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The Cost Of Winning

Saying Goodbye

FIANNA'S POV :

As I pull into Ashley's driveway , I see him peering out the window . Bren sees him too , and says ,"There Daddy is , Mommy ! Him waits for we to gets here !"

The front door pops open almost immediately , and I say , "Yeah , I think you're right , Smidge ." I stop the car , and open the door , getting ready to go around and unbuckle Bren , but he beats me to it . He opens the door and has her out of her seat before I can even finish getting out of mine .

"Hi , Daddy !" , she chirps , flinging her arms around his neck and kissing him on the cheek . "Do yous feels better now ?"

"Yes I do , now that you're here !" , he informs her . "You always make me feel better , cutie !"

"You has to puts me down now , Daddy ! Me needs to helps Mommy gets the pesents out the car ."
"I'll help , too . That way we can get done faster ." , he says , setting her on her feet .

He looks over at me , and I mouth , "Don't open the trunk ." He nods , and starts taking packages out of the back seat , while I grab the bags I had up front with me . We walk inside , and I take the bags to the kitchen and start unloading , while he and Brenna arrange the gifts under his tree .

After a couple of minutes , he comes into the kitchen and asks , "What's all this about , Fi ?"

"This is about breakfast ." , I reply . "I figured you wouldn't be up for the traditional Christmas dinner tomorrow , but I'm going to make us all a good breakfast , and you're going to eat with us . And I don't want to hear , 'I'm not hungry' , or anything like that . You won't be any good to yourself or anybody else if you make yourself sick ."

He gives me a faint smile , and says , "And I'm guessing that if I try to argue with you , you'll sic Bren on me . Am I right ?"

"Yes , you are ."

I finish putting away the food , and we go back into the living room with Bren , who's staring at his Christmas tree .

"Wook , Mommy , it so big !" , she whispers . "Why ours twee can'ts be dis big ?"

"Because our house isn't as big as Daddy's , Smidge ." , I tell her . "If our tree was this big , we'd have to sit outside to watch TV . And Daddy always gets excited with the Christmas decorations ."

We sit down with Bren and let her watch a couple of Christmas cartoons , and then she gets to open a present from each of us before she goes to bed . She gets excited about the coloring set I give her , which has the markers that only show up on the special paper , so it doesn't show on the furniture if she goes off the edge . Then Ash says , "Your Christmas Eve present isn't under the tree , it won't fit there . It's in your room , if you want to go look ."

She gets up and runs down the hall , and a few seconds later , she yells , "Mommy , comes here and sees my pesent ! It so booful !"

I get up and walk towards her room , with Ash following behind me . When I get there , I step inside and see her staring at the wall , where Ash has painted a mural . It's a cartoon version of Bren , playing on a swingset with a cartoon Ivy , while Pickle and Wockles romp in the grass .

"Wook , Mommy ! Me is wike Dora and Sofie ! So am Ivy , and Pickle and Wockles !"

"Yes , I see it , sweetie , it's very pretty !" , I tell her . "Did you thank Daddy for making you such a nice picture ?"

"Tank yous , Daddy !" , she says , holding her arms out to him to be picked up . He obliges , and she gives him a big kiss on the cheek and asks , " Did yous color my pitcher , Daddy ? For weally ?"

"Yes , sweetheart , I did ." , he replies .

"Yous can play colors weally good , Daddy ! It so pwetty !"

After a few more minutes , I take her to have her bath and get her into her pajamas , then let Ash put her to bed . While he's doing that , I go to the guest room and put on my own nightclothes . We had a name exchange at work , and my co - worker Nola gave me a pair of fuzzy pajamas with a hot - pink shirt and multicolored zebra stripe pants , so I figure this is as good of a time as any to wear them .

I go back to the living room , and Ash comes back in as I'm pulling my boots on . "Where are you going , Fi ?" , he asks .

"Just out to the car ." , I say . "Her Santa present is in the trunk , and I couldn't get it out until she went to bed ."

I dash out to the car , pop the trunk , and grab the gift , then run back inside . When I close the door and go back to the living room , I see that Ashley is on the phone . He talks for a couple of minutes , then hangs up .

"That was Megan ." , he says , before I can even think about asking . "She just called to say Merry Christmas . She's in Oklahoma , doing the holiday with her brothers family , so she didn't know about Pop ."

I try not to let him see how much I DON'T want to hear about his new playmate , and ask , "So how did you meet her , anyway ?"

"She was actually in the seat next to me at a hockey game , and we started talking ." , he tells me . "We swapped numbers , and we've been out a couple of times , so far . Nothing major , at least not yet ."

Great , she's a sports nut like he is ! That'll definitely work to her advantage . That was something that he and I never really had in common . I can take or leave baseball and hockey , basketball bores me to death , and football just seems totally pointless to me .

We fill up Brenna's stocking , and then sit up and chat for awhile , until I notice that he's starting to lose track of the conversation , and suggest that he go to bed . He decides that this is probably the best idea , so he can be alert for Bren in the morning . We say goodnight , and go to our respective rooms . When I get to the guest room , I take my battery - powered alarm clock out of my bag , and set it so I can get up and start on breakfast , then crawl into bed and go to sleep .

____________________________________________________________

My alarm goes off , and I pull myself out of bed , then go to the kitchen and get started on breakfast . I grab a couple of mixing bowls , then pull the eggs out of the fridge and start cracking them . As I'm beating them , Bren comes into the kitchen , dragging Pickle by one ear , and says , "Mommy , me wooks when me comes in , and mines big sock gots stuffs in it ! Sampy Plause finded me !"

"I told you he would , sweetie ! That's why we left him a note ! Now , why don't you go wake Daddy up , so we can eat breakfast and open presents ?"

She charges back the way she came , and a few seconds later I hear her banging on his door , then yelling , "Wakes up , Daddy ! Sampy Plause camed , and wefted some more pesents ! We needs to eats beffast , so we's can opens them !"

I hear a faint mumbling , then she dashes back to the kitchen , followed a couple of minutes later by Ash , in a T-shirt and black sweats . He mumbles , "Good morning ." , and ambles over to the counter , sticking a pod into the Keurig .

"Daddy , is you not woked ?" , Bren asks him .

"Give Daddy a minute to have his coffee , Smidge , then he can talk to you ." , I say .

He makes his coffee , and chugs about half the cup . This seems to finally wake him up completely , and he looks at Bren and says , "Merry Christmas , Bren ."

"Mewwy Twismas to yous too , Daddy !"

"Do you want cheese in your eggs ?" , I ask him .

"Sure , why not ." , he says , so I toss some shredded cheese into the bowl , along with some green onions and mushrooms .

"Would you like some help ?" , he asks me .

"Sure , if you want to ." , I reply . "Do you want to do the eggs , or run the waffle iron ?"

He decides to take care of the waffles , while I scramble up the eggs , and it's not long before we have breakfast on the table . We eat , and he actually finishes over half of it , knowing that Bren will wonder if he doesn't .

After we finish , we go to the living room and watch Brenna open her presents . She is really excited about her "Santa" presents ; I got her an entire set of Disney princess movies that she's been wanting to watch , and Ash got her a little electronic keyboard to keep in her room over here . In addition , there are her "regular" gifts , which she knows are from us ; clothes , smaller toys , and things like that .

After she finishes , she very proudly gives us the presents that she made at daycare . Ash gets a plaster paperweight with her handprint pressed into it , and my gift is a small box , decorated with colored paper and stickers , which she says is to put my "pwetties" in . We thank her , and tell her how much we like them , then she says , "Now you gives Daddy hims present , Mommy !"

He seems a bit surprised when I pull a package out from behind the tree and hand it to him , but then he reaches even further back and brings one out with my name on it .

He opens his first , and sits quietly , looking over the hatband that he pulls out of the box . Finally , he says , "This is great , Fi ! Thank you ."

"Isn't it pwetty , Daddy ? Mommy maked it for yous !" , Bren announces proudly .

"Seriously ? You made this ?" , he asks , giving me a rather surprised look . "This is really cool , you definitely have some talent !"

What he's so enthused about is a band I made for him to put on one of his cowboy hats . It's a black suede band , with a bead - embroidered design of the band logo on the front , and small stars around the rest of the band .

He gets up and walks back to his room , returning with one of his hats , and putting the band on it . I get a bit of a jolt when he does , because I recognize this particular hat as the one I gave him for his thirtieth birthday , while we were still dating .

He gets it adjusted , then puts the hat on . After that , he looks at me and says , "Well , this makes me feel a little more confident about your gift . Why don't you go ahead and open it ?"

"Opens it , Mommy !" , Bren chimes in .

I tear off the paper , lift the lid of the box , and I'm sort of surprised to see a design book that I was thinking about picking up if we got our bonus next month at work , along with a smaller box inside the bigger one .

"I saw you checking it out that day we did the Santa pictures , so I went back later and picked it up ." , Ash tells me . "And when I flipped through it , I noticed that the stuff you use to make these things is also used as trim on band uniforms and some formals , so I was able to order some from one of my suppliers ."

I open the second box , and find several spools of soutache ribbon , which is used to make the jewelry patterns in this book . "This is really cool , Ash ! Thank you , I love it !"

We give Bren a little while to play with her toys , then I call her over and ask her to come and sit on the couch .

"Me is in time - out ?" , she inquires . "Does me do somefin' naughty ?"

"No , you're not in time out , sweetie , but Mommy and Daddy have to tell you something important , so we need you to listen really good , okay ?"

"Otay , me wistens ."

"Brenna , do you remember when we went to go visit my grandpa for Thanksgiving ?" , Ash asks her .

"Me 'members Gampy , Daddy ! Him is nice , and him wikes me !" , she says . "Does Gampy comes to sees us ?"

He falters a little bit when she asks that question , so I say , "No , Smidge , Gampy can't come see us , and we won't be able to go see him anymore , because he's not here now ."

She looks at us , wide - eyed , then says , "Does him goes byebye wike Ivy's mommy ? Do the pop - booms getted he , too ?"

"No , cutie , no pop - booms , but he is gone like Ivy's mom ." , he says , almost in tears .

"Then why him is goed away ?"

"He was old , Smidge , and he was sick , and he missed Daddy's grandma ." , I tell her . "So he went to be with her again ."

"Me wills misses him ." , she says , in a sad little voice . "Him were nice . Does you misses hims too , Daddy ?"

"Yes I do , very much ." , he says sadly . " And I have to go back for a few days , so I won't be able to see you while I'm gone ."

"Why you goes , Daddy ?"

"Daddy is going to go say goodbye to Gampy , but he'll be back soon ." , I tell her .

"Me wants to goes wif you , Daddy ! Me wants say byebye to Gampy , too !"

"Bren , that might be scary to you ." , Ash states . "He won't be able to talk to you or anything ."

"'Cause him wills be seepin' in hims wittle bed , wike Ivy's mommy , wight ?", she says . " Ivy say her mommy was seepin' , and evvybody camed to wook at she . Why it is scawy ?"

We keep trying to figure out a way to explain the situation to her , and she continues to insist that she wants to say byebye to Gampy , to the point where she is becoming agitated . We send her to go wash her face , and talk a bit between the two of us . Finally , we decide that if it's that important to her , that we'll go back to Missouri with him , to the funeral , but I tell him that I will NOT take her to the cemetery . He agrees with that , since we're both pretty sure that she doesn't know that the "little bed" will end up getting buried , and seeing that at her age could traumatize her .

When she comes back from the bathroom , we tell her what we've decided , and I leave her there with Ash while I go back to the apartment to grab us both a couple of days more clothes , as well as something suitable for a funeral .

As I pull out of the parking lot , heading back to Ashley's , it suddenly strikes me .

I've done more family - related things with him in the last couple of months than I ever did when we were actually together , even though he's with someone else now .

Could someone please tell me exactly when my life became a fucking Alanis Morrissette song ?



Notes

Comments

@Merelan
Definitely something to consider. If not an actual prologue, it would probably be interesting to have her remember some of the things that happened in this book, so i'll most likely have to find a way to work that in somewhere. Thanx for the thought!

Red Phoenix77 Red Phoenix77
8/21/18

Oh yes PLEASE a sequel! I would love to see events through Bren's eyes! Something fun you might consider is a recap of the story told by a teen Been, as like a prologue.
I look forward to seeing what you devise next!

Merelan Merelan
8/21/18

@Merelan
Cool, glad you enjoyed it!

Red Phoenix77 Red Phoenix77
8/20/18

Awww, such a sweet chapter! Yay for Ash and Fi!

Merelan Merelan
8/20/18

Ah, I love this story! Good on you, Fi!

Merelan Merelan
8/13/18