Chapter 1: Deck the Halls


"8 days, mommy! 8 days left!"

I fell back from the fridge with a hand over my heart, catching the breath Maddie had taken away and then looked from behind the door to see her standing down beside me, pulling on my pajama leg.

"We have to hurry…he's coming!"

My head was already spinning, and had been all morning, with the fine knowledge of what was right around the corner, and what we hadn't even begun to prepare for. Madeline was on the ball as always though, and as soon as I smiled to let her know I was well aware of the holiday quickly beginning to slap me in the face, she darted across the kitchen to where we had hung the kid's red and green holiday chain link, and reached as high as she could to rip off a simple red paper ring. Riley's head shot back and forth from the middle of the kitchen floor where he laid, nervously watching her run around. He had been protective of the twins since the day they arrived, same as he had been with me on the island.

I think he always understood the dangers around us.

"8 days!" She yelled again, making me jump just the same and hold my head as I leaned on the counter and watched her tumble away and through the house, still screaming out, "8 days till Santa…he's coming in 8 days, daddy!"

I love that my little girl was as enthusiastic as I used to get around this time, it makes me happy, but it also on this day, and the few that had passed already this week, made me want to crawl under a blanket and stay there until after New Year's. It wasn't that I didn't love Christmastime, because I absolutely did; I just didn't know what to quite make of it this year. I couldn't figure out how I felt lately, or at least was loathe as to figure it out.

I'm sure this had a lot to do with the fact that while Santa was planning on stopping by our completely undecorated house in eight days, the entire family was going to have to see it in just two. And when I say the entire family, please, allow me to explain myself. I mean, my parents, including my spastic, skeptical mother. I mean my sister and her workaholic, tech belt ridden accountant husband and of course my good buddies Jake and Emily, who were growing up faster than I could even keep up with. I mean also, Mort's parents and his older brother and his wife, who have visited us on and off over the last four years, and to which they always leave making me jealous that my family couldn't be as normal as his.

Everyone was flying in on Monday, which gave me today and tomorrow, to clean a five bedroom house and get it Christmas ready, same as every other year. I wasn't exactly enthralled, but I knew how to deal, because I knew I at least had Mort there to lean on.

I sat down as slowly as possible in one of the high bar chairs, dragging my coffee cup and the bottle of aspirin all the way with me. After two pills slid down with the hot caffeine, I breathed in deep and recognized the sound of demands and six pairs of feet coming to find me this time, two pairs of which pattered unlike the steady third.

"Alright Maddie, okay. Shh…"

"We have to hurry, he'll miss us!"

"No he won't."

Mort shook his head as he turned the corner into the kitchen, already dressed and showered for the day unlike me, and smiling as he let Max and Maddie follow him around with orders at a quarter of his height.

"We need cookies. Santa eats cookies!"

"Yeah, that's why he's a fatass." Mort mumbled back under his breath until I glared at him. He said a silent apology with a smirk as he grabbed the milk from the fridge.

"We have to have lights, daddy! You have to put up the lights…"

"I know that, sweetie." He shifted his gaze down to where I could see the bow in Maddie's hair over the countertop. "I'm on top of it."

"Now…now!"

I could tell she was pulling on his jeans the same way she'd done to me, just by the way his weight tipped to the side as he made his coffee. He rolled his eyes as he looked to catch me laughing.

"A little help here?"

I shook my head and kept laughing at him as he tried to walk around with her attached and Max chanting along with her. "Now…now…now!"

"Okay heathens…we'll go, let's just get your coats on!"

He drug them all the way to the front door, begging them to get their hats and scarves and boots on while he gulped at the coffee and pleaded for me to assist with his eyes alone. Eventually I swung away from the bar and came out to meet him at the door with a smile. The aspirin had kicked in just as I had hoped it would, and the pounding was finally gone.

"You going with us, Mommy?" He offered with a sarcastic grin.

"No, you guys go ahead and get a good tree, a big one."

Max cheered at this note and tugged his boots on from the floor under us.

"I'll stay here and get all the decorations out."

"You sure?"

I think he could tell there was something not particularly right about how passive I was being, but I continued to assure him and kneeled down to tie Maddie's boots and scarf the right way.

"Positive."

"Alright." He agreed a little saddened and threw on his coat and scarf too.

I stood back up to meet his level at least a little better, and grabbed his old black beanie from the pocket of his coat to tug it down over his messy hair, as usual, almost knocking his glasses off. With an equal tug at his face I kissed him solidly on the lips, just to make the point of my being fine a little more acceptable. And when he tried to take advantage of me right there at the door, with two screaming kids between us, I knew I'd done a good enough job of convincing him of my well-being.

Pulling away from me, he opened the door and released the little monsters as they tore down the snowy drive and towards the 'oh so domestic' Ford Explorer we'd bought when the Jeep finally died. I still missed that Jeep though; it held a few special places in my heart.

"I guess we'll be back in a while. Don't kill yourself getting all those boxes down from the attic, I can do it."

I nodded with a smile as he kissed my forehead and turned out of the door.

"Later, sweet thing."

His eyes darted back to me a few times with that prized smirk as he walked away, and I watched as he got the kids fastened into the truck and drove off down the mountainside again. Eventually, I fell inside and against the door with the relief at my final solidarity. I had needed this for two reasons in particular, one of which was simply the quiet to relax my head, to think about my place in the universe, and the other, was waiting in a small box in the bathroom medicine cabinet upstairs.


I was really worried about her; I knew something was just off, something just felt off. I tried not to think about it all the way to the Christmas tree farm at the Valley Square, and I tried not to think about it while I ran around with the kids through pine needles to find the perfect tree for Roxanne, and I tried not to think about it all the way back to the house too.

I knew she was tired, and stressed out over her manuscript that she told me the night before, 'just wasn't working anymore'. And I knew that she needed to rest and still wouldn't have the chance with the family coming into town in two days. I knew just my looking at her that she wasn't herself lately. I knew all of this, and the only thing I really wanted to know, was what, if anything, I could do for her.

I'd been equally as concentrated on the last few chapters of my book over the past two weeks and I felt as bad as I always did when it came to crunch time. Roxanne was left to do most of the driving and housework and helping the kids out, while I sat with my face against the laptop screen hammering out words. And sure, the positions switched when it was her time to focus, and I didn't mind it in the least. But I saw something else in her eyes when I left that morning with the kids, and it scared me because I couldn't read it. I could always read her, like any one of her books, but now I couldn't figure it out.

I wondered if it was a bad sign and that just frustrated me even more.

I remembered a few nights back, I came into the bedroom after I'd spent nine straight hours in our office downstairs, and found her lying in the middle of the huge bed, her head hidden by a pillow and her legs curled like a child. Because the room was so quiet, I could hear every sob she made. I sat down beside her, rubbing her back and trying to get her to relax enough to talk to me, but she never moved and I never pushed it.

I guess now I wish I had.

We pulled back up the gravel drive and towards the porch, Max and Maddie were in the back seat, arguing over who was going to get to put the star on top of the tree and who was going to get to have the first Christmas cookie, but I couldn't concentrate on much else from them. It was a daze, unloading the car full of added decorations and food we'd bought, enough for the entire family through the week. The twins ran inside before I could even stop them or worry about it, and so I worked on all of the bags and even the tree by myself, glancing back to the house every so often to see if Roxanne would come out and help, but she never did.

I carried the tree inside and set it up in its stand with water, got the kids settled in the kitchen with unloading all of the groceries and setting them on the table like they always loved to do, and then decided that I was going to have to go and find her myself. I looked around from room to room, down both of the long hallways, in the each of the bathrooms and even in the laundry room, but found nothing and heard nothing. The basement door was locked so I canceled the possibility altogether and instead thought about what she had said earlier, about getting the decorations down and ready. That's when I flew toward the second flight of stairs that led to the third level loft and attic area of the house, skipping steps as I went and called out for her.

"Roxy?"

My boots hit the creaky old floor without a response and I slowly paced the loft, and didn't see her on the couch, or in her and Maddie's arts and crafts corner, but the ladder for the attic was drawn down. An eerie silence covered the room around me as I stepped toward the ladder and climbed it slowly to the darkened opening above my head, poking in with a glance to see a bunch of scattered boxes out of place, and a couple tossed aside as if they had fallen. It wasn't until I stepped higher and found firm placement inside of the attic itself, that I saw the shadowy form of a foot between the boxes and jumped towards it.

There, lying with her knees slightly drawn up and her arms spread out over her head, still in her pajamas, her hair still a mess surrounding her beautiful sea green eyes in the sunlight from the small painted glass window overhead. I smiled when she saw me and she did the same, never moving until I kneeled down between the boxes to come to her.

"Should I even bother expecting a logical reason for this one?"

Her soft laugh appeased me a little as she leaned up on her hands, my arm draped over her lap and waist, locking her under me.

"I wanted to get the decorations down."

I looked around to see the tumbled boxes, a couple smashed ornaments glittering on the wood floor.

"A huh." I turned back to her, concerned of course. She was scaring me and I couldn't think long enough or hard enough about it to even place a finger on it, so I just asked. "When are you going to tell me what's going on with you? You've been making me nervous all week."

"I'm sorry."

"You don't have to be sorry, just tell me what's wrong; tell me what I can do."

I begged her with my eyes and drew the back of my hand across her cold cheek.

"There's nothing wrong."

On top of the frightening bit of her attitude, she was smiling and confusing me as she sat there.

"I'm fine, I'm good honey."

"You're sure…?"

"I am."

I threw my face back to look up through the window again, watching a plane or bird fly by and turn from a shade of green to red and then purple in the colorful glass. She must have suddenly grown worried for me, when I felt her freezing hand on my cheek, turning my face back to hers.

"Hey you…" she grinned politely, "…I'm okay."

My eyes nearly crossed trying to be accepting of what she was saying.

"Prove it then."

Again, I got a simple answer. "I will. You'll see soon."

"How soon?"

She said nothing for a minute after that, and even moved to get up off the floor, pulling me to my feet and back in the direction of the attic ladder. But before we descended again, she turned to completely consume me in a hug as her delicate arms wrapped around my chest, twisting together on my back. She pressed herself to me like a storm might rip off the roof and drag her away from me. And when I finally got my breath back and thought to say something or kiss her or anything, she whispered faintly into my shoulder.

"Soon."


When I said 'soon', I meant it. I wanted to tell him everything I knew and everything I wanted, simply because he was the person I was supposed to tell, I had to.

We spent the rest of the weekend covering the house inside and out, with lights, ornaments, garland, and of course treats. I think I baked everything I had in the pantry and fridge, leaving nothing but hundreds of cookies and cakes and pies. Mort kept the kids busy most of Sunday with raiding the mall an hour away in Ashville and then coming home to practically wrap themselves up with all of the paper and tape that was needed. I watched them on and off with giggles, and caught a wandering, curious eye from Mort every so often as well. I think he was purposefully watching me to make sure I didn't run away or jump off a cliff or something like that; probably thinking that I was as depressed as I seemed to be acting lately.

It wasn't true, I was actually happier than I'd been in a long time, but I just didn't know how to show it or present myself with it. A hundred different emotions were coursing through me at any second in the day, and none of them helped calm me any better. But I knew, that once the kids were asleep that night and I had the chance to finally relax and tell him everything, that things would be better around here.

At least that's what I was hoping for.

So I finished all the baking to find the kids and him asleep on the couch with Rudolph playing on the TV, and then went upstairs to take a shower. I hunted for a certain old Van Halen tee in the bottom drawer of his dresser and slid it on with a pair of his boxers, making sure that my hair was a tumbling, wet mess before going back down. The living room was empty, and I could hear the sound of flicking lights and kisses goodnight down the hallway instead, so I snuck into the kitchen after adding some more wood into the fireplace, and made a quick pot of coffee, holding back from laughing as much as possible.

When I heard footsteps and then his voice, I quickly poured two cups together. Mort came in yawning and in his pajamas, and stood leaning against the archway frame, watching me in the low light of the kitchen stove.

"Need any help cleaning up?" He asked, obviously in reference to the baking disaster scattered around.

"No." I replied, walking towards him with a cup of coffee out. Black, the way he has always taken it. "Just leave them. I want to talk to you."

He yawned again, took the coffee, and nodded as he followed me back into the living room. We sat down together, curled into the mass of pillows and blankets the kids and him had shared, and sipped to level off our coffee cups before I sat mine down and gripped onto his leg softly.

"Reminded of anything?"

He looked over at me oddly, unsure.

"Should I be?"

"Yes…this is supposed to be just like our first night together. The coffee and the couch…your old shirt you lent me…" I was a little defeated at not having done a good enough job of re-enacting and whispered under my breath, "Guess it worked out better in my head."

Pouting at me sadly, as if he'd ruined my heart or something, he put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me close to him, my head on his chest.

"It's perfect. Even better than the first time," he hummed sweetly against my forehead with a light kiss. But I knew I had to see his eyes for this, for the things I was going to say, so I sat back up and kept my hand on his leg, while his arm stayed behind my head on the couch.

"I'm glad, because I wanted to make it all easier for you to digest this time."

"Make what easier?"

"Giving you the proof you wanted."

He eyed me strongly at the remark, as if he'd been waiting hesitantly for the last 36 hours to hear it. I smiled and quickly jumped from the couch and heard him try to stop me with a low grumble. His concern was softened though when he saw me walk across the room toward the tree, and grasp a tiny wrapped box from inside of its braches between stars and tinsel.

The look on his face was priceless when I turned to walk back at him. It was a mixture of confusion and excitement and regrettably repressed sex drive, and it made me giggle softly as I slid onto the couch next to him, settling the small present on his knee.

"What's this?"

"I told you. It's the proof."

"This?"

He held the box up with a twisted brow at me.

"Yes, just open it."

"Am I going to regret it?"

I sighed at this and bit my lip. "God, I hope not."

He seemed even more worried when I said this, but slowly moved to tear away the red pinstriped foil and ribbon bow, his hands carefully shaking as he held onto the box lid. He looked up at me only once, right before he opened it, and then there was absolute and utter silence. The kind of silence that kills anyone standing in or around it. The kind of silence that makes you want to scream for allowing it to arrive.

I watched him with glazed, fearful eyes as he sat with the box open on his lap and face unmoving.

"I don't care what it is…just…say something," I pleaded quietly.

He lifted the content of the box and held it up in the light of the fireplace before us, tilting it a little to examine its marking when I heard him gulp once and nearly laugh twice.

"I don't know how it happened, it's probably my fault. If you don't want to do this, there's still time to--"

"Roxanne."

He cut me off with a sideways glare, obviously angered by even the thought of my coming suggestion. I looked up at him, debating the point of my own life while he kept on examining the pink plus sign to end all his questions in the soft flamed glow, awkwardly chuckling at times until he peered over to catch my eyes.

"You're really pregnant again?"

I held my face low. "Yeah."

"Which explains the weird moods…?"

"Yeah…"

"And the headaches."

I nodded to this and breathed deep, waiting for him to say what was next.

"When did you find out?"

"Yesterday. I took that when you went to buy the tree with the kids."

He nodded same as me with a soft, "A huh."

"I just wanted to find the right time to tell you, when I knew for certain. The last time I did this was in a jail, I…" my throat was closing on me as I tried to speak, but I coughed and went on, "…I wanted to make sure it was special this time."

"It was special the first time too."

His arm came around to hold my shoulders tight again and pull me nearer to his face, while his second hand rose to brush away my suddenly falling tears. He was smiling at me still, which I thought was a pretty good sign and it made me dry my eyes a little quicker too.

"So…" He began as I breathed deep again and waited for the words I was so afraid of for some reason. I should have known better than to even think I should be "…what are we gonna name this new little fiend?"

Mort winked at me in the fiery light, holding me and coming closer to my face with his parting lips as I laughed.

"You're okay with all this? Again?"

"I'm a little more than okay with it, baby. Am I allowed to be…ecstatic?"

His breath was hot on my smiling mouth, his hands holding my face softly.

"You can be anything you want."

"Oh is that right…?"

He laughed, pressing his lips down upon mine with a heat I couldn't ever deny. Mort was tender, and close to me in ways he hadn't been in weeks. There had been something in the way, a huge, unrecognizable problem that I couldn't explain to myself, let alone to him. And now, as I struggle to keep my head sound and in control, with his tongue slicing through my lips like some crazed animal, I realize that there's nothing much left to worry about at all.

So we're having another kid, just another one to add to the brood, so to speak. We're going to have to stop being just that more selfish than before, okay, fine. And we have days and weeks where we don't know how to deal or relate with anything between us. Good. I'm glad.

Because the coming back to us part, feels amazing.

He pulled away from my mouth long enough to let me breathe and said gently, "I hope you know how much I love you."

Sighing, I opened my eyes and looked up at him. "I do."

"And nothing is ever going to stop me from being right here. I'm never leaving this spot. You know that?"

"Yes." I let my finger run down his cheek. "Me neither."

His grin was wider even now and he pulled me into his arms, completely drowning me in his scent and his warmth and the hundred million other perfect details about the man I married and survived with still. I couldn't imagine him not being there, or me not being there, with our babies and our house and finally our place in the world.

I guess I could have tried to imagine it.

I just never wanted to do it.