The First Christmas

My nose wrinkled at the smell of gingerbread, and buttercream icing. Usually, I loved the smell of gingerbread, but that was when my mom was making gingerbread. The stench of the other woman left the home I used to live in with both of my parents….stinky, and stuffy. My chest felt really tight, and the more I tried to rake in more oxygen. The heavier the elephant on my chest grew, and I had to fight the urge to run back outside to my car.

They say it is easier for the children to experience divorce when they are adults because they are old enough to deal with the reality of their parents separating. Unfortunately, I do not see things this way. I think being older makes the pain harder to overcome. It’s like a smack in the face to know that the parents that raised me were no longer happy. My brain refused to accept the fact.

So, to breathe in the aroma of someone else’s baking in my mother’s old kitchen felt like a betrayal. Mom always argued that she was the one who’d been cheated on, that this was not my battle, but hers. Yet, I felt like, if my father could stab the woman who brought me into this world in the back. He’d probably screw me over too if given the opportunity.

The sweet stench of his new fiancee caused my stomach to somersault in a frenzy of qualm. Christmas morning was bitter, this was the first Christmas without my mom. I did not like how he could just move on, so quickly.

My mother lost her life in a car accident six months ago. She did not have time to process her divorce, much less move on with her life. But somehow, my father managed to create a whole new life for himself. Despite the fact that he was creating these new memories, in the home of his old family.

I stood in the hallway. Staring at the floor, it was too much to bear. This was not this woman’s house. It was my mother’s……..how could he invite me to Christmas, when he’d just wrecked the entire family last Thanksgiving?

Why was I even here?

Because I am lonely? The desolate feeling that lingered over me like a thunderstorm never disappeared, it constantly threatened to pour over like a boiling pot of water. Losing my mother directly after my father’s betrayal, left me lost in space. I felt empty. I felt exhausted. I felt enraged.

He tore our family apart just for my mother to die.

Why was my mom’s life so desperately miserable? If there was a God looming over the planet, why did he punish the parent that was the victim? How come he gave the adulterer a free pass?

I should not be here, the angry thoughts blare in my ears, piercing my soul like a needle gun. The urge to scream builds in my chest, enveloping me in a blanket of agitation, as I lose every effort to control myself.

Maybe, I would spend Christmas by myself from now on.

That would be my new tradition. Since he wanted to start a new beginning, he could do that with his new family. I would start my own journey without him. I would cherish the traditions of my mother, and if that meant spending Christmas by myself. Then so be it, because this would be the last Christmas I will spend with him.

His house left a bitter taste in my mouth, and the longer I waited for them to acknowledge me, the funkier my tongue tasted. The taste of coffee soured my breath, and my need for a drink was going to force me to approach them first.

I would have knocked, but old of cold brisk habit, I let myself in with my key, not even realizing it till my boots were stepping on a bright maroon rug.

My mother’s rug had been blue.

My footsteps to the kitchen were much louder in my ears than to anyone else’s, they probably couldn’t hear me over the corny Christmas music playing. Something, we never did.

We watched holiday movies from Christmas Eve to Christmas morning, sipping on hot chocolate, and staying warm in our heated blankets.

My stomach revolted at the sight of the kitchen. The decorations my mother had put up were gone, of course, it had not been anywhere close to the holidays since she’d been here. But to see her nick-knacks replaced with someone else’s stung. It was almost as if my mother had never been here at all.

Almost like every trace of us had been erased.

A woman with curly blonde hair clipped to the top of her head, stood at the sink rinsing out a glass bowl. She was thin, but something about her seemed rather solid. She was skinny, but she also seemed thicker in some places. Her calves were rather meaty, and her hips seemed a little spread. I almost hid behind the wall, when she began to turn around, but I glued myself to the floor.

The reason her hips seemed like they were bending from her backside, was because her shirt concealed a beach ball of a belly. The sight of my bewildered face mirrored in her eyes, as I could see shock flash across hers. She dropped the glass bowl, and I watched her panic for a few seconds. The glass shattered, and she let out a shrill scream, which seemed a tad dramatic. However, she was obviously pregnant, so her nerves were naturally agitated.

My mother had just died, so I knew what agitated nerves felt like, but I couldn’t say I was particularly agitated right now. I was more flabbergasted and cold.

I felt like a stranger in my old home, and to see my father fling himself into the kitchen with so much worry. So excited to make sure his new family was okay, even though he’d barely spoken to me, made me want to escape everything that I was seeing.

I am so glad that I choose to mentally and emotionally thrash myself this Christmas. I’m sure it is just what the doctor would have ordered.

“Grace, what happened are you okay?” Of course, the homewrecker’s name would be something holy. The best people out there, truly have the sweetest names.

“I just got scared, I did not know your daughter was here.” She nods at me, her pale face flushed red. Her deep blue eyes startled and unsure of what to make of our current situation.

Crazy to think, you just made a man closer to the age of a grandfather, a brand new dad again. Up until this point, his only kid had been raised. I was twenty-years-old, and here he was starting completely over.

Why was my mother not good enough?

“Charlie! I did not hear you come in, how are you?” If this was Before Grace, he would have strutted over to me and gave me a bear hug. But because we are at that point in our lives, During Grace, he is coddling his new fiancee and baby. I wonder what things will be like After Grace.

The seasick feeling of before threatens to spill onto my father’s white tile.

This is just too much for me to handle, the man was technically a widow, and here he was with an extremely pregnant fiancee.

“Definitely been better, I think I am going to go. This is just not..” I trail off, not knowing what to say to comfort myself. The large bulge in my throat is squeezing my vocal cords, so my voice is hoarse. Despite the fact that I should be moving on, I cannot.

My mother barely died, and here I was………observing my father replace it.

The affair was her breaking point, and to see that my father’s life was not a mess. But to know my mother died living in a mess, makes me want to jump into the SUV parked outside, and run him over.

“Charlie, I know this hard for you. It’s been hard o-…”

“Don’t you dare say this has been hard for you! How can anything be hard for you? When you’re bringing someone else into your bed?” The angst courses through my system, and I feel every bone in my body radiating with fury.

“Charlie, I am so-”

“No, no, I don’t want to hear your apologies. You were not sorry when you were gallivanting around town cheating on her. Who finds it apologetic to impregnate someone else?”

“I did not invite you over to upset me, or my wife. I invited you over to spend time with u-…”

“Then you should have invited someone else because I am not ready for an US!” I won’t let him see me cry, I won’t let him see me cry, I chant to myself.

Before I can acknowledge what I am about to say, the words are spilling out of my mouth like someone who has just ingested truth serum.

“And you, Little Miss Homewrecker. You think you are safe with him?” Her thick eyebrows jut inches up her forehead, her hands fly up to clutch her chubby cheeks, and my father steps between us.

He doesn’t realize the mistake he’s made by choosing to protect them.

Maybe I am being selfish. Maybe it is unreasonable for me to be upset with him. I can’t control the tantrum brewing within my inner core.

I am halfway out the door when he screams after me. But it does not matter.

Nothing can change the pain he has put me through, and for him to think I am just going to forgive him in the name of holiday spirit, is blatantly idiotic.

“Charlie!” The desperation in his voice begs me to stay, pleads with me to take my hand off the door of my car, but all I can think about is my foot slamming the gas pedal down.

“You know what, Dad? I am not sorry. I am not going to let myself feel sorry because you are the one who turned my life upside down. You may have not been the one to take Mom from me, but you sure did make her last days on Earth a living hell. And in her honor, I hope you rot in hell when it’s time for you to go six feet under.”

His brown hair is sparkling with silver, his grey eyes are appalled, and his mouth has fallen open like he has lost control of his jaw. Some distant part of me wants him to beg me one more time to stay, but I think the toxicity of my words has settled in his mind. To come back from everything I just said, would be the right thing to do. To apologize for lashing out, but I can’t bring myself to do right by someone that has done me so incredibly wrong.

If God wanted me to live without a mother, what did it matter if my father was involved? I am an adult.

I do not need someone that runs around betraying his closest family members. I’ll spend Christmas as I always did. Watching Christmas movies, and nursing hot chocolate.

The drive to my mother’s shoddy apartment was short. It took ten minutes to get here, and I drove blankly. The radio played but I couldn’t hear the sound of any music.

I could see the road, but I couldn’t recall anything extra. I parked the car but had no recollection of stepping on any flights of stairs. I walked through the door and plopped on the couch.

It was sitting on our old sofa when I suddenly notice the echoing silence. The remote sits on the small end table she’d turned into a makeshift coffee table, and I weakly smile grabbing the remote.

I sift through the channels until I land on the numbers I am looking for. My heart skips as I read the titles, wondering how the television stations are playing all of her favorite movies. It’s hard to settle for one, but I spend ten minutes arguing with myself before finally choosing.

I curl up with the last blanket she made me, and I switch off the lamp she bought three weeks before she passed away. Tears swell in my eyes, as I try to tell myself she is in a better place.

It’s difficult to think that I am still here without her. As for the holidays, the only things I want to do, are the things she did. It did not feel so lonely now that I was home.

I would not stay here forever, but when I did move I would make sure to decorate the way she would have. Christmas was her favorite, and for her, I would celebrate Christmas the best way possible.