59 - I'll Be Home for Christmas

“Okay.”  Petey’s oldest brother, Henry plopped down next to her on the big couch in their mother’s living room.  “What the hell’s going on with you?”

She was sitting alone on the opposite side of the huge living room from her family, tucked into the corner of the sofa.  Christmas carols played softly in the background and the little ones squealed happily over their new playthings while the adults sipped coffee and caught up on one another’s lives since Thanksgiving.  Her mother was beyond thrilled to have the house filled with family.

Petey lifted her eyes from the text message she was re-reading for the tenth time.

[4:42PM]JON: Merry Christmas, Sugar.  See you on Wednesday.

He had apparently received the gifts from his children and was agreeing to the lessons on how to operate them.  With a deep breath, she deleted the message without replying and brought her attention back into the room where was she was sitting.

“What do you mean?” she asked, tucking the phone into the back pocket of her jeans – nice, normal blue denim in deference to her mother’s more conservative taste.  Her thick turtleneck sweater was black with pink snowflakes though.  A girl had to draw the line somewhere.

“Your head has been a million miles away today, Squirt,” Henry informed her with a look of concern.  “Just like it was yesterday and Friday night.  And you've had a funny look on your face.  What gives?”  He lifted a foreboding eyebrow.  Henry’s ability to do that was the main reason she’d spent so long trying to perfect the move herself.  “And don’t tell me nothing, because I’m not buying it.”

She blinked pink eyes up at her favorite brother – the one who could understand not wanting to be who you were – and debated baring her soul.  About Daniel, about Jon… about all of it.  That lasted all of thirty seconds.  Petey wouldn’t burden Henry with her problems.  She didn't like to burden anyone with anything of hers to begin with, and he had a wife, two kids, and his own life to live.

“Mom bought me a dress for the party,” is what she ultimately chose for her ‘big reveal’.

“And it’s hideous enough to throw you into a three day funk?  I call bullshit on that.  If you’re going to insult my intelligence at least make it believable.”

An unwilling smile curled up one corner of her mouth.  It was kind of nice being part of a family once in a while.  There was no pretense, and everyone said exactly what they thought, particularly her brothers.  Henry accepted her just as she was.  He always had, and he always would.  Chris and Andre weren’t quite so open-minded, but they didn’t give her a hard time for the choices she’d made.  That was a major concession considering how uptight her other two brothers were.

“I have a stalker.” 

Discussing Jon wasn’t an option.  It was over, and she now knew her limitations in a sexual relationship.  Two or three times with a man and that would be it.  Next time she would get out before her hormones deluded her into believing… fairy tales.

“What the hell?”  His back bristled and his brawny six-foot-two frame stiffened, ready to pounce.  “Why didn’t you say something sooner?  How long has this been going on?  Have you contacted the police?”

She clapped a hand over his mouth, looking quickly around the room to make sure no other family members had overheard.  “Keep it down, big mouth!  No, I haven’t contacted the police.  It’s just Daniel.”

Henry lifted his dark eyes to the vaulted ceiling as though asking for strength from above.  “Why is Daniel stalking you?”

She shrugged, losing herself in the multitude of little white Christmas lights that wound through eight feet of evergreen branches.  They were reflected in the shiny red and gold ornaments of the imposing, formal tree that graced the living room, and lent the aura of elegance that her mother had been seeking.  Petey was more partial to the traditional ‘family’ tree in the den.  It was overloaded with multi-colored lights and sentimental ornaments from the last several decades.  Instead of elegance, it exuded warmth.

“My best guess is that he’s peeved at me.”

“You’re going to make me drag this out of you one question at a time, aren’t you?” her brother sighed, sounding very reminiscent of Jon and his exasperation with her one word answers.

“Fine," she huffed.  "He showed up at my workplace after hours last week, demanding information from my boss.  When Tony wouldn’t tell him anything, Daniel pompously decreed that I was his fiancée, hoping that would open some more doors.  Tony wasn’t impressed and told him to get lost.  End of story.”

“No, I don’t think it is.  Why is Inspector Gadget peeved at you?”

Petey stifled a laugh.  She’d forgotten that Henry called him that because of his prominent nose and often-worn trench coat.  Daniel would pop a blood vessel if he knew all of the less-than-flattering nicknames he’d acquired.

“If you must know,” she conceded, tucking her pink fuzzy socked feet beneath her and improvising the least incriminating potential reason.  “I never formally broke our engagement.  When I quit my job…”  She looked at him to find him nodding his remembrance.  “…the only one I told was the department chair.  I handed him my resignation, threw my cell phone in the trash and walked out the door.  I haven’t looked back since.”

 

“Can I tell you something?”

She eyed him warily, not entirely sure she wanted to hear what he had to say.  “Sure.”

“You may drive Mom a little bit crazy now, but I worry about this you a lot less than I did the other you.”

“You do?”  Petey tilted her head thoughtfully.  “Why so?”

“Because this you has a backbone.  Before, I was always afraid you’d show up and tell me that someone had hurt you, or taken unfair advantage of you.” 

She ducked her head, absently scraping a pink glittered thumbnail across the burgundy brocade of the sofa.  None of her family really knew what prompted her ‘mid-life crisis’, and she’d become adept at dodging their pointed questions.  Petey was pretty sure they thought she’d had a mental breakdown.  It had been easier to let them believe what they wanted, rather than admit her weak-willed foolishness.

“Squirt?”  Henry’s voice invaded her thoughts and his rough hand firmly lifted her face, and he studied her carefully.  A wave of regret swept over his features.  “I was right to be worried, wasn’t I?”

She cast her eyes downward and pulled away.  “It wasn’t your problem.  I’m a grown woman.”

“You’re my baby sister,” he argued on the verge of outrage.  “My very special baby sister, whom no one believed needed to be watched over after Dad died – no one except me, and I did a fabulous job of that, now didn’t I?”  He pushed a frustrated hand through his overlong black locks and cursed softly.  “I’m sorry, Squirt.  I should’ve known these drastic changes weren’t just fallout of who you are.  The rest of them didn’t have any trouble accepting that, but they don’t know you the way I do.”

He was right.  Other than their father, Henry was the only one who’d ever understood the weird little girl who had a tendency to make everyone uncomfortable.  He’d indulged her by playing her endless string of made-up games without complaint, and had been there every time she came home from school in tears.  That had happened more days than not.  The other children had been cruel to her at every opportunity, and she firmly believed they were responsible for the onset of the anxiety attacks.

When her teacher had suggested memorization to help with the attacks, Henry had been the one who searched out the longest, most boring historical documents available for her.  And, other than the day their father died, she hadn’t cried a single time since memorizing the first one when she was eight years old – the Declaration of Independence.   She might recite things ad nauseum, but she never cried. 

Henry was her hero.  Petey didn’t realize until then how much she’d missed him.  It was sad that their adult lives didn't intertwine more.

“Nobody knows me the way you do,” she said with a casual shrug.  “Don’t beat yourself up over it.  It’s done, and as you said, now I have a backbone.  I’m just thankful that you all supported me when I decided to become someone new, and that you let everyone believe that the old me just disappeared.”

He pulled her into his arms, and Petey allowed herself to lean against his familiar strength for a short moment in time.  She wrapped her arms around him and returned the hug even as he gruffly mumbled, “I’m still sorry.  Will you tell me about it?”

Shaking her head, she eased out of the embrace, returning to her corner of the sofa, but twisting around so that her feet were in his lap.  He plucked at the toes of her fuzzy socks until she tucked them under his thigh in self-defense.  “There’s no point, Henry.  It’s over.”

“You always were a stubborn little thing,” he complained half-heartedly.

She flashed her dimples at him.  “I learned it from you.”

“Well, if you won’t tell me that, at least tell me this… Three years spent pretty well in hiding and, out of the blue, you agree to attend Mom’s party next month?  Mom’s very big party?  What the hell is that all about?”

Petey’s eyes swept across the room to where their mother was happily entertaining the grandbabies, and sighed.  “I guess that means I was right and you’re not going.”

“Hell, no I’m not going,” he blustered loudly, before lowering his voice.  “And I can’t believe you are.  Let the others take care of representing the family.  It’s more their thing anyway.”

“I know it is, but there's only so many times I can say no without feeling like a louse.  This time she even pulled out the big guns and told me she wouldn’t bother me with it, but John really wanted all of the kids there.”  She rolled her eyes.  “So I caved.  And now she’s bought a dress that she expects me to wear.”

“Are you at least leaving the pink hair?”

“No.”  Her nose wrinkled daintily.  “I have a friend who says he can hide it in an up-do.  I’m going to go and be the conformist daughter for one night.  I owe it to them.”

“I don’t think you do, but if you insist, I won’t give you a hard time about it.”  He tweaked her nose.  “I love you, Squirt.  I’m always gonna be here for you.  You know that, right?”

“Of course I do.”