The Christmas Blanket

The second the question left my lips, River went stiff.

I frowned. “I… I haven’t heard from them in a while. We kept in touch for about a year after I left. You know, talking on the phone here and there. But then they stopped calling, and stopped answering my calls…”

There was a coldness in his eyes, and they seemed to lose focus where they were trained on my phone screen.

“I just figured they were trying to put some space between us… with you and me being divorced and all…”

River hastily handed my phone back to me then, abandoning his place where he’d been looking through my pictures at an old fishing port in Israel. He stood just as quickly, the legs of his chair scraping against the wood.

“River?” I asked, but he ignored me, picking up his plate and then mine. He took them to the sink and flipped the faucet on to wash, and I stood to join him. “Did I say something wrong?”

“They’re dead, Eliza!” River screamed suddenly, his chest heaving when he turned his manic gaze on me. Then, he winced, pinching the bridge of his nose with his wet, soapy fingers. He blew out a breath, shaking his head before he looked at me again. “That’s it,” he said, quiet again. “That’s how they’re doing. Alright?”

If my mouth had hung open wide when he’d told me about his job with Skidder, it might as well have been a train tunnel now.

“I…” I swallowed. “I had no idea.” I shook my head, eyes glossing over. “What happened?”

River sniffed, turning back to the dishes in the sink. “Dad got sick. And after he died, Mom just couldn’t live without him. She was gone seven months later.”

My eyes stung more, the tears welling up and falling over before I could stop them. I covered my mouth with my hands, shaking my head over and over. How? How could this have happened? When did it happen?

Why didn’t my parents tell me?

Why didn’t River tell me?

I opened my mouth to ask him just that when he held up a hand, silencing me. “Please, Eliza. Can we just…” He swallowed, hands bracing on the edge of the sink, eyes averted.

And I knew what he was asking without him having to say it.

I nodded, even though he wasn’t looking at me, and then grabbed our coffee mugs off the table. I walked over to him slowly, like he was a bear caught in a trap, one that I might provoke into murdering me if I moved too quickly. I dropped the mugs in the soapy water, and then I grabbed the towel hanging on the stove.

“I’ll dry,” I whispered.The rest of the morning and afternoon, we were quiet.

I did my best to stay out of River’s way. He turned on his small radio long enough to tune into the weather report — which essentially said conditions were still terrible and to stay inside. They did predict that the wind would die down overnight, and that the snow would stop falling — both of which meant I might still be able to be home on Christmas.

But only time would tell.

Once he shut the radio off, River busied himself around the house. He worked on the boot barn, read a little, played with Moose — all while not saying anything to me. And for once, I didn’t push him. I suffered my boredom in silence, even picking up a book off his shelf just to keep myself busy, and even playing a few games of solitaire.

I felt awful for what I’d asked.

It was a harmless question, or so I thought, to ask about his parents. But I’d never expected his answer to be that they were no longer with us.

Dawn and Cole Jensen may have just been in my in-laws in technicality, but for all intents and purposes, they were just like my real parents.

Sure, Dawn was sassier than my mother, with her fiery auburn hair and can’t tell me shit attitude. And Cole was broody and severe compared to my warm-hearted father. But they’d brought me up just as much as my own parents. I’d stayed as many nights in their home as I had my own in the years between when I was sixteen and eighteen, and even well after River and I had moved in together.

Dawn and River had a good relationship, but the whole town knew that River was closer with his father.

Dawn had battled with drugs for many years, and though she’d found her way out, it was during that time that River and Cole grew to be inseparable. Cole kept River focused on school, even when he didn’t want to be. And River kept Cole strong, even when he didn’t want to be.

They were a team, through and through, and if I knew one thing about my ex-husband, it was that no one in this world mattered more to him than his father.