Page 15 of Wild Christmas
There are a lot of pictures of Becky with her new baby. I want the girls to remember their mom. The photos were taken by my ex-mother-in-law who flew in from Texas to be with her daughter and never quite forgave me for not being at the birth of her first grandchild.
I flip the page to the first pictures of me with my daughter, my face unlined and my eyes wide with wonder. I can’t believe it was only six years ago. I look like a much younger man.
Then me again in my military uniform kissing a two month old Dora before heading off for another deployment.
The time was always too short with my family. Dorawouldn’t remember me when I got back, and by the time she got used to me again it was time to go.
There are more pictures of Dora and her mom, Becky looking better in a floaty summer dress, Dora on her hip, a chubby one year old now. Becky’s hair is loose, and her flawless skin shiny and bright. She looks so young, too young.
I turn another page, and there are more photos of me and Dora and Dora and Becky. There are none of the three of us together, and I wonder if Freya notices.
“Do you miss her?” Freya’s voice is a whisper, and I know she’s asking about Becky.
I think about the fight we had the last time I saw her. How her face that I once thought pretty was screwed up in resentment. How she yelled at me and called me all the names under the sun even though I was the one who should have been angry.
I remember the girls crying in the house, Maisie’s newborn mewls and Dora’s toddler howls. How I begged her to calm down and not scare the girls, to come inside and talk in the morning.
“I miss the girls having a mom,” I say. “I’m sorry for what happened to Becky, but we were getting a divorce.”
“Oh,” Freya says her shock evident. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Becky wasn’t suited to life as a military wife. She was too young when we married.”
Freya doesn’t say anything, and her silence relaxes me. I feel like I can open up to her. “She cheated on me.”
Freya gasps, and when I glance at her she looks horrified. A single tear rolls down her cheek, and my chestsqueezes that this woman feels so much. “I’m so sorry that happened to you.”
My thumb brushes the tear away. “Are these tears for me?”
She nods and my thumb lingers on her cheek, tracing the curve of her cheekbone. “You feel too much.”
Her warm breath brushes my cheek, and I close the distance between us with my lips, pressing my lips against hers. She’s soft and warm and tastes of the strawberries she had on her cereal this morning.
Freya moans, and I pull away. She looks up at me with round, innocent eyes, and I’m reminded of how young she is. Too young. Too young and innocent, and I’m not going to repeat the same mistakes I made with Becky.
“Sorry.” I stand up abruptly, and the photo album slides off my lap and onto the floor. I reach to pick it up at the same time as Freya, and our foreheads bump together.
“Sorry,” we say at the same time.
She rubs her head and I rub mine, and I’m as awkward as I always have been around a beautiful woman, like the geeky guy who won all the math competitions at school and never the girl.
I was the guy who spent his lunch breaks in the computer room while the cool kids played football or softball or any of those other games I’ve never seen the skill for.
I was a mathlete, which is way less cool than being anathlete when you’re in high school and stupid stuff like being cool matters.
It was at a career day when I was recruited into the army. The man in the neat military uniform said they could use someone with my skills.
I joined the Signals and never looked back. I liked the routine of military life; it was neat and orderly until the accident and the honorable discharge I took to raise my girls. Becky’s mom wanted to take them back to Texas, and for once she encouraged me to stay in the military. But I wasn’t giving up my girls. I gave up the army instead.
I moved back home to raise them in the mountains and took on client work that mostly only uses a fraction of my skills. But occasionally the government calls, and I help on special projects when they need my specialist skills.
But day to day I’m updating laptops and switching PCs off and on again for elderly clients who look bemused when they sit in front of a screen.
It’s worth it for my girls.
My instinct is to make a hasty retreat from Freya and what just happened. But I’m not that awkward teenager anymore. I’m a grown ass man with enough experience to know what I’m feeling for Freya is different. So I take a deep breath, put my fears behind me, and say what I came here to say.
“Do you want a chicken sandwich?” She smiles shyly, and its’s disarming, and I don’t think I conveyed to herwhat I really want. “I mean, do you want to join me for lunch? Do you want to have lunch with me?”
