Heart of the Matter - Emily Giffin [116]
“I don’t know,” she says again, forcing a smile. She clears her throat and tries to change the subject back to the tree, remarking on a snowman ornament she made as a child.
“We have to see him before Christmas,” Charlie says. “To exchange gifts.”
Valerie tenses, but says nothing.
“Don’t you have a present for him?” he presses.
She thinks of the vintage postcards of Fenway Park that she bought for Nick on eBay, now tucked into her sock drawer, and the tickets to the symphony she bought for Charlie to give him, imagining the two going alone together, but shakes her head. “No,” she lies to her son. “I don’t.”
“Why not?” he asks, looking confused. In the dim, reddish glow of the tree, she can barely make out the burn on his cheek, and she thinks of how far they have come in two months, how she never imagined that they would be here, like this, that she could ever worry about anything other than Charlie’s basic health. She feels fleeting comfort in this until she considers the emotional damage that this setback could cause. Perhaps more lasting than a scar on his face. “Why don’t you have a present for Nick?”
Her insides seize as she carefully replies, “I don’t know . . . Because he’s not family.”
“So? He’s our friend,” Charlie says.
“Yes . . . But I really only buy presents for family,” she says lamely.
Charlie seems to consider this and then says, “Do you think he got us one?”
“I don’t know, honey. Probably not. . . But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about you . . .” she says, her voice trailing off.
“Oh,” Charlie says, looking momentarily hurt. Then his face clears as he says, “Well, that’s okay. I still have something for him.”
“What do you have for him?” she asks nervously.
“It’s a secret,” he says, his voice mysterious in the way of a little boy trying to be mysterious.
“Oh,” she says, nodding.
He looks at her as if he is concerned that he just hurt her feelings. “It’s a Star Wars thing. You wouldn’t understand, Mommy.”
She nods again, adding this to the growing list of things she doesn’t—and likely never will—understand.
“Mommy?” Charlie asks after a few beats of quiet.
“What’s that, Charlie?” she says, hoping that the next words from her little boy will be about Star Wars, not Nick.
“Are you sad?” he asks her.
She blinks and smiles and shakes her head. “No. No . . . Not at all,” she says as convincingly as she can. “It’s Christmas. And I’m with you. How can I be sad?”
He seems to accept this, adjusting the Nativity scene along the Christmas tree skirt, pushing Joseph’s and Mary’s heads together as if in a symbolic gesture before his next question. “Did you and Nick break up? Like Jason always does with his boyfriends?”
She looks at him, stunned, then flounders for the right words. “Honey, we weren’t together like that,” she says. “Nick is married.”
It is the first she’s discussed this basic truth with her son, a fact that fills her with even more guilt.
“We were just friends,” she finishes.
“But you’re not friends anymore?” he asks, his voice trembling.
She hesitates but dodges the question. “I will always care about him,” she says. “And he will always care about you.”
Charlie is not fooled, staring into her eyes and asking, “Did you get in a fight?”
Valerie knows she cannot evade his questions anymore, that she has no choice but to crush him. Two days before Christmas.
“Charlie. No. We didn’t get in a fight. . . We just decided that we shouldn’t be friends anymore,” she says, flustered and feeling certain that she chose the wrong words. Again.
He looks at her as if she just told him that there is no such thing as Santa Claus. Or that he’s real, but just won’t be coming around to their house this year.
“Why?” Charlie says.
“Because Nick is married and has two children of his own . . . and he’s not in our family.”
And he never will be, she thinks. Then forces herself to say the words aloud.
“Is he still my doctor?” Charlie asks, his voice strained, panicked.
She shakes her head and says, as cheerfully as she can, that he has a new doctor now—a doctor who taught Nick everything he