Good Enough(59)

“Oh well, look who finally showed up!” She shouts, as we walk in.

“Jesus Christ” I mutter to myself. I fucking called it, and she didn’t even wait until we were completely in the room. Shit, I didn’t even close the door yet.

“Having some beer are ya mom?” Jameson asks.

“Yup, I sure am. This is what you do when you’re all alone on the holidays.” Wow! She is taking him for a trip. A guilt trip.

“No one told you to leave Grandma and Grandpas’, mom. You could have stayed there all day and night.”

She stabs out her cigarette in the ashtray and stands up from the couch marching to the kitchen with her empty beer can. “You left me there. What was the point in staying all night?”

Jameson drops his head shaking it back and forth already irritated. I take off my shoes and hang up my jacket muttering, “This is ridiculous” under my breath. I look at Jameson. “I’ll be damned if I am going to be made to feel guilty for spending time with my own damn family on Thanksgiving.”

I do what I told myself to do if this happened. I walked straight to Jameson’s bedroom and closed the door. I’m pacing the small room back and forth infuriated. I can only hear mumbled voices outside of the room. I don’t know what is being said, it’s not clear enough for me to understand. I’m almost tempted to grab my stuff and leave. I decide to wait until Jameson comes in and tells me what was said.

It’s been almost twenty minutes and Jameson is still out there. I’m getting anxious. I’m getting impatient. I’m on the verge of screaming. This is bullshit! I sit down on the bed and take a few deep breaths. Then it hits me. Christmas is a month away. What happens then? There are some traditions that I won’t give up, number one is Christmas Eve at Grandma and Grandpa Nowal’s.

I won’t give that up. Christmas day I am willing to work around like I did today but not Christmas Eve. I remember Jameson mentioning that his favorite was Christmas Eve with his dad’s family as well, so we don’t have to worry about that. He’ll go to his family and I’ll go to mine. We will see each other on Christmas day. When and how long? God only knows what plans Marcie will have cooked up for that day.

Thinking back to earlier today with Jameson’s family, I remember his cousins talking about leaving early to go see other friends and family. At the time I thought they were joking but I realize now their conversation was very serious. They were talking about the two sisters of manipulation. They laughed about always having their bags packed for multiple guilt trips. They might have been laughing about it but now I realize how serious they really were.

I hear the door push open. I turn my head and see Jameson walking in. I can’t read him. His eyes look tired but that could be from the long day of driving. The vein on the right side of his forehead is throbbing. That usually means he’s stressed. He runs his hands over his face and sits down next to me on the bed then drops back, staring at the ceiling for a short moment then closes his eyes.

I don’t know what was said between him and Marcie, so I’m cautious with my approach. I lay back next to him, put my head next to his, lay a gentle kiss on his cheek, put my arm over his chest and just lay there with him. In a situation like this, sometimes saying nothing is the best approach.

Exhaustion took the best of us that night. Whether I wanted to go home or not my body spoke up and said ‘not gonna happen.’ Jameson and I fell asleep just as we were, in our clothes, hand in hand.





“I bet if I stand close enough to you, I can hear the ocean.”



December 10, 2002

CHRISTMAS IS RAPIDLY APPROACHING. A lot of my close family members said they wanted to get Jameson and I gifts for our future home. I was worried about saying yes, afraid to jinx anything but then Jameson reminded me that there was nothing to jinx. We hadn’t found ‘the one’ yet, nothing was on deposit so there was nothing to jinx.

Marcie was pressing us hard for our Christmas Day plans. She waited until three days after Thanksgiving to bring it up the first time. I was immediately irritated but I tried to be funny in my response, mentioning we had just recovered from Thanksgiving, and Christmas plans were the last thing on my mind, so she was just going to have to wait until I was good and ready. She didn’t say anything in response. I think I shocked her and I love that. It made Jameson smile to see me give it back to her, and it made me stand a little taller and prouder to have that support from him.

Jameson and I decided that since Christmas Eve night with our father’s families was very important to both of us, we would both keep our plans with them. When Jameson leaves his family he’ll come pick me up and we’ll spend the night at his apartment with Marcie. Christmas morning we’ll do all over again what we did on Thanksgiving. I wish I could convince Jameson to do the opposite but Marcie gave him a really hard time about going to his grandparents for lunch.