One More for Christmas

When she emerged, Ella was sitting on the bed again and her phone was next to her. Her cheeks were glowing. “Michael’s going to work from home tomorrow so we can spend another day here. I miss him, but it’s nice to have sister time.”

Samantha fastened her robe and wrapped her hair in a towel. “Next time let’s hope for better circumstances.”

“Are you done in the bathroom? I’ve been thinking—” Ella slid off the bed. “Maybe we should invite her for Christmas. She’s our mother. What if we’re being hard on her?”

“We’re being cautious, which is sensible.”

“But she did have it tough.” Ella paused, her fingers on the buttons of her dress. “I mean our father died, and we were so little—”

“And that was sad, yes, but it happens to people and they somehow manage to move on.”

“Now that I have Tab, I sometimes think about it.”

Samantha eased the towel off her head. She was only ten months older than her sister, but it felt like a decade. Her sister looked so young it was hard to remember that she was the mother of an almost-five-year-old. “Think about what?”

“How I’d feel if I lost Michael. If it was just me, caring for Tab by myself. Making all the decisions alone.”

“Where are you going with this?”

“I don’t know. I just—Do you ever wonder what she was like before?”

“Before?”

“Before he died.”

“No. Do you?”

“Yes.” Ella hung up her dress. “Because big life events can change a person, can’t they?”

“I guess.”

“And if one big life event can change a person, then so can another.”

“Are you suggesting that the accident has somehow changed our mother from ambitious robot, to warm, caring maternal human? Because she had a bang on the head, not a personality transplant. Remember last time? You were devastated.”

“I know. But I was pregnant and emotionally unbalanced. I might have overreacted.”

Samantha didn’t want to think that, because if it was true then it meant she’d overreacted, too. “Did she ever reach out and apologize?”

“She just reached out. And because she did that, I think we should give her a chance.”

“Dinner.” Samantha took off her robe. “We’ll give her the chance to have dinner with us. And forget Christmas. I’m sure she didn’t mean it.” Samantha frowned. “Are you going to take that shower before the pizza comes?”

Ella was staring at her. “Wow. Is that what you wear to bed?”

“Yes. Why?”

“And Kyle let you break up with him?”

“Kyle didn’t have a choice. Also, he has never seen me in this. It’s what I wear when I’m alone.”

“You wear a sexy nightdress when you’re alone? With no one to see it?”

“I see it.” Samantha draped her wet towel over the rail and scooped her hair up.

“Are you going to tell me what happened with Kyle?”

Samantha thought about that horribly embarrassing phone call. The one good thing about seeing her mother was that the stress of it had temporarily driven everything else from her mind.