Little Miss Santa Claws

1. Nicole

CHAPTER 1

Nicole

I hate that princess movies always end on the wedding day. With one long, romantic kiss, their fates are sealed with a pretty bow that reads The End , and we’re all supposed to believe they live happily ever after in marital bliss.

There’s no such thing.

It’s during The After when real life happens—the boring and hard and ugly—and those movies did a huge disservice to little girls everywhere by making us all think otherwise.

In real life, there’s always an after, and it’s rarely ever happy.

My ringtone fills the corners of my mother’s gaudy, stale living room as dust sparkles in the rays of sunlight pouring through the windows. This is at least the twelfth time work has called me today. On Christmas Eve, no less. But when you work in upper management at a thriving toy manufacturer, such is to be expected. People probably think our hardest work ends by Christmas day, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s shocking how many parents wait until the last possible second to purchase something. In fact, we sell just as many units the day after Christmas as we do the weeks before, thanks to a little thing I like to call the “split-family effect.” This is the busiest week of the year for me, which is perfectly fine. It’s not like I have anything else in my life that needs my undivided attention right now—or any one, for that matter.

Whatever. It’s fine.

I’m fine .

I wonder how many times I need to tell myself that before I start to believe it. Probably a handful more, at the very least. Rewire those thoughts, Nicole. I hear my therapist’s chipper voice singing in my head. Like a carousel, her words come back around, around, around. I know they’re true; I just don’t like being told what to do.

Speaking of being bossed around…

My mother turns to glare at me from where she stands beside the fake Christmas tree. The plastic fringe is balding in places, and a quarter of the lights have burnt out. For some reason, she refuses to replace the ancient, off-white thing. She just piles on a couple extra cartons of ornate glass ornaments to fill the empty space. I guess she thinks covering it up will hide the disrepair.

If that isn’t the most succinct assessment of my mother I’ve ever thought up, I don’t know what is. It’s actually making my stomach hurt.

Although the stomach ache could be thanks to the bran muffins Mom forced down my throat earlier. They’re currently slugging through my intestines in a very painful way. We should be eating real bread and sugary casseroles and peppermint sweets, just for a couple of days. I’d cut out my own kidney for even a sliver of apple pie at this point.

Okay, that was a little dramatic, I’ll admit.

But seriously, it’s Christmas, and I hate her food. I was free from her “cooking” for an entire blissful decade, but then I was forced back home a month ago due to my romantic failures. I think that makes it worse, knowing what I’m living without. My freedom. My kitchen. The life I created.

All of it is just… gone .

I return my gaze to my phone and silence the call before I pull up my messages and send a text to the co-worker calling. I’d rather not expend what very little social energy I have left on a phone call. As I tap away on the screen, I hear my mother let loose a frustrated sigh.

“Are you alright, Mom?” I say through tight lips. “Do you need me to grab you another Xanax from the medicine cabinet?”

“Don’t antagonize me, Nicky.”

I grind my teeth, continuing to type. I’ve told her a million times how much I hate that nickname, but she still uses it. I haven’t been Nicky in a long time. In a cold voice, I reply, “I didn’t realize I was being antagonistic. I was just offering to help.”

“What would be helpful is you getting off your phone and decorating the tree with me. I’m doing this for you. I’m not even going to be here tomorrow to enjoy this, but I’m setting it all up anyway. The least you could do is appreciate the effort I’m making.”

No, she won’t be here.

She’s going to be in Wyoming, spending Christmas with my sister and her family, and I’ll be here. My first Christmas entirely alone. No one thought to extend a Wyoming invitation to me.

On one hand, I understand that my homecoming was abrupt. I haven’t spent Christmas around my sister in years, so I understand why I wasn’t invited. On the other hand…I didn’t want to spend Christmas by myself. That’s why I moved home when my husband asked for a divorce.

I don’t know what I was thinking. I would have been better off sleeping on my friend’s couch back in Cincinnati.

Hope is a vicious thing, especially when it’s crushed before it has an opportunity to flourish. I sell childish joy year-round, but inside, right now, I feel completely bankrupt.

With a deep breath, I put my phone down and sit a little straighter—battle position at the ready. “I didn’t ask you to do this, Mom. You didn’t have to set up the tree. I’m starting to think it might be easier to just pretend Christmas doesn’t exist this year.”

She rolls her eyes and sets her hands on her hips. “You were the one complaining just last week about it not feeling like Christmas around here.”

“Because you moved to Florida. There’s no snow.”

“I moved to Florida because it’s warm and the people are nice. If you wanted snow, you should have vacationed somewhere else.”

“This isn’t a vacation,” I grumble.

“Yes, clearly . You’re a workaholic, Nicky. You’re on your phone constantly. I’m right here, and you barely look at me. It’s really no mystery why your marriage didn’t work out.”

My heart skips in my chest. “Wow,” I exhale. “Okay. I’m not going to sit here and let you talk to me like this.”

I shove the fuzzy blanket off my legs and stand, heading for the arch leading into the rest of the house. Sure, I refused to explain why I was getting a divorce when I came home. I didn’t want to talk about it. But how could she just assume it was my fault? And after she went through the exact same thing— twice . I’d definitely made the wrong decision coming here.

This isn’t even really home to me. I grew up a handful of states away, but it’s not like I could go there. The only people I know who still live there are my sister and my father, and they have their own families to take care of now.

Unfortunately, I can’t afford to go anywhere else, not until I can pay my divorce lawyer off.

The best I can do is hide away in the guest room until my mother leaves and then run to the grocery store before they close. I could use some liquor and candy.

But as I’m leaving the room, she calls after me, “And so you run away from me, just like you ran away from Matt. If you wanted to work things out, you should have stayed and fought for it. People make mistakes, Nicky.”

Something dark and foreign surges within me. It’s a culmination of everything I’ve bottled up over the last few years, and her words activate it like yeast in rising dough. It’s brimming over. I can’t hold it anymore as I spin on my heel.

“There was nothing left worth fighting for. I was always the one to sacrifice in our relationship—time and money and more than that. I gave him everything. We moved to Cincinnati for him , for his career. When he wanted to go back to college, I supported him. Then, when he dropped out and decided to switch careers to something that kept him traveling for months at a time, I supported him. When I found out he was cheating on me and he swore it was a one-time mistake, I forgave him, all because I wanted to work things out .

“He didn’t make a mistake. Everything he did to hurt me was intentional. My staying with him for that long was the real mistake. He didn’t want me. I was just convenient. I was there, so he kept me, like a fucking pet or something. The moment he found a way out of our marriage, he took it. So yeah, I am working a ton, but that’s because I passed up so much professionally for that man, and he gave me absolutely nothing. I’m taking what I need now. I did run away, and it was long past time for me to do so.”

Once it’s out, I feel both better and worse. My throat hurts and my eyes sting.

All I said was true, but I didn’t include that I was done too. For months, I was done with our marriage, just going through the motions, and I think Matt knew that. He could see it, feel it. So even though I know logically that the demise of our relationship wasn’t on me, I still feel at fault for the final severing.

I stare at my mother and grimace at the pity on her face.

I’d finally gotten some compassion, but it didn’t make a difference. Maybe her compassion wasn’t really what I wanted.

She sighs and walks over to me, raising her hands to my upper arms and firmly squeezing. A little bit of affection to mask the hurt. It feels like she’s spreading spackle over a massive crater. “I didn’t mean to make you upset, Nicky. Let’s just…finish decorating the tree together, okay? I have to leave for my flight soon.”

That was as close to an apology as I would ever get from her.

My face burns. I’d exploded, and her calmness makes me feel crazy. Maybe I’m being irrational. Maybe I let my emotions get the best of me.

I nod weakly. “Fine.”

She gives me a brittle smile and leads us back to the tree.

I pick up a blue star ornament from the plastic storage tub and turn to hang it up, wishing I could feel even one iota of Christmas cheer.