An Underestimated Christmas (Underestimated 3) (18 page)

I was just going over my menu for the next day when Drew walked into his office and closed the door to take a call. I shook my head and turned back to my next day’s plan.

“Nicky, don’t do that,” I lectured, watching him swing a yo-yo around the air. My eyes landed on Drew’s when he exited his office and looked at me with a look I’d seen before. Something was coming. I just didn’t know what.

“Morgan, I swear this wasn’t planned.”

“Of course it wasn’t. What did you do now?”

“I listed it two days ago. I thought for sure it would take months to sell.” That’s how he told me our house was on the market. “We need to go pack and get the movers going. I told them we could be out in thirty days.”

“Oh, okay. Great. I’m going to go bathe the boys,” I said, stepping around him. I had to. I was about to go ape shit crazy on him.

“Morgan, listen to me.”

“Why?” I questioned, throwing him a ‘what’s the point?’ expression. Not waiting for a response, I went to bathroom to run bath water. I had a Thanksgiving dinner to prepare for everyone. Like that’s what I wanted to do right now. I didn’t even want to stay here. I wanted to get away for Christmas, but that wasn’t going to happen. Drew was going to make sure of it.

“And I’m just supposed to be okay with this?” I said to my reflection in the mirror, kicking my bathroom door closed with my heel. I turned on the water and looked at the door before retrieving a tiny little pill and a razorblade hidden on top of the light fixture. I chopped it up like a pro on my shiny granite countertop while I internally bitched about my husband.

Sure, Drew. Let’s just list the house without talking about it first. Let’s try to get moved out in the mist of the holidays. Why not. Hell, we might as well move to that little hick town you keep talking about, I ranted to myself. The smell of money touched my nostril and I snorted one of the two lines. Breathing in relief, my closed eyes fluttered opened to Drew in my mirror. His mouth hung open and his hand was frozen to the doorknob.

“Drew, this isn’t what you think,” I instantly spoke. Shit. Why didn’t I lock the damn door?

“What the fuck are you doing, Morgan?” Drew asked in total disbelief.

“It’s not coke. I swear.”

“Why?”

The rest of our foundation crumbled at that very moment. I was so proud of Morgan for overcoming something she’d let become a crutch for her. She had barely asked for a pill, sometimes I offered and sometimes I didn’t. I wasn’t even worried about it anymore. I thought she’d kicked it. Had it licked. She didn’t. My wife was snorting something up her nose in a ten dollar bill.

There was nothing for me to do but walk out. I couldn’t talk to her without hurting her. My jaw hurt from being clinched all evening and I still couldn’t talk about it with her. What the fuck was I supposed to do? Nothing I did helped. I left Morgan to tend to the boys and I left. I had to go walk off some anger before we were alone together. I probably shouldn’t even come back.

Walking along the shore, I wondered where to go from here. What the hell to do to fix this. The notification in my pocket told me my wife just messaged me. I didn’t even want to see it. I swiped it away without even reading it. And then I frowned at Sole’s name, ringing from my phone.

“Hello, just wanted to touch base, see how things were going,” Sole spoke. I knew what he was calling for, and I knew the question wasn’t about my personal life. That’s what he got, though. For whatever reason, I laid the last three years of my life out to Solomon. I didn’t understand why everything had to be a fight with Morgan and me. And I wanted to fix it more than anything.

Solomon listened with Hmm Mmms’ and yeahs’, never interrupting. All the way to where I told him I just watched my wife snort drugs up her nose. Sole didn’t judge me. Not once did I feel like I shouldn’t have told him.

“Five years ago Stacy lost her mother to cancer,” he began his own story. “She cared for her for six months, watching her wither away to nothing more than a pile of bones. Two weeks after that, she had to have both her breasts removed, and Adam had just broken his leg. A lot of things fell on her shoulders that year. Things that happened rapidly, things she couldn’t change or control. I know what it’s like to have your wife addicted to pain pills. I know what it’s like to be walking in your shoes right now.”

“Stacy was addicted to pain medicine?” I asked. I’m not sure why that made it better, but it did for whatever reason.

“Very much so. I felt horrible for not knowing. I blamed myself for working fifteen hours a day and leaving her to deal with everything, and I blamed her for all the trouble our family was facing. You can fix this if you truly want to. If you truly love her. Don’t give up, Drew.”

“It’s not me I’m worried about. It’s her. I just feel like she’s done, she’s had enough and I keep screwing everything up. I know it must look like I purposely sold the house without telling her, but I didn’t. I thought I had plenty of time to talk to her,” I rattled on and on. I think I was trying to make sense of what Solomon just told me. He’d already walked in my shoes. Wow.

“Seems to me you’ve got the upper hand.”

“What do you mean?”

“Tough love. I had to threaten Stacy with her kids to get her to get help. She was past the point of me helping her. She needed professional help. We, too, were constantly fighting and she knew there was no judge in the state of New York that would have left those kids to her. She knew it, but she also knew she didn’t want to break up our family. That was the alternative. Either divorce me and walk away from everything, or get help. Simple as that. I know a really good place if you’re interested,” Sole offered.

“Yes, very much so.”

“Drew?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re not innocent in all this. Just so you know that. Tough love doesn’t mean she’s the bad guy. It means she’s dealing with a lot of things on her own. How much of that is from you?”

He was right. A lot of it was from me. I’ve always thought I had to make the decision for my family. I was the man of the house I was supposed to be. No matter how male chauvinist that made me, it was how I saw it. Sole and I finished up our conversation with the business he originally called for and then said goodbye. I was glad he called. I was glad Sole made me feel like it wasn’t the end of the world. He and Stacy looked so happy together. We could get it back, too. We had to.

Morgan was rocking lightly back and forth with Tadpole sleeping on her chest when I entered. Our trance held briefly while we both searched for words to say.

“I’ll take him,” I offered, lifting Tadpole from her arms. I smiled a sad, warm smile at the exact moment she did. She was trying to read my face, feel me out, expecting me to be mad. I wasn’t mad, not anymore. I felt horrible and I felt to blame, for all of it.

“Drew?” Morgan called from the couch. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t give her the reassuring smile she needed me to give. I was angry, I was blaming myself, and I was in shock. Never in a million years would I have consider what I saw with my own eyes. Not from Morgan.

“I’m going to shower,” I said, shifting Tadpole’s weight when his head fell to the side. I didn’t wait for a reply, I walked away.

Not one word was exchanged that night. Although we were both wide awake most of the night, neither of us slept. I stared up at the ceiling, contemplating Sole’s words. I had one shot at this, and I had to get it right.

Morgan and her mother work together in the kitchen while Caroline tried to get my non-cooperating boys to play a game. Tadpole didn’t want to play Sorry. He wanted to use the pawns for super heroes. He won because his red piece had special powers. Caroline gave up when Nicholas wanted to make a bridge out of the board.

“Happy Thanksgiving, I wish you guys were here,” Morgan said in her phone. My eyes looked to hers, but hers stared straight ahead. She ruffled Tad’s hair when she passed him and walked out to the deck to talk. I was sure it was Alicia. That could be a problem. I hadn’t had a chance to talk to Morgan since I’d talked to her that morning.

I watched Morgan walk around, arms flailing while she talked to her friend. Yup this was bad. It’s not like she left me any choice. It was either Alicia or her mother and I was sure Morgan would have rather it be Alicia than her mother.

“Can I talk to you for a second?” Morgan asked, stomping right past me and to our bedroom. Jason tilted his eyebrows inward, wishing me luck. Taking a deep breath, I followed my wife with an imaginary shield.

I pled my case first. “I was going to tell you, Morgan.”

“Sure you were, Drew. Was that before or after you were going to tell me you’re going to New York?”

“What? I mean, no. I was going to tell you at the same time.”

“So, tell me, Drew,” Morgan drilled, tapping her chin with her black painted finger nail. Since when did Morgan wear black nail polish? I didn’t like it. I did like the black dress slacks going all the way up her long legs. The waist was high, forcing her legs to look even longer, and the heels added another inch.

“Were you planning on telling me you had a babysitter coming to sit with me for a couple days while you were off in New York before the turkey or after?”

“Morgan…”

“Don’t fucking touch me. Don’t you ever fucking touch me again. Go, Drew. You go ahead and take care of what you need to take care of in New York, but I’ll tell you one thing, and you can take it ever how you want. I’m not stepping one goddamn foot in New York. I’m staying right here with my boys. If you choose to take off and buy stores without so much as bringing it up with me, then you can live there. I’m not.”

I held my tongue while Morgan told me everything that was on her mind. I wanted to understand where she was coming from, but I just couldn’t. What I’d seen with my own eyes wouldn’t let me.

“I’m not going to do this with you right now, Morgan. We have company. It’s Thanksgiving, let’s go be thankful for our family and we’ll hash this out later.”

“Or you can just go to hell. I’m so sick of your conniving, sneaky ways, I’m about to blow my top. I can’t stand you anymore, Drew.”

“Are you sure it’s me, or do you need to take a break to powder your nose?” I crossly asked.

“Oh, I’m sure it’s you, Drew. I already took care of that the last time you pissed me off. That was about forty five minutes ago, in case you care,” Morgan informed me, walking around me and out the door. I ran my fingers through my hair, and let her go. There was no point. Solomon’s encouraging words were dead. Fixing this seemed virtually impossible.

Thanksgiving dinner was as strained as the entire day was. Even Caroline noticed the thick bad energy around the table. Both boys were exceptionally well behaved and Morgan’s mom watched us carefully. I knew Morgan told her very little about what went on in her life. Although Morgan had forgiven her long ago, I think she still held a little animosity, things too deep to forgive her over an apology. At least she had Alicia to talk to. I wanted her to have someone. Morgan never looked at me, not one glance. That was the worst Thanksgiving dinner I’d ever had. Quiet, strained, and weird as hell.

“I’m taking my family and going to my house to watch some football. You two should put these boys down for a nap and go make up,” Jason suggested, gathering his troops. Fat chance of that happening. Morgan wouldn’t even look at me.

Jason wasn’t lying. As soon as Amanda helped clean up, he rushed them along. I don’t blame him. The air was suffocating. I took the boys and changed them from their dress clothes to more comfortable lounging around clothes and we piled around the sofa. Morgan messed around, cleaning up and then went to our room alone where she sat in a chair and faced the ocean with her tablet and a book.

Tadpole was just climbing up her lap when I went to fetch him, trying to give her some time to herself.

“Come on, little man. Let’s let Mommy read her book.”

“No, I gonna read it, too,” he yawned.

“You need a haircut,” Morgan decided, brushing it from his forehead. She kissed his head and looked up to me. “I’m pretty sure I can handle Tadpole. You can go,” she smartly replied.

“I never said you couldn’t handle him. I was merely stating the fact that you’re trying to read.”

“I want to read, too,” Nicholas informed me, sliding me out of the way to get to his mom. Morgan moved to the side and Nicholas climbed in beside her.

“You can go,” she said, dismissing me. I didn’t know who this Morgan was. Morgan had absolutely no love in her eyes. None. The ice glistening in her eyes was felt just as much as it was seen. Morgan hated me. This was never going to work. I took a long audible breath and left her, looking through her tablet for a book for the boys.

I ate a slice of pumpkin pie and watched the highlights of the football scores. I didn’t really keep up with the sport, but it gave me something to talk about with Jason. At least I didn’t look like the minority of men who didn’t watch sports. I grew up around diamonds and businessmen, not football.

Ten minutes hadn’t gone by when I got the message.

Morgan—Can you come and get one of these boys. They’re both sleeping.

Drew—Yes, will you talk to me?

Of course, there was no response. I picked up Nicholas and took him first. He looked the most uncomfortable tucked behind Morgan with his head to his chest. I had to scoop Tadpole up from our bed, because Morgan laid him there.

“He can sleep there. I’m just reading,” she said over the brim of her glasses.

“You’ve been at forty-one percent for two days. Either you’re not into the book, or you can’t focus on it. I’m going to bet it’s the latter. I’m going to put Tad in his bed and we’re going to talk.”

I walked out without another word. I heard her say, “like hell we are,” but I didn’t reply to it. We were going to talk about something even if it did end in a screaming match. I couldn’t take the ignoring me bullshit for one more second. My mind reviewed what I wanted to say, while I laid Tad down. That’s when he changed my plans.

Not only did he throw up all over my shirt, it went down my shirt. I did the only thing I knew how to do.

“Morgan!” I called three times, before she heard me.

“I heard you the first time. What’s wrong, buddy?” she asked, taking Tadpole and removing his shirt. I left her to clean him while I cleaned myself. Needless to say, we didn’t talk. She was back to ignoring me after Nicholas got sick, too.

We spent the rest of the day forcing Pedialyte and popsicles down our children’s throats. It was almost like old times except Morgan and I didn’t touch. Nicholas and Tadpole laid over both of us on the sofa while we watched a Thanksgiving special on the Hallmark channel.