TheBanyanTree: " I'll have a blue Chrsitmas jsut thinking about you...."

[Jena Norton]

      Abby unlocked her door.  Krazy Kat and Salty twined around her legs, wanting attention.  Absently, she bent down and rubbed each one a few times.  She was tired.  It was late.  It was Christmas Eve.  No, correction, it was already Christmas morning.

      Maybe she should have stayed at her parents after the midnight service.  But Abby would rather be alone by herself than alone in a houseful of relatives with spouses and children 

      Christmases were never good for her, it seemed.  Very few had been the happy times fond memories are made of.  And this one didn't look like it was much better.  It had been over six months since she and Mitch had quarreled over the phone, ending a relationship that had survived time, distance and many strange twists of fate.  Abby couldn't believe the pain had notlessened with the passage of time.

      Abby went in the bedroom to get ready for bed.  The pain of missing Mitch struck her anew.  She wished she could shake this feeling that it wasn't over.  Most likely wishful thinking on her part, she decided.  Too much time had gone by now.  Mitch probably had moved on to someone else.

      A sudden irrational idea overtook Abby.  She would sleep in all the things Mitch had given her.  Maybe then he would get the message that she still loved him.

      With tears in her eyes, she took out the things she had hidden away months ago. Out of sight, out of mind, she figured.  Abby put the emerald earrings in her ears and slipped the opal ring on her finger.  The nightgown came out of the drawer.  Abby touched its ribbons and lace as she slipped it over her head. Smiling in spite of herself, Abby envisioned Mitch in a lingerie department buying this expensive gown. The irony if it was Mitch bought it for someone who was not only 3,000 miles away, but slept in the nude.  As a last touch, Abby found the shirt Mitch had left her as a "security blanket" after one of his visits.

      Abby took out the picture of Mitch by the waterfall.  "Good night, Mitch.  Merry Christmas.  I still love you.  Take care," Abby whispered to his picture, clutching the shirt like a lost child.  She turned out the light and cried herself softly to sleep.

 

      Three thousand miles away, a fireman sat in the station house, looking at the tree and decorations.  He made a mental bet with himself that Abby hadn't put up any decorations this year.  She only did so at his insistence, even if he didn't often see them in person.  He always made her send pictures as proof.  Abby wasn't a Christmas freak like Mitch.  He tended toward massive amounts tinsel, lots of flashing multicolored lights, and even boxers with Santas and Christmas trees on them.  His excesses were legendary in the fire department.

      Mitch wanted so badly to call her and tell her he was sorry for the quarrel, but he figured by this time she had looked up one of her old boyfriends.  Abby was always one to "get on with her life" when a relationship ended.  He was afraid of rejection.

      That was why he had mailed her a Christmas present today.  She wouldn't get it until after Christmas, but then that's when he usually got her presents to her.  It was a joke between them.  By getting the present just like always, Abby would know nothing had changed with him, he reasoned.

            "Merry Christmas, Abby.  I love you.  Think of me.  Remember the things I remember.  Please?"  He whispered into the silence of Christmas Eve.
Jena, Full Moon Warrior Princess