And the end has come. I want to thank you all for coming on this journey with me. I hope this story has given you a glimpse into what Jay could have been had he been a father. I feel as if Liam is carrying a torch I wish the character of Jay was able to give him, as this world needs more of what they had to offer; kindness, fairness and love, quiet at times, while roaring loudly at other moments. I always felt as if Halstead had more to him that what we saw on the small screen.

A Halstead Christmas II

Four years later

We knew it would be a tough night, the first Christmas without Mom. The house was all lit up and I know it was only because the twins were already there. They along with Sean and Jamie had decorated the house a couple of weeks ago.

Ella, now three and a half, was perched on my shoulders with her tiny hands grasping onto my chin. She loves to be on my shoulders, "ride high Daddy," she tells me all the time. I had my hands full of side dishes and had to stop at the backdoor so Ella didn't get knocked off upon our entrance. Sean took one and I had to call Jamie back to take the other. Once my hands were free I lifted Ella off my shoulders and carried her inside setting her down in the kitchen. She immediately went looking for her grampa...some times it was pronounced without the d, other times without the r for gampa, but her speech was pretty good for a three-year-old. And this three-year-old loved her grandfather. In fact she was about the only thing that could make him smile these days.

Naturally he was having a difficult time. Things had been going so well. Mom's tumors were responding to treatment, she even had a brief time of remission. Upon hearing the news we had had a celebratory dinner, but unfortunately the remission didn't last, the cancer came back stronger and more determined and it began to slowly devour her. She did her best to maintain a positive attitude, but I know she was angry. She finally had everything that she had fought for: the love of her life, a good relationship with her son, two other wonderful children who had fought enough battles to win their own war, and three beautiful grandchildren. She loved every moment she had, until she ran out of them.

The day she died Dad and I were at her bedside, her breathing had grown more ragged and it would seem an eternity between breaths, until finally there was one last exhale. Dad and I both waited but we knew it had been her last breath and he dissolved into sobs, showing emotion I hadn't seen in all my years with him. How hard her absence was for him years ago, had now been compounded by the fact that he would never see her again. She was lost forever this time and he felt that within every inch of his being. I had just sat and held him while her body grew cold.

We tried to put on smiles and enjoy this Christmas day. We fondly recalled happy memories of Mom, but they were tainted by her absence. I often felt as if she was just in the other room and would be walking in with a tray of cookies or hot chocolate. Dad had stayed in the house because he was incapable of doing anything else. Josh had moved out a few years ago, but Jenna had stayed at home, not quite ready to be independent. But several months ago two of her friends needed a roommate in their West Loop apartment and she moved out. She had offered to stay, but Dad wouldn't hear of it. I knew he missed her presence, but he wouldn't dream of holding her back.

We worried he wasn't eating and I often stopped by with lunch or dinner. In fact I did something that I couldn't do for my own family; if he asked me to meet him for a beer I tried to get away from work. If he wanted to meet for lunch I did my best to take a break. I made room on my calendar for house hunting and long walks. We stopped for desserts after going to school events, ball games and dance classes...who knew there were three-year-old dance classes. I was there for him in a way I hadn't made myself available for my own wife and children.

After the presents had been opened and dinner had been eaten, Dad walks past me saying something about getting some air. I knew tonight would be tough for him and he had put forth a lot of effort to hang in there, but I fear he is getting too tired to keep up the charade. He grabs his coat from the hook on the wall by the front door and disappears into the light falling snow.

"Snow Daddy," Ella squeals as she sees it through the open door. She loves the snow just as much as my mother had. They could both be found by the picture window watching the falling flakes whenever the opportunity presented itself. "Where Gampa?" She asks. She loves her grandpa even more than snow. "Outside?" She asks trying to peer out the small side window by the front door. She is already reaching for the door before I can stop her.

I extricate myself from the wall where I had been cornered by Sean who was showing me his new skateboard, a gift that Reilly wasn't particularly happy about. Who gave it to him? Josh? Probably not my dad and definitely not us. I quickly tell him it's amazing and try not to look desperate as I edge away and chase after my three-year-old daughter who is now outside without a coat on. I stop and grab her coat, hat and mittens along with my own winter wear and slip outside to the small front porch, which is really nothing more than a spot at the top of the stairs to stand when opening the door. The snow is gentle, beautiful in its progress to the ground. There is no wind, but the temperature is very Christmas-like and puffs of breath are evident.

I flip the light on to see that Dad is sitting there staring off into the distance either at the snow, the neighborhood or nothing at all. Sitting in his lap, wrapped in his coat is Ella, looking off into the same distance. "Hey guys," I say quietly to let them know I'm there. "Ella, let's put your coat on."

"I'm with Grampa." She announces, managing to enunciate the r this time. I admit she looks toasty. Her back is to Dad's stomach and he has wrapped his coat around her, pulling her in close.

"Come on Bean," I tell her, using the nickname the boys gave her as she looked like a bean on the first ultrasound photo we showed them. I also called her Cookie since that was her very favorite food. Jamie is JP for James Patrick and Sean is Bear because when he was Ella's age he wanted to grow up to be a bear. Reilly was a firm believer in nicknames. I used whatever came out of my mouth first. Keeping track of three kids names wasn't easy.

Meanwhile, Ella hadn't moved. "Hey, let's get your coat on and you can go back to Grandpa. Up, come on," I encourage her. She replies with a firm no. If I'm not mistaken there is the slightest flicker of a smile on Dad's lips. "Ella Rose, you either come get your coat on or you go back inside the house," I tell her sternly.

She sighs but gets up and takes the two tiny steps she needs to get to me. I slip her coat on, zip it up and put on her hat and mittens. "Can I have a kiss?" I ask and she sighs again but rewards me with a loud lip smacking kiss before she returns to her safe grandpa cocoon, her little unicorn adorned boots are all I can see of her.

I put my coat and hat on and stand for a moment and try to gather myself. "Is it okay if I sit?" I ask.

He clears his throat, "of course."

I squeeze in next to him and lean into him, something I used to do when I was younger and at the age where one simply did not show affection to their parent. This was the way I showed my love without being obvious about it.

"Will called me. He said he tried your phone, but got voicemail. He left a message. He asked how you were and passed along his best."

"Where is he?" Dad asked as he cleared his throat again, his voice a bit rough from not speaking much.

"Guatemala I think." Uncle Will had married a wonderful woman years ago and after many years in the ED he decided to take his medical skills on the road. So he and Leah went from one impoverished country to the next where he employed his expertise and did as much good as he could.

"I'm sorry if this is too much for you," I tell him, knowing he would most likely struggle his first Christmas without Mom. "We could have had it at my house." As if that mattered now.

"No. She wanted it here. I promised her." He said without much emotion. "Besides I'm not sure if I could have come back to an empty house."

"You wouldn't have had to," I try.

"At some point I would have."

The house wasn't nearly as decorated as it usually was. The twins and my boys had spent one evening decorating the tree and the house while he sat with Ella and read books and played dolls. The things girls do to you. I had thought my tea party days were over when Jenna and the Casey girls got older—little did I know.

"I'm sorry Dad. You know if there is anything we can do, that I can do."

"I know son. Thank you. You have all done so much," he says quietly, sadly as if he barely has the strength to speak.

"I really thought that you would both grow old together. Be one of those couples that died within a day of each other in their nineties.

"I'm so sorry that I wasted so much time being angry at her." I tell him.

"You had a reason to be. I got that. She did too. When she came back when you were ten, it was so hard for both of us. You don't know how badly I wanted to chase her down and make her stay. When I was carrying you back home—I just wanted to turn around and get her."

"Why didn't you? Why didn't you put me down and go?"

"Because she wouldn't have stayed and even if she did my fear would be that she would only leave again. I couldn't bear to go through that again. Couldn't put you through that again. Or her. So I just let her go. And I have regretted it ever since."

I had no idea what to say. I remembered that day as if it had happened yesterday. Our shared anguish ate away our days and nights for months.

"Look Daddy, snowflake," Ella said sticking out her mittened hand with a single snowflake on it. "Gramma sent it to me," she explained as it began to melt.

"I think she sent all of this snow for us." I tell her as she pulls away from my dad and looks up, sticking her tongue out. "Thank you gramma." She says in a sing-song voice.

We buried Mom several months ago. Her absence had left such a gaping hole in Dad's life that it seemed as if he had been buried too. He had retired over a year before to help care for her and now that she was gone he just felt aimlessly lost. He still had his children, his grandchildren but now his foundation had cracked and he had sunk into a dark place.

I had my struggles as well. My relationship with my mother had been complicated, but it was one that had a certain substance and strength. I had come to forgive her and to finally understand her reasons for leaving. It wasn't until I had become a father that I was able to truly recognize her sacrifice. But once I did it completely filled me with her selflessness. But despite the fact that I had put most of my torment aside there were still bits and pieces of resentment and rejection towards my mother that I could never completely let go of. I had loved her so much and she had just disappeared from my life, crushing my father and leaving me bewildered and motherless. It had been too encompassing and life changing for me to forget all of my hurt feelings, but I could keep them at bay enough to move forward and embrace a new relationship with her.

I envied my father in the fact that he seemed to have completely set aside any past hurt and steamed full force into his relationship, leaving all the pain behind. It made me wonder as a father if I could do the same thing with Reilly if she left and returned. But then I can't imagine any scenario when she would leave her children behind. It was then that it had hit me, I have routinely left my family; my wife, my children every time I go undercover. I leave them for varying amounts of time, some so long, the boys have actually grown taller in my absence. I leave them for something else, a professional, yet personal quest and because of the danger there is a very real possibility that I may never come back. I had come to realize that I am much more like my mother than I care to admit and perhaps that is why I could never completely forgive her, because I see too much of her in myself and I am unable to face that. So somehow it all has to be her fault, my desire to go off on my own. To leave before I can be left. And now she was gone and none of us will get back the time we had lost. There is no more relationship to fix. But since her passing Dad and I had grown closer, if that was even possible.

He was a fixture in our house and the kids loved having him around as did Reilly, she said she felt better when he was in the house. I felt better when he was in our house. I worried about the weight of the grief he had been carrying around. I worried it might just crush him one day and I wouldn't be there to stop it.

We sit in silence for a few minutes, Ella quiet and content with watching the snow flutter to the ground. Her composure so different from her brothers at that age who were both notoriously loud and fidgety. "I always thought I'd be the first to go—the job and all." Dad says breaking the silence, his voice dipped in regret as if he is saddened that he isn't already dead.

"I'm sorry she is gone, but I can't pretend that I want you anywhere but here, alive and in our lives."

"All that stress she dealt with when she was running, constantly running and hiding."

He had blamed the cancer on her family, for the stress that they had caused her over her lifetime and he may be right or the illness just happened. Or perhaps it was something she was exposed to at some point. Or just crap luck. He needed a reason. He needed someone to blame and to point his hate towards and they were just as good as anyone.

But I did remind him that if they hadn't been so awful she would have never left Ireland and they would have never met. It seemed of little cheer to him at this point.

The silence surrounds us again until finally Dad leans back away from Ella and pulls an envelope from his inside pocket. It is long, business sized. He hands it to me without saying a word. There is no address on the front, nothing to indicate what it is or where it had originated.

I open it and it takes me a minute to figure out what I am looking at, but finally I understand the paper, but not why it was presented to me. "You're ready to sell?" I ask.

"No." His reply sharp as he still stares ahead.

"You're staying in the house then?"

"No," he replies again and I'm officially confused.

"Dad, I'm sorry, but you lost me. If you want to sell we'll get in on the market in early spring, it'll sell fast so we need to continue to look for a new place for you. You'll have more buying power in winter anyway, so actually this is great timing," I rattle on. "If you want to stay that's fine too. Just let me know what you want me to help you with."

"I'm not selling, I'm not staying. The house is yours. All you need to do is take care of the taxes."

I look down at the deed to the house we are sitting in front of and cannot comprehend what I have just been told. Dad clearly sensed this as he began to explain. "Your mother wanted you to have the house. It has the room you need, great schools, wonderful neighborhood. You have off-street parking, enough bedrooms so that the kids can each have their own. Two full and two half-baths. A basement rec room. The four season room."

"I know what the house has Dad, but I can't let you give it to me." I tell him as I think of the four season room. My mother loved it. They had added it on several years ago. It jutted out into the backyard, where she would sit and watch the boys play on the swing set that Dad and I had built when the boys were younger.

"It's what your mother wanted. She made me promise when Jenna was gone and stable that I wouldn't sit around here alone and mope. She wanted your family in here, growing up, laughing, crying, fighting, loving each other. All the things she missed out on with us.

"We paid it off years ago, she came back with money that we used for a large down payment. I have no idea where she had gotten the money and I really didn't want to find out. She loved this house. Every corner of it. We raised the twins here, welcomed your children here. Met Reilly here. This is your home, it always was."

"But Dad," I begin.

"Liam James, this is not negotiable," he says firmly, causing Ella to chime in with an "oooohh Daddy's in twouble."

"Then you live in our house and I'll continue to pay our mortgage."

"No," he says simply. "You'll pay the taxes here because it is your house. You sell yours or if I choose to live there then I'll assume the mortgage. Your place is near my old stomping grounds of Canaryville." He says, with the slightest hint of reminiscence. Bridgeport, where our home is located is only one neighborhood north of his youth.

"I can understand if you want to wait until summer since the kids will have to change schools. I assume Reilly will be okay with this?"

I remain speechless for a minute, recalling the day in my parents bedroom when Reilly encouraged me to reconnect with my mother, to really give her a chance. It was only then that I took the steps to do just that, and without that nudge, well, who knows what might have happened. It was also the moment that I knew I was head over heels in love with her. Six months later I asked Reilly to marry me.

"She loved this house before she even stepped inside," I tell him, recalling her running commentary of how beautiful the neighborhood was before she even got out of the car. "She'll be thrilled."

And I knew she would be. Just as Dad had said, four bedrooms all on the same floor. A master suite with our own bathroom. A large modern kitchen, spacious dining and living rooms. A four-season sun room off the back. A huge finished basement with a half-bath and lot of room for the kids to roam. It was a dream house, their dream home and now apparently ours.

"I had thought about buying my childhood home when my dad had to move." He says. "Having a house for you would have been nice. But I don't think I could have handled the memories."

"You know that he used to tell me things about you. I can't remember much anymore, but I do recall him telling me that I was determined like you were when you were a kid. That once you put your mind to something you would conquer it."

"Yeah?" He asks but his heart doesn't seem to be into it.

"Yeah. I recall getting frustrated on learning how to tie my shoes. I kept getting my finger stuck. He told me he had only showed you once and you got it."

Dad laughed. "That's because Will helped me. But it's nice to hear that he had some nice things to say about me. I know there were times when I unfairly thought the worst of him. I think that's why I tried so hard to stay close to you, because I knew that once people drifted, they rarely connected again."

"But you and Mom did. And Mom and I did. We figured it out and maybe part of that was because of the failures between you and your dad."

"Maybe."

"Dad, what if you just stayed here with us? Like you said the house has plenty of space. We can remodel the basement and it can be your space. Make a full bath, frame in a bedroom, I have recent experience with that. You can have your own little apartment."

"That is a decision that your spouse needs to be in on."

"She'd love it Dad. You know she would."

"Well thank you for the offer son, but I think I need some time for myself right now. I'm thinking a late May or early June for the move. But maybe staying at your house is a good idea. I can keep looking for a place if I haven't found one yet and we can continue to build up equity."

"Whatever you think Dad." I tell him, my mind still spinning at this recent development.

"They're out here," Jenna yells as the door opens. She comes outside and soon after everyone else follows. They trickle down the steps like a dripping icicle. The snow continues to fall and we all sit quietly, even my notoriously loud sons.

For several minutes we all sit and watch grandma's gift as it sifts downwards, landing on us in its beauty before it fades away.

"Well look at this," the neighbor says as he stops in front of the steps. "This a real Christmas photo right here." He says as we trail down the stairs

"Hi Frank," my dad greets.

"Can you take a picture," Reilly asks, patting her pockets for her phone.

"I have mine," Josh offers, standing up and leaning out to give Frank the phone.

He snaps several shots and says that we are a very photogenic family before handing the phone back.

"A Halstead Christmas," he says. "That ought to be the title of that photo." Then he continues on his walk, disappearing into the night.

Epilogue

That Memorial Day weekend we moved into the house. Reilly had been floored by the offer and was both ecstatic and saddened by it. She was thrilled it was staying in the family, but saddened by the reason we were acquiring it.

Dad did move into our old house after finding nothing to his liking around the city. He liked having the extra room for the twins and grandkids when they spent the night. He took each one of my kids for an overnight at least once a month and the tradition continued until Jamie was a senior an high school and Dad finally decided to come and live with us. I felt better knowing he was close by and had everything he needed.

I know he never completely recovered from the loss of my mother, but does anyone? I dread the possibility of losing him. He is in good health for the most part. Doing quite well actually, but everyone's days are numbered. I am just grateful for each and every one of them.

Oh and by the way, I finally did get that vasectomy—on Ella's fourth birthday. Better late than never.

The End.