Meet Me Under the Mistletoe – Randy Travis

Year 13.

Her beeper went off. This was never a good sign. They knew not to page her unless it was absolutely needed so she dialed in to the hospital.

"This is Dr. Kepner. You paged?"

The voice on the other end of the line was her resident, Chris. "Whoa, slow down."

Catherine, Jackson and the kids listened to the conversation. They knew the drill. She had to go in to work.

"Well did you run a CT?" She asked, listening to his answer while she was simultaneously looking for her purse. "Run a full panel blood test then. I'd like an x-ray done by the time I get there too. See you soon." There was a pause. "Oh, and Morrison?" She asked, waiting for her resident on the other line. "If he isn't actually dying when I get there, you're going to be on SCUT for a week."

She sighed when she hung up. Morrison always seemed like a reliable intern and resident but calling her at home on Christmas Eve was a deal breaker. "Burn victim."

Jackson panicked. It was his burn center and the resident in charge tonight was less than capable. It was just his last choice. "I'm coming too."

"Babe, no. I'll call you if you need to come in. Stay here. The kids are here, your mother is here." She motioned over to Catherine who was in the middle of a story about one of her Christmas's as a kid.

"My father worked three jobs and we didn't have anything nearly as nice as what you kids have. He had to work that hard just to feed us and keep a roof over our heads".

They heard her telling them one of her stories. All three of their kids were listening carefully to the story. They treasured her stories. Jackson didn't know half of them because he never thought to ask. But his kids did and he enjoyed listening to them too.

"How many brothers and sisters do you have Grandma?" Colin asked, insisting on sitting next to Catherine so she pulled him onto her lap.

"Well, at the time I had four brothers and two sisters. But a few of them got sick and stuff, now I have three brothers and one sister."

Jackson interrupted. "Mom, April and I have to run to the hospital. Will you be alright?"

She waved her hand up in the air at him. "Go Honey, We're fine here."

He nodded and handed April her jacket that he got when he grabbed his own. They made it to the hospital in less than twenty minutes, both searching for the same patient.

"Dr. Kepner!" Her resident called out, "He's in bed 6." He waved them down toward the patient.

"I ran the x-ray and there were no compressions or fractures, no known blockages, he's struggling to breathe still though. He's crashed twice." He started listing everything she needed to know. Jackson waited from the sidelines and then began his round of questioning aimed at the resident.

"Have you treated the burns?" When the resident shook his head Jackson barked at him, "What good are you then? Go! Get out of here."

April stopped what she was doing and stared over at him. That was not her style of teaching. "Really Jackson?"

He nodded, unamused. "He should know better. He's a 4th year." And then he began treating the patient himself just like he wanted to do all along.

Within the next couple of hours they treated a few more patients that the residents needed assistance with in the ER but they hadn't seen each other. They'd been that busy.

April checked her phone and saw a text from Jackson:

Jackson: Meet me under the mistletoe in the ER at midnight.

She blushed. It didn't take a genius to figure out what her husband wanted.

"Do you miss them?" Colin asked Catherine sadly. Sometimes Erin and Graycin annoyed him but he couldn't imagine them not being alive anymore.

Catherine took a minute to think about it. "All the time. But what is it that your mother says all the time? They're with God now. In Heaven. Right?"

Immediately Colin agreed and Catherine knew her son had picked the right woman. She was raising their babies' right.

Erin spoke up. "Tell us another story Grandma." She asked, listening alertly for another story.

"Well," Catherine laughed. "When I was your age Erin, I started working so that I could help my parents afford Christmas. There was a little store not far from our house and my father got my sister and I jobs there. We worked at the cash register every day after school and do you know how much we made an hour?"

Erin shrugged, she had never even had a job yet. But sometimes her parents gave her some money for helping with the chores or helping Colin with his homework.

"How much?"

Catherine waited a moment before she said "0.50 cents."

All three Avery kids gasped. "An hour?!" Graycin shrieked, trying to do the math in his head. "So if you worked for four hours after school you only made two dollars for the whole day?"

She nodded. "That's right."

"Do any of you want to hear about the best Christmas present I ever received?" She asked them, flashing them her best smile. The one she used that could convince anyone to smile. And they did.

"Yeah!" They all said, waiting for another story about her childhood.

"Well this one goes back almost forty five years ago. To 1982." She counted, making sure all of her math was right.

The kids gasped with mouths open wide, because that was so long ago to them they couldn't comprehend it.

"When I was married to your grandfather. Harper Jr."

The kids hadn't heard much about him so she had their complete attention. "It was late in the day one early December night. I hadn't been feeling very good, sick to my stomach, sore all over. Very fatigued…tired." She went on, listing everything that was wrong with her that day.

"And I had taken some tests at the hospital to make sure nothing was wrong. But the hospital called and do you know what they told me?" She asked, eyes wide and deep into the story.

"What?" Colin asked her anxiously. His little body was shaking he was so excited.

"They told me that I was pregnant. With your father!" She grinned. Colin tried to do the math. "That was a long time ago Grandma!" Catherine chuckled. "It was. But you know what? To this day, he was still the very best early Christmas present that I ever could have asked for."

Another hour passed and she still hadn't seen her husband. And then there were two minutes until midnight and still no sign of him.

She stood though, under the only mistletoe she saw in the ER and waited for her husband. He surprised her by coming from the other direction, spinning her around, backing her up into the nurses station counter and planting a big, sweet kiss right on her lips. Their make-out session gathered a few hoots and hollers from patients and staff in the ER which left April fifty shades of red.

"What was that for?" She blushed, wiping a small smear of her red lipstick off of her husband's face.

He grinned cheekily at her. "It's Christmas and your sweet kiss was the first gift I wanted to receive."

She turned crimson and he kept whispering naughty things in her ear. "Jackson!" She giggled, hiding her face in his chest.

"I love you so much." Jackson sighed, tightening his arms around his best friend. She kissed him again. "I love you more."