Page 14 of Sleighproof

For instance, how instinctively creative can I be when shoveling coal into Kolby like he’s a goddamnpiñata?

Or my husband when he comes clean about using shopping as a cover for work.

Work that he’s doing before he leaves the fucking country to domorework, might I add!

And to think that he’s worried aboutmeworking too much!

“Still no word from my littlemijo?” Ma’s wavy green words flow in my direction while sliding one arm into the dark red coat Tom is holding out for her.

It takes every muscle in my face to politely smile. “No, ma’am.”

“That’s unlike him,” she announces, the next wave of words winding around my neck like a noose. “That’s…veryunlike him.”

Outside of a mission?

Yes.

During one?

This is exactly what it’s like.

Radio silence.

The problem is he wasn’t supposed to be off onthatsort of assignment.

He was just supposed be buying gifts and probably eating four mall pretzels after promising himself he’d only have two.

“I’m sure our little puck head has something to do with it,” Linda playfully insists, pink words doing their best to cut through the cords tangling up my voice. “Wherever that boy goes, he has to body check trouble, I swear.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Ace lightly laughs and drapes an arm around his wife’s shoulder. “What he pays in fines nowadays ain’t nowherecloseto what we shelled out when he was growin’ up.”

Both sets of Slater’s parents snicker over the good-natured comment encouraging me to join them.

Yet I don’t.

Can’t.

What if the two of them got intorealtrouble?

What if Kolby meant it when he said theywereshopping and then something terrible happened?

Something so horrific that the love of my life couldn’t just stand by and do nothing about it?

Becausethat’swho he is.

Becausethat’sthe only possibility for why he’d break a promise to me.

The girls.

“Ángel,” Ma lovingly calls to me, pulling my attention away from the black boots I paired with my snowman sweater dress, “it’s alright if you wanna wait here formijowithmis nietas.” She flips out the hair that got slightly tucked into her coat. “Diosunderstands.” She offers me a comforting smile to match her words. “Dios always understands.”

“No, I wanna come.” Finally pulling on my own long jacket, I declare, “It mattersto methat I come. Thatwehave this special moment every year.” One arm glides itself through a sleeve. “And one day, when the girls are older, I believe it’ll matter to them too.” The other appendage completes the same task. “To see and to have and to know that they are welcomed somewhere despite whatever religion they may or may not find or who they may or may not worship. Going to service with you, every year, is that little dose of love my spirit needs to not only remember there is something greater than myself out there, but to bethankfulthat same thing is protecting those I love even when I can’t.”

“Amen,” Ace lovingly states at the same time he pulls his wife in closer.

After kissing my daughters goodbye, making them promise to be good for all the grandparents in charge, and reminding them that Santa has his operatives – word choice delivered by their father and Blu whoinsistelves are not stealthy enough to be assigned such a task – are still watching, I join Gabs and Tom in their SUV for the half an hour drive to House of The Holy, the less traditional space where Ma now prefers to go to service.

Her outlook on religion and beliefs has always been a little unorthodox in comparison to the hardcore way she was raised; however, over the years, I’ve come to understand not only the reasons for the changes but the power in doing what serves your soul best.

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