Chapter 122
THAT EVENING BACK AT THE house, Paul told me he had a surprise for me. “Think of it as an early Christmas gift,” he said as he sat me down on the living room sofa and shoved an envelope into my hands.
“You don’t want me to wait until Christmas?” I asked, but Paul was adamant that I open it immediately.
I picked up the envelope and studied the stationery, which belonged to a local travel agency. “Paul,” I said, hesitantly, “what is this?”
“Just open it.”
He was giddy, and I wanted to throw the envelope in his face, tell him that I couldn’t be bought off with a trip to Rome or Venice or wherever the fuck he thought would make a romantic getaway.
Also, his money was supposed to be my money, too, and I resented the fact that he thought he could go spending this kind of cash without talking to me first.
“It’s not what you think,” he said as I slid my finger under the flap and peeked inside the envelope. I’d been expecting to find two airline tickets in our names, but all I saw was a receipt.
I removed it and had to read the words Charleston–Olbia three times before I understood what Paul had done. “Oh my God,” I said. “You’re flying my parents over for Christmas?”
He held up his hands like he needed to stop me before I got ahead of myself. “Just your mom.”
“What?” I said, confused.
“The ticket was an arm and a leg. Especially last-minute like this.”
My mouth went dry. “So you’re flying only my mom over?”
“I thought it’d be nice for you two to have some girl time.”
“It is. Yeah. But…”
“But what?” said Paul, who was already beginning to get irritated.
“What about my dad?”
“Your mom says he’ll be okay. I talked to her about it this afternoon.”
“You called her?”
“Yeah, of course,” he said. “I wasn’t going to buy her an airline ticket without talking to her.”
I didn’t want to state the obvious, which was that if Paul had called my mother out of the blue and offered to pay for one ticket and not two, he’d put her in an incredibly awkward spot.
She’d have hated turning down the chance to see me, but she also would have hated the idea of leaving my father alone at Christmas.
Paul could see my hesitation. “Your mom said he’ll go to your aunt’s. It’s not a big deal.”
I pictured my father at Aunt Arlene’s, eating dry turkey and cranberry sauce out of a can. “She doesn’t even put up a tree,” I said, and Paul rolled his eyes.
I wanted to explain that Christmas was different without my brother and that my parents needed each other in a way they maybe hadn’t before Lenny died.
When I’d called home on Christmas morning last year, they’d made a big deal out of telling me about my mother’s egg casserole and the Weedwacker she’d bought my father, but I had seen right through the charade.
Their kids were gone, the house was empty, and the holiday was a reminder of everything they’d lost.
Paul wasn’t hearing any of it. “Do you want her to come or not?” he said, and I admitted that I did. Very much.
“Well, then, stop bitching about it. I was trying to do something nice.”