Enough to Miss Christmas

"You don't have to dredge up that stuff now. We should talk in person, when I visit. Get to know each other again and move on."

No. I can't wait. Let me do it now. I thought I could tell you on the phone but I can't."

"Suzie . . ."

"Meet me downstairs, outside. Let's walk. I can't tell you on the phone. We can walk, like we used to, remember?"

"Now?"

"It has to be now. Ben wants to get on the road. Just toss on a coat. Please?"

My sister hung up before I could answer. I stuffed my sore feet into on my travel sneakers, peed, pulled on a top, couldn't find my jeans, said the hell with it and put on a knee length coat. I was out of the room, in the elevator, and out of the hotel in minutes. Suzie was waiting in front of the building. It was freezing and the wind was blowing.

I could see my sister was crying. She took my arm, pulled me close and we began walking, at the quick pace I remembered.

"There's stuff about Doug you should know," she began, looking not at me, but at the sidewalk in front of her.

"Suzie, Doug is dead. He's been gone five years next month. I know you and Ma despised him but let's let it rest, okay? I'm thrilled you and I are talking again but let's not spoil it with old hurts."

"Ben says you have a right to know. He's always said we should have told you."

"I know why it happened. You and Ma thought the guy I wanted to marry wasn't good enough; that I should have stayed in Elmwood and taken care of Mom and not run off to Texas. Period. End of history. Please, Suzie. I don't want to spoil our getting back together with this old shit."

"Doug was no good."

"You couldn't have known that!" I said with a defensive snarl. I wished I'd remained in my empty bed and not agreed to rehash the past. I could feel what little progress we'd made in our twenty-year rift began to melt away. I commenced to shiver.

"We knew. Oh, God did we know. All of us. Only no one had the guts to tell you and it screwed up all our lives for years."

I wouldn't answer and confirm what she was saying.

"Doug was a first class bastard and we should have told you the truth. I'm sorry to speak ill of the dead." She still wouldn't turn around and look at me. "He was still a bastard, till the day he died, wasn't he?"