Letters For Tessie

Letter 8

Dear Tessie,

It’s December now Tessie; Christmas is just around the corner and as usual, I haven’t been into the mood of the whole Christmas spirit just like everyone else, not in a long while I guess. This will be the third time that I have been out of it during this season. We just finished our midterm exams earlier and what followed the next week is our Christmas vacation till the start of the second week of January.

Carlos, Earlene and I spend our last moments in school as we won’t be seeing it till the next month. We all had finished our exams so we get the half day off.

“Man, those exams are hard.” Carlos complains, stretching his arm out and wide.

“Well, the coverage was our midterm lectures so it was to be expected.”

“What do you plan on doing on your vacation, Tyler?” Carlos asks.

“Me? I’ll probably be at home most of the time.”

“Eh? Not going out to your relatives’ place and having a reunion?” Earlene butts in continuing, “That’s probably what we’re going to do this year. Again.”

“I’ll be going out of the country for a while, visiting my dad along with my mom.” Carlos looks at Earlene, implying that they won’t be able to go out on Christmas Eve.

“I don’t mind, as long as you get me some sweets.” Earlene seems to care about the sweets more than spending time with Carlos, which made me trying to hold myself back from laughing.

“So… we’ll be seeing next year huh?” I ask.

“Sure sounds like it.” Carlos replies.

“Well, advance Merry Christmas to you two.” Earlene raises her drink, Carlos and I soon followed clanking our soda cans.

As I return home, I notice my dad was there, surprisingly. I wasn’t expecting him to be here; is this what he meant by making it up to me the other time?

“Oh Tyler, welcome home.” He said, working on attaching some decorations on the sides of our roof.

“I-I’m home.”

“Go dressed up and help me with this.” I nod and soon enter our house. I could smell something good coming from the kitchen. Removing my shoes, I am quickly drawn to the sweet meaty scent as I make my way to the kitchen, and to my surprise I stop on my tracks.

“Oh, welcome home Tyler.” It was Cecielle, cooking up spaghetti sauce.

“H-hi.”

“I’ll be using the kitchen for a while if you don’t mind.” I nod and soon made my way up to my room. I never noticed my grandmother downstairs so, after changing I went to her room and knock three times before entering.

“Grandma, are you here?” I found her there, lying at her bed sleeping soundly. Leaving her room quietly, I make my way outside and help out my dad finish decorating. He and I are still not on good terms, barely having any small talk.

“Give me that hammer over there.” I reach him the hammer.

It was mostly this kind of repetitive dull conversation. Give me this, give me that; he was not in the mood apparently. Did they have another fight while I was gone? I try not to let myself get bothered by it, well even if I tell you this Tessie, you know deep down I am starting to get troubled by it. If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be writing you this letter.

Once finished with the decorations, Cecielle called us in also finished with her cooking. It was nothing special, apparently. It was just spaghetti with meatballs and a vegetable salad to go along with, for some reason, potato mojos.