FIVE SILENT NIGHTS
Follow four couples over the journey of five Christmas Eves. Experience their joy, their saddness, and their fears. Couples will remain nameless until the very end of this story. There are five chapters, one for each year. Please read and review.
Chapter 1
A smile plays at the corner of her lips as she places the final piece of tape on the seam of the perfectly wrapped package. The silver foil paper was a perfect match to the silver/white/ice blue theme she had dressed the entire house in during her typical holiday decorating rampage. But this one didn't belong under the tree. No, she'll give this one to him first thing in the morning, before the trip to the huge house on the hill over looking Seattle.
The long, slender, now-shiny box could have be a watch or a nice ink pen, but no, he'll have to find another way to tell time or write on charts. This is so much bigger than those things.
She clears the scraps of paper and tape off the floor of the guest bathroom, the only place where she knew he wouldn't interrupt her. She turns off the light and moves toward the master bedroom where he lays, snoring softly into his pillow, exausted after a fourteen-hour shift at the hosptial. She places the box on her nightstand and crawls into bed, his body instantly and unconsiously closing in around her.
Sneaking downstairs, she giggles as he freezes when a step squeaks. He turns to look at her with his index finger up to his lips. He knows there is really no need to be quiet. Their son is only ten months old and not yet walking. But this is his first Christmas, and it needed to be special.
As they hit the ground floor, she immediately moves to grab the small boxes unecessarily hidden in the coat closet near the front door. He grabs a tool set from the utility room and sits on the floor, intent on finishing the playhouse in record time. It couldn't be too difficult. He was a surgeon after all.
After placing the hidden toys, she takes a seat on the comfy chair nearest him, munching on the cookies he had insisted on leaving for "Santa" after the child had sucessfully pronounced the word "Cookie" earlier in the week.'
He suddenly looks mystified at the peice of paper in his hands. She leans over to get a good look at the instructions, hand clasping over her mouth to keep from laughing, as she tries to remember any of the Chinese she learned in that one semester in college.
Her hands move skillfully as she repairs the valve in the heart of a 56-year-old MI victim. He had come into the ER in mid-heart attack, causing the doctors to jump to his aid. She knew it was horrible to think, but the hospital had been too quiet and she was grateful for the surgery. The man would pull through, a Christmas miracle for his family who took up the entire waiting room.
She looks over at the man across the table. His mouth is hidden, but she knows he is smiling. His blue eyes shone with pride as she began to stitch the patient up. Glancing up once more, she returns the smile and thanks him through her own, much darker eyes. Thanking him for paging her about the heart patient; thanking him for being in that quiet OR with her; thanking him for letting her be who she is.
He watches her breathing slow and he knows that she has drifted off into a dream world, undoubtedly filled with gingerbread houses and candy canes and snow-covered streets. That's just who she is, he thinks to himself. She unashamedly looks for the good things in life. Sure, he teases her about her rose-colored glasses often, but he knows he wouldn't change one thing about the young woman in his arms.
Peaceful. It wasn't just the way he described her sleeping pattern. But for the first time in his life, he could describe himself that way. For the first time in his life, he wasn't celebrating the holiday season hiding or running or wallowing. He was at peace, and in love. He wanted every Christmas to be like this.
And he would tell her ... tomorrow.