Happily Ever Christmas

~Four~

                                                                               One Year Later

Somehow, miraculously, time passed and I picked up the pieces of my safe little life that Peter had shattered.

It was hard, it was real damn hard, but I wasn't going to be one of those women who stayed after he'd been unfaithful. I just wouldn't do that to myself and set that kind of example for my daughter. Maybe if I hadn't had kids, things would be different; I could just sweep the shards of my broken heart under the rug, but I had two little lives to think about other than my own.

Peter threw a royal fit at first and there were lots of fights and lots of wailing and sobbing and blaming, on both our parts.

By Christmastime the following year, however, he had finally signed the divorce papers and he was living with Mandy in her apartment in New York. Well, he could just have his bleach blonde bimbo, like that would last!

It wasn't my problem anymore.

I saw no way around it, time to run back home to New England with my tail between my legs and my two young kids in tow.

Grandma and Grandpa were more than happy to have their grandkids in the house, believe me, even though it was a bit cramped with my sister, Susan, and her family living there temporarily, as well, especially around the holidays when everyone in our large Catholic family mobbed to my parent's house.

It just made since; their old brick Colonial had about a dozen guest rooms, but I still ended up on the couch this year somehow.

Being the baby of the family sucked sometimes.

My kids got their own room together, though, and that was enough for me to sleep easy. Even though Olivia was seven now and starting to clamor for her own room.

It was time to start looking for our own place after the holidays, without a doubt. Good thing I had some experience selling real estate, because I also needed a job and I saw a couple birds I could try to kill with one stone. Which was such a depressing saying!

I was on my third glass of wine now and I knew I should probably slow down. I hadn't drank in a while, I'm not that much of a deadbeat mom, but I had decided Mama definitely deserved a few tonight. It had been a long, exhausting day with the first wave of extended relatives arriving.

Before I passed out on the couch by the fire, however, I went upstairs to check on my kids.

Bradley was asleep in his bed, his little tuft of ginger hair sticking up above the comforter. I smiled fondly, gazing down upon his innocent, freckled face. Bradley took after my complexion and he had inherited my red hair, while Olivia looked more like her father with her straight brown hair and pale complexion.

She was up, currently, sitting on the window seat with her nose pressed against the glass. She was staring earnestly up at the stars in the clear night sky.

"Sweetie, what are you doing up?" I asked her softly so as not to wake her brother, crossing the room to stand behind her at the edge of the window seat.

I put my hands on her little shoulders and squeezed affectionately. "You should get some sleep, sweetheart, we have a big day tomorrow."

"Is Daddy coming?"

I hesitated, my heart wrenching painfully. Not for me, I was done suffering over Peter. One year of grieving our relationship was all that lying jackass deserved. But my heart broke all over again for my daughter.