Helena ignored everyone’s offers of help. She always refused to let anyone in her kitchen. Laney tried to help her mom with dinner a few years ago, and Helena got so stressed having her “in her way” that she kicked her out after half an hour, uttering a few extremely rare curses. Her mom never cursed.
Finally, the table was loaded with the perfectly golden turkey, thick gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, peas, carrots, corn, and cranberry sauce. The pumpkin pie and cherry pie would come later. Laney’s dad hated pumpkin pie—a sacrilege, in her opinion because pumpkin was her absolute favorite, especially her mom’s homemade pie—but he loved cherry.
Natasha took Jason’s hand on top of the table and looked radiantly around. “Before we eat, can Jason and I say something?”
“Yes! Of course!” Hela stuck a few serving spoons into the dishes and sat down in her spot.
Laney knew that her parents had given Natasha and Jason five grand as a wedding gift and had also helped out a ton with the planning and everything, so she was sure they were going to thank them.
Instead, Natasha looked first at Helena, then at Tom, then gushed, “You’re going to be grandparents!”
Tom’s jaw basically smacked straight into the tabletop. Jason flushed a little, and he never seemed to get overly flustered about anything. Natasha was also bright red, but most of that flush was likely excitement.
And Helena? She just sat there. Silent. Laney thought her mom was going to faint. She was ready to push back her chair and walk over to her side, just in case. The floor was tile, and she couldn’t have her mom smacking into it on freaking Christmas. Or any day.
Slowly, the hugest smile in the entire world split Helena’s face. Then the tears came. They came in great torrents, flooding down her cheeks. She sobbed and blubbered, and kept repeating, “Oh my lord, oh my lord, oh my lord,” like a Christmas blessing over the food.
“Congratulations,” Laney choked out, the first to say it.
Tom and Helena both echoed it, bursting from their chairs and hugging Natasha and Jason. Laney should have been excited. She should have been relieved. She was. She was certain. She had to be. Because to be anything else would be ridiculous.
Her brother and Natasha had done her a huge favor by basically shifting the attention from her to them. She wasn’t going to be badgered about producing a grandchild now that there was one on the way. It just hadn’t hit her yet. The shock was so great that the relief hadn’t taken over. That was all it was, Laney reasoned. It would come.
She just couldn’t reason with the tiny pin prick stabbing at her chest or the slightly nauseating feeling in her stomach. She knew what jealousy felt like.
She just needed to get some turkey into her. That would fix everything. That would banish all the wayward, crazy thoughts from her starved brain.
Everyone finally quit their crying and their flapping and hugs. Laney did join in eventually after her parents were done with crushing poor Natasha and back slapping and blubbering all over her brother and filled their plates.
Then the questions started. Helena had a full plate, but she didn’t even touch it in her eagerness to know all the details. When was Natasha due? When did they find out? What were their plans? Were they getting a doula? Were they going to be taking classes? Did they need any help? Could she help with a nursery? Could she get them anything? Could she shop for them? After the questions dried up, the unsolicited advice about raising children anywhere from the ages of zero to thirty-two was given freely.
Natasha and Jason both took it in stride. Natasha was too good natured not to, and Jason was clearly just as excited as she was. That blew Laney’s mind. Her brother always basically said that he never really cared if he had children or not, and now he was practically glowing with pregnancy hormones himself.
They got through dinner and the gift opening, but Laney felt almost numb. When it was finally time to leave, with one arm full of gifts and another bursting with leftovers that her mom packed up for her, she felt strangely reluctant, but also relieved.
Jason and Natasha were heading out too and Laney hugged them both and assured them she was very excited to have a new niece or nephew. She gave her parents hugs too, piled everything in her backseat, and started the drive back home.
Except that she turned left, heading away from her parent’s subdivision. She kept going, her mind a hazy fog, her chest thick and heavy.
Christmas was just a rough time, she told herself. She had no reason to be unhappy. She had a family who loved her, her brother and Natasha were now married with a family of their own on the way. Everyone was healthy. Everyone still had their jobs, their house. She’d just enjoyed an amazing meal and her mom hadn’t even once tried to badger her. There was literally nothing to be grouchy or stressed about.
So why was her chest so tight? What was the ache in her stomach? Laney learned the hard way that eating raw cauliflower caused massive intestinal distress. Cooked was fine, but raw was unfortunately not on the table for her, which was too bad because she really liked it. She currently felt like she’d eaten an entire head. But she hadn’t. There was no way to explain the pain in her chest and lower, the ache in her belly.
There was also no way to explain why she was driving towards Morgun’s apartment. Laney didn’t have Morgun’s number. She couldn’t message her. She probably wouldn’t have, even if she had it. She could have brought up the dating app and sent a message, but she hadn’t planned this. It kind of just happened. Her body steered the car while her brain was furiously working on something else.
Traffic was fairly light since people were still probably celebrating Christmas with family and friends. Laney knew she was getting close. She remembered the outdated children’s park in a small grassy space at the intersection of two busy streets. She recalled thinking that it was hardly a safe place to put a park and she thought so again as she passed it.
She knew that Morgun’s apartment was only five minutes away. She could still stop. She could turn around and forget about what she was about to do. Morgun probably wasn’t even home. She was likely having Christmas with her own parents. Laney assumed they lived close by, but she could be wrong. She hadn’t even asked.
She regretted the way she’d bulldozed into the coffee shop that night. How she’d picked Morgun up for the wedding in a foul mood and hadn’t taken more than a second to appreciate her appearance, let alone her company. She had noticed that Morgun looked beautiful, but it chaffed her like a thorn stuck somewhere deep in her foot where she couldn’t see or reach it. Laney hadn’t allowed herself to enjoy it. At least not until late in the evening, when she’d had a few drinks and allowed herself, for a brief span of time, to do something that she truly wanted.
What’s wrong with being yourself? Morgun had asked her that at the wedding.
She never got a chance to respond, but the question bounced around in her head for the rest of the night and well into the next few days.
Laney had this ridiculously thick skin. She’d spent years and years cultivating it. It started when she first came out to her parents. She’d expected high school to be extra rough because she didn’t keep it a secret that she was a lesbian and that was tough to deal with, in addition to all the other shit that makes high school impossible for people to get through. She’d started that night, building
up the extra thick, protective layers that it took to keep the barbs out.