CHRISTMAS DAY"Mom, please be reasonable." Ben was talking to Bonnie at 9:02 the next morning. Bonnie had called to wish him a merry Christmas, but her holiday wishes had quickly degenerated into a complaint that Ben wasn't spending Christmas with her. "Why do you have to spend it with the Perrins?"
"Again, Mom please be reasonable. You have seen your grandchildren at least three times a week fifty weeks a year ever since they first entered your life. By contrast, Mrs. Perrin has only seen them four times this year before yesterday."
"She could see them more often if she made the effort. Sometimes Ben I feel you barely know me since you moved away."
"Mom, as you remember, instead of us living in two apartment buildings where you can see me from your apartment, I'm in the exact same building, but a floor below and on the opposite side."
"And Danny is out on the road. Who would have ever guessed that professional hockey involved being away during the holiday season?"
"Mom, do you want to talk to the kids?"
"It's like you've done nothing with me this Christmas."
"Mom, you've already shanghaied me into two pageants, leaving aside the three the girls have already been in. And there's a third before New Years' Eve."
"Danny would never complain about this."
"That's because you didn't force him to be in pageants in the first place. Look, I'm handing the phone to Ruth."
Soon, gifts were being opened, with the youngest member of the family going first. Mathilda oohed and aahed at the large package, but didn't actually open it. She smiled at the pretty wrapping paper, looked at the note on it and toyed with the ribbon. Ruth soon became impatient. "Jenny, you have to open it."
"But it's so pretty!"
"Yes, but what's inside is even better," and she helped tear it open. Inside was a box, and Ben strode over to open it for Mathilda. Inside was a stuffed toy penguin. "Do you like it Matty?" Ben asked with some trepidation, which Riley shared.
"It's a penguin! I love penguins!"
"Not flamingos?"
"Oh no! They're nasty!"
Well that's a relief Riley thought.
"Hello, Mr. Heffalump, this is Mr. Penguin. Mr. Penguin, this is Mr. Heffalump. You're going to be the best of friends!"
Ruth's first gift was a beginner paint-set. While Emma's was a video game from her uncle Danny: "Absolute Theft Maserati"
"Rated 18 and up." Ben noted. "Well, that's...an interesting choice."
"Just what we need to bring that A- average down to a C." Riley muttered to herself.
"Wow! I've heard of this game. But I never imagined that I would get it for Christmas!"
"Understandably so, since we don't own a video game console to play it on."
"Dad, I distinctly recall that we had one once. I even recall you playing it with uncle Danny and uncle Tucker."
"Yeah, we had to pawn it four years ago to pay one of Ruth's medical bills." Ben explained.
"I'm sorry," Ruth added meekly.
"Don't be," Ben said, as he kissed his middle daughter. "Your health is infinitely more precious than any video game."
"Also more precious, sleeping with Riley, which is why you don't play anymore," added Mrs. Perrin, mostly to herself, but audibly enough to Ben and Riley.
"Emma, you should give the gift to me while we think about how to find something to play it on." Riley suggested.
Among Ben's gifts from Riley was Invisible Cities, by Italo Calvino. "Well that's nothing if not wildly optimistic." Mrs. Perrin muttered.
"Mom, he's read books by Calvino before."
"Really? Well, miracles never cease around the Wheeler household."
Riley's gift from Ben was a bit unusual. "What is this?"
"Well you told me once that once when you were visiting one of your uncles or aunts or whoever, there was a book of old board games from before 1930, and how much you loved that. Well I searched around the internet and found the book you were referring to. And through the magic of , I found a store that had a copy of it. And it even has all the pieces that the original book included."
"You didn't spend too much money on it?"
"About fifty dollars."
"Well that was very sweet of you." And she kissed her husband. "Look Emma and Ruth. There are dozens of games here. You could spend hours playing it."
"Most of the games look like variations on Snakes and Ladders," Emma pointed out. She found that game very boring.
"I love Snakes and Ladders!" Ruth chimed in, and Emma rolled her eyes.
"There's even a Winnie the Pooh game that Matty can play." Riley informed them.
"How?" Emma asked. "She doesn't really know how to count, so dice are useless with her."
"You don't have to use a die." And Riley pulled out a colour wheel. "You just spin it and move to the next colour."
Mr. Perrin was seven weeks younger than his wife, so he went next. To his pleasant surprise, Jennifer had gotten her husband a special and rare sports memento that he had liked but had no reason to expect for Christmas. "This is so nice. You really shouldn't have dear."
"I know I shouldn't. But for some strange reason I do anyway."
Mrs. Perrin opened the gift that Ben and Riley had gotten for her. In point of fact she had strongly suggested the new history of America in the second world war a few weeks earlier, and would find it an informative and enjoyable read in January. But she was little more than polite in acknowledging it. And so the cycle returned to Mathilda. Among the gifts opened, a windup toy for her, a collection of Little Nemo comics for Ruth, two volumes of Peanuts cartoons for Emma, and several books and movies for Ben and Riley were especially cherished. By this time Rebecca had appeared on Skype from the Bahamas. Blonder and more voluptuous than her sister, she wore a skimpy white bikini that showed, of course, that she did not have any stretch marks from bearing two children. But once she realized that Ben was not looking at her, she quickly put on a bathrobe. Mrs. Perrin had saved her gift for last. She was very happy to remove the wrapping and then open the box-only to find a porcelain setting, and not the locket and family keepsakes she had expected.
"It's wonderful Becky." she said unconvincingly.
"You were expecting the locket, weren't you Mom?"
"Well, I mean, actually, well..."
"It's a bit complicated, Mom. But I know you had your heart set on that. And I am trying to do something about that. Right now, I can't do that much, since it's Christmas Day, and I'm in the Bahamas. But I promise you something before New year's."
Riley spoke up. "Well, now that all the gifts are opened, I'm going to make some blueberry banana pancakes."
Ben got up. "And I'm going to make scrambled eggs and bacon."
Rebecca smiled. "And I'm glad I'm not here to eat them."
"Blueberry banana pancakes again?" Mrs. Perrin wondered.
"Mom always makes blueberry banana pancakes for Christmas," Emma explained. "She always gets up early on Dad's birthday so he can have them as well. And she also makes them for Father's Day and whenever Dad has been extra good."
Riley turned to her husband. "Ben, wipe that smirk off your face." Ben shamelessly didn't, while Riley went to the fridge and got out the blueberries and bananas she had remembered to bring along. Two years ago she had asked her mother to get some blueberries for Christmas breakfast, but her mother had just ignored her. So she had to spend Christmas eve trying to find a place that both had them and didn't close early. Ben had made a list of all the children's gifts and reminded Emma to start writing a thank you letter to all the relatives she wasn't likely to meet in the next week or so. When he entered the kitchen, he found Riley trying to break Danny's video game gift. "Damn. This is tougher than it looks."
"Do you think it's a good idea to break Emma's toys just because you don't like them?"
"Well, would you think this was an appropriate gift for a nine year old girl?"
"To be frank, it's not a good gift for a 19 year old boy. I mean spending countless hours on it made me the kind of man who could have Emma. But it also meant that I almost didn't get to be the man who could have Ruth and Matty."
"Does it have any redeeming value?"
"Well it's fairly pornographic, so it can teach her how to become a lesbian."
"Why would Danny get this for Emma?
"He probably thought the age rating was a quality rating."
Soon they were all eating breakfast. "How are the eggs?" Ben asked.
"They're all right." Mr. Perrin replied.
"They're certainly better than the pancakes," Mrs. Perrin added.
"What's wrong with the pancakes?" Emma wondered out loud.
After breakfast Mrs. Perrin washed the dishes, Ruth and Emma returned to their Christmas gifts and Riley decided to Skype with her sister. Growing up she had always wanted a girlfriend to do some of the stereotypical things that women did, like gossip and talk about their most intimate secrets. At the same time, she had said she had always thought she had everything she needed with Danny: they could talk about anything they wanted. Except that wasn't true: Danny never told her about his feeling for her, and she didn't say anything about her love for Ben until she first met Emma. Nor were they frank about their sex lives. Reflecting on this, Riley thought she would be able to talk more freely with Naomi, and this was certainly true when they first lost their virginities in college. And certainly Naomi took the initiative in arranging contraception, correctly thinking that Riley was too bashful to do it herself. But Riley was usually reticent, and Naomi wasn't the sort of woman interested in gossip. Mrs. Wheeler didn't hesitate to chatter about her most intimate secrets with Riley, but she wasn't really interested in her son's sex life except in the most general terms. At her old law firm, Riley was easily tempted to gossip with her fellow lawyers, but in retrospect their selfishness and malice was all too evident. It turned out that the person she talked the most about sex was Ben. On one hand this made perfect sense. Who else would she talk about sex over the past eight years? And notwithstanding his bluff, confident exterior, Ben was genuinely concerned about how Riley felt, and was occasionally terrified that he was doing it wrong. Still, there are some things you can't tell your husband. The problem was finding someone you could.
This came up as Riley watched Ben and Mathilda in the kitchen. One of the stocking stuffers he had gotten her was a bottle of soap bubble liquid. Ben had opened it, since Mathilda wasn't strong enough to do it herself. He told her to ask permission from people nearby before she blew bubbles, which Mrs. Perrin gave freely. Mathilda was delighted with it. Then she turned to Ben. "Daddy, can you help Mr. Heffalump blow some bubbles?"
"Of course." There was a brief awkward moment as Mathilda faced her father and her pet toy elephant and Ben wondered what to do. "Hey, is that a pixie over there?"
"Where?" and Ben blew the bubbles when she turned her head.
Watching this Riley smiled. "When I see Ben with the children, I just love him so much."
Rebecca smirked. "And sometimes when you see him with the children, you just want to screw his brains out. And then you're annoyed at your kids because they're in the way."
Riley winced. This was a good reason why you shouldn't confide your most intimate thoughts with your sister.
Meanwhile Mr. Perrin had to go out and shovel the sidewalk and driveway. Mrs. Perrin had finished washing the dishes. "And I have to go out and walk the dog. So you two have to help make Christmas dinner." Since she didn't trust either of them to cook competently, she directed them to tear up loaves of bread into thumbnail sized pieces to make the stuffing. And so the two were in the kitchen doing that, while their daughters were upstairs in Rebecca's room playing with Riley's book of board games. This was a good time for them to talk, so it was a little awkward that they didn't so immediately.
Riley thought about being a parent, and then why her two best friends weren't exactly helping on that score. She felt guilty about Naomi and her son Nathan, who was two months younger than Mathilda. To be precise, she felt guilty over envying Naomi for having such a wonderful child. She remembered the first two times that he met Mathilda. The first time he toddled over to her and gave her a hug. The second time he toddled over carrying his favorite toy. He presented it to Mathilda and said "Share!" Both times Mathilda responding by bursting into tears, and Riley had to ineffectively assuage her. She felt guilty for thinking that someone as sweet and kind as Nathan would be beaten into a pulp by school bullies. Meanwhile Danny now had his first son, and when she visited Danny, she had to constantly answer his questions and solve his mistakes. All during his wife's pregnancy she had reassured everyone that Danny had enough experience raising Emma that he would be a wonderful father. In retrospect, raising Emma for the first two or so years had been divided among five people. Clearly Danny had done the least, and he had forgotten much of what he'd done.
"It's a pity that you're so busy at the bar arranging New Year's Eve that we don't really get a chance to reminisce about the year past."
Ben nodded. "It's certainly a change from having a wild New Year's Eve, and actually making sure your New Year's Eve customers don't get too rowdy and puke all over the bar."
Riley paused. "This hasn't been a bad year. It could have been a better one." She wanted to add "and that's largely my fault," but couldn't get the words out. Why not talk about something happy? "Remember the time we were at Emma's school for that baseball game and we ended up making out in one of the classrooms? That was fun."
But instead of smiling Ben winced. "What's wrong? I certainly had a great time. And I've never known men having problems with sex."
"Yes, but do you remember how we ended up there in the first place?"
"Of course I do. You dumped a big bucket of ice water on me, and I chased you for twenty minutes all over the school until I finally cornered you."
"Yeah, but there was a reason I did that."
And now it was Riley's turn to wince. Emma's team was playing baseball and was losing. As the game wore on, Riley got more and more angry and took it out on Emma. She had crossed the line, and when Ben interceded she only got more irate. And that's why Ben poured the bucket on her. "But we had other good times." Ben volunteered. "There was your birthday, for example." Ben had arranged a special little celebration when Riley, as usual, returned from a very long work day. Before they made love, they danced on the roof, watched by their adoring children. "And there was also Valentine's Day," which was much the same except they danced in their apartment. "I really liked that."
"Meh, it was OK." And Riley instantly regretted her words, since Ben had put some thought into that and up to now Riley had hid the fact that she was too tired that day to do more than fake enthusiasm. Think of something nice. "Actually what I liked was that time I got back from Albany." Not only had she got back early, but she had ordered a couple of pizzas for dinner that arrived just a minute before she did. And while the girls ate, she told them she had to talk to their father about something important. That something being going up to the roof and having sex. "I just couldn't wait." she had said.
Ben smiled, and thought over the past year. The year before he learned Riley was pregnant with Mathilda was the worst year of his life. The last few months was like living under a permanent sentence of death. Everyday he would wake up and it would be delayed by a day, or maybe two. But he was about to lose two of the three most precious things in his life and only Riley's reluctance to do the mature and responsible thing prevented that from happening. The pregnancy did not solve the problem. Manifestly it made the underlying problem even worse. But instead of having only a day or two before everything fell apart, he now had eleven months to try to find a solution. And he had the extra impetus to do so. And he did. The calendar year after Mathilda's birth was the happiest in his life. And the year after that was even better. He had faced a severe and damaging crisis, and had resolved it in a way that showed his responsibility and maturity. Or so he thought. If only Riley could work a few hours less a day and earn a few thousand dollars a year more, everything would have been perfect. But things were going so well. Emma was doing better in school, and Matty and Ruth were slowly becoming the good, happy girls he wanted them to be. And while Riley was working hard, she was slowly recovering the reputation that she had lost after the implosion of her old law firm. For the first eight months of the year he thought this was the best year yet. The family had started to go to church on a not terribly regular basis. Since it was Manhattan, the closest church was a Catholic one. Ben's family was some sort of Protestant, the kind that had not woman ministers. Riley's family was very nominally Catholic. Despite the religious differences, the church was happy to have him (though Riley had the bad luck of drawing a confessor who demanded, and got, 2,343 Hail Marys for all her sexual sins.) He remembered one early September Sunday, with the girls running around in their pretty church clothes, and he fed Riley grapes from the after service snacks.
Then nine days later he showed up at his first marriage counseling session. He was surprised at Riley's insistence. They were now actually saving real money. Why were they now blowing $250 a week on marriage counseling? To his surprise, and horror, Riley confessed that she was attracted to a new colleague at work. It had just developed over the past few weeks. The man was so literate, so charming, so gracious, so witty that she couldn't keep him out of her mind. She broke down helplessly in tears and Ben was powerless to help. The actual challenger was easily disposed of. Far from being the rich, perfect man Ben feared him to be, the ultra-Fitch he could only helplessly envy, his rival was a cynical, manipulative seducer, who specialized in married women for his own smug enjoyment. However, he made the mistake of not only arranging a meeting with Riley at the bar, since it was close to where she lived, but also of openly boasting of his achievement to Ben, not realizing the bartender was his prey's husband. But the larger problem remained. The marriage counselor suggested that such tensions were normal in a marriage, and that Riley's quick reaction showed her fundamental loyalty. Riley was extremely apologetic, especially for the previous nine years she had so often been jealous whenever Ben talked to an attractive woman. But Ben wasn't happy. Clearly he had been complacent. And the more he thought about it, the worse it got. The problem wasn't physical. Despite owning, and enjoying, his own bar, he was scrupulous to the point of mild neurosis about his weight and exercise. No, the problem was that despite taking care of three children and working very hard at a job that didn't fully reward her talents, Riley Perrin was a beautiful intelligent woman who someday would get the full recognition she deserved. He didn't doubt that. So when that did happen, why would she stay with him? I just have to do better, he thought back in September. And then he realized that was similar to what Boxer the horse kept saying in Animal Farm, which Riley had gotten him to read as part of their book club, before the pigs in charge sent him to the slaughterhouse and turned him into dog food.
Just then, Ruth and Mathilda entered the kitchen. "Jenny won the Winnie-the-Pooh game!" Ruth said brightly.
"Is that what we were doing?" Mathilda asked.
"Yes, we were running a race, and because you spun the right colours you reached the end first."
"Oh." Mathilda considered this. Then she jumped up. "Yay!" Mr. Perrin came in, shivering from having cleared the sidewalk and driveway. "Good Lord, it's cold outside. It's cold enough to freeze the balls..." and then he noticed his grandchildren, "...that a mechanical ball bearing machine makes."
"Nice Save, Mr. Perrin." said Ben, as the two of them finished tearing up the loaf. That didn't stop Mrs. Perrin from assigning all other sorts of kitchen tasks, and several from outside the kitchen just as well. "Oh, your uncle Thomas and his family are coming for dinner." Mr. Perrin's younger brother was five years younger, had married seven years later in his life, and had his only child five years later in his marriage than Robert Perrin did. Therefore Constance Perrin was only 16. As their parents were busy Aunt Margot appeared on Skype to talk to the girls. "Please don't tell them please don't tell them please don't tell them." Riley fretted.
But as it happened Aunt Margot was only mildly stoned. "That's odd. None of you look like me at all."
"Why would we?" Emma asked. "You're only our great aunt." Once Margot logged off and Mrs. Perrin talked to Rebecca again, Ruth moped a little. "I wish I was blonde."
Emma immediately objected. "What's wrong with brunettes? Brunettes are awesome! Beyonce is a brunette! Michelle Obama is a brunette! Most important so are we!"
"But blondes are prettier and better and that's why they're more popular."
"Where would you get an idiotic idea like that?"
"Grandma Wheeler said so."
"Of course she did."
"I wished we looked more like Mom. She's so pretty."
"The two of you do look like Mom. Let's go the bathroom and look in the mirror." Once there Emma put Mathilda on the toilet seat so she could look in the mirror. "See. You two's hair may have Dad's colour, but the texture and flow are like Mom's. And you both have Mom's nose."
"I prefer Dad's nose," Ruth complained
"Oh, and here's another thing. Mom has a birthmark just below her belly button, and so do you two."
"How do you know that?"
"You can see it the next time we all go swimming. Oh, and here's another thing. Take a look at the iris."
"What part is the Iris?"
"It's the part that's coloured." And after making sure that Mathilda could see her eyes in the mirror, Emma continued. "See? Me and Mathilda have Dad's eyes and you have Mom's. But we all have the same specks in the iris. We get that from Dad. That's why people can tell we're sisters." Ruth smiled and gave Mathilda a reassuring hug. (A decade or so later the two younger Wheeler sisters would find that, in distinct contrast to Emma, they had inherited another thing from their mother: her smaller than average breasts.)
"Right now Mathilda is too small and you're still too nervous. But in a few years, once Mathilda is big enough to go to school, we'll be like the kids in 'Bob's Burgers.' Only instead of one cool youngest daughter and two weird older siblings, we'll all be three cool kids, because you'll all benefit from my incredible brilliance."
Ruth thought about this for a moment. "Mom says we're not allowed to watch 'Bob's Burgers.'"
Emma bristled. "OK, for this cool thing to work, you've got to be less of a killjoy and less of a tattle-tale."
The afternoon wore on. Mathilda tried to use the cards to make a penguin. Ruth brought down the computer chess game she had gotten for her sixth birthday and showed it to her grandfather. "Now I can play with myself all day long."
"By yourself, Ruth." Ben corrected. "By is the correct preposition." Mrs. Perrin kept Ben and Riley busy, but the two had some down time. Emma saw her father reading. "What's the novel you're reading about?"
"It's about a strong man who lives alone on an island somewhere in Indonesia, and he's confronted by bullies who want to hurt him and his girlfriend. That's as far as I've got."
"So the hero is strong like you?"
"Not strong like me. More strong like Grandma Wheeler, though more reasonable."
Emma nodded and saw Riley reading a cookbook. She was thinking about making a sauce. "Can I help?" Emma asked.
"Of course you can." Meanwhile Mrs. Perrin was taking some free time to play chess with Ruth. "Ruth, I'm baking a special surprise tonight. What do you think of apple pie?"
"It's nice."
"Only nice?"
"I'm sure it will be very good."
"I thought you loved apple pie."
"Actually it's Jenny who loves apples."
"Did you say apples, Me Grandma?" Mathilda asked. "Oh no!" And she upset some of her cards. Eventually Uncle Thomas, his wife Cate and cousin Constance arrived. They brought some gifts for the Perrins. At around 4:30 they settled in for an early dinner.
"The turkey is very good, dear," Mr. Perrin said to his wife.
"You're welcome."
Later on Uncle Thomas added, "I liked what you did with the cauliflower."
"Remind me later to give Cate the recipe."
Later still Cousin Constance finished the sweet potatoes. "They're very nice Aunt Jennifer. We don't really eat sweet potatoes at home."
"Yes, well what I did with them takes a lot of work."
Later still Mr. Perrin tried the sauce his daughter made. "This new sauce is quite tasty." Riley's face brightened.
"You're welcome dear," Mrs. Perrin replied.
Eventually they had dessert, which included apple pie with ice cream. "Daddy, can I have more than one slice?" Mathilda asked.
"You can, if there's some left after everyone has had a chance to have some. And if you're still hungry." But as it happened Mathilda was full after one slice. After dinner and after all the dishes were washed and put away, the two Perrin brothers and their families sat and chatted. Constance was curious about Riley's legal practice and asked about her cases.
"Oh, why don't you tell her about the time you sued Ben!" Mrs. Perrin spoke up.
"That's not exactly what happened."
"Tell me anyway!" Constance begged.
"OK, shortly after Mathilda was born, I received a referral from someone who thought I could handle a sexual harassment case. There was this young woman who was working in a bar..."
"Ben's of course," Mrs. Perrin redundantly pointed out.
"Well, that wasn't immediately clear. Now to understand what happened you have to understand that sexual harassment law isn't just demanding sex at work. It can mean an unhealthy work atmosphere. Like some supervisor keeps making racist comments but doesn't direct them at one particular individual, that individual can still sue. It also means that if someone benefits unfairly because of sex or sexual discrimination the people who lose out arguably have a case."
"I don't understand," a curious Constance asked. "Why was your husband picking on this woman?"
"He wasn't. But there was this other woman who he was constantly flirting with, even though she was heavily pregnant."
"And who was this cheap slut?"
"Well, it turns out it was me."
"You?"
"Well work was a little light since we were moving into a new office. And the maternity leave pay would have been low in any case. Meanwhile, they were a few staffing vacancies at the bar. So, why not kill two birds with one stone, Ben thought."
"So the person who was suing..."
"The plaintiff."
"Yeah, the plaintiff didn't know that you were both the lawyer and the main evidence against Ben? And she didn't realize that you two were married?"
"Well the situation had some other complications. It was very confusing."
"So once you realized the problem, it was easily solved?"
Ben spoke up. "Well actually, although we were doing much better financially then during the previous two years or so, babies have a lot of up-front expenses. And so..."
"I'm not following."
"Well on the one hand, it was a very silly case. But on the other hand, she did offer a very generous retainer." And everyone burst out laughing.
Later on the conversation turned to family Christmas traditions. And Constance asked about her cousin's. "Well, we live in an apartment, and it's fairly small. So we can't do as much as other people can. By contrast, Ben's parents always went full out for Christmas."
"Yes," Mrs. Perrin noted. "You could almost say they were vulgar about it."
Ben piped up. "But we're trying to make up our own Christmas traditions."
"I thought your main Christmas tradition was leaching off your children's grandparents." Mrs. Perrin snarked.
Ben ignored her. "There's Christmas pageants me and the girls are in. This year Ruth was the second King, the one with frankincense. And Mathilda played a shepherd who hugged a toy sheep and was very quiet. For the last few years we sing 'Silent Night' when we put the girls to bed on Christmas Eve. And for the past couple of years we read 'The Little Mermaid,' to Ruth for bed on Christmas Day."
Riley chimed in. "My favorite fairy tale was 'Cinderella,' but Naomi pointed out that this was a better one. We tried to make a tradition of singing 'All I want for Christmas is You,' but Emma suspected that was just an excuse to cut down on the number of presents."
Later still the topic turned to doing something other than conversation. "We could watch Goodfellas." Mr. Perrin suggested.
Mrs. Perrin immediately vetoed the idea. "If I wanted to spend Christmas evening with some Italians, I could have invited one of the half dozen families who live within a five block radius. None of whom, I might add, are sociopaths. No, I think me and the girls will play cards."
"Tom, we can go downstairs to watch it. Are you going to join us Ben?"
"Actually Mr. Perrin, tonight's my night to teach Mathilda to read." And so the Perrin Men and Perrin Women went their separate ways, while Ruth upstairs to play with her new paint set and Emma flipped through the television surprisingly quietly. After an hour of reading to Mathilda, Ben was interrupted when Riley tapped him on the shoulder. "Ben, I was wondering if you could help me."
"Sure, what's up?"
"We're playing poker, and it occurs to me that I could use a little help."
"So you're losing and you need my advice?"
"It's more like I've lost $300 more than we can comfortably afford."
"Why so much money?!"
"We're very competitive. And I don't know the rules very well."
"OK, I'll see what I can do." Ben got up and Mathilda followed him. "Daddy, can I have another piece of apple pie?"
"Sure. Let's check and see if there's any left." There was, and Ben put a slice in the microwave while getting some ice cream out. Mathilda ate it happily while Ben joined the poker game. Once Mathilda finished Riley called out to Emma to see if she could find something on television that they could both enjoy. Eventually the evening wound down. Mathilda and Ruth were in bed and Ben read "The Little Mermaid," to them. Emma was allowed to stay up twenty minutes later as long as she didn't keep her sisters awake. "It's a little cold in the room, especially in my cot." she pointed out.
"Is it? It's supposed to be warmer tomorrow. I'll get you another blanket," said Mrs. Perrin.
Ben and Riley were getting ready for bed. "I've read it to Ruth a dozen times, but I still can't get over how different the original fairy tale is from the movie." Ben pulled out the $150 he had won tonight. "This money will come in very handily in the future."
Riley snatched the money from his hands. "Actually this is going to fill the all consuming hole of our credit card debt first thing on the 27th."
"Well it was nice to pretend otherwise."
