Thanksgiving, Christmas, and a Funeral Part 2

Christmas that year was one of the best and most fun I'd ever had. My extended stepfamily had a great time at my parents' house in rural Texas, and on Christmas Eve morning my mom, stepdad and I headed out to my grandma's house, also in rural Texas, but about five hours away. We had a fun day - relatives I'd never even met were there, and as per tradition (I was one of the lucky kids with parents who still got along pretty well after the divorce) my dad and stepmom showed up in time to enjoy my mom's mother's egg nog, delicious food, and of course, our Christmas Eve gift exchange.

At Thanksgiving, I'd introduced my daddy to Mayur via a picture on my laptop and a seventh-grade girl style description of my delight in this new boy. He made some teasing comment about Mayur and we had a laugh. I'd showed him some of my work (I do a lot of document layout and editing for my company) and he seemed so proud. On Christmas Eve, we continued the conversation, shared some cocktails, (I'm beginning to realize that in this blog I make it sound like all we do is drink - but I swear it's not that way! We're pretty tame for Irish-American folks) and just generally had a good time together.

This was the year my daddy and I had really had a breakthrough in our relationship. My parents split up, in a really painful way, when I was about five years old. I knew my dad had problems back then, but I only learned later just how bad they were. It had been a long 25 years of broken promises, child support never paid, and a lot of tears on my part. I was the girl who felt left behind by her father and grew up an only child raised by an amazing single mom.

But we'd been talking a lot over that year, and had worked out a lot of our issues. I visited my daddy right after my thirtieth birthday (the actual day had occurred when I was in Mexico, serving as a bridesmaid in Cristina's wedding), and he took me shopping. We went to a homegoods store and he told me I could have whatever I wanted. At lunch, and talked about life, my plans for the future, and he told me how proud he was of me. He took me to the place where he worked, and I wowed his all-Mexican staff by joking around with them in Spanish. Daddy told me it had been the best day of his entire life. In the months after my birthday, I felt like I could just call him for whatever reason - to talk about boys, work, anything. It had never been that way before.

At some point during the evening, my stepmother started getting antsy, wanting to leave because her daughter was home and she wanted to go and be with her. I told my dad it was ok - he could "go, go, go" I remember saying, not wanting him to feel bad and helping him avoid a fight with his wife. We said Merry Christmas and bye, and they left.

The next morning we did our usual traditions, opening stockings and packing up for the long drive back. We'd left my car at my apartment, so my mom and stepdad were dropping me off. At the time, I was one of the few people in my office without kids, so I offered to get straight back to work on December 26 while most everyone else was taking the time between Christmas and the new year off. My mom and stepdad dropped me home around 2 in the afternoon on Christmas day, and Mayur was waiting for me at my apartment (he'd hung around there since I had a TV and cable, and had recently added some specialty sports channels that he was eager to watch for hours on end).

We were hungry, but I figured nothing would be open, with it being Christmas. He assured me that Indian places would - and sure enough, he was right. We had our first Christmas dinner together - aloo parathas and lassis standing up in this Indian supermarket with a really good chaat stand in the back. We had so much fun that day and evening, and I felt content with everything in my life.

The next day, Mayur was back at work and I planned to spend the day working from home. Around 9 in the morning, my phone rang. It was my mother.

"Cora, I am coming to your apartment right now."

"Why mommy - I am super busy with work - why are you here in town?"

"I had a huge, huge fight with your stepdad and I just started driving and am coming over. I'll be there in half an hour."

I argued with her a little, but she was not giving in. This was highly unusual behavior for my mom. We are not 'drop by unexpectedly' kind of people. We are 'at least 24 hours notice before a visit' kind of people. So this all struck me as really odd. I figured the fight with my stepdad must have been pretty bad.

When she showed up at the gate of my apartment with my stepdad, I knew something was wrong. The look on her face told me something was really wrong. She said, "Let's go upstairs," and the three of us went up to my apartment.

She held back tears, and told me she needed to tell me something.

I'll never forget, standing there between my mom and stepdad in that tiny apartment - it was smaller than most hotel rooms, just one room, bed next to the couch, tiny 15-inch TV screen that could be seen throughout the entire space, kitchen so close to the bed that cooking late at night meant the bedsheets would smell like whatever had been on the menu that evening.

We stood there, the three of us, in silence, and she took my hands. She looked me in the eyes and said, "It's your daddy. He's gone."