Sheila Roberts - Merry Ex-Mas

“This calls for more pie,” Drew said with a grin, and helped himself to another piece.

“I’m going to be a bridesmaid, right?” Amber asked her sister.

“Of course,” Dani said.

“You’d better dig out your Armani,” Cass said to Drew. “Dani’s going to need you to walk her down the aisle.”

Dani’s face lost some of its bride-to-be glow and she bit her lip.

“Hey, I’m cool sitting in the front row with your mom,” Drew said quickly. “I don’t have to be the one.”

Oh, yes, he did. Who else was going to? Oh, no. Surely not…

“Actually, I was hoping Daddy would walk me down the aisle,” Dani said.

The undeserving absent father? The man who’d been M.I.A. for most of Dani’s life? Cass fell back against her chair and stared across the table at her daughter.

Dani’s cheeks bloomed with a guilty flush and she studiously avoided her mother’s gaze.

“Daddy?” Cass echoed. It came out frosted with scorn. Way to be mature and poison your daughter’s happy moment, she scolded herself.

With her sunny disposition and eagerness to please, Danielle was generally easy to get along with, but now her chin jutted out at a pugnacious angle. “I know he’ll want to.”

Oh, he always wanted to be there, but he never had been.

Until lately. Now that their children were practically grown. He and his thirty-two-year-old trophy wife, Babette, seemed to think they could have the kids come over to Seattle anytime he swooped in from his business trips and buy their affection with shopping expeditions and Seahawks tickets.

Obviously it was working, and that made Cass want to break the wishbone she’d been saving into a thousand pieces. This wasn’t right. How to get Dani to see that, though?

She cleared her throat. “You know he travels a lot.”

“I know,” Dani said, “but we want a Christmas wedding and he’ll be here for Christmas.”

“Christmas Day?” Willie made a face.

Dani frowned at him. “What, are you afraid Santa won’t come?” To the others she said, “We thought the weekend before.”

“That’s not much time to plan a wedding,” Dot pointed out. “What’s the rush?”

Now Mike was beaming like a man with a big announcement.

“Because Mike got a job as assistant manager at a hardware store in Spokane,” Dani announced for him, “and when he moves for his new job I want to go with him.”

Everyone at the table got busy offering Mike congratulations.

Except Cass, who was in shock. They’d be moving away. Her daughter would be leaving practically the minute after she got married. The vision of Dani raising her family here in Icicle Falls, of someday taking over the bakery, went up in smoke. It was all Cass could do not to cry. She pushed away the plate with her half-finished pumpkin pie and hoped nobody asked her what she was thankful for.

“Anyway, we just want a small wedding,” Mike said. “Nothing fancy.”

Nothing fancy? Dani had always wanted a big church wedding. What happened to that?

“And I know Daddy can come that weekend,” Dani added.

“You already talked to your father?” Before you even shared the news with me? Hurt welled up in Cass, giving her the worst case of heartburn she’d ever had.

“Just to see if he’s going to be around,” Dani said. “I thought maybe everyone could come up and stay for the week.”

“Here?” Cass squeaked.

“Whoo boy,” Drew said under his breath.

“There’s no room,” Cass said firmly. No room at the inn.

Dot shrugged. “You could probably put them up at Olivia’s.”

Thank you, Dot. Remind me never to invite you over for Thanksgiving dinner again.

“Dani, you know how crazy it gets this time of year,” Cass said. “I’m sure the B and Bs are booked solid.”

“Olivia still has a couple of rooms,” Dani said.

“You talked to her?” She’d told Olivia, too?

“This morning. I just called to ask if she had any left.”

“Well, then, I guess that settles it,” Cass said stiffly.

“You’ll help me plan it, won’t you?” Dani asked her in a small voice.

Cass was hurt and she was mad, but she wasn’t insane. “Of course I will. And I’ll make the cake.”

“Well, duh.” Amber rolled her eyes.

Dani ignored her sister and smiled happily. “Thanks, Mom.”

Cass sighed. She’d even suck it up and be nice at the wedding. It would be wrong to spoil her daughter’s big day with petty jealousy.

It’s not petty, whispered her evil twin. Cass told her to shut up.

“I know it’s a busy time of year,” Dani said.

“’Tis the season,” Dot cracked.

The season to be jolly. That was going to be hard with her ex-husband strutting around town, pretending to be the world’s best dad. It was going to be hard to greet his bimbo trophy wife with good cheer. And she didn’t even want to think about dealing with her ex-mother- and sister-in-law. If Santa thought this was what Cass wanted for Christmas, he needed to retire.

“This is going to be a pain in the butt for you,” Dot said to her later, after the dishes were done and the kids were playing on the Wii.

Cass leaned against the kitchen counter and stared at the contents of her coffee mug—black, just like her mood.

“But you’ll get through it.”

Of course she would. Exes were a part of life. She’d put on her big-girl panties and cope. After all, it was only a couple of days. Anyway, they’d all be staying at Olivia’s place. She’d hardly have to see them.

Cass managed a reluctant smile and raised her mug. “Well, then, here’s to getting through.”

Dot clinked mugs with her. “Merry Ex-mas, kiddo.”

2

It was Black Friday, a big day for retail in Icicle Falls. For Ella O’Brien that made two black days in a row. How different this Thanksgiving had been from the year before.

Not that her mother hadn’t tried to make it special. Mims had hauled Ella over the mountains to Seattle for an overnight in the city, and on turkey day they’d eaten their holiday dinner at a high-priced restaurant. Surrounded by strangers. Well, except for Gregory, Mother’s longtime friend and fellow fashionista, who had a condo on the waterfront.

Ella hadn’t invited the thought that came to her as they were eating, but it had come, anyway, making an unwelcome fourth at the table. This is pathetically different from last Thanksgiving with your in-laws. Correction: former in-laws.

That had been a typical O’Brien celebration, rowdy and exciting, especially for a woman who’d always wanted brothers and sisters. Mims, who had been included, kept a superior distance while grown-ups and children alike had worked up an appetite by running around in the woods playing capture the flag. After dinner her mother-in-law (ex-mother-in-law, darn it) had helped her figure out a tricky knitting pattern.

And later, when it was time for dessert, Mims the fishaterian learned that the slice of mincemeat pie she was enjoying was a hunter’s version with moose meat added to the sweet filling and had to make a dash for the bathroom.

There’d been no bathroom dash this year. And no Jake. That was fine with Ella. Really. Mims was right; she was better off without that skirt-chasing, irresponsible, overgrown child. And her life would be perfect once she didn’t have to see him every day.

But she missed his mother and his sister and brothers. It had been fun to have someone to call Mom.

She’d never called her own mother Mom. Instead, she’d wound up mimicking Mims’s fashion-model friends and calling her Mims. Ella had never gotten the full story on that nickname, beyond that fact that it had something to do with her mother’s fondness for mimosas. Oh, and a tycoon and a yacht. Her mother had never wanted to be Mom, anyway. That was simply too unglam. And Lily Swan brought glamour to everything, including motherhood. So that was how it was growing up and that was normal, and that was what Ella told her friends whenever they asked why she didn’t call her mother Mom.