The Fragile Ordinary(85)

This time it was Steph:

MryXmas! LU! Xx

For all her faults, and whether it was out of habit or because she felt like family and I had to, I loved Steph, too. She wasn’t perfect, sometimes she pissed me off, and sometimes she hurt me, but she could also be sweet. And I believed that she did care about me in her own way.

Merry Christmas, Steph. Love you, too. Hope Santa is good to you. xx

In the middle of texting her my phone binged with another notification, and when I sent Steph’s text, I saw that it was a new text from Tobias:

I wywh in my bed w/ me.

Somehow he had the ability to make me blush even via text. Feeling that luscious, hot wave roll gently through me at the thought of being with him, my fingers shook a little as I replied.

Me too. I miss you when you’re not here. Xx

Tobias: Did ur dad tlk 2 u when u gt hme?

No. I went straight to bed xx

Tobias: Ok. Jst know I love you. Merry Christmas, baby.

A rush of overwhelming love crashed over me at his words and endearment. I was someone’s baby. Carrie and Kyle had never called me their baby or their sweetheart or their darling. Vicki was the only one. I’d been her babe for the last four years. I loved being her babe.

But truthfully it never soothed my hurt the way that being Tobias’s baby soothed my hurt in that moment.

Merry Christmas. I love you, too. Xx

And it was with his voice in my head and the phantom feeling of his arms wrapped tight around me that I fell asleep on Christmas night feeling loved despite the failings of my parents.

*

Something seeped into my conscious, an awareness niggling at me to wake up. My heavy eyelids fluttered slowly open and my breath caught in a moment of panic at the sight of the shadowy figure at the bottom of my bed.

Moonlight through the gap in my curtains caught on the tendrils of curls, and as consciousness found its grip I realized that the shadowy figure was Carrie.

Confusion as to why she was there cleared as I remembered it was Christmas and there was a weight at my feet that suggested she was putting my stocking on my bed. Something rustled, and I lifted my head to see she was pushing little gift-wrapped parcels back into the stocking.

Wait.

Carrie was the one who left the stocking at the bottom of my bed?

“Carrie?” Her name came out in a sleepy croak.

“Comet?” she whispered back, sounding surprised and dismayed.

Reaching across my bed, I fumbled for the light switch on the bedside table lamp. Warm yellow light illuminated the room and Carrie, who stood at the foot of my bed staring at me like a deer caught in headlights.

Her curly hair was in disarray, and she was wearing a red terry cloth dressing gown with a massive hood. Kyle had bought her it years ago and although he’d offered to buy her a new one she insisted on keeping it. It used to be a rich ruby red. Now it was faded and worn and well used.

My gaze moved from her to the Santa’s stocking lying across the bottom of the bed. “You give me the stocking?”

She stared at me and then concluded, “You thought Kyle did.”

I nodded, pushing myself into a sitting position. It was still dark out and my eyes were heavy with unfinished sleep.

Carrie sighed and suddenly slumped down onto the end of my bed. “I... I overheard your argument with Kyle.”

Apprehension gripped me and I froze. Was this the part where she berated me? Called me a sullen teenager?

“You said you know what happened to me as a kid, but I somehow doubt that. At least I hope you don’t know.” Her words were bitter. “I grew up in a very bad house, Comet.”

Something in the way she said it made my heart thump hard, like without her having to say the actual words, I knew that bad meant something far more sinister.

“I never wanted you to be as lonely as I was growing up,” she whispered, the words thick and drawn, like they were being pulled through the resistance of thick mud. “I never meant for that with you. I’m...just...this is me.” She shrugged, seeming exhausted, defeated, and yes, ashamed. “I am who I am, and I probably won’t ever change. If I was a stronger person I’d try, although I reckon it’s too late now anyway.” For the first time in my life my mother looked at me with longing. “I wish I was stronger. I wish I was different. That I could be the kind of parent you deserve. And I’m sorry I couldn’t be what you needed. But I am not sorry you turned out the way you did. I know you think I don’t see you, but I do. And you are so much braver, stronger and truer than I’ll ever be. Be thankful for that, kid.” She stood up and walked toward the door. “Be thankful that you turned out better than either of your parents.”

She left, shutting the door behind her.

I stared at the closed door for a while, trying to process her words. Finally, exhausted in body but now awake in mind, I flopped onto my back and gazed up at the glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to my ceiling.

The happy ending that in my hearts of hearts I’d one day hoped to find with my parents had just been obliterated by Carrie’s confession. In that happy ending I’d dreamed of my parents admitting they had been wrong to treat me so negligently and then we’d start all over again as a happy, close-knit family, where love was shared without jealousy or insecurity.

However, both of them had admitted in the last twenty-four hours that they weren’t capable of that. Yet...they’d also made an admission of wrongdoing. That was something. Not everything, but it was something to hold on to.