Alone This Holiday

“Do you remember the day we first met?” Anna asked me. The sun was going down, the boys were inside watching a Christmas movie before going to bed, and the quads were asleep, just for something different. We were laying on the couch in the back room, a beer in my hand, and a herbal tea in Anna’s. I shrugged, to be honest the first time I met her I was so doped up on medication I didn’t know my own name, sometimes. “Oh, I forgot, sorry,” A blush crept to her cheeks like she was a teenager again, I smiled.

“It’s okay,” I promised, kissing the top of her head. “I kinda remember you literally running into me,”

“Me hitting my head on your plastered arm,”

“Me snapping at you,”

“Me walking away wanting to punch your lights out,” Anna told me, a smile forming on her lips. The day Anna and I met was the first day I’d been back at school since my cousin died. The psychiatrist had me taking anti-depressants and other medications that often left me a walking zombie. A walking zombie with a temper, and a walking zombie that sometimes couldn’t form a sentence or even tie my own shoes up without getting confused.

As soon as my parents realised it was the medication doing this to me, they took the pills and never let me near them again. But by then, I didn’t need them; I had Anna. Sure enough I only had Anna when he brothers weren’t around, or anybody else, but I still had her. She accepted me for exactly who I was, she didn’t dig through my past, and she didn’t try to have deep and meaningful conversations all the time. All she did was make me smile, make me laugh and make me forget about my guilt over Connah passing away.

It took two years of us officially being a couple before we told anybody; it wasn’t that either of us were ashamed of our relationships. We just knew how other people would respond; people would tell me I needed to focus on my mental health before getting into a relationship and people would tell Anna I was too old for her or I wasn’t stable enough.

“Brian, if we have a boy. I want to name him after you,” Anna looked up to me, her bright eyes staring straight into mine. I could feel my heart beating in my chest harder, and a smile finding its way to my face.

“I’d love that,” I replied honestly. “But we’d have two kids with the same middle name,”

She shrugged, “What’s normal about our family anyway?”

A few minutes later Aedan came walking out, holding his stuffed puppy in his left arm and wiping his eye with the other. I picked him up, setting him down on my lap and an arm wrapped around him. He cuddled into my chest, holding on tightly as though I was going to let him fall. Aedan was telling Anna and I about Santa when he fell asleep pretty mid sentence, so I took him to his bed and tucked him in.

Scotty went to sleep not long after, which gave Anna and I some time to make sure everything was ready for the kids for Christmas. Anna’s family was going to be coming over in the morning for a breakfast, then in the afternoon we would be going to my Dad’s for dinner. The boys knew they were going to be spoilt rotten by their Grandparents, which made them all the more excited about Christmas. We’d gotten the boys a fair few things this year, more then usual. The success of the self titled album and my clothing line meant that we had a lot more money then previous years.

By midnight I was laying in my warm bed, thinking about the whole year that’d passed; loosing Anna, getting Anna back, loosing my mind, getting my mind back, Connah going missing, Connah being found. Overall I decided that I was going to make 2010 a much better year, I was going to be a much better man. Even though I was better then previously, it was only because of positive changes that I wasn’t going to be alone this holiday.

“What’re you thinking about?” Anna asked, drawing an invisible pattern on by clothed chest.

I took a few deep breaths before saying, “How much I stuffed up,”

She looked up to me and said, “You know I’ve forgiven you, right?”

“You shouldn’t have though, Anna. I seriously fucked stuff up,”

“Brian, if I hadn’t have forgiven you I would still be with Luke, and God only knows that would have happened to Scotty. So yes I fucking forgive you because you saved me and our children,” She snapped, “So stop feeling bad about the past and just be happy,”

She rolled over facing away from me, hear arms crossed over her chest. Leaning over her, I tried to kiss her lips only to get her nose instead. “I’m sorry, Anna. I am happy, I sware. I love you,”

She sighed, facing back, “I love you too,”

What felt like as soon as I shut my eyes, I was being shaken awake. Opening my eyes gently I saw Aedan standing there with a smile on his face and a candy in his hand.

“Merry Christmas, Daddy!”