Blue Christmas

Chapter 1

"I can't... I can't get out of Texas. We gotta spend the night and... can you put the twins on?"

"When you're like this?" Doolittle shot back. "They don't need to hear you make a scene, make 'em more upset. They'll still get their presents."

But it wasn't about the presents. Not for her, and probably not even for the little ones either. They had everything that they could wish for already. Dolls, craft sets, books, records, board games and whatever else they hardly played with because all they really wanted to do was play outside.

"Woman?" Doolittle called. "Woman, you there?"

"Yeah, I'm there. I just..."

"No use in cryin' about what you can't change, is there?"

Loretta bit her tongue. Under different circumstances, she would have fought back. "No, I don't reckon."

"I'll tell the kids that you won't make it."

He sounded as if he didn't even care that she wouldn't be there. How could he, when Christmas time brought up so many memories of when they first met? She met him in December and exactly one month later they were married. He got her a baby doll on Christmas and told her that next year he'd give her a real life one- she hadn't believed it, but he sure did, and another the following year.

There was crackling on the other end. Doo spoke, but she couldn't make out the words and next thing she knew, the connection cut off.

She thought of the twins again, of her beautiful babies which everyone claimed were a spitting image of her. Sometimes they didn't even feel like hers, at least not in the way the first four did. She used to know them inside out when they were little, because Betty, Jack, Ernest and Cissie were always with her. How it must have been for them when she first went out on the road. She might as well have abandoned them altogether. Whenever something went wrong in their lives, when they shut her out or ignored her advice, she traced it all back to those days.

They said that they understood now, but she was rather certain that they still harbored some sort of anger and disappointment which came out when she tried to play mother hen to four grown ups she couldn't help but see as children.

What would the twins think, after she had promised to come home for Christmas? It was the one time a year when she was always there, regardless of what was going on. At Christmas time, she felt whole.

But would she ever be able to recapture that feeling after this?

❆ ❆ ❆ ❆

There had been many less than perfect Christmasses in Elvis Presley's lifetime. Such as the one during which the threat of the draft hung over his head but he had to pretend that everything was fine for his mother's sake. Then there was the one after that, which he had to spend in a foreign country. As if that wasn't bad enough, it was also the first Christmas without his mother.

But regardless of the bad Christmasses there had been, he hadn't expected this one to make the list.

It started with a fight he had with Priscilla, who told him that she was in love with Mike Stone and didn't want to be with him anymore. On Christmas of all days! 

He had to get out of there. It was a split second decision without much thought involved. He grabbed a few of the guys and they went on a trip to cool off- a trip that caused them to end up in the middle of nowhere.

Therefore, Elvis Presley now paced around the suite of a hotel which he was surprised even had a suite. His screaming could have broken the sound barrier; it wouldn't have been surprising if everyone within the hotel's interior were to hear him rage on. The group of men in front of him didn't dare to as much as blink; they knew better.