This Christmas by Jane Green Read Free Book Online

return to except a tiny hotel room, a room-service meal, and more of the same tomorrow.
     
    “Daddy!” Walker and Maggie cry out in unison as they thunder down the hallway, arms outstretched as Eddie scoops them up, burying his face in their hair, feeling as if his heart is going to break. God, he missed them. He didn’t realize until this moment quite how much he’s missed them.
    “Daddy! Come play with my tea party.” Maggie takes his hand and gestures toward her room, where she’s set up a tea party for her eight favorite dolls, all of whom, rather bizarrely, are named Gracie Abigail, Abigail Gracie, Gracie, or Abigail.
    “No!” Walker jumps up and down. “Come see my new Spiderman web shooters, Dad! They’re so cool!” Walker starts dragging Eddie down to his room to show off his new acquisitions, a direct result of Sarah’s guilt over Eddie’s leaving.
    “Hang on, guys,” Eddie says. “Where’s Mom?”
    “Hi, Eddie.” Eddie hears Caroline’s voice at the end of the hallway, and he turns to her, a wave of disappointment washing over him.
    “Hey, Caroline. Where’s Sarah?”
    “She had to run out to do some errands. She asked me to come over and watch the kids.” Caroline can barely look him in the eye as she says this, she and Eddie both knowing that Sarah doesn’t want to see Eddie, that of course this is just an excuse.
    “Right.” Eddie turns away and scoops Maggie up in his arms. “Come on, Maggie,” he says quickly, in a bid to hide his pain. “Let’s go get your bag and you, I, and Walker will take the train into the city.”
    “Yay! The city!” Walker shouts, running down the hallway into his room. “Can we go to the museum with the dinosaurs?”
    “Yup,” Eddie says. “We can do whatever you want.”
    “Can we go to American Girl Place?” Maggie asks deviously, even though Sarah has said she is not to get another American Girl doll until her next birthday, many months away.
    “Absolutely,” Eddie says. “We’re going to have the greatest weekend ever.” He turns to Caroline, who is leaning in the doorway watching them. “Tell Sarah I’ll have them back Sunday by five.”
     
    “What do you mean he looked good? He’s not supposed to look good.”
    Caroline shrugs. “I’m sorry, but you said you wanted to know the truth. But on the plus side he looked devastated when he realized you weren’t here.”
    “He did?”
    “Yes, and how come you like hearing that? You’re having second thoughts aren’t you? It’s not too late, you know. My impression was that Eddie really misses you all; he’d come back in a heartbeat.”
    Sarah shakes her head. “I know you’re probably right, but I don’t think I can do that. Of course I miss him, but I don’t miss the Eddie of today; I miss the Eddie I married.” She sighs. “I wouldn’t take back the Eddie of today.”
    “He can’t have changed that much,” Caroline says. “He’s still the same person, surely.”
    Sarah shakes her head. “I don’t think he is, and if I thought there was any chance at all of him becoming the person he was, I wouldn’t be doing this; I’d be working through it.”
    “And what about you?” Caroline asks quietly. “Do you think you’ve changed? Are you still the same person Eddie married?”
    Sarah snorts. “I barely know who I am when I look in the mirror anymore, let alone who I was when I got married. Seriously. Like I said the other night, I look in the mirror and wonder who in the hell that is looking back at me. And I hear myself screaming at the kids and I hate myself for it and wonder what happened to the happy, easygoing, fun-loving person I used to be.”
    There’s a pause before Caroline offers gently, “Do you think it’s possible that Eddie feels the same way?”
    But Sarah shakes her head. “If he had spent any more time with us he might have noticed. But he was hardly ever here. I really don’t think he cared.”
     
    Eddie would never admit this to anyone,