Recap:
"Have you thought about Christmas much more?" He asked her, lying against the arm of the couch, and bring her down with him.
"What about it?" she asked playing with the buttons of his dress shirt.
"Have you thought about what you want for Christmas?"
Reba rested her head on his chest. "I want you."
Craig twirled a red curl around his finger before moving his mouth to Reba's ear. "Really? I want you for Christmas too."
Reba rolled over in her bed, hoping to put off the morning for as long as she could. Usually she was a morning person. However, lately, she was perfectly fine with lying in bed and easing herself awake. It must have been a trait of Craig's that she had picked up on.
She placed her hand under her ear, feeling as if she was being stared at. She squinted one eye open, nearly having a heart attack when she saw, not one, but four pairs of eyes staring back at her. She flinched at the faces, groaning tiredly. "What are y'all doing?" Brock, Craig, Jake, andElizabethsmiled back at her, hoping their silence would prompt her to get up.
Elizabethwas the first one to break the stillness. "Grammy! It's Christmas Eve! Get up! Get up!" Reba smiled at the little girl and welcomed her up on the bedside next to her. "It's Christmas Eve! It's Christmas Eve!"
Reba let out a small laugh at her grand daughter's enthusiasm. "It sure is Christmas Eve." she affirmed. "Do you know who is going to come to your house tonight?"
Elizabethtilted her head and gave her grandmother a look that said everything short of 'Are you joking?' "Santa Clause comes tonight!" she said nearly jumping off the bed.
"That's right! Santa Clause comes tonight! We have so much to prepare!" she said, emphasizing her enthusiasm to feed her granddaughter's own excitement.
"Exactly Grammy! That's why you need to get out of bed!"
Reba laughed, getting the point. She needed to wake up so that the Christmas Eve festivities could get under way. "Alright! Everyone get out of here so I can take a shower!"
Elizabethran out of the room and down the hallway, followed by Jake, Brock, and Craig. "Not you!" Reba said, calling Craig back into the room. "You can stay." She stood from the bed, quickly placing the covers back in place and adjusting the pillow. "I woke up alone today." she said with a hint of melodramatic sadness in her voice.
Craig smiled. "Awe, honey..." He brought her in his arms and rubbed her back. "You didn't wake up alone; there were four other people in the room."
Reba glared at him before pushing her hands against his chest and forcing him away from her. "I thought you were going to say something serious!" she pouted.
"I did say something serious!"
"That's not what I meant." she said, pacing over to her dresser to grab clothes, closely followed by Craig.
"Are you upset?" he asked shutting her armoire door and stepping in her path of sight. When she didn't answer him, he assumed that was her way of saying 'Yes.'
She headed placed her clothes on the bed and headed into the bathroom. "We have been dating for a while, and I just want the feeling of waking up in your arms." Craig smiled, placing his hand in his pocket.
"I'm sorry." he said, kissing her gently. "I didn't realize I what I was doing by waking up early." From almost any other guy the comment would have sounded corny and sarcastic, but there was a tone in his voice that made Reba know that he was telling her the truth.
She thanked him with a kiss of her own. "There is a way you could make it up to me though..." she trailed off, shutting, and locking, the bathroom door.
"How is that?" He asked with his boyish charm.
Without speaking a word, she passed, making sure she brushed her arm against his. She retrieved a towel from the closet and placed it on the counter. "You should know by now." she turned away from him and pulled her shirt over her head and stepped out of her flannel pajama pants and stepped into the shower.
XXX
An hour later, Craig and Reba descended the staircase with a bigger smile on their face than had been there sixty minutes ago. "Yet! Grammy is awake!"Elizabethrushed around the couch, jumping with joy in the process.
Craig buried his nose in the nape of her neck. "Oh, she's awake." Reba giggled before pushing him away and bringing her grand daughter into a bear hug. Brock watched from the chair as Reba and Craig descended the stairs, and openly showed their affection.
"Didn't you already take a shower, Craig?" Jake noticed his hair was slightly damp, yet again. Brock watched again as Reba's face turned pink. He rolled his eyes, knowing that Jake was old enough to know perfectly well what she had done.
"What are we going to do first?" she quickly fanned herself and changed the subject. Hopefully everyone's knowing glances would pass over in no time.
"Let's decorate the tree!" she shouted excitedly.
Reba looked at the bare evergreen tree. It did need some decorations resting on its full, green branches. Although she had put up the tree after thanksgiving, there had been no time to put decorations on it. It seemed like the perfect Christmas Eve achieving to giveElizabeth. It would give her something to do while the adults caught up on conversation.
Reba brought the Christmas ornaments down from the attic and placed them on the floor next to the tree. She would let Elizabeth and Jake decorate while she searched for other nick knacks in the attic. "Can you come help me, Brock?" He placed his eggnog on the end table and quickly followed her up to the dusty room while Craig supervised the children and pretended not to watch Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.
"Man, it is dusty up here."
"Well that generally happens in an attic." she remarked sarcastically.
"Hahaha." he gave her an equally sarcastic laugh. She only crinkled her nose and stuck out her tongue, continuing on her quest. "What are we even looking for?"
"We are looking for the rest of the ornaments."
"Are these it?" Brock held up a box that was clearly marked 'Brock do not touch.' in the same fashion van labeled his belongings, instructing Kyra not to touch them.
"No. Can't you read?" she said digging through boxes as she spoke. "It says 'Brock does not touch!'"
"What's in it?"
"I don't know." she said, still rummaging through boxes, not bothering to lift her head to look at him.
Brock made sure she kept busy looking for the miscellaneous ornaments while he quietly opened the forbidden box and peered inside. What he saw in the cardboard melted his heart. It seemed to be a snapshot of their relationship. If their story could be told, it would have taken place within the confines of the box he had discovered.
There was everything, from her bouquet of flowers from their wedding, to the piece of driftwood he had based their first valentine's day off of. There were numerous boxes of photographs, as well as a box of letters. He opened the smaller box, reading the first few lines of the letter that lay atop the deep stack.
Brock,
I will make this letter short and sweet, because I am sure I am the last person you want to speak to. The word around town is that I do not need you anymore. You should know better than anyone not to believe the lies of the town. I still need you. I'm sure everyone has convinced you that I am strong and I am getting along just fine. If you actually answered my phone calls you would know that isn't so. Don't expect any more mushy letters like this one, though. To make things more clear, I want you to come back home.
All my love,
Reba.
He told himself to put the letter back in the box and shut it tightly. He was to shove it in the corner of the attack and never look at it again. However, he completely ignored his better judgment and picked up another letter and continued to read nearly half of the letters in the box.
He wasn't sure how far apart the letters had been written, but he did notice a pattern. With each letter he read, he could feel his wife's words become more and more desperate. The first letter had been laced with pride and suborn feelings, but the farther into the stack he got, the more he could see her emotions coming to the surface. If she was able to pour this much emotion on to paper, he could only imagine what she had been feeling in her heart.
"Are you finding anything?" Reba asked, lifting up a box and setting it in the center of the wooden floor.
Brock quickly but carefully placed the letters back in the box and hid them in the corner of the room, as he should have done when he opened the cardboard box. "Uh, no. I haven't found anything much. Nothing you were looking for anyway."
Reba sighed, realizing he was not much help. "I'm sorry." he held on to her hand lightly before letting it go.
She looked into his eyes, sensing the compassion and tender emotion being spoken through his eyes. She hoped he was talking about the Christmas ornaments, but in her heart, she knew there was a deeper meaning to his actions. "I know you are, Brock." she kissed his check lightly before bending down and picking up the oversized Tupperware tote. "I know you are."
She took a step forward, nearly stumbling down the stairs. Brock promptly made her hand over the box before carrying it downstairs himself. "I'll take that."
Reba followed Brock down the flight of stairs, as they made their way into the living room. Much to her surprise, the tree had been fully decorated with the star on top and twinkling, gleaming lights shining through the living room. "You got it done already?" She asked with astonishment.
Jake nodded. "Elizabethgot the branches at the bottom and I helped with the ones at the top." He motioned toward the Christmas tree and then turned his look to Craig. "Craig helped with the star. I wasn't tall enough...even with the chair." He looked down to the ground with a long face wishing he had been tall enough to place the star atop the tree.
"Don't worry, bud." Brock roughed his son's hair and took a seat on the couch. "Someday you will be tall enough to put the star on a Christmas tree of your own." Jake smiled at the prospect before running into the kitchen, presumably to find food.
"Well," Reba eased on to the couch between Brock and Craig, scooting closer to Craig's side. "What shall we do now? The Christmas tree is finished, and I am sure Elizabeth and Jake are getting hungry. Should we decorate cookies next?"
"Cookies?" Jake popped his head through the dividing window. "Are we doing cookies now?"
Reba laughed. "I guess we are." She left her comfortable seat on the couch and began pulling out icing and multiple colors of sprinkles.
"Yet! Christmas cookies!"Elizabethshouted as soon as she saw the icing come out of the cupboard. As soon as she was sure Jake could superviseElizabeth, she returned to living room, where Craig and Brock had turned the television. The channel was now set on a golf tournament.
"Awh. Golf..." Reba groaned as she sat down between the men. "But you were so enjoying Rudolph. What happened?" Craig gave her a look as if he had no idea what she was talking about. It wasn't long before Reba had her head resting comfortably on Craig's chest. She had fallen into a deep slumber and wrapped an arm around his waist.
"Goodnight." he joked as he kissed the top of her head and let her sleep peacefully with her chest resting comfortably on his cashmere sweater vest.