The Girl He Used to Know(60)
I didn’t say anything. It was cold enough for us to see our breath as we panted and dragged the unwieldy tree through the snow.
“Do you have any thoughts on this?”
“I make mistakes all the time, Will. Been making them pretty steadily my whole life.”
“Yeah, well, when you make them in investment banking, it’s a big deal.” He set down his end of the tree. I couldn’t carry it without him, so I did, too.
“I didn’t take my birth control pills the way I was supposed to, and I got pregnant.”
“I know that. Did you think Mom and Dad wouldn’t tell me? They said you could have died. I was worried about you.”
“You never told me you were worried. You didn’t call me. Or come home to visit me.”
“No. I didn’t and I should have. I’m sorry.”
“So, what are you going to do now? Just give up?” I asked.
“What? No. What’s that supposed to mean?”
I picked up my end of the tree again. “It just means that life goes on.”
* * *
After we got home, we decorated the tree. Will didn’t like the way Dad and I did it last year and convinced me to do it the old boring way. “That’s just not very creative at all, but whatever.” It was a nice way to spend the afternoon, though. I liked hanging the shiny ornaments, felt the thrill of plugging in a strand of lights and watching the resultant burst of color. My mother kept offering to throw another log on the fire crackling in the hearth; to bring cocoa; to ask if we’d like her to put on some Christmas music. I said yes to the cocoa but no to the music.
“Mom’s so happy,” Will said.
“How can you tell?”
“Are you kidding me?”
“No.” I pulled a chair over next to the tree so I could place the angel on the top. “Isn’t Mom always happy?”
“No one is always happy.”
* * *
When we finished decorating the tree, Will sat down next to me on the couch. I covered my lap with the old wool blanket that my mother always kept folded over the back of the couch in the winter. Will balanced a paper plate of Christmas cookies on his knee and cracked open a beer. He took a bite of the cookie and a drink of the beer, and my stomach turned over.
“That looks revolting.”
“Don’t knock it ’til you try it. There’s more beer in the fridge.” He offered me the plate of cookies and I took one.
“I only like wine coolers,” I said around a mouthful of frosting. “Preferably cherry.”
“I saw a bottle of peach wine in the fridge. That sounds … horrible. But maybe you’d like it?” Will got up and went into the kitchen. When he returned, he held a wineglass full of light-amber liquid.
I sniffed it, and it smelled okay. Definitely peach. The first sip went down a little rough, but the more I drank the more the flavor grew on me.
“Give me some of that blanket,” Will said. I shoved it over and he shook it out a little so that it covered both of us.
“What did you get Mom and Dad for Christmas?” he asked.
“I got Dad a book and Mom some dish towels.”
“Isn’t that what you got both of them last year?”
How did Will remember something like that? I’d had to rack my brain to remember what I’d bought them last year when I was trying to come up with something to get them this year.
“Yes, but it’s a safe choice. They both seemed to like their gifts last year.” Truthfully, I was a little worried about it and would have to come up with something different next year. The same gifts three years in a row would probably be pushing it.
“I should tell Janice about this wine.”
Will drained the last of his beer and I handed him my empty glass. “Looks like someone needs a refill,” he said.
* * *
We did all of the Christmassy things in the days leading up to the actual holiday. Will was right, because my mom did seem happy. She was always smiling or humming and she kept coming into the living room whenever Will and I were in there. She’d stand at the door and just look at us and then Will would laugh and say, “Enough, Mom.” The four of us watched It’s a Wonderful Life, and I had a hard time watching George Bailey on that bridge. But I was surrounded by my family and for the first time ever, I felt like we were all in this life together.
* * *
When break was over Will volunteered to drive me back to school. “The roads still aren’t great. I’ll take Annika.” He was in a good mood, because he had an interview with a big firm in New York the next week and would be flying home the next day to prepare. He’d told me to keep my fingers crossed for him and I said I would even though that wouldn’t have anything to do with him actually getting the job.
My mother squished me with her hug. “This has been a truly wonderful Christmas. I got everything I ever wished for this year, Annika. Everything.”
I don’t know why I worried so much, because those dish towels were obviously the perfect gift after all.
* * *
“Why have you been so nice to me?” I asked Will on the way back to campus. It was calming not to have such an antagonistic relationship with my brother, but I didn’t understand how it had happened and I wanted him to explain it to me.