A Christmas Caroline by Camilla Isley

Seventeen

Yes

Jackie’s visit keeps me distracted throughout the rest of the day. I don’t have the right concentration to tackle any high-level task. But to keep my hands busy, I climb down a deep tidying rabbit hole where I scour the shelves for series and make sure the books are arranged in the correct order. I start with fantasy, then science fiction, young adult, and romance. Until Pam finds me in the cozy mystery aisle—probably the most serialized shelf in the shop and the one I should’ve sorted first—and asks, “Shouldn’t you have left already to go pick up the kids, like, ten minutes ago?”

I stare at my watch and panic. “Oh my gosh, you’re right.”

I scramble to my feet and rush around the shop to collect all my belongings: my bag, Bram’s bag, coat, car keys… Just as I’m heading for the door, Pam calls after me, “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

I stare at her with an interrogative expression, and she turns her gaze toward the office.

“Was I supposed to do something before I left, do I have to sign an order?”

“No,” Pam says. “The baby, you’re forgetting the baby.”

“Bram!”

Thankfully, I’ve put him to sleep directly in his car seat, anticipating he’d still be sleeping when I had to leave. I grab the plastic handle of the seat and, loaded like a mule, I trudge toward the car. At least it’s stopped raining and there’s no traffic in our small town, so I arrive at Will and Jo’s schools on time. In the car, on the way home, Jo is awfully quiet.

I check on her repeatedly in the rearview mirror, but her expression stubbornly remains the same: slight pout, arms crossed over her chest, gaze lost out the window.

“Jo, is something the matter? Bad day at school?”

Our eyes meet in the mirror. “No, I’m fine.”

“You seem a little… um… preoccupied.”

“Of course, I’m preoccupied, Mom. Mrs. Silvermore screwed up my plans for the Art Fair.”

“First off, language, young lady,” I say. And never in a million years would I’ve thought such a phrase could exit my mouth. I’m such a mom. “And how come she ruined your idea?”

“I had this entire fairy tale theme planned in my head. I wanted to build an enchanted forest with a white horse and Prince Charming and Snow White and the dwarfs and all the animals… it would’ve been wonderful.”

“And why can’t you make it?”

“Because Mrs. Silvermore decided this year, we’re not going to have a simple art fair, but a science-art fair, and we must incorporate something scientific in our projects. And let me tell you, Mom, there’s nothing scientific about fairy tales. Is there?”

“I can’t think of anything off the top of my head, but I’m sure we can find something artistic, fairy-tale related, that is also scientific.”

“Can we, Mom, really?”

We’d better.

At home, the house smells delicious, and I almost collapse with relief when I find Sam behind the stove intent on making dinner. The kids—those who already walk—rush toward him and each grab one of his legs, screaming, “Daddy!”

I’m much slower with Bram in my arms and the two million bags I had to get off the car, but I soon catch up and hug him, too. He looks adorable with a silly “stand back, Dad is cooking” apron.

Sam gives me a long kiss and then kisses the top of Bram’s head.

“Smells delicious,” I say. “What are you making?”

“Tacos.”

My stomach growls in anticipation. “Come on, kids, let go of Daddy’s legs so he can finish making tacos.”

They reluctantly do, but before we go upstairs for baths and to change, Will stares up at Sam. “I missed you at breakfast today, Dad.”

Sam ruffles his hair and squats down to pick Will up. “And I missed you, too. But I had a sudden inspiration, and I had to go to the studio to sketch.”

“And how did it go?” I ask.

“Oh, Charlie Bear, it was unbelievable. I drew all day. I didn’t even stop for lunch and I had to quit only because my hands were cramping too bad.” His eyes lit up. “The new spa will be amazing. I have this whole River Gods garden design in mind. It’s going to be my best work to date.”

“You say that every time.”

“It’s what we artists have to tell ourselves to keep going, that our next project will be our best.” Sam drops Will to the floor and grabs a wooden spoon to stir the vegetables.

“What about you, Charlie Bear, how was your day?”

“Eh,” I say. “Different.”

One last stir and Sam turns to give me undivided attention. “Good different or bad different?”

“Weird different. Jackie came to visit me.”

“Jackie? Do we know any Jackies?”

“Marley?” I specify.

Sam frowns. “What did she want?”

I tell him about the release party and my refusal.

“Did she get nasty when you said no?” Sam asks. “I never liked that gal.”

“Not too openly, but she treated me with contempt like I was a nobody and she acted like this big-shot business woman.”

Sam hugs me, pressing my head to his hard chest. “That woman might have all the millions in the world, Charlie Bear.” Sam cups my face and lifts my chin up to force me to look at him. “But what does it matter when she has no soul, no heart, no passion?” My heart beats faster because I can’t help thinking that’s what Sam would think of me if he met the real me, or more the old me. “That woman isn’t worth your pinky toe,” he concludes.

I bury my face into Sam’s neck, as I can’t stand the love and admiration I see in his warm eyes. My soul used to be as dark as Jackie’s, and I’m living this amazing life only because a much better version of myself died in a freak accident leaving behind three orphans. Then the universe decided they didn’t deserve to grow up without a mother or for Sam to become a widower at such a young age, and so the Christmas spirits scanned all the parallel dimensions for a worthless version of Caroline that no one would miss too much—or at all—and they picked me! Well, Universe, thank you. I got a second chance and I’m not about to waste it.

I kiss Sam one last time and ask Jo and Will to please follow me upstairs. After quick baths and outfit changes, we wait for dinner to be ready in the basement—aka the kids’ playroom. First, I set Bram down on his play gym to roll and experiment with the dangling, stimulating bits. One kid sorted, I grab a handful of books from the shelves and ask Will to build me a bridge—he gets to work immediately. And finally, keeping two heavy hardcovers for myself, I scoop Jo up and sit her on my lap, ignoring her protests that she’s too grown-up for this.

“Do you want to help me find a scientific fairy tale or not?”

She quits trying to escape me and eyes the books in my hands. “What are these?”

“The original fairy tales,” I say. “Hans Christian Andersen and the Grimm brothers, if we can’t find something here, then we’re screwed.”

“Language, old lady,” Jo reprimands me.

I tickle her in response. “Who did you call an old lady?”

Giggles over, I open the first book, shuffle a few pages, and stop on the tale of Little Red Riding Hood.

“How about this one?” I ask Jo. “If the wolf eats grandma, can we explore the wolves’ digestive system?”

“Ew, Mom, that’s like the worst idea ever.”

I kiss her temple. “Perhaps you’re right. Let’s see if we can find something a little more romantic.”

By the time dinner is ready, Jo and I have settled on creating an ocean project with mermaids with a scientific explanation of how sea-foam forms. Decomposed algae aren’t much more romantic than wolves’ digestive apparatus, but at least we’ll have pretty fish and mermaids. In the time it took us to settle on this project, Will has built a spectacular bridge with six widthways, and Bram has rolled left, right, blabbed nonsense, and worked on developing his motor skills.

The tacos taste as good as they smell, and Sam even offers to do the dishes and watch over a sleeping Bram while I put the older kids to bed.

Two bedtime stories later, I stroll the upstairs hall picking up the kids’ shoes, stray clothes, the cat toys, half-full cups of nighttime water, miscellaneous school supplies, and other random rubble. Then, I change the cat litter, pack up Jo and Will’s backpacks, and don’t have the energy left to even watch TV on the couch with Sam. I’d fall asleep within ten minutes and then resent having to walk back up the stairs to go to bed. I brush my teeth and when I can’t find my phone charger, I don’t bother to go search for it downstairs, I simply open Sam’s nightstand drawer to steal his—and find my Christmas present for him instead: the engraved stone.

I put on a heavy robe and walk out onto the balcony, cradling the stone in my hands, thinking.

When I’m ready to get back into the bedroom, I find Sam already tucked in bed. The hubby is reading a book—one of his high fantasy tomes that he still refuses to read in electronic format. Why? I mean the weight alone. But he claims he needs to feel the weight of the book in his hands and the grain of the paper under his fingertips.

“All that creativeness got yah, uh?” I say, upon seeing him in bed before nine. I drop the stone on the chest of drawers and get rid of the robe to steal Sam’s white T-shirt from the chair where he’s left it. The cotton is warm but smells too soapy for him to have worn it all day.

I give another, more theatrical sniff, asking, “What’s this? And where’s your real T-shirt?”

He drops the tome and looks up at me, laughing at being caught. “The one I wore at the studio had to go, but that one cooked dinner with me.”

I pull the T-shirt on and bring the stone to bed, scooting under the covers with him.

“Are you too tired to talk?” I ask.

Sam sets the book on the nightstand and turns to me. “Should I worry?”

“No,” I say. “It’s going to be a good talk.”

He smiles. “Then fire.”

Without speaking, I give him the stone.

His eyes go wide. “What’s this?”

“It’s a yes,” I say. “Written in stone.”

“You mean you—?”

I nod. “I want to know what it’s like to be pregnant, to feel the baby’s first kick. As crazy as it sounds, I also want to experience childbirth and what it’s like to hold a baby in my arms for the first time… Sam, I want to have another baby.”

Sam is so choked up, he looks like he’s about to cry.

“Now, now, don’t get all soppy or I’ll have to tickle you.”

He closes the distance between us and pulls me into a bear hug. Tight, intense, and filled with love.

The hugging turns from pure to not-so-innocent. Sam’s hands slide down my thighs, then he grabs me by the hips and scoots me closer still. “I know it’s too soon, but I should keep my baby-making skills in perfect form for when the time comes to really try.”

I smile. “Mmm, you’re right, we wouldn’t want you out of practice.” And no matter that I was bone-tired half an hour ago, when Sam looks at me the way he is now, he could resuscitate me from the dead.

His fingers have already found the elastic band of my underwear when the bedroom door opens and Will walks in, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

“We have a visitor,” I whisper in Sam’s ear, and his hands quickly return above the covers.

“What’s up, sweetie?” I ask Will.

“Mom, I just remembered I forgot to give you a good night kiss,” Will says, coming toward the bed.

“Are you sure?” I ask while he scoots into my arms. “Because I remember you gave me one just before your bedtime story.”

Will shakes his head. “No, I didn’t.”

I caress the hair away from his forehead. “This isn’t about you having a bad dream about a fish with legs waiting for you in the dark and wanting to sleep in the big bed with us?”

Since he saw a commercial on the Chinese New Year’s parade where the traditional dragon—the fish with legs—was sauntering down the street, he’s been having nightmares.

Will wraps his arms around my neck and hides his face in my hair. “Can I sleep with you, Mommy?” he whispers.

I look up at Sam, who gives me a “Your call,” eyebrow raise with a little side note of “but you know if you say yes tonight, he’s going to want to sleep with us for the next two years.”

Sam has a point, but I don’t care. My child is scared of the dark, no way I’m sending him back to his room to sleep alone.

“Of course, you can stay,” I say, hugging him closer to my chest.

Sam shakes his head benevolently and gives me a kiss on the forehead. “I love you. And I love you, too, little guy.”

***

As predicted, Will ends up sleeping with us for the rest of the week. And while sleeping with Will in my arms has been a treat for me, he can’t go on being afraid of the dark.

Sam and I came up with a plan to cure his fear that we set in motion over breakfast on Saturday.

Sam is at the stove flipping pancakes he then piles on a plate. I tried to make those once, but my first attempt was bad enough for me to give up ever trying again. I suppress a smile as I remember the morning I put the batter in the blender because it looked like the closest thing we had in the kitchen to a mixer and it exploded on me, splattering half the batter on myself, the walls, the cat, and all three miniature humans. The other half of the batter, I miserably burnt. The kids ended up sticky and dirty and with no food. I had to bring them to I-Hop as a consolation. After that experience, everyone agreed I shouldn’t make pancakes from scratch ever again. Plus, my husband looks so hot as he flips the spatula with the same flare of a professional chef, it’d be a crime not to make him cook even if the final product wasn’t as delicious as his pancakes are going to be.

Sam throws the last one on the pile and sits at the kitchen island with us, doling out pancakes and maple syrup.

Once everyone has had a bite, Sam gives me a curt nod, which I return, and turns to Will. “Little man, what do you say we take a trip just us boys, spend a little father-son time together?”

Jo replies before Will has even had time to understand what he’s been asked. “That’s so misogynistic, Dad.”

Sam boggles his eyes at me as if to ask if that’s standard vocabulary for a seven-year-old. I shrug and lean in to whisper in Jo’s ear the real reason her dad has to go on a solo trip with Will.

Jo rolls her eyes, whispering back, “He’s such a baby. I’ve never been afraid of the dark, not even when I was his age.”

My heart pangs a little as I don’t know whether her affirmation is true. Once again, I mourn the fact I’ll never experience Jo’s toddler years. How tiny she must’ve felt in my arms when she was a newborn, or how sweet her kisses must’ve been when she wasn’t grown-up enough to measure them out. Then I consider the alternative I narrowly escaped—a life where Jo, Will, and Bram don’t exist and where I haven’t seen Sam in seven years—and my heart beats even faster. Part dread, part anxiety, mostly relief. And finally, my heart expands with joy, remembering the decision to try for another baby Sam and I made last night. I have nothing to complain about, I should count my blessings.

While I’ve been busy having a mini freak-out, Sam has convinced Will to go with him to the Chinese New Year celebration in the city. The plan is to make Will see that the fish with legs is actually a dragon costume with a bunch of people walking underneath it and thus exorcise his fear.

I cut another bite of pancake, twirl it in the syrup puddle on my plate until it’s soaked, and put the sugar bomb in my mouth. Gosh, it’s perfect. Fluffy, not soggy. Sweet, but not overly so. Pancake perfection.

I close my eyes and moan. Sam, who’s probably as eager for a little intimacy as I am after a week with Will in our bed, grins at me and gives me a little wink that promises tonight, once Will is back in his room, he’s going to let me see fireworks brighter than whatever the Chinese are planning downtown.

And if I had to capture happiness in a moment, this would be it. A simple family breakfast with my husband and my kids and the promise of endless more breakfasts just like this one.

I, Caroline Wilkins, am incontrovertibly, disgustingly happy.