The 12 Days of Benjamin & Erin Lou

Day Two

Erin Lou Park

                “Oh my goodness.” I cried, plunging down onto my mom’s yellow sofa. After tirelessly taking a long plane ride from Connecticut to California and being crowded at the airport by all the students returning home from the holidays, I was ready to knock out. My pink suitcase was still beside me as I watched my mom hammering in the mistletoe up above the entrance to the kitchen.  

                “Ma, do you need help?” I asked, getting up from the sofa. My mom had just picked me up from the airport from working all morning and yet, she still had the energy to put up some more Christmas decorations.  My mom climbed down the ladder and looked longingly at the mistletoe. I knew what she was thinking about when her face grew crest-fallen. It had been almost 6 years already and even though she never did say it, I knew she missed my father like there was no tomorrow. He would always be the one to put up the mistletoe during Christmas and then he would nonchalantly pull my mother into his arms and kiss her.

                I walked near her and put an arm around her shoulder. “We should visit Pa tonight, Ma.”

                She seemed to relax from the warmth of my arm around her and patted my hand. She looked at me and sighed. “We’ll visit him after Christmas, Erin Lou, but for now we have to get ready for our dinner with the Daxton’s.”

                “What?!” My eyes widened. “You didn’t tell me that the Daxton’s were coming over tonight?”

                She replied with an “I didn’t?” and started laughing. My typical mother who never fails to surprise me. She did this before when she told me she would get me a cat as a pet, but instead got me an iguana. I got her back by naming my iguana Kitten, though.

                I looked up at the mistletoe she just hanged. “So, why was it necessary to put up a mistletoe for the Daxton’s?”

                “I don’t know.” She smiled at me mysteriously. “You know their son came down today too? That sweet Benjy.”

                She slipped away from my arms, leaving me staring at that stupid mistletoe above me. Was my mother seriously trying to set me up with our next-door neighbor’s son Benjamin Daxton?

Was that why she was lecturing me in the car about how I should go out and have fun this holiday season. She raved about how I was 21 already and how I studied all my life to get into Yale University as an Art Studies major. She also brought up how she was ready for me to have a boyfriend. I mean seriously, my own mother pushing her daughter to have a boyfriend? It was insanity.

“Benjy isn’t sweet.” I yelled at her to the kitchen and all I got back was a sarcastic hoot. Benjy Daxton had teased me since the day I moved next door to him. During middle school, he’d always tease me since I had this weird obsession of tying my hair into braids every day. He also would annoy me every time I painted outside on my porch step.   

                During high school, his bantering never ceased to disappear. When I walked down the hallways during school, him and his best friend Garret would question my fashion choices concerning my long dresses. My mother made me wear them since she thought I looked lovely in them; I couldn’t deny her since I was scared that she would completely burst into tears if I said no. We were still going through a rough time with Dad passing away.

                I cringed at the thought of Benjy coming back for the holidays. This was definitely not going to be a great Christmas with him living next door to me.