Ugly Sweater Weather

Even after escaping at eighteen and moving clear across the country to get away from the ever-present, oppressive weight of crippling image-focused people in Los Angeles, settling down in the slightly more internally-focused New York City, I loved her from a distance.

Adulthood made me capable of seeing her through a different lens, one that showed me that she was a product of her upbringing, that her inability to love me as I wanted to be loved was because no one had loved her like she needed to be loved.

It was a revelation that made me determined to love her that way.

Unfortunately, she had proven time and time again that the only way she could accept that love was when it came from a man.

Still, I tried.

I tried whenever I could.

Thanks to Tilly, and then a solid friend-network, great co-workers, and a really fantastic therapist, I was full inside.

My mother, you could say that her internal well was empty.

Whenever it didn't cost me to do so, I tried to help fill her up.

Like when she called me wine-drunk and sobbing to tell me about her newest husband—someone she insisted I refer to as my father and call "Dad" despite only meeting him a handful of times—was abandoning her for the holiday, I went into overdrive. I invited her to the city. I bought a ton of decorations to completely overhaul my apartment. I bought her presents. I planned meals. I bought tickets to various events all around the city.

I was going to give her the best Christmas she'd ever had.

Except, of course, now I couldn't do that.

As it turned out, my stepfather's buddy broke his leg playing racquetball, and had to bow out of Aspen, meaning my stepfather was going to stay home after all.

Which meant my mother had to bail on me.

For yet another man.

I tried to take a deep breath, to push down the unmistakable hurt that welled up.

Even after ten deep breaths, though, it was still there.

On the eleventh breath, I decided to try one last time.

"Well, you could always bring Donald too," I offered, trying to force some enthusiasm into my voice even though Donald was a self-centered, childish, leering creep who I made sure never to be caught alone in a room with.

"Oh, Deavienne, please," she scoffed, and in my mind I could see her raking a hand through her honey-blonde hair with perfectly rounded light pink gel nails, her pear-shaped diamond ring glittering in the light. "Donald would have no interest in staying in that shoebox you insist on calling an apartment."

Admittedly, my apartment was not really meant to hold three people. But for the holidays, I was willing to brush shoulders if it meant I didn't have to be alone.

I was alone in the willingness to sacrifice.

I wasn't surprised by this turn of events.

But that didn't mean I felt great about it either.

Blinking back a few useless tears, I took a deep breath, trying to find my happy voice, knowing my mother tended to hang up on my sad one or my—as she called it—"needy" one.

"Well, I hope the two of you have a Merry Christmas, Mom," I told her, genuinely hoping that it didn't involve Donald drinking too much, passing out, and leaving her utterly alone with nothing else to do herself but drink too much wine and fall asleep on the couch looking at the Christmas tree the maid likely decorated.

"We will, honey. Talk to you soon."

Soon would be after the New Year, most likely.

I was just going to have to be okay with that.

"Bye, Mom."

But she was already gone.

A long sigh escaped me as I placed my phone down on the two-seater half-circle table I dared call my dining space, despite it barely being able to hold two full-sized dinner plates at once. I'd bought two buffalo plaid salad plates to use instead for my mother's visit. She wouldn't eat more than a salad plate portion anyway. In fact, she had a whole stack of salad plates for that very reason, in a gray color since she read once that gray turns people off to the idea of food.

A shuffling of claws on hardwood followed by the thump of a tail on the floor dragged my attention downward.

And there he was.

The ugliest dog in the whole wide world.

A six-year-old multi-colored pittie mix—supposedly part bulldog, but I mostly saw pittie when I looked at him—with a wandering eye and a severe underbite that made him look like he was perpetually scowling, Lockjaw—clearly named by a previous owner—was my sweetest little monster boy.

I'd come across him from following a local shelter online that I had once helped do a toy drive with for Christmas. He'd come in a year and a half before, sitting alone in his doggy cell with his back to the door when people came in, utterly defeated, sure he would never know love or home or the comfort of a squishy memory foam bed filled with squeaky toys just dying to be eviscerated.