Christmas with the Calvins

Chapter Seventy-Six

Jessica began to worry about being away from the house for too long. A worry which Scott quickly put to bed with a gruff "screw him."Scott knew that he couldn't leave Jessica and her kids with that guy for another second, but he also knew that this Jessica was so different than his own. The years of abuse she'd suffered from her husband, the neglect from her parents, the general exhaustion of being a mother, it had all stolen her fire. She didn't have any fight left. So, Scott had to fight for her. He helped her load her three kids into the car and drive them to the fancy apartment that he'd first arrived to this reality in. If for nothing else, she would be safe there until he figured out how to set things right.

Scott learned from Jess that Charlie was living with his mother, they still lived in their same house but that was all she could tell him. He felt some sense of relief that at least Charlie and his older his sister still talked to each other regardless of whatever else had happened in their lives. When Scott parked his car outside of the Miller's house, he was glad to see that at least it didn't look different on the outside.

"Scott?!" He couldn't tell if this version of Laura was more angry or surprised to see him. "What are you doing here?" He guessed he should have been more prepared for her reaction after the conversation he had with Jessica.

"I'm just here to see Charlie." He explained.

"Well he's not here." Laura huffed, beginning to shut the door in his face.

"Wait, wait wait!" Scott stopped the door with his foot. " I need his help! He'll know what to do."

"Charlie?" Laura opened the front door again just enough to glare at Scott. "Charlie doesn't know how to do anything other than get himself in trouble."

"What are you talking about? Charlie, our Charlie?" Scott raised his eyebrows. Every second in this reality was worse than the last.

"Yes!" Laura huffed again. "You would know this already if you had even once bothered to get to know your son! The spray painting, keying the faculty cars at school..."

"Keying cars!" Scott exclaimed. "This is unbelievable! Where is he?"

"I already told you Scott, he's not here." Laura was practically snarling now. His Laura never snarled!

"Where is he? And where are Neil and Lucy?"

"Scott, you're asking me an awful lot of questions and frankly they are none of your business." His ex-wife sighed, now sounding deflated. "You've made it very clear that you don't want to be a part of our lives."

"Something happened." Scott realized out loud. "Something happened with you and Neil."

"Neil could never live up to Jess or Charlie's expectations." Laura explained. For the first time her voice didn't have a bite to it. Instead she sounded tired as she remembered things that had happened so long ago. "Charlie came home that Christmas and begged me not to ever make him go back to your house. At first things were fine, but then Charlie didn't like the rules. We were too strict. He started to resent us, Neil especially. He said that Neil was the reason he never got to see you anymore."

"But that wasn't true at all!" Scott remarked. "It was my fault!" Scott hoped he never met the version of himself that lived in this reality because if he ever did the guy was in for a serious butt kicking. How could he do this to their family?

"Yeah well, Neil did the mature thing." Laura explained. "He didn't want to ruin Charlie's relationship with his father, so he let Charlie think that he was to blame for anything that ever went wrong. Eventually I think he started to believe it between Charlie always arguing with him and Jessica not talking to him at all... Neil and Charlie got into a heated argument one night, Neil decided to go for a drive to cool down. He wasn't paying attention, he swerved on the ice..." Scott didn't need Laura to finish her sentence. He could fill in the blanks on his own. Neil had died in a car accident.

"Laura, I'm sorry. I didn't know." Scott mumbled.

"Well, how could you?" Laura asked with watery eyes. "You're never around."

"Laura, where's Charlie? I need Charlie to fix this." Scott said.

"He's at the North Pole. He's Lucy every year since the Christmas Neil died." Laura read the confused look on Scott's face. She couldn't look at him anymore so she started rifling through the mail near the door. "The North Pole." She forced a magazine into Scott's hands and wouldn't say anything else.

Scott looked at the booklet in his hands. The cover was a gigantic advertisement for the "North Pole Resort." It was a bright colorful graphic that reminded the reader to "Make your reservations now!" It make Scott's stomach turn before he even began leafing through the thing. The pages inside weren't much better, advertising activities like meeting one of Santa's elves and building your own toys. It was the worst things about Christmas commercialism all in one packet.

"Frost turned the North Pole into a theme park!" Scott exclaimed. "The North Pole! My North Pole!" He shook his head and started walking down the front steps.

"Are you sure you should be driving?" Laura questioned him. Scott was acting very out of character. Asking all the questions about Charlie, pretending that he cared about anyone other than himself. It was unnerving her.

"I am going to fix everything, Laura." He made the same promise that he had to Jessica. "I'm going to make things right."