As always, thanks to chargergirl for her support and for her expert eye. I hope you enjoy this, the final chapter of "Blessings." Don't forget to vote and/or comment at the end of the story. I'd love to know what you think.
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It was only fitting that the temperatures valleyed the week following Thanksgiving. No matter how far the mercury dropped or how much she remained indoors, Amanda couldn't have felt any colder or any more isolated than she already did. She allowed herself only brief respites from the gloom and doom of a broken heart. When Mom and Dad were away she would pad downstairs to look at the tree and the lights. She hadn't done any of the decorating. She had left it up to her parents this year. For the first time in her life, the Christmas spirit had completely eluded her.
What was Christmas, anyway? It was a time for children. She wasn't a child, and she had no children of her own. Christmas was pointless, and she hated it. She hated the tree and the lights. She regarded the four red felt stockings nailed to the mantel: Dad, Mom, Kevin, and Amanda. Would Mom hang a new stocking for Cassie next year? The idea nauseated Amanda, almost as much as the idea of the tiny stockings that would eventually follow.
The following weekend Mom cornered her into helping wrap gifts. She couldn't say no, no matter how badly she wanted to sulk all weekend. They sat at the dining room table. There was plenty of room for two. It was nice to take her mind off of Kevin and his lame girlfriend for a while. Mom had a million friends, and so they had plenty of work to keep them occupied. They were down to the family's gifts when Amanda unfurled a roll of red glittery paper. Mom handed her a department store box. Amanda peeked inside to see a pair of expensive jeans. She smiled appreciatively. New jeans were at the top of her list. She neatly wrapped the package. Mom handed her the gift tag. It was made out to Cassie. Amanda's already meager Christmas spirit shrunk to Tiny Tim-like proportions.
"How could you be so dumb," she asked her mother.
Mom's glasses slipped from her nose. She caught them before they smashed against the table. She eyed her daughter curiously.
"He doesn't like me that way. He never did." She thought of the way Kevin used to look at her and frowned. He was just a guy. Guys looked at girls' butts when they bent over, and they looked at girls' boobs when they wore tight sweaters, whether they were sisters or not. That was just the way guys were programmed. She rested her head on her arms and sighed. She had kissed him in the back of that dark theater. She had practically humped his lap and told him that she loved him.
"People are wrong sometimes," Mom said. She tore a small, perfect square of Scotch tape and secured the end flap of a present.
"I think about him all the time, now." She admitted. "I think about how he treats me better than any guy ever has. I think about the stupid faces he makes and the stupid things he says just to make me laugh. And I think about how pretty his eyes look when he wears that old blue sweater and the way he smiles without showing all of his teeth."
"Yeah, Kevin's a good looking guy." She started to wrap another package. Her nonchalance was driving Amanda mad.
"Can't you say anything constructive? Everything was fine before you opened your fucking mouth!" She never cussed in front of her mother; it just wasn't done. "I didn't love him before--- I did but not like this. I don't know what to do." Amanda felt moisture around her eyes. "He loves Cassie, and he'll never love me. I feel so lost."
Mom looked up from the wrappings. She exhaled slowly. "I'm your mom, I should have volumes of romantic advice, but I don't. You and your brother are just..." She waved her hands, grasping for the right thing to say. "Doctor Spock never covered this type of thing in his books. Your dad and I just kind of winged it. We were wrong, so I'm sorry."
Amanda wiped her nose with her forearm. "When you thought we were together, did it make you happy?"
"Cassie makes him happy, so that makes me happy."
She couldn't listen to it anymore. She couldn't. She hated Cassie; it was so wrong the way she hated her. Amanda retreated to her room and locked the door. She felt cold and reached into the closet for a spare blanket. The presents were still in there, a pile of bags regurgitating their contents onto the closet floor. She had left the theater in a huff, forgetting the enormous bags that were the fruits of her Christmas shopping. Kevin had been nice enough to bring them by the next day after his classes. She kicked at the bags, spraying the towels and washrags she had bought her mother. She picked at the mess, re-gathering the linens. Her hand touched a piece of lacy blackness. It was the nightgown she had bought, the slinky, sexy, uncharacteristically feminine black lace nightgown she had hoped to wear for Kevin. She caught a tear with her wrist. She folded the nightgown in half and shoved it far back into the closet. She shredded the receipt with her trembling fingers. She didn't have the gumption to return it. She would keep it buried in her closet, like a secret. It would remind her of how pathetic she had become.
Kevin wrapped himself tightly in a blanket cocoon. He stretched his feet and thrust them beneath one of the oversized throw pillows, leaning on the arm of the sofa. The gas in his apartment complex had been off for more than a day. Despite wearing his heavy coat and wool socks, and staying beneath three layers of blankets, he had almost frozen solid the night before. He couldn't go through that again, not on Christmas Eve. The complex maintenance man had said that there was a gas leak. The gas company was working hard to find the leak, but it might take a day or two to fix it. So that was how Kevin ended up on his parent's sofa.
The central heating felt good enough, but Dad had lit a fire in the fireplace to make him even more comfortable. The foot traffic going through the living room interrupted his naps, but he didn't mind so much. He had never realized how much he missed living at home. Oh, he liked the independence and privacy that came with his own place, but sometimes that tiny apartment could feel awfully big. He missed noises that didn't come through strangers' walls. He missed the smell of Mom's cooking drifting up to his room, a tempting mélange of sweet and savory things. He missed Mandy most of all. He missed drinking from the milk carton just to get a rise from her; he missed sitting across the breakfast table from her, watching her crinkle her nose as she browsed the morning paper. More than anything, he missed the late nights spent on her bed, watching old movies and talking about any number of things.
That's why he liked having Cassie around so much. When he drifted to sleep, his nose pressed against her untamable mane of blonde curls, he didn't feel so alone. He wondered how long it had been since he told Cassie he loved her and he needed her. Had he ever done it? He would the next day. He had planned everything out. They would spend Christmas at the Zenk household. She would once more "show him off" in front of her sisters and brothers and cousins. Cassie often felt embarrassed around her family. She was the youngest and the only one not married. That would change. He would give Cassie her gift that evening in front of everyone. He would propose to her in front of the entire clan as they sat down for the turkey dinner. No, he might wait until after dinner. That would make dessert even sweeter.
It was with visions of his sweet Cassie putting his ring on her finger and her tongue in his mouth in front of her entire family that Kevin dozed off on the couch. He heard footsteps over the crackle of the fireplace and snorted awake.
"God, I don't remember you being such a light sleeper," Amanda said, hopping the final step down. "I didn't want to bug you."
Kevin sat up and cleared the blankets, making a space for her on the sofa. She ignored the gesture and went to the kitchen. She had avoided him ever since he showed up on the doorstep that morning. They hadn't talked since the movie, unfortunate, because they really needed to talk.
Kevin padded to the kitchen. He slipped past the glowing Christmas tree, tracking a few fallen pine needles with his socks. "Hey," he said, causing her to jump. She offered a tentative hello and opened up the refrigerator. She grabbed a carton of eggnog and poured some into a small juice glass. "Can I have some?" he asked. She poured a second glass. He raised his little plastic glass in a mock toast and drank the entire glass in one gulp.
Amanda delicately sipped at hers. "I don't want to talk," she said. She reached for the cookie tin Mom had hidden on top of the refrigerator. Even on tippy-toes she was too short. Kevin reached over the top of her and grabbed the tin. He set it on the counter. "Thanks," she said, removing the lid.
