Page 11 of The Write Choice

The weeks before Christmas fly by, like always. Brandon may have vowed to be home more, and that first day seemed promising, but that’s all it was. One day, and then he’s back at the office, leaving before the kids wake up and coming home just in time to put them to bed. This is a particularly difficult time for it, too, since the kids are done with school for the semester and have been home on winter break. All day. With me.

I fight the breakdown for so long. I keep my cool while I watch complete strangers start to pack up our bedrooms in huge boxes—watch, because I refuse to lift a finger to help in this charade. Brandon is too busy packing up his all-important office to help pack up our less-important home, so he hires people to do it for him. I only allow them to start packing the bedrooms because I want our living room to maintain some semblance of family comfort through the holiday.

So, on the day before Christmas Eve, when Brandon is sitting at the kitchen island drinking coffee and he tells me he has to go back into the office yet again to finish getting everything ready to move to Chicago, I lose my shit.

“We always take the kids to Rockefeller Center the day before Christmas Eve,” I say under my breath.

“This year is a little different, don’t you think?” He seems completely unfazed as he sips his coffee, which only irritates me more.

I eye him from the stove where I flip a pancake. “That was the point, though. We were going to spend a normal holiday here before we had to move.” My tone is clipped. I can almost see him scheming ways out of this conversation. He must know I’m not too far from an explosion.

He tilts his head to the side slightly. “I’m leaving in three days. You’re leaving in a week and a half. Did you really think this holiday would be normal?” His voice is carefully bland.

I slap the spatula on the hard countertop and glare at him. “I thought you’d be on board with our family traditions. I already bought the tickets.”

“Mom?” Mason’s voice drifts from his bedroom. “What was that noise?”

I take a deep breath and let it out slowly through my nose, never breaking eye contact with Brandon. “Nothing, buddy.” I force my voice to remain sweet. “Just dropped something in the kitchen.”

“Oh, okay,” he says, then his head pops out from the hallway into the living area next to the kitchen. “When are we going ice skating?”

“Eye-skating!” Christine calls from her seat at the little table next to our dining table. She almost drops the purple crayon balled in her little fist in her excitement.

I eye Brandon, trying to keep my expression neutral and probably failing. “We’ll leave after Christine’s nap.”

“After her nap? That’s forever,” Mason whines.

I glance at him over Brandon’s shoulder. “It’ll pass before you know it. Didn’t you have that book you were excited to read? Super dog or something like that?” It’s a thinly-veiled attempt to get him to go back to his room so I can continue talking to his father, but it seems to work. Mason’s face brightens as he remembers the book in question, and he pivots on his heel to go back to his room just as Brandon stands to bring his coffee mug to the sink.

“Oh, no you don’t. We’re not done here.” I start to put my hands on my hips when I remember the pancakes. I scrape them off the pan and onto the kids’ plates on the island.

“Cat—”

“Don’t call me that when I’m mad at you,” I spit out as I bring a plate over to where Christine was sitting a second ago. She’s no longer there, and I look up to see her shock of blonde hair pass through Mason’s doorway. I mentally calculate that I have about two minutes before the fighting starts.

“You’re always mad at me,” Brandon is mumbling as he rinses his mug.

“You’re always doing something to make me mad,” I counter. “How am I supposed to not be mad at you when you throw our lives into disarray and ignore our traditions in the process?”

The only indication of his frustration is the bang of his mug hitting the bottom of the sink louder than is normal. He hangs his head between his shoulders and holds on to the edge of the counter as his back rises and falls slowly. “I’m getting a little sick of being the one to shoulder all the blame for this.” His words are barely audible, but as he turns around to face me, I swear I see pain burn in his hazel eyes. He presses his lips together into a thin line, as if the simple clenching of his jaw could keep more words from tumbling out of his mouth.

Spoiler alert: it can’t.

“I’m not the one who came home drunk after eight years sober and begged to leave this place, Katie.”

I take an involuntary step back, my mouth gaping for a second before I close it, my nostrils flaring. There it is. The real reason he’s been so adamant about this move. But I’m not letting him have this one. He doesn’t get to swoop in and save me. I don’t need saving. “People say things they don’t mean all the time when they’ve been drinking.” I try to keep my voice flippant, but I can hear the edge in it. I take a deep breath before I add, “Besides, I didn’t realize I wasn’t allowed to have fun anymore.”

He tilts his head, and his expression almost looks as if he feels sorry for me, which stokes the ever-burning flame of anger in my belly even further. “It didn’t seem very fun for you.”

It hadn’t been. It had been a desperate attempt to drown out the fake, tittering laughter of the PTO moms at a fundraiser for Mason’s school. For three years now, they’ve made ignoring me an art form. I knew it was a mistake at the time, but they were all sipping their champagne and chatting, and I wanted to feel like I was on the inside rather than the outside for once. Drinking that champagne had felt like a way to show them all I was like them, at least in this small way. But one glass turned quickly to four or five—I can’t remember—and I ended up slinking out and taking a cab home.

Brandon’s expression turns apologetic, and I take that to mean my own is showing all the hurt I’ve been trying to keep locked away. I take a shaky breath, not exactly sure how to respond, but I don’t have a chance to.

“Chrissy!” Mason’s thin whine comes from the hallway. “Get out of my room!”

“I want that dinosaur!” Christine wails.

This seems to snap Brandon into action. “I have to get going.” He grabs his coat off the coat rack by the door, lifts his keys from the hook next to it, and pulls it open. He pauses with his back to me, almost as if he’s going to say something else. He must decide against it, because the next second, he steps out, and lets the door slam behind him.