Every December [Soon to be Self Published]

Chapter 7

Austin

Later, once Lydia is asleep like the dead, I leave the house. If I move quickly, I can make it before closing.

One of the reasons I bought the house, besides the isolation, is because of the Silver Fields Care Center. The private facility is one of the best in the country for those ailed with memory loss diseases. My father has had a bed here for the past few years.

Pulling into the entrance of the facility knocks the courage right out of me. Knotted stress in my stomach expands, working its way up to my lungs. Swallowing hard over the lump in my throat. I park the SUV and sit with the engine idling. My fingers graze the keys. I could just not go in there. That would be easier. Don't see him. Don't feel the air choke my breath. My first friend, my best friend is a man I don't know how to talk to anymore. My father.

He's the reason I stepped on the golf course.

He's the reason I wasn't sent to live with my mother and her awful husband when I had been eight and a boy.

At some point my father didn't buy new ornaments and after my grandparents died, Christmas dinner became bready chicken nuggets I can smell even now.

A knot forms in my stomach at how I hadn't realized the slow progression of Christmas leaving our house, right down to our empty stockings. To this day, I don't know why that happened. I cringe--how I used to watch my neighbors from our window on Christmas Day. Cars lined the street in front of their houses. Families with presents were greeted with ferocious hugs and squeals. We were done with present opening by eight a.m. No other family would come over...no cousins...no crazy uncles. It was quiet as it is now.

Golf saved us. My dad would find a tournament. We traded holiday cookies and Christmas cheer for long flights and hotel rooms. Looking back, I wonder if my father was going through something else that made the candle in our holidays go out. That's when the normal left my life, when I no longer cared about this time of year. It's too late to get any of that back. It's too late for a lot of things.

I didn't think about how lonely my father and I were. I knew no different. I've simply skipped out on December, only to make an appearance with Brielle's family during Thanksgiving and give her Christmas presents after New Year's.

That's why Lydia will be out of my house by this time tomorrow. No one gets to do December with me. Even if we could help satisfy a few basic needs.

The reasons why I can't stand this time of year only get stronger with age. The lights. The decorations. The wreaths and the town Christmas tree. What is there to be happy about? Lukewarm memories that have turned cold and a father who doesn't always remember me?

Tired and apprehensive, I get out of the car.

The building has automatic sliding doors. I walk through and tear down a flyer advertising the town tree lighting ceremony and crumple it in my hand, tossing it into the trash. The strong scent of caffeine and cleaning spray waft in the air. A woman looks up from the welcome desk. The entire place is decked out for the season like someone threw up red and gold and tossed in a Christmas melody in the mix. Here's where I side with Ebenezer Scrooge.

"May I help you?" the woman behind the desk says expectantly. Her name tag is bordered in white furry fabric with a little Santa hat.

"I'm here to visit Darren Hutton."

"I need to see a driver's license."

I take it out of my wallet and show her. She peels off a visitor sticker and hands it to me. "Do you know where to go?"

"I do." I know it all too well.

"Visiting hours are over in thirty minutes."

I wait to be buzzed in to access the elevator and go up.