Page 112 of Run, Run Rudolph
Oma would always be my favourite person in the world.
But today, even the thought of her holiday dessert couldn’t rouse me from my heartache.
I’d saved Christmas, Haden, and myself, but I’d lost something precious. I’d lost Haden and his love, and I needed some time to come to terms with it. I needed a good wallow before picking myself up by my bootstraps and faking a smile until it finally felt real again.
“You’re not even dressed!” my mom chirped. The drawers of my dresser screeched open. “Where’s your Oma sweater?”
I sighed and flipped onto my back, bringing the pillow with me. I felt hungover. Was this a side effect of being pulled into the magical world, and then spit back out again?
“Tamara,” my mom said in exasperation. I peeked out from under the pillow. The room streamed with sunshine, and she was done up in her usual Christmas outfit, dressed in red and green from head to foot.
I pulled the pillow tighter over my eyes. Everything about Christmas reminded me of last night. The laughs. The kisses. The fun we’d had. I didn’t want to get up. I didn’t want to face the holiday. Not this year.
“Get a move on. Where’s your Oma sweater?”
“Wearing it,” I mumbled. Oma and I wore our matching ugly Christmas sweaters or sweatshirts for every meal and gathering during December to ensure we got our money’s worth. In our family, that meant I’d worn my Oh-What-Fun-it-is-to-Ride sweatshirt last night, and would wear it again for today’s brunch, and tomorrow’s supper.
My mom had tried to get in on the tradition, but unfortunately for her, that was during her separation from Dad, which meant I’d been a hissing, scratching and biting thirteen-year-old who’d snarled at her like a feral stray who wanted to be left alone.
Needless to say, the sweater thing stayed between me and Oma.
“Go ahead without me,” I mumbled from my mini haven of sorrow and lost love. “I’ll catch up.”
“We are not going separately. Your father is delivering last minute Christmas hampers, so he’s arriving on his own. I don’t want us all straggling in one at a time, as if we don’t like each other.”
I sighed, knowing I wasn’t winning this one, but was willing to give it one last-ditch attempt.
“I don’t like Christmas anymore. I’m staying home.”
A cool hand immediately slid between the pillow and my forehead. There was a pause, then my mom said in a motherly tone filled with affection and impatience. “No fever. Time to wake up, because you’re dreaming. You love Christmas.” She gave me a gentle pinch.
“Ow!” I protested, even though it hadn’t hurt. I lifted my head out from under the weight of my pillow. Was that all last night had been? Dreams? From the flying reindeer to Haden’s kisses, all just fiction thanks to a lonely, overactive imagination that had gone into overdrive while I’d been asleep?
“A dream?” I asked.
The bedding was whipped off me. A throaty noise of disapproval came from her direction. “Did you sleep in your clothes?”
“Mm-hmph. I told you that already.” I covered my eyes with an arm, wincing at the light. The lull between last night’s storm, and tonight’s oncoming one meant the sun was uninhibited, and sending its rays ricocheting off the bright white snow outside, into my room to attack my retinas. “Close the curtains.”
“You need to get dressed.” My mom sighed, and the sound of my dresser drawers opening and closing took up their banging again. “How many Christmas sweaters do you have?” she asked in wonder.
“Lots.” Well over a decade’s worth.
I rubbed my fingertips together, marvelling at their tender sensitivity. A nip of frostbite. Last night hadn’t been a dream.
I rolled onto my stomach, head back under my pillow. I could hear Mom sorting through my drawers, and I was fairly confident she was picking out fresh undergarments for me, like she had when I was two. I should never have given her a key to my place.
Cringing at the thought of her pawing through my delicates, I hauled myself out of bed. “I’m up.”
She handed me a stack of folded clothing. “Go shower.”
I flung the bra she’d stacked on my sweater and jeans into the corner. “That one’s itchy.” I grabbed a fresh one. It was no longer white, more of a sad grey, with its elastic all stretched out, but beautifully comfy.
“You smell like the barn.” There was an unfamiliar hint of approval in her tone, and I wondered briefly if Estelle had messed up last night while setting my life back to normal.
My mom’s car plowed through a snowdrift at the end of my driveway, with me in the passenger seat. I’d tried to drive, getting as far as sitting in Benjamin, who was free of snow and reindeer hair, as well as hoof holes and paint scratches. But he wouldn’t start. He hadn’t been plugged in. I’d snatched the bundle of mistletoe from my mirror on my way out, clutching it like a magical lifeline back to kisses with Haden.
I sagged into my mom’s car, and hung the green sprig from her rearview mirror, staring at it like it held the answer to last night, and how to carry on now that I was the only one who remembered it all.
