Tom shrugged off her sympathy. “It was just the way we did things. I never knew anything different.”
“But I can see why the holidays don’t matter much to you,” she told him.
“What about you? Were your holidays always idyllic?”
She hesitated before answering, then, almost overcome with nostalgia, she said quietly, “They were when I was little.”
Tom picked up on her phrasing at once. “What happened to change that?”
She opened her mouth, then closed it again. If she said the words, the enjoyment she’d been feeling amidst all these beautiful trees would be lost.
“Jeanette, what happened?” Tom pressed.
She sighed and began slowly, “I had an older brother—Benjamin. He was the best.” She closed her eyes and pictured him, standing tall and proud in his football uniform, an adoring girl on each arm. The words flowed more quickly. “He’d won an athletic scholarship to the University of South Carolina. My parents were so proud of him. Neither of them had been able to go to college. My dad’s a farmer. He works the same farm today that his father and grandfather did before him. He wanted more for Ben.”
Tom just nodded and waited without interrupting.
Tears welled up and slid down her cheeks. “It was Christmas Eve,” she said, lost in the memory that had changed her life. “I was fifteen and Ben had just turned eighteen. We’d all gone to church, but Ben had driven his own car. He’d picked up his girlfriend on the way to the midnight service. When they left after the service, he said he’d see us at home...” Her voice trailed off and she swallowed hard against the flood of memories of that awful night.
Tom touched her cheek, his eyes soft with compassion. “What happened?”
“He never made it,” she said. She paused for breath and it was a moment before she could go on. “After he dropped off his girlfriend, his car hit a patch of black ice. The police said he was probably going too fast. The car spun out of control and slammed into a tree. They said he died instantly.”
“Oh my God, Jeanette, I am so sorry,” Tom said, brushing the tears from her cheeks. “I can’t imagine what that must have done to all of you.”
“We never celebrated Christmas again,” she told him, regrets washing through her anew. “When I wanted to get out the decorations the next year, my mother fell apart. My dad put them back in the attic. I never tried again.”
“No wonder you hate the holidays,” he said. “You have such terrible memories associated with the season.”
“Ironically, I don’t hate the holidays because I’m sad,” she said, trying to explain. “Not exactly, anyway. I hate them because of the way Ben’s death changed my parents. They’d been warm and generous and outgoing. My dad had high expectations for my brother, but he doted on me. After that, though, it was as if I didn’t even exist. I might as well have died right along with Ben, because nothing I did seemed to make any difference to them.” She met Tom’s gaze. “You have no idea how lonely and isolated that can make you feel, not mattering to the people you’re supposed to matter to.”
“My parents always involved themselves too much in my life. I felt smothered. They laid out all these expectations that had nothing to do with what I wanted. It wasn’t enough that I excelled at school, I had to excel at the classes my father thought I ought to be taking. I had to spend time with girls my mother thought were appropriate. I went along with it until I graduated from law school, but then I did things my own way. That’s when the real battles started.”
He shook his head. “So, no, I don’t know how it feels to be ignored, but it must have hurt terribly.”
“It still does.”
Shock spread across his face. “You haven’t made peace? It’s been how many years now?”
“Almost twenty, and nothing’s changed. I called home a few weeks ago and my mother hardly recognized my voice. When I asked to speak to my father, she gave me an excuse about him being outside. She didn’t offer to have him call me back. I don’t even know if she told him I called. That’s the way it happens every time I reach out to them, but I keep trying, anyway. I keep hoping that someday they’ll remember that they have another child, one who’s still living, who still needs them.”
She shivered. Tom took off his jacket and wrapped it around her. She didn’t even try to tell him that nothing could ward off a chill that originated deep inside. Instead, she let his warmth seep into her, breathed in the citrus scent of his aftershave. It wasn’t enough to take away the memories, but it was comforting just the same.
* * *
Tom wanted to seek out Jeanette’s parents and knock some sense into them. Even in their grief, they should have seen how much she needed them.
As flawed as his relationship with his own parents might be, at least they had contact. Even when they were at odds, he knew they loved him. And even when he was most annoyed with them, as he had been with his mother over her attitude toward Jeanette, he couldn’t imagine cutting her out of his life permanently.
How could Jeanette’s parents live with themselves, abandoning her as they had? Because he had no answers, he settled for keeping a close eye on her the rest of the day, trying to let her know with a gesture or a touch that there was someone who cared about her, who valued her.
He thought he understood her a whole lot better now. He got why she was so touchy at any suggestion that she might not be first with him, why he might not make her a priority in his life. He had no idea, though, how to change the impression he’d given her. He would
