Mother

"Deanne!" Joseph MacKenzie's drunken voice hollered loudly from the front door.

"I'm right here, Joe," Deanne answered quietly. "You don't have to yell."

Joe chuckled low in his throat as he stumbled unsteadily into the kitchen. His breath reeked of too much alcohol, and he grabbed onto the counter as he spun around with a confused look on his face.

"Baby, what—what happened to Christmas dinner?"

"Christmas dinner is over, Joe," Deanne explained. "You've been out all night. Sarah and I ate by ourselves."

"What are you talking about?" he slurred. He clumsily lunged towards her, and Deanne shrank back.

"Joseph, you're drunk."

"Don't you go telling me what I am, woman," he spat. "That ain't your place in this marriage."

Deanne yelped in pain as her husband lashed out and struck her hard on the side of her face.

"Come on, woman, I'm gonna show you what your place is right now."

Neither one of them noticed their eight-year-old daughter peeking out of her bedroom, curious about the commotion. When her father raised his fist again and her mother cried out, Sarah scurried back to bed and buried herself deep under the covers.

If this is what Christmas is like when you're married, she vowed silently, then I'm never getting married.

~*~o~*~

"Ma'am? Uh…ma'am?"

Bud waved his hand politely in front of Mac's face.

Mac jumped a little and let out an embarrassed laugh as she realized that she had been so wrapped up in her memories that she hadn't heard him. "I'm sorry, Bud." She glanced over at the computer sitting on the dining room table. "Did you find anything?"

Bud shook his head regretfully. "I'm sorry, ma'am. I looked in every database that we have access to, but I didn't find anything." He tapped a few keys on the computer, and an error message of "unknown name" blinked back at them in bright red letters.

"I looked under MacKenzie and also O'Hara," Bud explained. "There's no listing for your mother anywhere. If we had a more specific location, we might be able to look a little deeper—"

Mac cut him off abruptly. "No, I don't know where she is. I haven't seen her since my father died."

"I'm sorry, Colonel."

"It's okay." Mac was surprised to feel her throat constrict a little bit, but she quickly swallowed her sadness and forced a smile. "Thanks for your help, Bud." Without another word, she rose from her chair and strode out of the room, just missing Harm and Trish as they walked in.

"She okay?" Harm asked, nodding towards Mac's retreating figure.

"I think she's a little sad, sir," Bud admitted. "She asked me to look for her mother. She didn't come out and say it, but I think she wanted to invite her to the wedding. But we couldn't find any mention of her mother's name or an address or anything else about her."

Harm took a step forward, intending to follow Mac and offer his comfort, but his mother stopped him with a hand on his arm.

"Why don't you let me, darling?"