Alone This Holiday

“There’s not a chance, Val,” I muttered, sitting back in my chair, sipping at my beer. The football was on, although I hate watching football, I was watching it. “I’m not going Christmas shopping,”

“Oh, come one, Brian,” She whined, sitting down next to me and taking the beer. “You are really boring at the moment, you know that, right?”

“Yeah, and what’s rather annoying is that everyday people come over and expect me to have changed,” She sighed and took the beer into the kitchen, away from me. “Oi, bring that back!” When I realised she wasn’t I ran after her to make sure she wasn’t tipping it down the sink. When I got in there, she was tipping it down the drain. “Val what the hell are you doing?”

“Brian, you know that I like a beer too. But it’s 9 in the morning! You don’t need to drink this early,”

“Says you,”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You don’t have to worry about things like I do Val! I’m fucking loosing my mind! I know there is something wrong going on in my head and I fucking don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” She stepped back, so I lowered my voice a little. “Val, I’m scared, and all I want is to hold Anna and tell her I love her, still. But I can’t,”

“Why can’t you, Brian?” She asked. I sighed. Hadn’t I gone through this one thousand times? Yes, I had and yet she still asks me.

“Because I’ve hurt her way too much already, and the kids don’t deserve to have a fuck up of a father, either,” Salty tears started to flow down my face, and a sob escaped my throat. Something clicked in my head, and suddenly I looked around me. Pizza boxes everywhere, beer bottles on the floors, it smelt gross. My hair was greasy, oily, and pretty cringe worthy.

“Brian?”

“I’ve got to change, Val. Wait here, please?” She nodded. I bounded upstairs to my bedroom, where I got some clothes to take to the shower, I washed my hair, it felt to much better. Once I was clean, I pulled some fresh clothes on, and looked in the mirror. The reflection changed, I wasn’t some messed up in the head person. I was me, again. Things were flowing through my head right. Thoughts weren’t messed up.

When I went back downstairs, the house was clean, and Val was sitting on the couch reading a magazine. She grinned, her smile really was amazing.

“Better?” She checked, I nodded, smiled and gave her a hug. “Missed you, Brian,”

“I missed me too,” I laughed. “So, Christmas shopping?” She smiled, and I followed her out to her car. She drove us to the mall; no doubt she was trying to figure out if I was really back to normal or just pretending.

“Coffee first-”

“Daddy!” I turned around on my heel, and there was my son, Scotty. He was smiling from ear to ear, his hair had gotten longer, and kinda shaggy on him.

“Hey Scotty,” I got down on my knee’s and gave him a hug. “How’re you, champ?”

“I’m good. Are you coming to watch me at the performance?” I nodded, and this made him smile. Glancing up, I saw Anna, she was pushing a pram that had Riley and Daniel in it, while I saw an unknown guy with a pram holding Connah and Zach in it. Aedan was standing next to Scotty when I looked back down, he was holding a toy helicopter, and looking worried about standing near me. Standing up, I held both my sons in either arm, Aedan started to giggle.

“Hey Anna, and, um..”

“Oh, Brian, this is Luke,”

“Hi,” His voice was crackly, it was weird. We shook hands, anyway.

“So how old are you? Twelve?” He did only look like a teenager, if that. Anna shot me a dirty look. “Kidding…”

We stood there for a few moments, an awkward silence enveloping the entire area. Anna was holding hands with him.

“So, I was thinking,” I broke the silence by speaking. “I might take the kids on the weekend,”

Anna shook her head, “Sorry, we’re going away,”

“What? Without telling me?”

“Didn’t know I had to,” Anna replied, tucking some hair behind her ear. “We’re going to a holiday resort that Luke’s parent’s own,”

“Oh, okay,”

“Well, Brian and I had better go,” Val said, she could obviously tell I wanted to bust Luke’s face wide open.

“I want to stay with Dad,” Scotty whined.

Luke spoke up, “C’mon, Scotty, we can go play the x-box at home,”

“You’re not my Dad,” Scotty snapped. “I don’t even like you,” Anna winced.

“That was rude, Scotty,”

After Scotty and Aedan fighting to stay with me, they ended up leaving. I gave a kiss to each of my kids, including the sleeping babies, before they left.

Scotty hates Luke, that’s a plus.