So, a little bit of a break from The Slip, with sort of a little bit of a holiday themed chapter. I will be going back to The Slip after this chapter as I have about four more chapters that I want for it before moving onto other pieces again.
The whole family was over for the holidays. Kids ran throughout the old homestead, as adults gathered in the living room talking and laughing with each other. A handful of people were in the kitchen, prepping food for the week. Emily and Ruth were the main two, while Joan was working on something a little different than them, in a different part of the kitchen. He had popped into the kitchen for only a moment to see how everything was coming along.
Ruth was facing away from him, but had heard him enter, making a remark to Emily.
"If that's your husband, I'd keep eyes on him so he doesn't try running off with all the food. He has a history of taking awkward pieces when he does."
"That was once." He defended himself leaning in the doorway as Ruth turned around to face him, hands on her hips holding a spoon.
"Only because I never leave such baking unguarded again. It was for Henry, not you. Now out of my kitchen." She wagged the wooden spoon at him, using it as a pointer.
"Your kitchen?" Raising his eyebrows, stepping further in.
"Yes MY kitchen." She put her hands back on her hips. "You don't live here anymore. If you want to sulk around a kitchen, do it in your own, down the road." She pointed with the spoon towards his own house.
"But everyone is here, not there." He wined, crossing his arms.
"Not my problem."
"Why don't you go and join everyone then, instead of bugging us here in the kitchen?" His wife placed a hand on his shoulder to try and guide him out.
"You too Emily? Don't you love me?" He pouted.
She rolled her eyes and sighed. "Of course I love you, just not when you're here to try and steal food. Now shoo, off you go. Go visit with everyone who's here and keep those kids entertained and out the kitchen." Making a shooing motion with her hands, giving him a slight push to get him going. He didn't budge.
"What about this little one then?" He asked wrapping his arms from behind, around her small but growing belly. He could see Ruth watching on with Joan in fond exasperation, as Emily turned in his arms to look at him.
"That little one is just fine where they are right now. They aren't causing problems unlike their daddy." She looked at him pointedly.
"They're behaving for you for once." He didn't let go yet, but started spying some of those goodies he did originally come in to steal like Ruth implied.
"For today anyway." Emily sunk into his arms a bit as he rubbed her back for a moment or two.
"Second trimester is a little easier, you lose most of the morning sickness, but aren't as big as you'll get yet either. Cravings will start getting stronger, but at least now you'll be able to eat." Joan said, breaking her silence of letting his twin and wife deal with him. Emily turned towards Joan, and he used the distraction to his advantage, while his arms were still around her.
"Not having morning sickness to put up with all the time will be nice..." she stepped out of his arms and faced him arms crossed. "Jesse, hands off the food. You can wait like everyone else."
"No I can't, I'm hungry now."
"Baby. What are you going to do when your own little one comes?"
He sniffed. "You act like I can't cook Ruth."
"I know you can, but since you're not helping us now, get out the kitchen."
"As much as I love you, you are a bit distracting. You don't want the entire meal to be late because of you? Do you?" Emily raised an eyebrow at him.
That's when Henry decided to enter the kitchen. Going over to stand by his own wife, leaning against where she was working, hands beside him on the counter.
"What's going on in here? Noticed Jesse was taking too long to come back."
"Henry, they're picking on me." He crossed his arms.
"He's trying to sneak food again." Ruth said rolling her eyes.
"Quality control, don't want our guests to be overwhelmed by all the good food to hit something not as good."
"Okay, out of the kitchen NOW Jesse. My house, my rules. And no sneaking food!"
"See what I mean Henry?" He gestured to his twin.
"That's not my fault that you're trying to sneak food again. You've brought it on yourself. I'm staying out of it. About to become a father yourself, and still acting like the baby of the family." Henry shook his head.
"I do not."
"Yes you do!" Henry, Joan, and Ruth said together in unison.
He smirked. "At least Em agrees with me."
"I didn't say anything because I'm the baby of my family too." He pouted at her explanation.
"You don't act like it, unlike your husband. Your brother acts more like the baby." Henry said.
"Well, let's not talk about him shall we. Especially not when Lyn and Stephen are here."
He tried to sample something from Ruth's bowl when everyone was busy discussing who acted more like the baby of the family.
"Keep your fingers out of my bowl please." She warned him upon noticing what he was trying to do.
When he thought she wasn't looking he tried again. Only to be rewarded with her wooden spoon across his knuckles.
"Ow! Ruth!" he rubbed his knuckles as he glared at his sister.
"I told you to keep your fingers out of my bowl."
"Em, Ruth's abusing me and Henry, my protective older brother has left me to fend for myself."
"You poor thing you, you wouldn't have to deal with that if you weren't in the kitchen." Emily had her hands on her hips, looking at him.
"Fine, I can tell when I'm unwanted here. I'll leave now. Happy?" He sniffed as he asked, gathering a couple handfuls of cookies before starting out the kitchen.
"When we told you to leave, we meant without cookies." They called after him.
"Where's the fun in that?" He called back as he disappeared around the corner.
He nearly ran into Ruth's husband, booking it from the kitchen with his stolen stash of cookies.
"Are you stirring up trouble in my house?"
"Not your house. Ruth's. You can only call it yours because you married her. I'm one of the ones who actually grew up in it." He said, skirting around the man.
As he entered the living room, he drew the attention of all the kids, from the eldest being Stephen; who was about ten, to the current youngest, being Ruth's youngest kid, Gabe; who was going to be three soon.
The eight kids surrounded him, some of the littler ones were jumping up trying to see what he had in his hands.
"Settle down, if you keep swarming me I might trip and fall on you. And we don't want that now do we?" He got to where he wanted to be before looking around and crouching down to start sharing the goodies he grabbed. Sending a wink to Emily when he noticed her and Ruth watching him.
He sat on the couch once his haul was divided up, eating one of his few cookies he had left. It wasn't long after, that Emily came back from the kitchen looking to sit down. He made space beside him on the couch for her to sit. As Emily sat beside him, he offered her a cookie in truce, which she took as she snuggled into him.
The phone was ringing, but nobody was answering it. Why wouldn't anyone answer it. He didn't want to leave his pregnant wife's side.
The phone was still ringing as everything started to fade. He tried to cling to those last moments with Ruth and Emily, but the phone was too persistent to ignore anymore.
He wiped the tears that had spilled from his eyes as he got up to answer the phone.
"Hello?"
"Dang it Doc, it's a good thing you answered when you did. I was about ready to break down your door to make sure you were alright."
"I'm not dead yet. What do you want Michael? There must be reason you're phoning."
"Some crazy hot rodder tore up the road last night after a high speed chase into and through town. Need you to come down to the courthouse and be the judge for what to do with him."
"You have a time set already?"
"Yep. Everyone's going to be there. Almost all of us were affected and saw what happened." Michael told him the time and he promised he'd be there.
There wasn't nearly enough time for his liking this morning. He would have much preferred to spend the day alone, and not have to prepare for court.
He wanted to go back to his dream. He would have loved having Ruth and Emily gang up on him. For Emily to have had a successful pregnancy rather than the miscarriage they did have. He would have loved to see Ruth married and with kids, to still have had her at that point in his life.
His heart ached with the people he'd lost. That dream even brought back those feelings of guilt for leaving Henry and the others.
But there wasn't really time to dwell on all his feelings the dream brought up. No time to sulk when there was court to get to. He was going to drive, until he saw the condition of the road. No way was he driving the Hornet on that.
He gritted his teeth and drove back into his garage. He nearly stomped his way through town to get to the courthouse, his lips curling every time he caught sight of the road. He didn't know who this hot rodder was, but he wrecked his town, he was going to come down hard on him.
Michael called him out on his mood right away.
He just wanted to get this done with as soon as possible. He thoroughly expressed his thoughts as he entered the courtroom. Then he saw who the accused was.
A rookie Piston Cup racer.
He had kept up enough with the sport after Emily's death to know who the kid was. He didn't want anything to do with him. The sooner he was gone the better, but of course things just weren't going his way today. Sally convinced everyone to make him fix the road. Meaning he was going to be stuck with this racer in town for a week. There wasn't going to be a moment of peace until he left.
I think the original idea for this chapter came long before even Hard Enough Left had the chapter where Emily and Ruth sit together during a race. I think you could call this a little belated Christmas gift. Considering I didn't think I'd have anything for this time because of moving and painting. Happy Holidays!