I know he’s doing his best to convince me—and himself—but I can’t let him do this.
“But you always wanted to go away to school.”
“Yeah, but things are different now. I just want to stay put for a while.”
I hang a tiny golden reindeer on the tree and then go to the kitchen to refill my glass of eggnog. “Well, you don’t have to decide anything right now. You have plenty of time to think about it, and you might feel differently in the new year. I just want you to be happy, and if that means you going away to college, then that’s what I want too.”
Yet a part of me relishes the idea of my son staying home for another year because I love him desperately, and after losing my husband, the thought of saying goodbye to Zack is like another knife in my heart.
If not for my mother, waking up on Christmas morning and opening gifts without Alan would have been pure torture for Zack and me, but she arrives on Christmas Eve with a festive cherry cheesecake, a giant can of caramel popcorn, and a bag full of gifts. Winston leaps up from his lounging position on the rug, runs to the door to greet her, and wags his tail happily. It’s a welcome distraction.
Then we all sit together on Christmas Eve and watch The Sound of Music, which again distracts us from the fact that this is, without a doubt, the worst Christmas on record. All we want to do is get through it.
On Christmas morning, we open gifts without much ceremony, as we agreed to keep presents to a minimum and avoid giving each other anything too sentimental. I couldn’t help myself, though. I’ve overcompensated for what we’ve lost and bought Zack all new hockey equipment and a new cell phone, which occupies him for a while as he sets it up. He gives me a lovely silk scarf, while my mother presents me with a basket full of jams, chocolates, and coffee. Zack receives a fifty-dollar bill from her, along with socks and a new shirt.
As soon as the gifts are unwrapped, we move away from the tree and focus on cooking a gigantic breakfast. After the dishes are washed and put away, Zack texts some of his friends on his new phone and goes to Jeremy’s house to hang out in his basement and play the new video game he got from Dave and Maureen.
I’m glad he’s keeping busy and spending time with friends. As for me, I just want to forget that it’s Christmas and move past it as quickly as possible.
Somewhere between Christmas and New Year’s, in the middle of one of those endless nights, I awake groggily to the sound of the garage door opening, then a thump downstairs and the crashing clatter of something tipping over.
Zack pounds repeatedly on my bedroom door. “Mom!” He rattles the doorknob. “Someone’s in the basement!”
Panic sweeps through my bloodstream. I’m so frightened I can’t move a muscle. I can’t even make my voice work to call out to him.
Alan. Why aren’t you here?
My body feels made of lead. I try to scream, but it comes out as a mournful moan.
Winston jumps onto the bed and stands over me on all fours. He licks my eyelids, and suddenly I’m free from the terror paralysis, and I’m able to move. My eyes fly open. I grab hold of the fur around his neck and stare into his face to anchor myself in wakefulness.
Was I dreaming? No, there was definitely a noise in the basement. Someone’s in the house.
Zack.
I leap out of bed and run out of the room. The house is dark and quiet, except for Winston, who jumps off my bed and hurries down the hall ahead of me like a heroic four-legged defender. Head low, he runs to Zack’s room, peers in the door, then dashes down the stairs, barking viciously—and he’s not normally a barker.
I worry that Zack has already gone downstairs, and what if the intruder has a knife or a gun? I stumble slightly in my rush to get to his room, but when I enter, I find him sitting up in bed, switching on the light, which seems odd, considering he was banging at my door just now. Or was he?
Winston is barking somewhere downstairs, and my insides wrench at the thought that he’s down there alone, trying to protect us.
“Someone’s inside the house, for real,” I whisper, dashing to Zack’s phone on his bedside table. “I’m calling 911.”
Zack tosses the covers aside and rises from bed. His wild gaze darts around the room and fixes on a hockey stick leaning against the wall.
While I wait for the call to connect with emergency services, Zack picks up the stick and starts for the door.
“No, don’t go down there!” I whisper. “I’m calling the police.”
“But Winston’s down there,” Zack replies.
“He’ll be all right.”
I say these words even though I’m not sure he will be.
Then it occurs to me that a moment ago, I thought Zack was banging on my bedroom door, warning me about the intruder, but when I entered his room, he was still in bed.
Nevertheless, I know what I heard. It happened. It was real.
“Did you bang on my door a few minutes ago?” I ask.
“No.”
“Did you hear the garage door open?”
Again, he shakes his head.
Winston has stopped barking, but I hear him running all over the house, searching every room, including the basement.
Someone answers my call. Though I’m suddenly feeling doubtful that I actually heard something—maybe I was dreaming—I don’t want to take any chances, so I explain that I heard an intruder enter my home through the garage. The dispatcher instructs me to stay on the line and remain upstairs with the door closed and locked and to wait for the police to arrive.
I convince Zack to wait with me, while my mind works through what just occurred. As I begin to feel more wakeful, I wonder if I might have indeed been dreaming, because Zack insists that he never knocked on my door.
But I’d swear on my life that I heard the garage door opening, and obviously Winston heard it too. It was too real to be a dream. It happened. I’m certain. Someone entered through the garage, knocked something over, and might still be in the house.
I want Winston to come back upstairs. I’m worried for him.
When the police arrive, they do a full sweep of the house and inform me that the garage door is closed. Winston is stressed from all the activity and strangers combing through our house in the middle of the night. He sits at my side, panting heavily, while I speak to the officer in charge.
I explain again that I heard noises and Winston heard them too. But at this point, I’m starting to wonder if I’m going crazy.
If it wasn’t real, I’m too embarrassed to admit it, even to Zack.
After the police leave, I try to go back to sleep, but it’s not easy. Zack’s nervous too, so I suggest he sleep in the king-size bed with Winston and me. Then I hurry downstairs to get a frying pan, return to bed, and slide it under my pillow.
What a night.
Despite all the lies and betrayals in my marriage, I miss Alan more than ever and wish he was here with us. I always felt safe with him in bed beside me.
The following day at the hospital, I’m exhausted from sleeplessness, and I drift off at the lunch table in the doctors’ lounge.
A nurse finds me with my face resting next to my salad bowl, and she shakes me awake for my next surgery.
I’m mortified and apologize profusely, but she understands when I explain what happened the night before. She is kind enough to bring me a strong cup of black coffee, but as I sip on it, I can’t help but wonder if there’s something seriously wrong with me. One minute I miss my husband, and I’m devastated over the loss of him. The next minute I want to strangle him with my bare hands for what he did to us. And now I’m falling asleep at work in the middle of the day, in plain sight of everyone.
Is this normal? Or am I totally losing it?
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Somehow, Zack and I manage to make it to the new year, and I’m sitting in the bleachers watching his hockey game, relieved to slide back into some semblance of my old life. My nose is cold, and my rear end is numb, but I revel in the company of the hockey moms and dads, all of whom I’ve come to know very well over the past few years through sports dinners and fund-raisers, games and practices. On top of that, the blaring music, the noisy scrape of the players’ skates across the ice, and the refs’ shrill whistles create a cacophony that rouses me from the recent deadness of my life.
Not long after the first period, my cell phone vibrates in my coat pocket. I reach in with my thick woolen mitten to check the call display.
OCEANVIEW ANIMAL HOSPITAL.
I get up from the wooden bench and climb down the bleachers to take the call. “Hello?”
“Hi. Is this Abbie?”
It’s Nathan’s voice, which comes as a surprise. “Yes. Hi, Nathan. How are you doing?”
“I’m good. How about you?”
I walk along the boards, past the plexiglass barrier, to the lobby. “Well, you know . . . as good as can be expected.”
He’s quiet for a few seconds. “Yeah. I thought about you over Christmas. I wanted to call you, actually, just to see how you were doing, because I know what it can be like, but I didn’t want to intrude.”
“You wouldn’t have intruded. I would have liked to talk to you because you’ve been where I’m at right now, and sometimes it feels like Crazy Town.”
He chuckles. “I know the feeling. You can call me anytime, you know. You have my cell number.”