Page 135 of Tuxedos and Tinsel
‘I’m sure it was scary at the time. But you’ll never be called Scrooge again. Not after tomorrow. I... I’m sorry about what I said earlier. About your...your Scroogeness, I mean.’
He slammed the hand that wasn’t holding hers against his forehead. ‘The Christmas tree. I’m sorry, Andie. That was unforgivable. Pay your crew a bonus to make up for it, will you, and bill it to me.’
Did he think everything could be solved by throwing money at it?
‘I’m also sorry about the tree, Dominic. It was an honest mistake. It’s all gone now.’
Maybe she’d been in the wrong too, to imagine he might like the tree when he’d been so vehement about not having one in the house. But she hadn’t been wrong about expecting better behaviour from him.
He shuddered. ‘It was a shock. The smell of it. The sight of it. Brought back bad memories.’
She shifted in her seat but did not let go of his hand. ‘Do you think it might be time to tell me why Christmas trees upset you so much? Because I didn’t like seeing that anger. Especially not directed at me. How can I understand you when I don’t know what I’m dealing with?’
He grimaced as if stabbed by an unpleasant memory. ‘I suppose I have to tell you if I want you to ever talk to me again.’
‘I’m talking to you now.’
She remembered what she’d said about recalling unpleasant memories being like reliving them. But this had to come out—one way or another. Better it was with words than fists.
‘Christmas Eve is the anniversary of my parents’ deaths.’
She squeezed his hand. ‘Dominic, I’m so sorry.’ That explained a lot. ‘Why didn’t you say so before?’
‘I... I didn’t want people feeling sorry for me,’ he said gruffly.
‘People wouldn’t have... Yes, they would have felt sorry for you. But in a good way.’ Could all this Scrooge business have been solved by him simply explaining that? ‘Can you tell me about it now?’
‘There...there’s more. It was cold and frosty. My parents went out to pick up the Christmas tree. A deer crossed the road and they braked to avoid it. The road was icy and the car swerved out of control and crashed into a barrier. That’s how they died. Getting the damn Christmas tree.’
She couldn’t find the words to say anything other than she was sorry again.
‘It was...it was my fault they died.’
Andie frowned. ‘How could it be your fault? You were eleven years old.’
‘My aunt told me repeatedly for the next six years it was my fault.’
‘I think you’d better tell me some more about this aunt.’
‘The thing is, it reallywasmy fault. I’d begged my parents for a real tree. We had a plastic one. My best friend had a real one; I wanted a real one. If they hadn’t gone out to get the tree I wanted they wouldn’t have died.’
‘You’ve been blaming yourself all these years? It was an accident. How any competent adult could let you blame yourself, I can’t imagine.’
‘Competent adult and my aunt aren’t compatible terms,’ he said, the bitterness underlying his words shocking her.
‘I keep asking you about her; it’s time you gave me some answers.’ Though she was beginning to dread what she might hear.
‘She used alcohol and prescription meds to mask her serious psychological problems. I know that now as an adult. As a kid, I lived with a bitter woman who swung between abuse and smothering affection.’
‘And, as a kid, you put up with a lot in the hope of love,’ Andie said softly, not sure if Dominic actually heard her. She could see the vulnerability in that strong-jawed handsome face, wondered how many people he had ever let be aware of it. She thought again of that little boy with the dark hair. Her vision of Dominic’s son merged with that of the young, grieving, abused Dominic. And her heart went out to him.
The words spilled out of him now, words that expressed emotions dammed for years. ‘She was particularly bad at Christmas because that’s when she’d lost her sister—which was, in her eyes, my fault. When she got fed up with me, she locked me in a cupboard. The physical abuse stopped when I got bigger than her. The mental abuse went on until the day I ran away. Yet all that time she held down a job and presented a reasonable face to the world. I talked to a teacher at school and he didn’t believe me. Told me to man up.’
‘I honestly don’t know what to say...’ But she hated his aunt, even though she was aware she’d been a deeply troubled person. No child should be treated like that.
‘Say nothing. I don’t want to talk about it any more. I’m thirty-two years old. That was all a long time ago.’
‘But, deep down, you’re still hurting,’ she whispered. ‘Dominic, I’m so sorry you had to go through all that. And I admire you so much for what you became after such a difficult start.’
