Shopping before Christmas used to be one of her favorite activities, she reflects ruefully. But now Donna passes by the stores she used to love without much of a second glance, it hurts less when she doesn't look and she can pretend she doesn't know what she's missing. Of course Harvey will buy her a lovely gift the way he does every year and she'll get one from the kids too but its just not the same as the years before children, the times when they were together for Christmas and even the times they weren't he had gotten her something extra special for her favorite holiday. Wrapped lovingly more often than not accompanied by a little note of sweet words he thought she liked to hear and always a candy cane. It had been their tradition, born from their first Christmas working together when some young intern had thought a candygram stand was a good idea and he'd bought her one as a joke. Every year since then he'd given her one and she didn't realize how much it meant to her until it she'd opened her gift last year and there hadn't been one. Of course, she didn't blame him. Their lives had been even more hectic than normal last fall with the twins starting school and the new baby. She thought she had forgiven him, it was just a candy cane at the end of the day and in the scheme of things it shouldn't be important but a year later she still thought about it more than she should, still carried the slight resentment that he had abandoned it so easily in the face of a full calendar and a busy work schedule.
"C'mon Timmy, you need to eat the rest of your veggies okay. Just the veggies and you can leave the table and play with your sister." She tried to cajole her oldest son into eating something other than turkey dinosaurs but its proving almost impossible. Harvey thinks its funny, encouraging him to stick to his guns and ignore her whenever he's around for dinnertime - which isn't much these days - something else she's apparently resenting him she notes. At least Dana seems to be taking after her father with her easygoing ways, she's not inherited any of the stubbornness that Tim displays and she has to admit he's all her really. Right down to his chestnut mop of hair that he refuses to let her comb. "If you eat one more spoonful of the carrots then. Or you'll have to go straight to bed." She's tired. More tired than she'd admit to Harvey, her days stretching ahead filled with more parent-teacher conferences and dentist appointments and the mundane activities they don't warn you about when you tell people you're pregnant. Finally her son does as he's told and she waves him off to play with a warning that bedtime is in fifteen minutes. That gives her time to clear the table from the debris of feeding three kids and get baby Christopher changed and in bed before fighting the twins. She'll be lucky if Harvey's home before she's finished, dumping most of Tim's dinner in the trash and remembering a time he used to be here for story time diligently every night of the week.
By the time she finally does hear his key in the lock she's about to sink into the sofa, eyeing up the mess that's been left strewn across the living room in the wake of two small bodies that struggle to stay still. Rubbing a tired hand across her forehead she contemplates asking her husband to sort it out while she takes a bath but this drives the idea clean from her mind.
"Did you sign this?" He doesn't even bother with a greeting, his tone brusque and hard as he waves a file in her face. She takes it wordlessly, skimming the first page and trying to remember as far back as her day at the office, it already seems years ago.
"Uh, yeah. I think so. Why?" She can see her signature plain as day on the top of the file and wonders where this is leading because she's too tired to fight with him today.
"Just needed to check, nothing's up its just that it wasn't filed properly and I wanted to make sure no-one was trying to pull a fast one on us again." His tone is softer but he's already breezed past her into the kitchen and stuck his head in the refrigerator. She's contemplating standing and beginning to tidy up the room when Harvey reappears, a plate of leftovers in his hand and his tie loosened. He looks tired too and she realizes he picks up her slack in the office these days more than she was giving him credit for if she's not filing things correctly. He makes quick work of his dinner and she stays in her slumped position watching him eat.
"Got you something." He swallows the last of his meatloaf with a small smile of his own, depositing his plate on the table and disappearing back into the hallway. On his return he's got one hand hidden behind his back and the other holding a small jewelry box. "I know it isn't technically Christmas for another few weeks but I thought you deserved it early." He flicks open the box to show her a charm in the shape of a candy cane for a bracelet she hasn't worn in years, probably since the twins were born and wearing any jewelry other than a pair of earrings became too much work.
"I know I've not been here as much lately and I'm sorry, I going to try and be here more from now on." She's not listening to him properly, overwhelmed by the thoughtfulness of a gift that she thought meant nothing to him anymore. Her eyes are filling with tears and they start to spill over when he brings his hand out from behind his back to produce a real candy cane, pure sugary loops of red and white. While she doesn't quite have the energy to launch herself across the space between them she reaches to cup his cheek and kisses him softly, a kiss full of apologies she doesn't know how to put into words.
It's only a candy cane but it represents something much more than that.