Christmas Wish – Part 2

A.J. found him upstairs in Brian’s bedroom, lightly fingering one of the ornaments that adorned the small Christmas tree that stood in the window.

“Have I succeeded in freaking everyone out?” he said when he sensed A.J.’s presence.

“Kinda. Hey, since when does Nick yell at people who cuss?”

“Ever since Kariel said ‘son of a bitch’ when Florida State was getting killed.”

A.J. snorted. “Are you serious?”

“Yup.”

A brief silence settled over them.

“You don’t look too good Kev.”

Kevin sighed and looked back at the tree. “She loves Christmas. Her face just lights up whenever you talk about it. She starts decorating the moment we finish cleaning up after Thanksgiving.”

A.J. waited patiently. Kevin would break only when he wanted to. Encouraging him wouldn’t make it happen any faster.

“I miss her, Aje,” he said hoarsely, turning a pair of red-rimmed eyes to his younger friend.

“I know you do.”

Trembling slightly, he sat down at the edge of Brian’s bed. “It’s like I have this empty pit where my heart used to be. She’s my whole life…”

A.J. sat down next to him. “How long has it been?”

“She left four days before Thanksgiving,” he moaned.

“She’s had the twins that long?” A.J. exclaimed.

Kevin shook his head. “No. She left them with me, telling me I had to find a way to make it up to them myself. She wanted no part of it. Then Travis told me she’d called, and that she was going to pick them up from school their last day before break. She’s had them since then.”

“Have you talked to her?”

He shook his head miserably.

“Why the hell not?” A.J. demanded. “Are you going to just let her walk out of your life?”

“You should have seen her,” Kevin said mournfully. “She was so angry. She told me she never wanted to see me again.” He stopped for a moment, trying to get a grip on himself. A.J. couldn’t believe the level of emotion Kevin was expressing. He’d never seen him this raw and this vulnerable, in all of their years together. It made him long for the old days. He couldn’t help but think that if they’d all been together still this would have been worked out long ago.

“It was entirely my fault,” he went on. “Her, the kids, I should have paid more attention. To everything. I was too busy trying to make sure that my career stayed on track that I forgot what was really more important to me.”

“That happens to everyone from time to time,” A.J. said sympathetically.

“Do you forget Alex’s birthday?” Kevin said harshly. A.J. was stunned into silence. So that’s what he had done. No one had really been able to get it out of him.

“I let my kids down A.J.,” he said in despair. “I made a promise to her and to them, and I broke it. And what’s worse, it wasn’t the first one.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“What is there for me to do?” Kevin said bitterly. “I don’t deserve her. The loneliness and the heartache, that’s what I deserve. Sitting by the fireside and seeing everyone celebrating, knowing that she’s not here to share it with me. Not being able to hold her in my arms, listen to her laugh, or look into her eyes and see myself in them. That’s what I deserve.” He put his hand to his face, and he sniffled loudly. “At least you have Alex.”

A.J. gave him along, hard look. “Don’t you dare,” he said coldly.

Kevin looked up sharply. “What?”

“Don’t you dare come looking to me for sympathy. My wife is dead Kevin. I loved her with all of my heart and soul, but I lost her anyway. I have to live with that pain every day for the rest of my life. And now? Alex has to grow up without a mother. Where’s the justice in that? I had no choice but to let her go. You? You’re giving up without a fight. You’re giving up your family without a fight! Sarah is still out there. You have two beautiful boys who look up to you as their father. You may have messed up, but you know what? People do that. They screw up, they learn from it, they get over it, and they go on. They do not lay down and die! When you have gone to her on your hands and knees, begging her to forgive you, when you have sacrificed everything you have to get her back, and when you have told her exactly how much she means to you and she still turns you away, I will be here for you. Until then, you have no right to talk to me about what it’s like to lose the love of your life. No right.”

Kevin drew in a harsh breath, as if he had just been slapped.

“We may not have the band anymore,” A.J. continued quietly, the harshness gone from his voice. “But we’re still brothers. We’ve gone through too much together for that to ever change.”

Kevin nodded. There was no denying that. “You’re right though,” he admitted. “God, this hurts.”

“Come on downstairs,” A.J. suggested. “I know you think their ‘Christmas spirit’ might kill you, trust me I know. I spent my first one alone with the Dorough’s and I thought about asking Santa for a gun to put myself out of my misery. You think Howie’s bad by himself? Try surrounding yourself with Howies. The whole family is just lots and lots of Howies.” A.J. shuddered, and Kevin chuckled.

“I’m serious though. It may be hard, but they need to see you’re okay, and you need to be there for those kids. Nicky, and Kariel… and Kariel, you’re their uncle, man. Act like it.”

Kevin nodded. “You know what?” he said thoughtfully as A.J. stood up to leave.

“What?” he asked.

“You’d never know by looking at you, but you’re actually a pretty smart guy.”

Now it was A.J.’s turn to laugh. “Glad to know I can still surprise you. Come on.”

Christmas Eve dinner in the Littrell household was an event, as if the preparation weren’t enough. Suzanne and Whitney were driving everyone crazy with the smells that had been drifting out of the kitchen all afternoon, and both of them guarded it like a fortress. Both Brian and Nick had tried everything they could think of to get a few samples, including using their kids, but the two wives were well accustomed to their antics and had no trouble warding them off.

In the end it was worth the wait. The living room was packed with people laughing and talking, catching up on what they had missed and revisiting old memories. All of the kids seemed enthralled with Uncle A.J., begging him to tell story after story about their parents. He was only too happy to oblige. At one point, Kariel turned her bright blue eyes towards Nick, a knowing grin on her face. “You were awfully silly when you were young, Daddy.”

The only hitch came during a light lull in the conversation.

“Uncle Kevin?” Kary asked quizzically.

“Yes?”

“Why aren’t Travis and Gerald and Aunt Sarah here?”

For a moment there was silence, and Kevin seemed to have frozen with his fork halfway to his mouth. It was only when Nicky let out a monster-sized wail when Alex started tugging on his hair that he snapped out of it.

“They’re with their Grandma right now,” he said finally.

“But they’re going to miss Silent Night!” the youngster protested. “They never miss Silent Night. Y’all always leave Christmas morning.” She looked ready to pout.

“Aw, Kary, I know. But we did it differently this year.”

“Are you and Dad and Uncle Nick still going to sing Silent Night?” Her lower lip began to tremble.

Kevin glanced at Brian for help.

“Of course we are, honey,” Brian said comfortingly. “In fact, Uncle Howie and Uncle A.J. are going to sing too. Don’t worry.”

“We always sing Silent Night,” Kariel said importantly.

“Don’t forget to eat your peas,” Suzanne told her.

Kariel made a face. “I don’t like peas.”

“Eat your peas.”

“Yes mommy.”

Nick reached over to mop up his son’s face. “Nicky,” he said with a shake of his head. “I do believe you got more on your face then you did in your mouth.”

“Like father like son,” Sue said, patting her husband on the back.

Brian put the last of the dishes away while his wife wiped up the counter top. “Dinner was wonderful,” he told her, kissing the top of her head. “You two did a fantastic job, as usual.”

“Mmm, thank you. You’d better get out there and sing your daughter Silent Night before she throws a fit,” she advised him.

“I’m about to.” He glanced out into the family room, where Kevin was seated with Kary in his lap. He was laughing at something A.J. had either said or done.

“How do you think he’s doing?” he asked hesitantly.

Whitney raised an eyebrow. “It’s Christmas and he’s alone. What do you think?”

“He has us,” Brian said defensively.

She rolled her eyes. Men. Sometimes she wondered if Sarah wasn’t wiser than she and Sue for getting out when she had the chance. “We are not Sarah,” she said pointedly. “And Kary and Josh and all the other kids aren’t Travis and Gerald.”

He nodded, drumming his fingers on the countertop. “I just wish there was something I could do.”

“He has car keys and a car. It’s a six-hour drive. All he needs is encouragement.”

Brian stared at her in surprise. “You think he should drive to Roanoke tonight?”

Whitney shrugged. “Why shouldn’t he?”

“It’s Christmas!”

“Exactly.”

Brian exhaled slowly. “Promise me this will never happen to us,” he pleaded.

She shook her head. “That’s not the kind of promise we can make. What I can promise is that I won’t ever give up on you.”

He squeezed her hand and kissed her deeply. “I couldn’t give up on you if I tried.”

“Good. Now go make your cousin see that.”

Brian winked at her and strolled into the family room where everyone else was waiting. Nick was leading them all in a round of Jingle Bells. Even Kevin had joined in. Trying to see how long he would stay unnoticed, he tiptoed over to the corner of the room where his guitar case was leaning against the piano. He fiddled with the latches before opening the case and carefully removing the instrument. At that time Kary spotted him and shrieked in delight.

“It’s time!” she shrieked. The room fell quiet, and Kary, Alex, Nicky, and Kariel were watching him in hushed anticipation.

“Fellas, y’all up for a little caroling?” Brian asked with a soft smile.

“I think we can handle that,” Nick said with a knowing smile. Kevin got up and made for the piano. “Howie, do you still remember how to sing?” he taunted.

Howie merely smiled in response, drew in a breath, and began to sing a familiar song.

“Oh come all ye faithful,” he sang softly. “Joyful and triumphant.”

Brian smiled and joined in. “Oh come ye oh come ye to Bethlehem,”

From there they all jumped in together, all five of their voices blending almost perfectly despite their three year separation. Time may have passed, but not one of them had forgotten how it worked. When they finished the song, Kariel began clapping furiously, joined in quickly by the other kids. Even Nicky banged his hands together with a delighted giggle. Nick grinned and made faces at him, which made him laugh even harder.

“Like that?” Brian said, reaching out to tickle his daughter, who had inched closer and closer to his legs with each verse.

“Yes!” she shrieked through her giggling.

“How about some more?”

“Yes!”

A.J. and Nick were only too happy to oblige with an improvised duet of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, with a little help every now and then from Howie. Brian, Nick and Kevin had perfected their own version of The First Noel, which earned them much applause. A.J. and Howie did their rendition of Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer, which Alex seemed to enjoy quite a bit. Kevin couldn’t help but wonder if Denise had heard that one. She probably had.

Whitney kept a careful eye on Suzanne when Nick got up to do a solo of O Holy Night, accompanied only by Brian on the guitar. Nick’s wife tended to get a little weak in the knees when he sang like that, and Whitney could never be too careful. True to form, Sue was sitting slack-jawed on the couch, gripping the arm of the seat like it was the only thing holding her up. Whitney shook her head. You’d think they were still newlyweds.

“You okay there honey?” Nick said to her slyly when he finished.

Sue narrowed her eyes at him. “I’ll get you for that-later.” Nick waggled an eyebrow at her and in response he got a pillow in the face.

“I forgot what good aim you had,” A.J. said with an impressed nod.

“Silent Night! Silent Night!” Kary begged.

Brian glanced over at Nick, who gestured to him. “It’s all you Rok.” Brian nodded, and readied his guitar. He launched into his daughter’s favorite Christmas Carol and sang it with the beauty of an angel. Even Whitney couldn’t find her voice when he was done.

“Think it’ll go over well at church tonight?” he asked with the smile she had fallen in love with all those years ago.

“I think they’ll appreciate it,” she said breathlessly.

“Mommy?” Kary asked, her face scrunched up deep in thought.

“Yes sweetie?”

“Is Josh going to church with us?”

“Yes he is honey. Hopefully he’ll sleep right through it.”

“Will Santa come while we’re gone?” Kariel asked hopefully.

“He might,” Sue said in a singsong voice. The two girls whooped and gave each other high fives.

Kevin’s face fell gradually throughout their excited chatter. Brian watched him out of the corner of his eye, and when his cousin got up to excuse himself Brian was hot on his heels.

“Please tell me A.J. spiked the egg nog,” Kevin said aloud as he poured himself a glass.

“You know better than that,” Brian scolded. “The kids have been drinking that.”

Kevin put the glass forcefully on the counter and rubbed the back of his neck with his hand.

“I need my kids, Bri.”

“So go get them.”

“I can’t do Christmas without them.”

“So don’t.”

“I want my family back.”

“So go get them.” When Kevin looked up, Brian was holding out a pair of keys. “Go. If you bring them back, we’ll be here. If you don’t, we’ll understand.”

Kevin stared at him in astonishment. Slowly, he reached out and took the keys. “What about tonight? I’m supposed to help with the choir.”

Brian rolled his eyes. “I’ll handle it. One of the others can step in if I need them.”

“Are you sure?”

“Get out of here. They’re more important.”

Kevin started towards the door, then turned around and embraced the smaller man “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” Brian said, returning the hug. “Thank Whitney.”

“That woman is wise beyond her years.”

“Tell me about it. Now go.”

“Explain it to the others for me?”

“Yes. Go!”

Kevin threw on his coat and jogged out to the car, letting the door swing closed behind him with a bang. Before Brian could rejoin the others, A.J. poked his head in. “What was that?” he asked.

“That was Kevin’s sense coming back to him.”

A.J. nodded in approval. “Good man. I knew he had it in him, the stubborn cow.”

“So, A.J.,” Brian said conversationally.

“What?” A.J. asked suspiciously.

“What do you think of choir robes?”

Kevin didn’t even remember the drive. He had glanced at his watch on his way out. Seven o’clock. That would put him in Roanoke about one in morning, which meant he would reach Hardy, the county Sarah’s mother lived in, sometime before two. Two a.m. on Christmas morning.

If someone had asked him later, he wouldn’t have even been able to tell if he’d had the radio on. If he did, he didn’t remember what he had listened to. The only thing running through his mind was what to say to her when he wound up on her doorstep. Where on earth did he even start?

When he arrived he killed the engine at the bottom of the hill and sat gazing up the long driveway. With the absence of leaves on the trees it was easy to see the house itself. The Christmas lights lining the front porch twinkled happily, and to his surprise a light shone out of one of the windows. Someone was still awake. He clenched the steering wheel nervously. If he didn’t do this, he would regret it the rest of his life, for he had the feeling that if he let Christmas go, there would be no getting her back. He would have missed his chance.

With a soft click the door to the car opened and he forced himself out. It was bitter cold out, but the night was clear. He began to trudge slowly up the driveway, the crunch of the frozen gravel beneath his feet breaking the silence of the night. Somehow he didn’t feel right driving the car up the hill. As he approached the top, he spotted her car in the driveway. Although he had known all along she was here, seeing the tangible proof stole his breath for a moment. He stared at it, hands jammed in his pockets as the winter wind cut at his chiseled face. Each breath that left his lips was visible to him, and he watched as it curled up into the air and vanished. Get over it and go to the door, Richardson. Chances were that if she was in the living room she already knew he was there.

He made his way reluctantly up the path, bending his head against the wind. Upon reaching the front door his hand hovered just above the wood, hesitant to knock. He almost jumped when he heard the sound his hand made against the door. He rocked back and forth restlessly on his heels while he waited for someone to answer. A shadow passed by the windows on the way to the front door, and he tensed. A ray of light cast its glow on the sidewalk as the door opened.

“Kevin?”

“Hi,” he said nervously.

“What are you doing here?”

“Can I see her?” he pleaded.

“I don’t…” The door opened wider, and a second figure appeared in the doorway. The sight of her made his knees feel weak, and it was all he could do to keep from diving into her arms and begging her forgiveness.

“Sarah,” he said softly.

Her face was unreadable. One of the things that he loved so much about what they had was their ability to speak without words. A simple look, a touch, the slightest curve of her mouth said what he would have spent a year trying to say out loud. Even at first glance there hadn’t even been so much of a flicker behind her eyes for him to go on. Was he too late?

“Why are you here?” she asked. Not even her tone of voice gave her away. It was blank, just like the rest of her. He swallowed hard. He could feel his nerve slipping away on the wind that had brought him to her door. He waged a brief battle with himself in order to answer. If he was going to lose her, it was not going to be because he couldn’t open his mouth.

“You,” he croaked. “You are why I’m here.”

Her eyes bore into him, and he resisted the urge to flinch away from them. A sigh of relief bubbled up to his lips, suppressed just in time as she opened the door wider and stood aside, waiting for him to come in. Her mother watched Kevin carefully as he slipped in the door. Both women were a good head shorter than he was, but somehow he felt much smaller in comparison.

Sarah caught the eye of her mother, who proceeded to retreat up the stairs. Yet again, that precious unspoken language that he used to know so well. When the two of them were alone, she folded her arms across her chest and waited for him to speak.

“How are the boys?” he asked gruffly, with a longing look up the stairs.

“They’re fine,” she said evenly. “They miss you.”

“The feeling is mutual,” he said, turning his brilliant green eyes back towards her. The pain that been dragging him down for a month now was exposed for the first time. Its power surprised even him. How could he have turned his back on this? Realizing how close he was to losing her when she was standing right in front of him was more than he could handle.

“Why are you here, Kevin?” Sarah asked him again. For the first time her indifference fell away to reveal the weary woman underneath.

Kevin drew in a breath, hoping courage came with that breath. “I was wrong.”

“And what, it took a few Christmas presents and a missing stocking to make you realize that?”

He jammed his hands deeper in his pockets and stared at the floor, unable to meet her accusing eyes. “This month has been the hardest month of my entire life,” he said quietly. “I’ve been walking around like half a person. I am half a person when you aren’t there.”

“Is that so?” she said bitterly. “Then why now? Why not three weeks ago?”

He smiled wanly. “I chose to drown in self pity rather than fight for what is important to me.”

“And what, may I ask, changed you mind?”

“A.J.,” he said simply. “A.J. and Alex got in this afternoon.” A wistful smile crossed his features, lifting a little of the weight life had given him to carry. “You have to see that kid, Sarah. He’s just beautiful. But you know what? Nothing is ever going to change the fact that he will never know his mother. Nothing is ever going to change the fact that A.J. has to live the rest of his life without the woman that he swore he would die for. He couldn’t die in her place, because he didn’t have that choice. I do. He made me see that. A.J. had to watch, helpless, as the woman he loved with his entire being slipped away from him, and each morning after that he has woken up and lived another day.” Kevin shook his head in wonderment. “How does he do that? The moment you left I wanted to give up. You are my reason for walking this earth. You and those two kids up there are what I live for, day after day.” He paused to catch his breath, glancing at her to see if his words were having any effect at all.

There were traces of red around the rim of her eyes as she stared fixedly at a single point on the carpet. “What happened to us?” she murmured, sounding so lost that he wanted to cry. “I don’t know what hurt more Kevin, walking out that door, or realizing that you weren’t going to come after me.”

Kevin shook his head helplessly. “I know,” he said, his voice breaking. “I made the biggest mistake of my life, and I will live the rest of it regretting that. I don’t deserve you, but I love you more than anything in this world, Sarah. I always have, and I always will. I just need you to know that. If you want me to go, I’ll go. I can’t expect you to forgive me. Buy I had to tell you that, so at least you would know.”

He reached out and gently stroked her face with his hand, longing to feel the softness of her skin. She raised her eyes to meet his, and reflected there he saw the tears he had been aching to shed for weeks.

“Do you know what Travis wanted for Christmas?” she asked softly.

“What?”

“He said he wanted his daddy to be here.”

Kevin choked back a lump in his throat, and licked his dry lips. He ached for his boys. He had had no inkling of what it was like to love someone so completely until he had held them in his arms for the first time after they were born.

“Sitting around Brian’s with a roomful of children that weren’t mine was one of the worst moments of my life,” he told her. “You tell him that the only thing I want for Christmas is all of you. Until that comes true, I’ll be wishing on every star I see.”

“Why don’t you tell him yourself?”

He placed his hands gently on the sides of her arms. “Do you mean it?” he asked, scarcely daring to hope.

“Kevin Richardson, I love you with everything I am. No matter what happens, that won’t ever change. I just need to know that you share that, because if you didn’t I couldn’t stand to be with you.”

He pulled her close, hugging her fiercely.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“I know.”

For a moment he lost himself in the little things that had always meant so much to him. The smell of her shampoo, the way she fit so perfectly in his arms, the silkiness of her hair, and the rhythm of her heartbeat, beating in perfect time with his own.

“I need to see my kids,” he said hoarsely.

She moved away from him towards the stairs, although her hand was still firmly encased within his. When she had gone as far as his reach would allow, he pulled her back to him and kissed her, releasing the pent up emotion and turmoil that had been eating at him since she had gone away. She responded just as hungrily, devouring his mouth with a need that had been steadily growing in his absence. He closed his eyes, praising God that he had been given a second chance.

“Merry Christmas,” he said softly in her ear.

Index