“Mom, he doesn’t have any family and only one friend back home. I felt bad for him. He’s been in the hospital for a while and no one has visited him.”
“Where is home? California, in a fancy house? Those are the only people who can afford to be at your work. I can’t believe you lied to us. You lied right to my face, Cassidy.”
“I know, Mom. I really didn’t want him to have to spend Christmas alone.”
It was the truth. I hated when anyone had to spend their Christmas at our facility. The dark gloomy holiday wasn’t good for the spirit when you were locked up in a hospital.
“Are you sleeping with this boy?” my mother asked, and my father covered his ears and turned around.
“No! I’m not sleeping with him. He’s a friend. His mother died a long time ago; he needed someplace to go for Christmas. That was it.”
“Cassidy Conrad, you better be telling me the truth,” my father said, even though he still had his hands over his ears.
“Yes, Daddy, it’s the truth. He didn’t have anywhere to go. If it makes you feel better, he told me this was the best Christmas he’s had in years.”
The statement made both my mother and father calm down. Our evening had been incredibly boring. We had simply eaten dinner and watched a movie – which Erik had fallen asleep during.
“He really must not get out much.” My father laughed.
“I don’t have a present for him,” my mother replied.
That was my mother: Even though she was angry with me about lying, she still wanted to make sure she had a present for the strange man who I had brought home to eat our food and sleep on our couch. She was such a good person, and at moments like that, I had to hope that I would someday be as good of a woman as she was.
“He doesn’t need a present, Mom,” I said as I breathed a sigh of relief that the worst of the conversation was over.
“You could give him that sweatshirt you bought for cousin Henry. We aren’t seeing him until next weekend, we can get him something else by then,” my father added.
“Perfect idea, Bob.”
It wasn’t very often that my father came up with a good idea, and it was even more infrequent that my mother acknowledged the idea. She loved him dearly, but he often wasn’t paying attention enough to contribute to any sort of idea generating.
“So, can I go back out there?” I asked as I inched closer to the door.
“Yeah, but you keep an eye on him. I don’t want anything bad happening and you’re to blame.”
“Like what, Mom? What bad could happen while he’s sleeping on the couch?”
Both my father and I laughed at how ridiculous my mother was at times. She was bossy and domineering, and even when there was nothing to worry about, she found something to worry about. Sometimes I had to wonder how my father put up with her all these years, but then in the very next moment I would wonder how my mother put up with him for the same number of years.
“Oh, just go,” she said in exasperation and waved me out the door.
I didn’t wait another second and quickly left their room and went back out to the living room where unsurprisingly, Erik was asleep. He looked like a large, teenage boy as he slept all curled up on the couch with every single blanket my mother had given him. Even though he was thoroughly covered up, he still looked like he was freezing.
He and I would have a lot to talk about in the morning. Or at the very least, I would have to apologize for behaving so badly toward him. I felt horrible for how I had talked to him, and even though it would be Christmas in the morning, I had to find the time to set things straight.
If Erik was going to get to know me, he was going to have to learn that I didn’t always think logically. Sometimes I was a bit wild and disrespectful. Maybe I would grow out of it as I grew older, or maybe that was all just part of my personality – I really didn’t know for sure. All I knew was that I felt horrible and I didn’t like feeling like that.
When I woke up, it was already light outside and I heard my mother and father in the living room talking with Erik. I pressed my ear to the door to see if I could hear what they were saying, but I couldn’t. It didn’t seem like the best of ideas to leave Erik out there with my parents, but at the same time, I wasn’t sure I really wanted to go out there and listen to them grilling him with questions.
Hopefully, he knew that he could be honest with them now and just talk to my parents like he would talk to anyone else. My parents wouldn’t really care that I had brought him home from work, as long as Erik didn’t make it sound like we were sleeping together. If he made any of those types of comments, I would surely be mortified and my father would be crazy angry.
“Thanks for having me,” I heard Erik say as I walked down the hallway. “This sweatshirt is beautiful; I really appreciate it.”
“What’s going on?” I asked, confused at why Erik was standing by the door and looked like he was leaving.
No matter what had happened between us, I wanted him to stay for Christmas Day. He didn’t need to leave. I knew I had made him feel bad, but he didn’t need to leave. If I could just get him alone for a minute and we could talk, I was sure we could work things out. He had to be leaving because of me, and now I felt horrible about it.
“Erik’s going to head back to Paradise Peak,” Mom replied. “He’s tired and just wants to rest.”