Page 82 of Forever Christmas
So I wanted you to know I’ve got help now. A shrink here in Deming. He’s going to work with me. I included his card so you could call him. It all checks out. He’s going to tell me when I’m ready to see you all again. When I’ve got a handle on this thing that eats me alive.
ThisTina girl helped me. She’ll pass along messages if you don’t want to talk to me directly. I get that you might not. I’ll miss you at Christmas. But she promised to tell you all this today. So I thank her for that.
Robert
The room goes so quiet you can hear a radio playing in the apartment next door. It’s “White Christmas,” which doesn’t match since it’s eighty degrees out. But it works somehow.Our world isn’t lining up in this place either.
My dad says he’s changed. I’m not sure I believe it.
Mom recovers first. “Thank you for bringing this, dear,” she says.
Tina passes her the envelope. “I met him the night Ethan was born. He apparently tried to get security to page you all when you left him at the hospital. When they refused, he threw a chair on the maternity ward. This got himlocked in the security room to wait on the San Diego police.”
“Oh, my word,” Mom says.
“Darion happened to be coming up to check on Corabelle and asked what was going on. He realized the man’s last name was Mays and figured it had to do with Gavin’s family. He called me. I’m on maternity leave from the therapy department, but the lady at the desk was willing to let me come talk to him.”
Tinaleans forward and looks around the room. Her eyes rest on me a moment.
“He’s got some real problems,” she says, “but he’s going to try and get better. I found him a therapist in your hometown. Sometimes it takes something like this to make people realize they have to change.” She gestures to all of us. “I hope for your sake, he does.”
Mom’s face is streaked with tears. “I’m going to go callhim,” she says and hurries to the bedroom.
“I want to talk to him too,” June says and follows her.
Corabelle lays her hand on my leg. “What about you, Gavin?” she asks. “Are you going to talk to your father on Christmas?”
I shake my head no.
“You sure, Gavin?” Tina asks. “Because I get the idea that the one he’s really doing this for is you.”
Hell. I look over at Ethan. Mrs. Rotheford hashim tucked in her arm, humming softly. Beside them is Corabelle’s dad. His lips are pinched, like he really wants all this to get better.
Then Corabelle. She smooths my hair over my ear. “I’m with you, no matter what you decide,” she says.
And she is. She’s been there from the earliest days. She was the first one to know. The only one to save me.
“He doesn’t deserve it,” I say.
“Nope,” Tinasays. “Not one bit. But he’s hoping to become the man who does.”
I stand up. If I want to prove I’m more than he is, then I know this is what I have to do.
And I do want him better. I want that for Mom, and for June.
So I walk to my bedroom, where they’re talking to him on speaker. They wipe tears while listening to him go on about the Spam he’s eating straight out of a can.
Mom looks up andsees me, and she’s so happy, like my entering the room is the best gift I could give her.
“Gavin’s here,” Mom says. “He’s just come in.”
The phone is quiet, and the only way I even know he’s still on the line is the word “Robert” at the top of the screen.
Then he clears his throat. “Hello, son,” he says.
“Hello, Dad. Merry Christmas.”
“Thank you for putting up your Mom and June. I hear thebaby is a real cute kid.”
