Chapter 4 Next Christmas
Jennifer padded barefoot down the hallway struggling with a cardboard box full of Christmas decorations. The box was weak and falling apart after years of being shoved into the corners of wardrobes and even longer of having other boxes placed on top of it. It had almost reached the end of its life – but Jen was determined to not let the box break before she made it to the living room and could set it down.
She grasped at the edges of the box tightly as she increased her speed down the hallway. But when she came to the empty room at her right she stopped without even thinking about it. Leaning against the doorframe, she gazed at its empty expanse of space and smiled to herself. She and Nick had lived in this house for eighteen months now, and when they had bought it they had not spoken about what to do with this spare room, but Jen knew that they both were very well aware of what it would one day be. It was just a matter of when.
And today she was going to tell him that that time had come.
Nick grunted with the exertion of sawing at the stubbornly thick trunk. His forehead was a mess of lines that made up his frown and Jennifer saw the sweat pouring down his temples. The December sun beat down strongly on their backyard as Nick struggled to get the Christmas tree's trunk to fit into the plastic tube he'd fashioned and then into the waiting bucket of soil and bricks. It was no easy task, and Jennifer was glad she always left it up to him.
A moment later Nick threw down his saw and stepped closer to the workshop horses the tree was lying across. He delved his hands deep into the prickly needles and firmly gripped his hands around the middle of the trunk and hurled the large tree upright. Lifting it in to the bucket and setting it straight, he looked over at his wife. "Jen, will you hold it for me while I pack in the soil?" he asked, wiping the sweat from his face and accepting the drink she had bought outside for him.
She nodded and proceeded to spend the next half an hour holding up the tree in its pot as Nick compacted soil in around it. She spent the time in a slight daze, thinking over how she would break the news to him – the news he'd wanted to hear for so long, but had respectfully and tactfully not mentioned unless she had. The more she thought about it the more excited she got.
Finally he got up off his haunches and stood back and looked at their tree. "All righty, let it go," he instructed her. She stepped back and stood beside him and they both held their breath, cocked their heads to the side and waited for the tree to topple over.
It didn't.
Jen smiled at Nick and put an arm around his waist. She squinted up at him in the sunlight. "I don't know why people say you're useless," she teased.
He grinned back at her and put an arm around her shoulders and together they stood and admired their handiwork.
Three hours later the tree had taken pride of place in their living room and had been decorated into a frenzy with all the ornaments and lights that had been in the large crumbling box. The majority of the decorations were Jen's – she was a closet Christmas nut – but she liked how the tree still had a nice mixture of decorations from both their lives.
They sat back on the couch together, nursing a bottle of red wine between them and stared enchanted at the twinkling lights and glittering baubles. It was their third Christmas together, and Jennifer wondered if deep inside somewhere Nick knew the same way she did that it was time to have a Christmas that was not just the two of them.
"Nick," Jennifer murmured into his shoulder.
"Mmm?" came his relaxed reply.
"What do you think about there being three of us this time next year?" she ventured, trying to contain the smile that threatened to spill across her face.
Nick straightened up instantly and put down his glass of wine. He smiled tentatively at her, unsure of how far to go. "You know what I think about it," he replied quietly.
Jen nodded in response and let the smile come out. "It'd be nice if life was a little different next Christmas…" she admitted before leaning in to kiss him firmly on the lips, still grinning.
"Will it be?" Nick asked, slightly shocked, wondering if she was really trying to say what he'd long been hoping to hear. He raised his eyebrows at her and pulled the glass of wine from her hand, questioning whether she should be drinking it.
"I'm not pregnant Nick," she laughed quietly, grabbing her drink back from him. "But I think it's time we gave it a go," she said earnestly. They'd been married almost a year and a half now, and together in total for two years – the two years Jen had always placed in her mind as a hurdle they had to overcome before they even thought of doing anything else. But those two years had now passed and they were still rock solid. The fear that had plagued her for so long was now gone.
They were ready to have children. She was ready. He was ready. The time was right.