A Christmas to Remember(31)

“I don’t have any girlfriends to go out with,” she said. She didn’t want to say what she was really feeling: that she didn’t have any girlfriends at all, and even if she did, she had no time to go out with them, nor did they understand her. They didn’t know what it was like to care so much for someone else’s children that the thought of going out for herself seemed trivial. No one would ever understand that.

“I had a girlfriend whom I liked to go out with once,” he said, winking at her. There was something about Walter that could draw her right in, as if she’d known him her entire life. It was like talking to her own grandfather. Carrie’s grandfather, Pappy, had passed away almost a decade ago. That decade had seemed like a blip in time until she sat across from Walter. Being with him made the years without Pappy stretch into what seemed like a lifetime. She could remember the corduroy trousers he always wore, the buttoned shirts, the way he smelled—it had been so long since she’d had him near her. She remembered how he always kept a piece of candy in his pocket, and, even when she was a grown woman, he still had one for her—butterscotch in the gold wrapper. Watching Walter now, his genuine smile, the way the whites of his eyes had yellowed with age, just like Pappy’s, made her want to hold onto him, not ever get up from that sofa, because sitting there with him, she felt like she was with Pappy again.

“Her name was Beth,” Walter said, pulling her from her thoughts. She blinked, her eyes moist with memories. “Beth was the only girl I ever wanted to go out with. She had a laugh like warm apple pie, and she smelled like roses. It took me a year to get up the courage to ask her to the picture show, and I worried that she wouldn’t go, since it was dark in there, and she was quite the lady, but she went. I spent every day with her after that.” Walter wiggled his leg again. “Every single day until the good Lord wanted to have her back.” Carrie swallowed the lump in her throat. She didn’t even know Beth, but Walter’s loss was evident even through his smile. “I know what you mean is all,” he said. “I know what it’s like not to have any girlfriends to go out with.” He smiled a playful but knowing smile.

Carrie found out that the rest of Adam’s family, too, wasn’t much different from hers. They lived in a small town in rural North Carolina, and, like her, they enjoyed the little things in life. Walter kept a deck of cards in his back pocket for whenever he was bored. He pulled them out, and they’d played Rummy all evening. As they played cards, she had a chance to chat since the kids were in bed. It turned out that Adam’s sister, Sharon, had attended her college—they were two years apart—and she’d rented a beach house in Nags Head, only a street over from the one where Carrie had vacationed with her parents as a kid.

She’d delighted in the banter between Walter and his son, Bruce. Walter chattered about the World Wars and politics—topics that generally didn’t interest her—but he had a way of telling the stories that made her unable to pull herself away. Even when Joyce had asked her to help cook supper, she found herself leaning toward the table to hear what he was saying. Whenever Bruce would question him on a fact, he could twist it into a joke and make everyone laugh—even Sharon, who’d sat quietly most of the time except when she leaned over to Eric to say something. Every so often, though, laughter would rise up in her, and a little amusement would escape. Carrie knew, just by the few interactions she’d had, how close this family was, and she felt a twinge of sadness that Adam wasn’t there to share it. He’d chosen a lonesome desk in an office over this.

The thought kept coming to her, how differently she would have painted the family of Adam Fletcher. Why, with such an obviously normal, loving, middle class family, had he ended up the way he had—so driven to make money that he’d ignore everyone in his life? Was that why his wife had left him? Had she had enough of being alone? Carrie was in a very strange predicament: she’d never felt the need to fix or alter a situation involving a parent before. She’d known children who required her assistance in learning how to behave, but she’d never felt so strongly about helping another adult. She knew it wasn’t her place, but just like the children, underneath the behavior, she saw the potential—perhaps that was the reason for her need to make him a better parent.

Adam would probably be such a good, loving father. There had been moments—she’d seen them—where he’d pondered what she was saying, almost as if he were second-guessing his original thoughts. If she could just get him away from work long enough, maybe she could make him see. She worried about him missing out on everything; it bothered her. But then she thought about how she’d promised herself she wouldn’t get involved, especially after the last fiasco. It wasn’t her place no matter how much it kept her up at night. For now, at least she was enjoying his family, even if he wasn’t.