On the Monday before Christmas, Angela walked through the canned goods section of the grocery store in search of the vegetable soup that was on sale. She was frowning at the time because of the song that was playing over the speaker system.
If I hear that song one more time, I'm going to scream, she thought to herself.
The song was "It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year" by Andy Williams and it seemed as if no matter where she went after Thanksgiving, it played at least one time while she was there.
Two years before, she'd have probably sung along in her head because Angela had loved Christmas then. She'd decorated her house with garlands of pine and tinsel, always had a wreath on her front door, and there was a special spot in the family room for the Christmas tree. She'd stopped buying real trees years ago because it was a mess to clean up all the needles once they were taken down, but the tall artificial tree looked almost the same and on New Year's day, it was easy to take apart and put back into the box.
Last year, she hadn't put up any garland but she had put up and decorated the tree, and once she was done, sat on the couch and cried for an hour. This year, though it was the twentieth of December, and the tree was still in the box in her garage along with all the lights and ornaments.
Angela had thought about putting the tree up again, but then thought, why bother? It'll be just me here and it'll remind me of how it used to be. I'll sit on the couch and cry for a while, and then be sad until I take it down.
Last Christmas had been hard because her husband had decided in June that he didn't love her anymore. He'd moved to a rented house that summer and had filed for divorce. Angela signed the papers the Monday after Thanksgiving but didn't really come to grips with the fact she was single again until New Year's day. It was too hard to believe that after twenty-four years of marriage, she was again alone. He'd have his fling and then realize what he'd had and come back to her. After all, she was only forty-eight and still had her figure. True, that figure was bigger than when she was eighteen, but two kids did that to a woman. The men who stared at her at the grocery store seemed to like her.
That Christmas, her two daughters brought their husbands over for Christmas dinner and it was almost like before except her husband wasn't there but it felt a little strained. Her daughters had always loved their father because he gave them everything they wanted. Angela was left with the role of meting out discipline so her daughters would grow up to be good women. She knew both her daughters thought she was the cause for the divorce. Still, just having them there made her feel better about everything. It wasn't until they left she felt really alone.
In some ways, Angela thought she probably was the cause. The inevitable began to happen to her when she was forty-five, and a few months later, her husband seemed to have lost interest in her. She'd tried to get him to have sex, but usually he'd say he was too tired or had to get up early in the morning. She'd asked her doctor about that. Her doctor said men went through a change too and it was probably just his age.
Angela didn't think the problem was her husband's age. One night after she'd tried to get him to come to bed early and failed, she woke up about an hour later and had to used the bathroom. When she came out of the bathroom, Angela noticed the lights in the living room were still on. Thinking he'd probably fallen asleep on the couch, she quietly walked to the door and then looked to see if that was the case.
It wasn't. He wasn't asleep. He was leaned back in his desk chair with his pants down around his ankles and looking at his computer screen. On that screen was a video of a naked young girl touching herself, and her husband was stroking himself.
After he moved out, Angela had driven by the house he was renting one Saturday afternoon, and saw her replacement. The woman was about thirty and her body was trim and fit.
At first, she was furious that her husband would want a woman almost young enough to be his daughter. A week later, she was crying every night, alone in her bed and wondering if there was a way to get him back. A month later, she was furious again and didn't want him back. The divorce papers made her both sad and furious, sad because it was over, and furious because he'd just dumped her like a used tissue.
The summer after her first Christmas as a divorced woman, her daughter's husbands had taken jobs on the West Coast, one in California and one in Washington State. She hoped they'd come for Christmas again, but they both called to wish her well on her birthday in October and said they couldn't make it for Christmas. It was too far to travel and too expensive.
From then until the first of November, Angela was sad. By Thanksgiving, she was angry with them for moving so far away. When the stores started putting up Christmas decorations and having sales, Angela had decided Christmas was just a way for stores to take more of your money and that made her cynical about the whole thing.
It wasn't the songs that angered her as much as the people. They were all walking around smiling. If she went to the mall, she saw men talking to saleswomen about sweaters or men talking to saleswomen in jewelry stores about earrings or necklaces. In Walmart, she saw smiling women searching the shelves in the toy department for dolls or toy cars or some other toy for their children or grandchildren.
Angela didn't have any grandchildren to buy for. If she had, that would have made her a little happier, but her daughters had both said they wanted financial security first and children later. She couldn't even buy anything for her daughters. They'd both decided Christmas was too commercial and had told her they weren't going to buy her anything and didn't want anything from her.
Angela wished the whole thing was over and people could get back to doing what they always did.
She finally spotted the vegetable soup above the sale tag with a picture of a wreath on it. Why did every store put anything she wanted on the top shelf? Didn't they know there were a lot of women just over five feet tall and wouldn't be able to reach it? Angela had one foot on the bottom shelf and was reaching for a hand-hold to pull herself up when a voice behind her said, "Ma'am, you're going to hurt your self. How many do you want? I'll get them for you".
Angela stepped down and turned to tell the man she wanted two, but stopped when she saw who he was. He was a store employee, probably only around nineteen, and he was wearing a stupid red velvet pointed hat with a white pompom on top. It wasn't enough that the store had to play Christmas music and have big plastic bows and candy canes all over the place, she thought. They had to dress up their employees too.
Angela said she needed two. He took them from the shelf, handed them to her, and then asked if he could do anything else for her. Angela wanted to tell him to take off his dumb elf hat and act like a grownup, but she couldn't.
"No, thank you. This is all I need for now."
The young girl at the checkout was wearing reindeer antlers and wished her a Merry Christmas. Angela had to stop herself from snapping back, "What's there to be merry about". She just stuck the receipt in her purse and then pushed her cart away from the checkout.
Angela was pushing the cart toward the door when she saw a little girl about five standing by the wall all by herself. Angela had read the news stories about little children being abducted from stores, and it didn't seem right to just let her stand there alone. None of the store employees were paying attention to her. She walked up to the little girl and smiled.
"Honey, where's your mommy?"
The little girl's face was serious.
"Daddy says Mommy is in Heaven now."
It was the innocent statement of the unquestioning belief of a child, and nearly brought Angela to tears. She couldn't leave her alone now.
"Well, is your daddy here?"
The little girl nodded and pointed at one of the checkout lanes. Angela had just looked up when a man quickly pushed his shopping cart up beside her. He looked angry. He sounded angrier.
"Why are you talking to my daughter?"
Angela shrugged.
"I saw her standing here by herself, and it worried me that...well, I don't like seeing children alone, especially little girls. Too many things can happen to them. I have two daughters of my own."
The man seemed to calm down a little then.
"Oh, I thought...well, I guess I was thinking the same thing you were thinking. Erica likes to run around, so I told her to go stand by the wall where I could watch her while I checked out. "
