behind. At the sound of the garage door opening, Lauren rushed inside. Her dad stormed in, took one look at her and shook his head. “I’m sorry, kiddo. No matter what happens, you need to know, none of this is about you.”

“What do you mean?” Lauren moved aside as he rushed past her, straight upstairs, where she’d find out later, he was packing a suitcase.

Her mother stormed through the back door and into the kitchen, took one look at her and said, “Where’s your father?”

“Mom,” Lauren wilted, “where’s my cake?”

At that, her mother looked out the sliding glass door and into the backyard, full of people. She swore. “You’ve got to be kidding me. I can’t deal with this today.”

The guests had started to notice the commotion, and everyone had gone quiet at the sight of the absentee mother standing in the kitchen with the birthday girl.

Her father returned to the kitchen, holding a suitcase. “I’ll call you and Spencer when I get settled, Lo.”

“Dad, what are you doing? Are you leaving?”

His face fell, and he looked away, unable to hold her gaze. “I can’t. . .” his voice trembled, “I’ll call you.”

And with that, he turned and walked away.

Her mom raced after him, slamming the door and screaming and swearing. Lauren crumbled into one of the kitchen chairs, numb. She watched, detached, as the other parents, hands on the backs of her childhood friends, ushering them out of the yard, whispering “don’t look,” and “just go.”