A Better Autum

1. Write about a family’s first holiday after a parent has gotten remarried, and now there are new faces at the table and new traditions to be honored.

Carrie was a worker bee that would have rather been Queen Bee. She worked hard all her adult life, working several jobs at one time to raise her three terrific kids. She was raised to be much more; her parents gave her the best of everything, but she married and had kids young and divorced it seemed even younger. Glad for her ability to teach ballet and sell the odd painting, Carrie had to take shifts in other ‘normal’ jobs to make ends meet. The days were long; often 14 hour, and included only seeing her kids on lunch breaks where she had to deposit them to the next daycare...no one kept the long hours she did to survive. Still, she made a big deal out of holiday traditions. She made the kids Halloween costumes, but they needed to put in the request by August so she had time to sew them. She made a posh Easter picnic and carefully selected matching pastel outfits for the egg hunt, but she had to stay up all night cooking the day before to accomplish this. Carrie made a big deal out of Christmas, and did without in order to buy nice presents and make everything lovely, only for the kids to get whisked away on visitation by noon. The rest of Christmas for Carrie was spent crying alone and watching Sound of Music...all that work and the holiday was spent primarily in solitaire, except for her imitation of Santa for the morning present opening. Yes, what Carrie needed more than anything was a break. Any kind of break...love, job, just plain good luck. And try as she might, she never met someone, never advanced in a career so as to be able to hold one job to pay the bills, never have more time with her precious children. In fact, it wasn’t until the last child was flying the nest that she met Tony, and finally had that break she always wanted...in peace.

The children were always Carrie’s priority, although she was always working so much that she had little time to actually parent them. Grateful for teaching dance, that was the one time that she could take the kids with her to work. When they were tiny, they were in a play pen, listening to classical music. As soon as they were old enough, they joined in, although her son wasn’t interested in dance. She bartered him other lessons at the facilities, like basketball. Often there was a pool, and the kids could happily swim while mom taught dance. Never able to afford a studio of her own, Carrie worked diligently with her local Parks and Recs department, zig-zagging all across town after she picked up the kids to get to whatever center she was hired for at the time..usually several to make it a three day a week gig. She did work her way up on the pay scale here, having trained with the best in ballet in her youth not so long ago, and preferred to teach in lower income areas where kids that otherwise would not have exposure to the Arts. Of course, if there was a nicer facility, she took that into consideration for what they could offer her own kids. She even worked it out to teach at her own kids school, which made life simpler. Ballet and any kind of movement to music was Carrie’s first love...it just didn’t pay the bills. The way she looked at it, her dance classes paid for food and gas, but she needed the other low paying jobs to pay the rest. Retail was the easiest to get, and since she had a nice personality and dancer’s body, she looked the part, even in second hand clothes. But putting on a production; making the costumes, doing the choreography, working with the kids, and even performing herself, that was what Carrie loved to do. 

The years went by, and despite long days, Carrie did the best she could to raise the kids. They had the after school activities in dance and sport, of course, that otherwise she would not be able to afford if she wasn’t the instructor. Some days, they had up to eight babysitters. Carrie put herself through college, hoping that would help her earn more, but in the end it just took more of her family time away. In the end, she wished she had just gone on welfare like everyone else, taught a few dance classes and had that time with her kids. They all got good grades and were well-behaved, primarily because Carrie just didn’t have time to discipline, so she was very clear about her expectations for them. She never wanted any of her children to go through what she was going through. There were also many custody battle issues, so Carrie, being as young and naive as she was, thought they would go away...they never did.

Time passes, and the kids get good grades and seem well-adjusted. Carrie drops down to one job, working as a receptionist for a high-end law firm, plus teaching her beloved dance classes three days a week. She gets financial aid for the kids college, helps them get scholarships and apprenticeships, determined they would never have to struggle like she did. Her older daughter gets to apprentice for a fashion designer, earns a Fulbright scholarship and works her way through design school in New York. She settles there, becomes successful, but decides that she resents her mother and all the long hours and doing without she had to endure. She never speaks to her mother again, only after telling her what a lousy job she did raising them! It breaks Carries heart...Her son later gets in with a bad crowd, and is adrift for several years. Carrie hangs onto the baby of the family for dear life, only to have her run off with her boss...a man nearly Carrie’s age! 

Emotionally, Carrie shuts down. She loses her home because she has lost child support, and even though it wasn’t much, it was the extra bit that paid the bills; her day job paid rent and dance was food. It isn’t easy being a single mother of three, and she had sacrificed so much for the children she loved. Her bones ached, injuries set it from teaching dance on concrete floors all those years; she couldn’t move like she used to. Devastated from being all alone and broke, Carrie decides to take retirement early..she just can’t work multiple jobs anymore. The prospect of just staying and being poor is too much to handle, especially all alone. She decides to look out for herself first for a change. She still seems youthful, all those years of dance, not to mention the bell-jar effect of not realizing time had passed, left her looking young. She decides to move to the coast, since she always loved the beach. She always loved to paint and write, so that would keep her busy. Living frugally was something she was used to, and being in a beautiful place helped take the edge off of a champagne lifestyle on a generic beer budget.

It was there that she met Tony. Carrie would take a book, or her paints or notebook, everyday on a walk on the beach. She would work up a sweat, then unpack her projects and a snack and spend hours creating or reading. One such sunny day, dressed in a summery maxi dress and sitting on her old beach towel, she attracted Tony. He was from the South, but had found memories of the West Coast as a kid. With an open book laying there and paintbrush in hand, Carrie was oblivious to anything other than the scenery she was painting. 

“How do?”, Tony asked in his drawl

“Excuse me?”, said Carrie, not fully understanding the question or the accent.

Tony said he liked her painting; an easy pick up line. He said he was staying at a hotel nearby. He asked about her book, complimented her dress, and asked if he could join her. She said fine, but she was working, but he could chat if he wanted to. Tony sat on a driftwood log and made idle chit-chat. The sun started to set, which was longer than Carrie usually stayed...she liked to go home and make a nice meal for herself before then, but all this talking had made time fly. Tony asks her if she’d like to have a drink, or dinner considering the hour, and much to her surprise, Carrie agrees. 

There are loads of hotels and restaurants along the beach, so they pick the closest one. Carrie doesn’t know it yet, but it is the restaurant in the hotel where Tony was stating, all tinted glass and very 70s chic but a bit dated by today’s standards. He had been watching her over lunch, behind the dark windows, and decided that since she didn’t seem to me going anywhere, that a chat with the lady in the long flowered dress and sun hat seemed better than cable TV in his room. His gamble paid off, but decided not to tell her he was staying there yet so as not to spook her; it may be too convenient to be so contrived.

The waitress does a double take as Tony has been having all his meals there alone; he is a creature of habit. So seeing this lady join him so soon after a long late lunch seems funny to her; Carrie doesn’t notice the chuckle of myrth on her face as she seats them in his favourite booth. They order salmon and clams, seeing that it is the coast, and a nice bottle of white wine. Since she was always busy raising kids, she wished she had more experience with proper wine and food, and was always rushing home after her walk to watch cooking shows that paired food and wine. Prior to that, macaroni and cheese or how to order a pizza everyone liked was the extent of her cuisine knowledge. It was nice being an adult, she found, after all the initial heartbreak from the kids subsided. 

Tony explained that he had happy childhood memories of this beach, and was relocating. He had put out a few feelers for jobs; nothing like the six figures he used to earn. No, being at the coast is what he wanted, so he was applying for hotel management jobs. The one he was staying at was one that had interviewed him and put him up. They made him an offer; not a great one mind you, but it was what he wanted at that stage in life. A few years older than Carrie, he wanted out of the rat-race and a more peaceful life.

Once Tony moved there, they put him up temporarily. He could find a place or take a pay cut and stay there; his choice. What with calling everyday in his absence or seeing her on weekends, it didn’t take long for the relationship to blossom. Before the summer was over, Tony moved into Carrie's modest bungalow...a ten minute walk to the beach and modest, but it was charming. There was a garden, and the tiniest of beach views from the raised deck. All these years of raising kids and working so hard, she knew what she was missing...love. And Tony adored her. He thought she was the loveliest woman, and with her dancers posture and love of romantic clothes, she looked more like a Southern Belle to him. They walked on the beach, she made him romantic dinners and he lit the fire. Her Autumn years seemed more promising than all her years of sacrifice in her youth. 

Time flew by. Soon, it was approaching the holidays. Carrie really liked to make a big deal out of them still, made things for months now that she had the time to, so made gifts and decorations for months leading up to Christmas. Sure, she did stuff with the kids, often separate, but it wasn’t the same, and she had never had the experience of having a partner with them all the years she wish she had. Her oldest daughter still never spoke to her, although Carrie sent her cards and gifts. Needless to say, she wouldn’t come. She had to track down her son through rehab, as he was adrift for so long, but she told him how much she loved him and was worried, and he came around. Her youngest was now in a serious relationship [with someone her own age] and would be bringing him along. Carrie baked her brains out, cooked and cleaned and made the simple house very Christmassy and charming, with homemade wreaths, bright decorations, things from the sea they found on their walks...you name it. If it could be picked up from obscurity, Carrie would make it into something. Her cooking skills were better, so she had practiced recipes on a very willing Tony to make the perfect Christmas dinner. This was really an important meal.

Her son was the first to arrive. His appearance was a shock to her; so athletic as a kid, he had gained a lot of weight. Still, he was clean and sober, and he was home with her and that was all that mattered. Her youngest daughter proudly brought her new beau, who had tried to pick up some good wines to impress them, since they were going to wine tastings often and earning a more sophisticated palate. He was polite, and it was nice to see the baby of the family had settled down. 

Carrie did the tradition of stockings with an orange on the toe, although no one knew why that was a thing that had been passed down. She made their favorite meal, with the ‘killer’ mash potatoes, but truthfully with the cooking shows and a few classes, the tradition had been upped a level from opening cans like she used to. They grew their own veg now, so everything was fresh. Having wine with the kids was certainly new; she had been a tea-totaller their upbringing, less a custody battle caught her out as a lush. She loved to wrap, and each package had handmade little decorations on it, often shells made glittery or special ribbons. She used to have to do without to buy such things, and stay up all night to do them and then hide. Once, when the youngest was little, she heard her mom digging out the Christmas presents...that’s how she knew Santa wasn’t real...yet there were Santa gifts out of tradition that day.  Tony beamed as he watched the family and his girl do what she did best; love others. He bought the kids all token gifts, since he was working, just as their mom made things from their past for them. It was a little awkward at first, but the jokes of ‘gravy is a beverage’ and such still filled the room just like when the kids were young. Tony was glad that he brought them something modest, since he was saving his pennies these days. A future with Carrie was what he wanted. There was one more extravagant gift under the tree that day that he had saved for. A diamond ring for his lady love...and a little ceremony secretly planned on the beach while the kids that mean the world to her are there to see their mother's happiness.