Dare

by Allie Juliette Mousseau

He sets them down on the rich, cherry wood coffee table in front of the oversized couches.

  “I’m not shy.” Jake leans comfortably back into his seat with his hands behind his head—the epitome of relaxation. “Livie’s seen it all.”

  “Really?!” Will fires. “I don’t need that image in my mind.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that!” Jake laughs. “Idiot. I mean that she’s already seen all of my baby pictures. What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “Alright, alright, enough,” Suzanne says, taking it all in stride. “Piper, Kate and Sophie, you ladies will definitely want to get in close. Won’t want to miss this.”

  “Her first time here, you’re going to do this?” Josh feigns embarrassment.

  “Yes,” says his mother. “Now move out of the way so Sophie can sit next to me.”

  “Fine, I’ll be exiled with the rest of the guys, but I’m not going far. I have a feeling I’m going to have to defend myself.” Josh joins the guys who are now setting themselves on the furniture on the other side of the coffee table.

  Kate squeezes next to me with Piper on her other side. Suzanne sits beside me too, with Jules and Livie next to each other. I can tell those two are close.

  Josh positions himself directly across from me. He’s smiling, as if he approves of this activity. Sam, Will and Caleb, however, look somewhat mortified. Makes me wonder exactly what’s in these photos.

  “Does anyone need a drink before we get to storytelling?” Colt, Josh’s dad, asks. A couple people ask for refreshers. I’m amazed at these men.

  He disappears into the dining room. Everyone waits for him.

  Meanwhile, Sam and Will are conspiring together to snatch and grab the book they’re featured in.

  “I’m sure you were the most beautiful baby there ever was,” Piper says to Caleb adoringly.

  “Naw,” Jake laughs. “He had cauliflower ears as big as his face.”

  Everybody laughs, and I’m grateful for the tension release. Caleb stalks over to the couch to punch Jake in the shoulder, but Jake deflects it, and the two begin trying to monkey bump each other.

  I feel Josh’s eyes on me so I lift my gaze up, and sure enough, I was right. My heart flutters at the attention.

  “And here we go.” Colt passes around drinks and then takes a seat across from Suzanne.

  Suzanne opens the first book and reveals a gorgeous photograph of her and Colt from their wedding.

  Colt peers at it for a moment with the expression of a sweet memory on his face, then smiles at his wife. “Best day of my life.”

  “How long have you been together?” Piper asks. Piper’s naturally beautiful. She has long, flowing, auburn hair, wears almost no makeup and is dressed in jeans, pink cowboy boots and a pink checkered western style blouse.

  “Twenty-eight years,” Colt answers. “We’ve been inseparable since high school.”

  We all smile.

  “There I am, pregnant with Caleb. I carried him really low. My mom said she was sure it was going to be a boy,” Suzanne tells us.

  “Right, and your dad was convinced—” Colt begins.

  “It was a girl,” they finish together and laugh at the remembrance.

  “And there he is. Eight pounds, nine ounces,” Suzanne gushes. “He was perfect.”

  “Still am,” Caleb calls over his shoulder, he and Jake still at it.

  “This is my mom and dad.” Suzanne points to the photo of a couple that’s holding baby Caleb. “They both passed away several years ago.”

  “I’m sorry,” Kate says.

  “Thank you.” Suzanne smiles at the photo. “He passed first, and then she followed him a year later. They couldn’t stand to be apart.”

  I’m caught up. I gaze at the picture until Suzanne turns the page. I’ve never seen love like that. I look around the room and have a feeling most of them will have that same kind of love—timeless.

  I don’t dare bring my eyes to Josh. I feel like my thoughts are exposed. Do some people deserve love more than others? Did they live their lives in a certain way? Or were they especially good in a past life maybe? Why do some people have near-instant success and others work their fingers to the bone for a meager and hungry existence? I fall short of answers. But I can’t argue that true love doesn’t exist now, because these people are testaments that not only does it exist, but it thrives. I wonder what it must have been like, being raised by two people who loved each other—and you.

  “And here I am in the hospital, about to give birth to Josh,” Suzanne exclaims. In the photograph she’s lying on a hospital bed while Colt stands right next to her, holding her hand.

  Now I let my eyes fall on Josh. He smiles and shrugs.

  I shouldn’t make this about me. It isn’t about me at all. But their great wealth of love and joy reminds me all too acutely of my great poverty and pain.

  At the mention of Josh’s name, Charlie leaves her crayons and comes crawling up onto my lap. I hug her thankfully. She is all my love and joy.

  “Picture of Joshy?” she asks.

  At the same time, all of them coo out, “Aww” at the radiant cuteness of her saying Josh’s name.

  Josh ruffles her long, curly, unruly hair, which is the color of autumn wheat. “You want to see a picture of me when I was a baby?”

  She nods with glee.

  He turns the page to the sweetest photo of Colt holding Suzanne in his arms while she holds baby Josh. They’re looking at each other with such awe and amazement.

  I want the photo, to put it in my pocket and remember, when the world is at its worst, that somewhere there is something very good.

  They belong to each other in a way I’ve only ever imagined.

  This entire family belongs together.

  “I love Joshy,” Charlie declares. Then she bends and leans forward in my arms and kisses Josh’s picture.

  Everyone thinks she’s adorable, but my own fear creeps in, and I wonder what the hell I’m doing and what I’ve gotten us into.

  *****

  Christmas Eve dinner is spectacular. There is pineapple ham, roasted turkey and every side dish and dessert imaginable. I know I’m going to gain ten pounds.

  “Give me your hand,” Livie, who got seated next to me, says and puts my hand on her tummy.

  In a moment I feel the little kick. We both grin ear to ear.

  “I loved that feeling, maybe more than any other in the world,” I confess.

  “Oh! Jules and I are going to have to grill you about labor and childbirth!” Livie exclaims enthusiastically, as if maybe I’m an expert or something.

  “I’m not a guru,” I say, disqualifying myself.

  “Are you kidding? You have experience!” she insists.

  My experience won’t be anything like hers. “Sure.”

  Jules is all over it. “Ha! Great. Let’s help clean up, then we’ll take her away for a little girl time.”

  “Mommy, I’m sleepy.” Charlie swipes mashed potato crusted fingers across her eyes.

  “No, no don’t.”

  My warning is too late. She begins crying as the salt in the potatoes starts to sting. And of course, she presses more potatoes into her eyes, trying to rid herself of the first offense.

  “I’m sorry. It’s getting late for her.” I stand and pick her up against me, dabbing at her eyes with a moistened napkin.

  “I’ll show you to our room.” Josh jumps up and helps get my chair out of the way.

  Our room? “Thank you.” Poker face.

  As I take the lead from the dining room, I grip the handle of Charlie’s day bag to bring with me.

  “I can get that,” Josh offers.

  “Thanks, I’ve got it.”

  He draws his eyebrows together, but doesn’t argue. He shows me up the stairs.

  More than ever, I feel guarded. Charlie kissing his photo and announcing that she loves him scares me to the core. He’s just another person to hurt her, to leave us. Josh says he loves me, loves us. He might
not when he learns where I come from. What I’ve done.

  “This is the room my mom prepped for us.” He opens a door and turns on the light.

  It’s exquisite. A large, four post canopy bed is set near a set of glass French doors that overlook a prairie that sprawls for miles in every direction. A small, pink princess bed sits close to the adult bed.

  “Mommy!” Charlie forgets about the potato problem and wriggles out from my arms to throw herself on the little, just-her-size bed.

  “My mom likes making homey, feel good touches like this. Hope that’s okay,” Josh tells me.

  He’s sensing the change in my countenance. “It’s beautiful.”

  “She really can’t wait to be a grandmother,” he explains, shifting from one foot to the other.

  “She’ll make a wonderful grandmother,” I agree.

  “What’s a granmudder?” Charlie rolls on the bed.

  A strange expression crosses Josh’s face, and I rush to deflect the conversation. “Charlie, we have to get you out of those dirty clothes before you can get into the nice, clean bed. You know that.”

  But Josh is still studying me carefully. Perfect, more unanswered questions to avoid.

  I see the bathroom off to the side of the room. “I’m just going to clean her up,” I say. “Please don’t let me keep you from your family. I’ll catch up with you once I get her to sleep.”

  “Let me help you.” Josh opens the bag and begins to lay out her pajamas, her diaper and the books I packed for her—Mouse Paint and Goodnight Moon, her favorites.

  “Josh, I have this.” My tone snaps more than I mean it to.

  “Alright.” He nods then kneels, and Charlie leaps into his open arms.

  “Night night, Joshy.” She hugs him tight, and my heart constricts in my chest.

  “Night night, sweetheart.” Josh hugs her back and closes his eyes.

  I cover my mouth with my hand. I’m overcome and I don’t want him to see it.

  “Go wash your hands,” he tells her, and she runs to the bathroom sink.

  He swoops me into his arms. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” How did he stage this coup?

  “You have no poker face, scrapper.”

  “Come on, Josh.” I push him away. “I’ve had enough tonight.” Moving to my overnight bag, which Josh must have carried up here earlier, I toss it onto the bed so hard it bounces. I rip the zipper open and grab fistfuls of my stuff and throw them on the bed too.

  “I know that look in your eyes,” he says softly.

  “You don’t know anything,” I snap back.

  “Yes I do. It’s fear. And that’s all it is—a word, an emotion that will ruin everything good in your life.” Josh yanks his shirt off. “Fear quotes—you’ve read them all. I have these permanently inked into my skin for a reason, Sophie. I know fear intimately, in all its forms—pain, rage, jealousy, despair. It comes, and stays, and burrows and roots into your heart, darkens your soul with shadows you think will never go away. You can’t let it. You have to fight it and believe in the sun, even when it’s night and the fear has made you a coward, you have to reach in and dig deeper than you ever have and pull out the fortitude you don’t even think is there.”

  He takes my face in his hands. “You’re a fighter—I know it, I see it—just like me. I see you fight for her every moment you breathe.” He looks to Charlie, who is standing quietly, watching us.

  “Don’t give up.” He looks at me for a second more before he walks out of the room, leaving me standing there with his words running through my veins like insulin giving life to a diabetic.

  “Is Joshy mad?”

  “No, baby, Joshy isn’t mad. Let’s get in your jammies.” I take off her pretty, ruffled holiday dress, now stained with cranberry sauce and blueberry pie, wash her up with a warm soapy cloth and pull on her soft, flannel nightgown with the reindeer and snowmen on it.

  I tuck her into the pink princess bed. “You know I love you more than anything in the world.” I press my lips to her forehead, breathing in her beauty and love.

  “I love you, Mommy.” Her little hands fold around my neck, and I could cry from the sheer power of her unconditional love.

  Right then, Josh comes into the room and closes the door behind him. “I have a goodnight song to play for you.”

  Charlie smiles and snuggles deeper into her pillow.

  Josh taps the screen of his phone and sets it on the chest of drawers. The music begins to play and I immediately recognize the iconic song, “Fools Rush In.”

  He holds out his hand to me.

  I close my eyes, overcome with emotion.

  He pulls me into his chest and buries his fingers into my hair, singing the words to me while Charlie giggles from her bed.

  “I can’t help falling in love with you.”

  Wearily, I drop my head and take in his strength. I let him lead as he sways me gently, here in the guest room of his parents’ home on Christmas Eve, with Charlie watching us, full of innocent joy.

  “Love can get through anything. It finds a way.” Tenderly he brushes my cheek. “I know you’re bruised, Sophie. I see the broken. Let me fix it.”

  Before I know it, the song repeats, and we dance through it again.

  I won’t be the one to let go.

  *****

  “MOMMY! MOMMY, WAKE UP!”

  “Charlie, stop jumping on the bed,” I groan sleepily.

  “SANTA CAME!” She’s shaking me with all the power of a gale force wind.

  “He did!?” Josh crows next to me as if he’s already drunk a pot of coffee. “Let’s go see what he brought!”

  He bounces out of the bed like Tigger from Winnie the Pooh, and pulls on a t-shirt. He’s wearing green plaid flannel pajama bottoms.

  I sigh. Plaid never looked so good.

  He grabs my robe and holds it open for me. “Get it on, beautiful.”

  “Ha! I’m not going down there in my robe and pajamas. You’re lucky you get to see me like this. I have to brush my teeth, comb my hair, fix my makeup …”

  As I’m talking he rips the blankets off of me—luckily I’m wearing a pretty, but modest pajama set—and throws me over his shoulder!

  “What are you doing?!” I demand.

  “I know you’re not doing all that! We’ve got presents to open,” he says as he tries to get out the door.

  I get my hands up just in time and grip the doorway, my fingers like a vice. “You will let me at least brush my hair and fix my face,” I warn.

  “Hey, Sammy, could you give me a hand here,” Josh says like they’re going to move a table or something.

  “Of course,” Sam chirps back.

  Freaking morning people!

  Next thing I know, I feel Sam’s fingers assault my ribcage, the most ticklish place on my body.

  “NOOOO!” I howl.

  “We all have to go down just as we woke up, a mess. It’s tradition. Get used to it,” Sam lectures through his attack.

  I scream in a fit of laughter and have no choice but to release my grip.

  Josh pulls hard and fast so I can’t regain any leverage. “Stick close in case she gets any more ideas.”

  “No problem. Jake and I just had to go through it with Kate too. I don’t think she’s too happy with me, though. Unlike you, I forgot her robe.” Sam holds up a light blue bathrobe while wearing a Cheshire cat grin. “Hell, I think she looks better without it. But she wasn’t too thrilled about greeting everyone in her Victoria’s Secret camisole and short set.”

  He and Josh laugh, while Charlie tries to go down the steps as quickly and as carefully as possible.

  Josh lowers me onto the couch and covers me ceremoniously with the robe, lifting it high and letting it drop over me as if it were a blanket. Even over my head.

  “Thanks,” I mumble from beneath the cloth.

  Piper and Caleb wish us a Merry Christmas. They’re curled up together on the loveseat across from us.

  “Me
rry Christmas,” I say and realize I’m pretty happy.

  “Merry Christmas!” Jules and Livie come out of the kitchen carrying trays of delicious-looking, flaky turnovers and glasses of eggnog and begin passing them out to everyone.

  Nate turns on the stereo system, and Harry Connick Jr.’s “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” is playing.

  “Nate!” the guys all protest.

  “Get off my case! Christ, it’s the radio. What else do you think they’re going to play on Christmas?”

  “Don’t touch the dial, it’s my favorite,” Suzanne’s disembodied voice cautions from the kitchen.

  “Is this one mine?” Charlie is nearly screaming as she points to some seriously large gifts—several are bigger than she is. “IS THIS ONE MINE TOO?!”

  “We have to wait just another few minutes, sweetheart.”

  The only Christmases she’s ever known have been celebrated with just me. I would wrap two things I already owned, just so she could hand me something. I always tried hard to buy her at least three new things—usually a new set of clothes and two new toys. Last year, I was able to sign her up for Toys for Tots. This year, with her turning three years old, my new job and coming here for Christmas, I got her a couple extra presents. But five presents under a tree that looked like Paul Bunyan chopped it down and dragged it into the North’s house along with what could have easily been a couple hundred packages … well, I get the feeling she’s going to have some serious present envy.

  Everyone is filtering into the room, brightly saying good morning, hugging and kissing. Josh puts a cup of coffee into my hands and I’ve never been so thankful.

  I look up from under my lashes at him with grateful eyes. “I forgive you.”

  “Thank you,” he says and sits in a butterfly yoga pose on the floor in front of me.

  Kate walks over to the couch with coffee in hand and sits close to me, folding her legs underneath her. “I didn’t know about the tradition. Sam didn’t even let me wash my face,” she complains. She’s stunningly beautiful, with thick, long, blond hair the color of spun gold from a fairytale and ocean blue eyes.

  “Me neither,” I commiserate. “At least they gave us coffee.”

  “Yeah, I guess they’re redeemable,” she grumbles playfully.