Free The Christmas Note by Donna VanLiere

eight twenty, as I finish packing the kids’ lunches for tomorrow, I notice her car pull into her driveway. I creep down the hall to check on Ethan and Em and see that they’re asleep. This first week of school has worn them out. I pull their door closed and walk to the sofa, falling into it. This is always the worst part of my day. Just sitting alone with everything quiet except my thoughts that make a tremendous racket. A knock startles me and I jump to my feet, peering through the peephole in the door. Melissa is standing on my dark stoop, and I flick on the outside light, opening the door.
    “Your mail was put in my box today,” she says.
    I take it and step aside. “Thanks. Come on in.” I’m not sure if I’m inviting her because it’s the neighborly thing to do or if I want to drown out the noise inside my head. She stands as if glued to the front stoop, and I motion with the mail. “Come in! Have you eaten?”
    “I was going to have some cereal.”
    I lead her to the kitchen. “I have spaghetti.” I open the fridge and take out the bowls of noodles and sauce I’d put in there a couple of hours ago. “It seems like I always have spaghetti because my kids love it.” She looks uncomfortable just standing there, and I look at the table. “Have a seat. Would you like iced tea or water? Those are my only choices right now.”
    “Water’s fine,” she says, looking around. “Looks like you’re all moved in.”
    I cover the plate of spaghetti and put it in the microwave. “For the most part. Still need to hang things, but my dad’s coming to help with them.” I reach for a glass and fill it with ice and water and set it in front of Melissa.
    “Thanks.” She moves the glass back and forth in front of her, watching the ice. I don’t know if something’s on her mind or if she’s tired or doesn’t want to be here or a combination of all three. The microwave dings, and I set the spaghetti on the table. She stares down at it. “I haven’t eaten spaghetti in years.”
    Her voice always sounds so tired or uninterested. “Years!” I say, getting a cup of hot tea ready.
    “The fast-food restaurants I eat at don’t serve it, and I never go out at night and I can’t make it so, yeah, it’s been years.”
    When the water’s hot, I sit across from her and dunk the tea bag up and down in my cup. “You can make it. It’s easy.”
    She takes a bite and I can tell she enjoys it. “No, I can’t. I can’t make anything, really. If it doesn’t come in a box, I can’t make it.”
    “Did your mom cook from a box?”
    She makes a noise in the back of her throat. “Ramona cooked from a can and ate out of a box. Growing up, I thought my dad must have worked for either Campbell’s or Kellogg’s.” She’s quiet, but I can tell she’s angry.
    “You never knew him?”
    Melissa laughs while taking another bite. “I doubt Ramona knew him!” She moves the meatballs around on her plate and talks into one. “Your mom is great.”
    I reach for the Tupperware container of cookies behind me on the counter and open it, pulling one out for my tea. “My mom can’t cook, either!”
    “But she was there, wasn’t she?” Melissa asks, wiping her mouth with a napkin. “She looked at your homework and sat across from you at the dinner table and showed up when you had a part in the sixth-grade play and searched the house for your stuffed bunny at bedtime. She did that, right?”
    “Yeah, she did.”
    She’s cutting a meatball into tiny pieces with her fork. “When I met her and Gloria, it was like being with a family I knew when I was a kid. That mom held on to my hand the same way that Gloria did. Like I meant something. That’s the way your mom looked at me, and I knew that she and Gloria were great moms.”
    “Oh, Mom has her quirks, believe me,” I say.
    “And the only reason you know her quirks is because she was there,” she says, sounding tired.
    We use the silence to eat. My mother never could