Abdominal Snowman: A Feel Good Holiday Romance Page 2

  “How was school today?” I asked, and casually rifled through a stack of probably-overdue bills I’d carried in from the mailbox.

  “School is school,” she answered, in typical Jule fashion. “What more is there to say about it?”

  She always cracked me up with lines like this. “Fair enough,” I said, and tossed a Publisher’s Clearinghouse mailer into the wastepaper basket, then made my way into the living room.

  Jule was sprawled out on the floor in front of the TV. She had what appeared to be her homework spread out before her, but I had a funny feeling her eyes hadn’t left the television screen to visit it since at least the last commercial break.

  I stared down at her for a long moment, just to see if she’d register my eyes against the back of her head. When she remained engrossed in her program I leaned forward and tapped my socked foot against her already-pajamed rump, rousing her to attention.

  “Quit ittttt!” she complained.

  I laughed. “Something, something, you’ll go blind from sitting that close to the TV,” I repeated the oft-spoken lie from my own childhood.

  “That’s not true,” she said authoritatively, as though she’d fact-checked this very argument in order to be ready for it in the event that it was ever raised.

  “You’re right, it isn’t,” I quickly folded. “But you know the rules. No TV or internet until your homework is finished.”

  “But I’m working on it!” she insisted.

  “You do know ‘working on it’ and ‘finished’ don’t mean the same thing, right?” I teased.

  “But Rudolph’s on!” she said brightly, not as much whiny this time, but as though she hoped she might infect me with her holiday spirit, and force me to see the error of my ways.

  I glanced briefly at the screen and indeed saw the red-nosed reindeer prancing around with his buddies in the clunkiest 1970’s stop-motion around. I didn’t think this looked like the original Rudolph though, but one of the weird crossover sequels with Frosty the Snowman, filled with all kinds of weird fantasy antics.

  “This isn’t even the good one,” I remarked. “Besides, it’s the holiday season. Rudolph will be on about a thousand more times before Christmas day.”

  I switched off the TV, and Jule’s first glance back at me was a look of grumpy indignance. I honestly sort of wish I had my old Polaroid camera to get a snapshot of it.

  “You’re such a Grinch,” she jabbed at me.

  “Oh, Grinch,” I repeated with a grin. “I thought you said something else, and I was going to have to go all Ralphie-from-a-Christmas-Story on you with a bar of soap... But hey, I’m not a Grinch! Would a Grinch be driving all the way to Westport this weekend just to pick up your Christmas present?”

  I could tell just by looking at her that Jule was less than impressed by this.

  “We always used to sit around and watch Christmas specials together,” she persisted. This stung, because I knew when she said “always” she was imagining her father in the picture.

  I gave her a warm smile, and tousled her bob cut brown hair.

  “I know things have been a little bit different this year,” I admitted.

  “A lot different,” she once again corrected me.

  “A lot different,” I agreed. “But I really am trying to do my best, sweetie. And I only want the very best for you. You know that, right?”

  “I know,” she finally conceded. “It’s just like we never get to do anything together like we used to.”

  This felt like a gut punch. It was true, and I’d been feeling it myself only too profoundly these days, but I hadn’t realized how much it was affecting her as well.

  “I know,” I parroted her. “You’re right. And I’m trying to do better. I’ve really been trying to put in extra work at the bakery, so the two of us can at least have a normal holiday this weekend. And I’ll tell you what. Why don’t I take the day off tomorrow? If you can get your homework done tonight, that gives us the whole weekend to spend together. Does that sound okay to you?”

  She looked at me a little bit skeptically for a moment, like she suspected there might be some other catch to this offer that hadn’t been sprung on her just yet.

  “Can I go with you to Westport to pick up my Christmas present?” she asked, as though testing the ice of this new agreement.

  I twitched my mouth to one side for a moment, considering this, and then smiled at her.

  “Well, I want it to be a surprise, so you can’t come in when I go in to get it. But you can definitely come along shopping with me, and help me pick out gifts for Aunt Clara and Uncle Aiden. Sound like a plan?”

  At last it was like a light switched on behind my little girl’s brown eyes, like all it had taken was the promise of some form of stimulation for her to get back to firing on all cylinders.

  “Deal!” she exclaimed, and she scooped up her papers from in front of the TV, and went hopping up the stairs two at a time to her room.

  “Please don’t run up the stairs in those slippers!” I called after her. “I’m not giving you your present if you fall and break your neck!”

  “You mean Santa’s not giving me my present?” she called from the top of the stairs.

  “Oh! Yeah, um... Santa! That’s what I meant!” God, how long had I been letting the mask slip on that one? I was gonna run out of space on the shelf for all my Parent of the Year trophies before too much longer...

  “Supper will be ready in about an hour!” I added finally, as though her enthusiasm for Hamburger Helper could come anywhere near to that of getting to wander around at the packed mall in Westport.

  _____

  Whether or not I could actually afford it, I ended up extremely grateful that I’d taken that Saturday off so that the two of us could spend time together.

  The punishing snow of the night before had given way to a clear day full of blue skies and sunshine, so that the snowy landscape around us seemed to beam with a kind of golden glow.

  The stores at Westport were as packed as one might imagine in the weeks leading up to Christmas, and the mall was so overcrowded we could barely manage to squeeze double file through the packed aisles. Even as a bit of a small town country bumpkin, I was never too anxious in crowded city settings, but I made sure I had Jule’s hand gripped tightly in my hand the entire time, worrying about what might happen if the two of us got separated.

  Still though, all in all the two of us had a really nice time together. I knew she’d been right all along when she’d said the two of us hardly did anything as a family anymore, but it struck me that this was probably the first time the two of us had actually, truly bonded ever since my divorce from her father.

  We badly needed this. This time spent healing as a family.

  We went around from store to store in no big hurry, and I let her lead me along toward whatever happened to catch her interest. I indulged her as she picked out some of the goofiest possible gag gifts for her Aunt Clara and Uncle Aiden (really her Great Aunt and Uncle). I set aside most of the money for their gift on some more mature kitchenware, but indulged Jule in letting her pick out some cheap silly things to give them from her; an enormously oversized wine glass for Aunt Clara, and a set of “emergency underwear” for Uncle Aiden (I knew they would both be good sports about it as long as the gifts were coming from Jule.)

  After we got done shopping we sat around in the food court and shared a pretzel while we people watched. Jule kept surprising me with her harsh but insightful commentary about our fellow mallgoers, and I had to keep reminding her to keep her voice down, even as I crumbled into giggling hysterics over how whipsmart clever my ten-year-old daughter was.

  It was as perfect a day out as either of us could’ve hoped for, and I could hardly remember a time when I’d last experienced such joy.

  Still, though, there were moments when, if I wasn’t careful, I could still feel a kind of shadow creeping over me.

  Teenage couples would walk past holding hands, for instance. Young
lovers would stare with puppy-dog eyes through the glass case of a jewelry counter, pointing out diamond rings it would take them years to actually pay for. In one instance, it was this sweet old couple walking along arm-in-arm that made Marie at the bakery look like a spring chicken by comparison; their limbs just barely edging them forward through the aisles, at so snail-like a pace it seemed miraculous that they didn’t get trampled by the crashing sea of consumers all around them.

  Every time I saw something like this, expressions of young love, or tried and true romance that had survived through the decades, a little part of me flaked away inside.

  If I never saw Scott again I would be happy. But the fact remained that I’d given my entire adult life, as well as several of my teenage years, to my high school sweetheart. Only for him to turn around and stab me in the back, leaving me lost and alone in a world that was somehow both far too small and far too large at the same time.

  I did my best not to let it show, for Jule’s sake. And I think for the most part I was able to hide my insecurities from her; only once or twice did she give me an odd look like she could tell something was up.

  I hated to think this way, but sometimes it felt like I couldn’t be my full self when I had a daughter to take care of. I couldn’t let myself be weak or vulnerable in her eyes, and I had to keep pretending everything was okay with me, even when I suspected she knew the truth.

  These moments came and went, and knew even as I suppressed them that they were having an impact on me.

  Still, though. I didn’t regret the two of us going out together for a moment. My own personal melodrama aside, I never ceased to be amazed by the incredible young woman my daughter was growing up to be. I was so proud of her, and maybe, to a lesser degree, proud of myself for raising her as well as I (hopefully) had.

  Deep down, I knew that was why I sometimes pushed her as hard as I did. I knew my family’s quaint little bakery held no real future for her, and I didn’t think Loveland would, either. I didn’t want her to fall down the same rabbit hole that I had, pregnant at graduation with her high school sweetheart’s baby, only to wind up married to an unfaithful, deadbeat husband, in a town that was far more likely to forgive a man’s so-called mistakes, than they were to forget his wife’s public humiliation.

  Jule would grow up to be so much more than I ever had. I was going to make sure of it.

  But for now, as I tucked her into bed after our long day out in Westport, I was simply content to get to be together with my little angel. The two of us, safe and sound together in our cozy little house, even as the winds outside began to whip up again, and the snow globe of Loveland was shaken into yet another furor.

  “Sweet dreams, my little sugarplum,” I whispered through the crack in the doorway once she’d nodded off. I closed the door to her room, and crept with a sinking in my chest down the hall, to my own cold, empty bed.

  Chapter Three - Snowball Flirt

  That Sunday was that day that would end up changing my life forever. I woke up with a shiver that crisp, chilly morning, and struggled to keep warm even under a veritable sea of blankets. Finally I gave up altogether on trying to insulate myself, and instead rolled out of bed, and trudged over to the soft white glow coming through my bedroom curtains.

  The ground outside was completely coated in a fresh glaze of pure white snow. Huge cotton ball flakes continued to whisper down from light gray skies as far as the eye could see, and I noticed my car had been reduced to nothing but an oblong lump in the marshmallow landscape.

  I smiled to myself as I watched the snow come down, thinking of childhood snowball fights and sledding down dangerously steep hillsides.

  I shivered and stretched like a lazy cat, then turned from the window and rummaged through my closet for some flannels and my heaviest winter coat.

  “Hey Jujyfruit!” I called down the hallway toward my daughter’s bedroom. “You want to come help me build a snowman?”

  I guess I’d been hoping to recapture some of the spark of our previous afternoon’s bonding. Jule, though, seemed to me like a totally different girl as she marched dutifully out into the snow behind me.

  “Don’t have too much fun, now,” I teased her gently once we’d rolled up the lower-tier snowball of our creation, and turned to see Jule staring glumly down at her snow boots. She didn’t even pretend to smile at me.

  “Jule, what’s the matter?” I then asked more sympathetically. She shrugged, and gave her nose an indifferent scratch. “We don’t have to do this if you don’t feel like it,” I offered.

  “It’s not that,” she insisted. “I mean, this is fun.”

  I frowned. “Well, what is it then?”

  Again she shrugged. “I dunno,” she said, then turned from me before I could probe any further, and started gathering up another handful of powder for our snowman’s midriff. I wondered if some of my own doubts and insecurities from the previous evening had somehow crept into her; whether my own holiday humdrum had infected her without my meaning to.

  I decided not to press her just at the moment, and decided maybe we could trick ourselves into having fun if we just kept working at it.

  It sort of started working eventually. We rolled together our snowman’s body and head, then dragged to good-sized fallen branches from the edge of the woods behind our house to use as his arms. I stumbled onto some old winter mittens and a scarf of her dad’s in my closet, and I let her slide them onto the snowman’s arms and around his neck, respectfully, hoping Jule wouldn’t imbue these old remnants with sentimental importance.

  We used charcoal from an old stove in our garage to give our guy buttons, two eyes, and an award-winning smile, and I sacrificed a lengthy orange carrot from our crisper drawer to give him a sense of smell.

  I did finally manage to get Jule to laugh by throwing a few snowballs at her butt, and she was completely grinning by the time I lifted her up under the arms to place an old stovepipe hat atop our snowman’s head.

  At last the two of us stepped back a few feet, and stood there admiring our handiwork.

  “Now that,” I said, “is one handsome snowman if I’ve ever seen one. I don’t know though, should we give him a corncob pipe just for the heck of it?”

  “Smoking kills, Mom,” said Jule flatly, and I snorted with laughter.

  “Good girl,” I said. “And you’re right, I think he’s perfect the way he is. Why don’t we just get a picture with our newly finished friend, then?”

  Jule rolled her eyes at this suggestion but trudged obediently over to the snowman’s side. This secretly pleased me too; I’d seen classmates of hers already active on Snapchat at ten years old. I would rather my little girl be a little bit camera shy than a narcissistic selfie queen at her age.

  I screwed my phone into the mount on a selfie stick (yeah, yeah, I know, but it was the only way I could get a decent photo of my daughter and I together half the time), and squeezed in beside my daughter next to our amazing creation.

  “Okay, on three just smile and say ‘Happy Birthday!’ One, two, three... Happy birthday!”

  To my surprise Jule obliged me with that adorable gap-toothed smile of hers, and when I turned my phone around to have a look, I quickly decided it was one of the better photos the two of us had taken together.

  “Ooh, this is good,” I remarked, as much to myself as her. “We should put this on a Christmas card, and send it to Aunt Clara and Uncle Aiden.”

  When I looked up from my phone again, I noticed that Jule had reverted to her previous, unhappy state of being. She was kicking absently at the snow around the base of our snowman, her eyes cast down at her boots.

  I frowned, and crouched down to meet her on her level.

  “Sweetie, what’s wrong? Are you not feeling okay today? Are you sick or something?”

  Jule slowly shook her head. “It’s not that,” she said. “Things just feel different this year.”

  “Awww, honey,” I said, and swept a strand of brunette hair from her face,
closer to her father’s dirty blonde locks than my own lighter, flowing blonde waves.

  “Things are different, sweetie. And I know that can take some time to get used to...”

  “I feel like you’ve been telling me that forever now,” she said.

  “I know I have been,” I said. “And I’m really sorry it’s taking as long as it has been.”

  “It’s not your fault,” she said with a shrug.

  Deep down, though, I couldn’t help but wonder whether she secretly harbored some resentment against me. What her father had been telling her about me during her visits (on the rare occasions that he actually bothered with seeing her), and whether he might be secretly twisting the circumstances of our divorce to try and turn her against me. Maybe it was just paranoia, but I wouldn’t have put it past Scott for a hot minute to do something so underhanded.

  “I’m so sorry sweetie,” I said, giving her a sad squeeze on the shoulder for a lack of anything else I could think of. “Is there anything I can do? Anything you need from me?”

  Jule just sighed and shook her head. “Not really,” she admitted. “Can we go inside now? I’m getting cold.”

  Her cheeks were indeed getting a bit too rosy for comfort, and I gave her a sympathetic smile, feeling otherwise helpless.

  “Of course,” I said. “Why don’t you go in and change into your flannel pajamas, and I’ll fix us both some hot cocoa with marshmallows to warm up?”

  “Okay,” she said, and sulked back toward the house. My heart broke a little as I watched her go. I felt like a failure as a mother, even though I knew there was nothing I could do to make the situation any better- then again, maybe that was exactly why I felt like such a failure.

  I turned and paid one last look at our holly jolly snowman, his red scarf fluttering in the breeze as the snow began to whip up again. I sighed, thinking just how desperate this now seemed; a sad attempt at recapturing the magic of a mother-daughter bond that was only getting weaker by the day.