Page 10 of Big Santa

“No, I don’t think you do.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“How else could you possibly mean it?”

I sigh and sit beside her. The mattress dips beneath our combined weight.

“I know you love me.”

“Good.”

“I know I could stay with you as long as I want.”

She waits.

I pick at a loose thread on the knee of my jeans.

“I just don’t want my new life to start in your guest room.”

Her expression softens.

“I don’t even know what my new life is supposed to be yet.”

“You could give yourself more than five minutes to figure it out.”

“I’ve had four months.”

“You’ve been grieving for four months.”

Same thing. I don’t say that, though. Grandma would have plenty to say. She’d definitely fuss at me. I can hear exactly what she’d tell me if she were here: Don’t you dare sit around feeling sorry for yourself, Noelle. I’m dead. You’re not.

She probably wouldn’t put it quite so bluntly. She was a Southern woman, so there would have been a sweetheart, or at the least a bless your heart.

“I realize, but staying here would have just prolonged that. And I needed to do something.”

“So you married a stranger?”

“I didn’t go into this blindly. I did think about it. And I read the contract several times. I wasn’t going to sign something I hadn’t read.”

“No.”

Apparently the reckless part of this decision had very specific boundaries.

“Exactly.”

“Noelle.”

“I had my own lawyer.”

“I know.”

“Everything is protected. I have my own accounts. The money he pays me goes directly into them. I don’t have to ask him for anything. There are provisions if either of us wants out. I can leave.”

“Do you want to?”

“I haven’t gotten there yet.”

“You know what I mean.”