Page 8 of Wrapped Up in Holly

“Not sure yet.”

“But you always get her something way ahead of time,” Riley said, a twin of her mother, right down to the gangly limbs she had a hard time controlling.

I shrugged.

“I heard Mommy talking to Mimi about therapy. What is that?”

I puffed my cheeks up. These goddamn kids. They always figured out everything. “Um, it’s when you go to talk to someone about a problem you might have, and they help you solve it.”

“Like a puzzle?” Ari asked.

“No, like something that makes you mad or upset.”

Riley bit into her lip, her nose wrinkling. “So…how come you and Mommy are going?”

“We…” I rubbed at my forehead. Holly and I didn’t lie to our kids, but also…this was touchy.

Ari put down the purse that she’d been playing with. “Are you and Mommy fighting?”

“No, we’re not fighting,” I said, and Riley set one of her hands on her hips, suspicion written all over her face. “Look, girls, sometimes it’s hard to be married. It can be really fun and should be great, but sometimes it’s hard. And…I hurt Mommy’s feelings. I didn’t mean to, but I did, so we’re talking to someone to help us make it better.”

Both of my daughters eyed me, and even though I was a grown man, I couldn’t help but shrink under their gazes. I was their father. I wanted to be their superhero and the guy who would always make all of their problems better, protect them from anything that might hurt them.

Yet, I was the one who was hurting them, if only by hurting their mother. They were perceptive and smart. Of course, they could feel the tension between Holly and me.

“Did you say sorry?” Ari asked after a while.

“Yeah,” I said, a frustrated chuckle bubbling up from my throat at having to take advice from my kids.

“You always tell us to say sorry and mean it,” Riley told me because she remembered every goddamn thing. “Did you mean it?”

“I always say that because it’s true. When you apologize, you should mean it, and I did, but sometimes you have to do more than that,” I explained.

“So, what are you going to do?” Riley asked as she picked out sunglasses, which Ari immediately snatched out of her hands. “Hey!”

I took the shades before they could start fighting. “I’m still figuring out how to show your mom that I meant my apology.”

“What if you make her something?” Riley suggested, pushing the cart back out into the aisle. “Homemade presents always mean more. That’s what Mimi says.”

Ari shot her hand up. “Oh! Let’s make Mommy something!”

Riley swiveled her head to me for permission. We had done a lap around the entire store, and they still hadn’t been able to find anything for Holly. I shrugged my answer to her silent question. “Whatever you girls want to do.”

“We have to find the arts and crafts section,” she told me and clumsily navigated the cart to that aisle.

While Ari and Riley argued over what they would make for their mother, I found something that might just show Holly how much I loved her.

Holly

Ithrew myself on Evan’s bed as he shut the door to his bedroom. When he’d turned fourteen, his parents decided it was time for him to get his own room. That meant the three girls had moved into one bedroom, and the three youngest boys had their own, too. We could hear Aiden, Ryan, and Tristan wrestling next to us, and Evan combed his fingers through his shaggy hair, an annoyed scowl slanted across his face.

I laughed. I’d long gotten used to his family.

“How’d you do on your test?” he asked, plopping down in the chair in front of his desk in the corner. Since we were seniors in high school, I had finally been allowed up in his bedroom. Although, it wasn’t like we had all that much time alone between his siblings and parents constantly interrupting us. We’d stopped trying to hook up at his house and waited until we were alone in his car or at a party.

“Okay.” I shrugged, and he turned back to his computer.

That was another concession: his own computer, so he didn’t have to use the family one in the living room. My aunt and uncle said they’d get me one of my own when I went to college, but I had yet to inform them I didn’t want to go to school in Ohio. I had yet to tell anyone, including Evan.

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