by Cathie Linz
The woman stared at him in surprise. “But you said there was no way you’d tie yourself down with the chains of matrimony. Why, just a few weeks ago, you were bragging that the woman hadn’t been born who could make you give up your independence.”
“I changed my mind,” he muttered.
Raising an eyebrow at her new husband, Brett said, “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your little friend, Michael?”
Brett hoped she didn’t sound as jealous as she felt. The woman was gorgeous, not a hair out of place, her nails done to perfection. Her outfit was perfectly accessorized.
And then there was Brett—in her trademark black leggings and the blue sweater that was almost as old as she was. Her nails had no polish, and working on replacing Consuela and Freida’s shower head the day before had resulted in her ripping the only decent-looking nail she’d had left. She’d forgotten to put on lipstick when they’d left the apartment this morning, a perennial shortcoming of hers. One of many. Her only jewelry was her wedding ring and a no-nonsense watch. Oh, and a pair of silver Christmastree earrings in her ears. Hardly the picture of sophistication.
“Brett, this is…”
“Adrienne,” the perfect woman said with a smile that could have graced any toothpaste ad. “And you are?”
“Michael’s wife.” Brett deliberately made a show out of using her left hand, with its wedding band, to brush her bangs away from her eyes. Next to flashing the ring under Adrienne’s nose, it was as close as she could get to flaunting the fact that she was married.
“And when was the happy event, Mike?” Adrienne asked. “None of your friends seem to know about it.”
“We had a private ceremony,” Michael said.
Adrienne raised her brows, then gave Brett the once-over before nodding her head understandingly as if to say Yes, I can see why you wouldn’t want any of your friends knowing you’d married this shoddy-looking woman. Aloud she merely said, “I can’t believe you’re married.”
“Believe it,” Brett replied in a no-nonsense voice.
Michael put his free arm around her as if to restrain her from punching Adrienne’s lights out. “We’re holding up the line. We’d better be moving on.”
Moving on? He’d probably done that a lot with the women in his past, Brett thought sourly.
“I’ll give you a call after the holidays and we’ll get together. With the rest of your friends. A party. You can come, too, if you’d like, Bitsy,” Adrienne said in a patronizing voice.
Brett’s temper flared at the other woman’s blatant rudeness. “The name is Brett, lady, and what I’d like to do is…”
“Move on,” Michael hurriedly inserted. “That’s what ‘ we’d like to do. See you.” Taking Brett by the arm, he moved around the corner to the next row of trees.
“We’re changing our phone number,” Brett declared the moment Adrienne was gone.
“I only dated the woman once.”
“Is that all you did with her? Date her?”
“Yes.”
“You two were never…you know.” Brett wiggled her hand.
“No, we were never…you know,” he said, teasingly repeating her words and hand gesture.
Two trees down the row, Brett spoke again. “She called you Mike.”
“A two-syllable name is too long for Adrienne to manage,” he stated dryly.
Brett grinned and smacked his arm. Hope, thinking they were playing a game, chortled in delight and smacked him in the jaw in the process.
“Ow! The two women in my life are ganging up on me,” Michael grumbled.
His comment didn’t distract Brett from the matter at hand. “If you had such a low opinion of Adrienne, then why did you ask her out?”
“I didn’t. She asked me.”
“Then why did you say yes?”
“I was dumber then.”
“Dumber, huh?”
He nodded.
“I suppose that’s as good an excuse as any,” she allowed.
As a rowdy bunch of teenagers pushed by, Michael protectively drew Brett closer, his arm shielding her from the rest of the world. “I have better taste now,” he whispered in Brett’s ear, leaving her wishing he’d nibble her earlobe while he was there.
“Not everyone would agree with you on that,” she breathlessly replied.
“More fools they,” he murmured before releasing her.
As the family gathered together around Michael’s parents’ Christmas tree, Brett lifted her glass for a toast.
“Egészégére!” Konrad said, clinking his shot glass with those held by the rest of the family.
Brett couldn’t even attempt to repeat that toast so she gave one of her own. “Salut!”
Copying their actions, she drank the shot glass full of clear, cold liquid in one gulp.
“It’s not as good as hdzi pálinka… homemade pálinka,” Konrad partially translated. “But this will do.”
“Whaaa…whaaat is this?” Brett gasped when she finally got her voice back.
“Pear brandy,” Michael replied, rubbing his hand on her back. “You okay?”
“Sure,” she said, wondering why her voice sounded like Lauren Bacall’s all of a sudden. “I didn’t need those vocal cords anyway.”
“I guess pálinka can be a little overpowering at first,”
Michael acknowledged.
“Dylan claims our entire family is a little overpowering at first,” Gaylynn noted with a grin.
“Dylan is my younger brother,” Michael explained for Brett’s benefit. “He’s the rolling stone in the family.”
“He called earlier today,” Maria said. “He’s in New Mexico, I think he said.”
“I got a card from him two weeks ago,” Michael stated.
“Did you get a Christmas card from your friend Hunter Davis down in North Carolina?” Gaylynn casually asked her brother.
“Yeah, I did. He’s easier to keep track of than Dylan. That postcard I got from our baby brother was from Oklahoma, not New Mexico.”
“I don’t think that boy will ever settle down,” Maria said with a shake of her head.
“And I don’t think we’re going to have time to open our presents before dinner if we don’t hurry up and get started,” Gaylynn pointed out.
“Oh, you,” her mother said with a laughing wave of her hand. “You were always the impatient one. You were even born three weeks early.”
“Now, Mama, Brett doesn’t want to hear about my baby stories. Right, Brett?”
Brett just shrugged her shoulders and rubbed her throat.
“Good time to lose your voice,” Michael said approv ingly. “Don’t let my sister get you into trouble.”
“I can get into trouble all by myself,” Brett couldn’t resist retorting.
“Time to open presents,” Konrad declared with a clap of his hands. After saying a short prayer, he reached down under the tree for a gaily wrapped present. “Here’s one for you, Brett.”
Brett had never opened presents so early before. It wasn’t even dark yet, but Michael had explained that dinner began as soon as the first star gleamed in the sky and presents were always opened before Christmas dinner at his parents’ house.
Hope was sitting in her bounce chair, squealing with excitement as wrapping paper flew in all directions. Seconds later Brett sat speechless at the beautifully embroidered red vest in her lap.
“Do you like it?” Maria asked.
Brett nodded.
“Good.”
“Red brings good luck,” Konrad told her. “Open this one next,” he added, handing her a smaller package.
Inside this one was a tiny vest for Hope, also in red. “It’s a mother-daughter set,” Maria explained. “I made them before Gaylynn’s birth. Now I want you and Hope to have them.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Brett whispered.
Maria patted her on the shoulder understandingly. “Let’s see if it fits Hope, shall we?”
Of course the little ve
st looked adorable on her.
“Wait, there’s a present I got myself that I need to open before we begin,” Michael said, opening a square box under the tree. It was a video camera, already loaded with tape and ready to go. Of course, he’d tried it out ahead of time, not wanting to look like a dummy, so now he was able to catch the festivities on tape.
Then everyone started opening presents in rotation so that each could ooh and aah over the goodies received. Brett had bought Michael the one thing he’d told her he needed—a new shirt. She’d gotten him something else, but had chickened out on giving him the black silk boxer shorts at the last minute. Ten minutes later she was stunned to see them in a box he’d just opened.
“Where did those come from?” she asked in a croaky voice.
“The ticket says they’re from you.”
For a brief second the option of denying any knowledge flashed through her mind. Indeed, she had no idea how they’d gotten under the tree. Granted, she’d rushed around in a hurry wrapping stuff this morning, but she could have sworn she’d left those wickedly rich shorts in the bag to be returned. She’d seen them in that specialty lingerie shop Keisha’s sister worked at, and had immediately pictured Michael wearing them.
“Are they from you?” Michael asked.
“Yeah,” she said, her chin lifting defensively.
“Thanks,” he murmured, his eyes alight with a naughty gleam that would have done any Gypsy pirate proud. “You ready to open my present for you now?”
Not trusting herself to speak, since her tongue felt as if it would trip over itself if she did, she merely nodded before taking the small box he handed her.
“It’s small to be a hammer,” she noted teasingly.
“I wouldn’t say that,” he replied as she opened the velvet box to find a tiny gold hammer hanging from a serpentine chain. “Do you like it?” he prompted when she just stared at it.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered. “Thank you.” She gave him a quick hug, not wanting to embarrass him by showing too much affection in front of his family.
“The first star is almost out,” Konrad declared. “We’d better finish up here so we can start dinner.”
Michael took a final shot of Hope with her head covered with bows from the presents they’d unwrapped before the entire family sat down to an abundant although meatless meal. They had cabbage soup to start, followed by fish, noodles, fresh vegetables and twisted Christmas bread. For dessert they had cakes shaped like horseshoes—for good luck—and filled with poppy seeds.
“The two mainstays of Hungarian cooking are paprika and poppy seeds,” Michael was kiddingly saying.
“Hungarian paprika is good for you,” his mother retorted. “It has lots of vitamin C.”
“vitamin C having, in fact, been discovered by a Hungarian scientist,” Gaylynn inserted.
“You can tell my sister’s a teacher,” Michael said. “Always showing off her superior brain.”
Gaylynn responded by tossing her napkin at him.
“Children!” Maria clucked her tongue disapprovingly. “Behave at the table. Little Hope has better manners.”
“You haven’t seen her with a jar of strained carrots,” Michael said. “It’s not a pretty picture.”
“I should get out the picture of you as a baby. The one with your entire face and hair smeared full of butter.”
Michael frowned. “No, you shouldn’t get that picture out, Mom. I think I burned it last time you got it out.”
“Not the negative,” Gaylynn retorted.
“She’s got one of you naked on the rug,” Michael reminded his sister.
Watching the good-natured squabbling, Brett delighted in the feeling of being part of a family. With Hope in a high chair beside her, and Michael seated on her other side, Brett felt truly blessed. Even though it wasn’t white, the earlier snow having melted and no more having fallen, this was the best Christmas she’d ever had.
And it wasn’t over yet. After dinner, they all rang carols while Maria played the piano. Michael had a beautiful voice, as did his father, although they both laughed about how Dylan couldn’t hold a tune to save his life.
“The priest even asked him not to sing while in church, but to just mouth the words,” Konrad recalled as they prepared to head for midnight services.
Brett was talking to Maria when Gaylynn took Michael aside and said, “Here I thought I was the fearless one in the family, yet you’re the one who jumps right into marriage. But having met Brett, I can see why. I like her, big brother. You did good for once.”
“I’m so glad you approve,” he retorted mockingly.
“I thought you would be,” Gaylynn shot back with a grin. “Merry Christmas,” she added before giving him a hug.
He gave her one of his trademark bear hugs in return. “Merry Christmas, kiddo.”
It was only when Michael got back to his own place that he remembered that he never had gotten around to finding the Rom box and his dad never had gotten around to telling him more stories about it.
Brett restlessly tossed in bed, wanting to wake up but unable to. She was having a nightmare, and try as she could, she couldn’t escape its slumberous clutches. In her dream she and Michael and Hope were gathered under a Christmas tree, celebrating the holidays. Everything had been perfect. Then someone walked into the room and took the baby from her arms.
“That’s not your baby,” the woman had screamed at Brett. “She’s mine! Not yours. Mine! Not yours. Mine!”
The words kept repeating themselves.
Brett tried to call out, tried to reach out to Hope.tried to move…but she was frozen in place, a scream lodged in her throat.
“N-n-n-o-o-o-o!!!”
The sound of her own voice finally woke Brett.
A second later, Michael burst into her room, wearing nothing but the black silk boxer shorts Brett had given him for Christmas.
Eight
Sitting beside her on the bed, Michael whispered her name as he took her in his arms. Brett rested her face against his bare shoulder, her heart racing with fear from the aftermath of the vivid nightmare as she gasped for breath.
“Shh, love. It’ll be okay,” he murmured reassuringly, threading his fingers through her hair. “It was just a dream.”
“But it seemed so real,” she whispered.
“What did, love? What were you dreaming that was so bad?”
“She took Hope away.”
“Who did?” he asked, rubbed his thumb across her nape. With every gentle stroke he comforted and aroused her at the same time.
“I don’t know. Some woman. We were sitting next to the Christmas tree and I was so happy. She said Hope was hers. I didn’t recognize her but she took Hope from my arms. She took her away!”
“Shh. Hope is right in her crib. Look.” He leaned away so Brett could get a clear line of vision to the sleeping baby.
Seeing her, Brett felt both relieved and silly for having overreacted to what was, after all, just a bad dream. She’d had them before while growing up. Plenty of them. So many, in fact, that she’d frequently been reprimanded. Don’t be a nuisance, Brett. The words echoed in her head.
Here she was doing it again, being a nuisance—waking Michael in the middle of the night and almost waking the baby as well.
She pulled away from his embrace. Lifting her hand to her face, she found it still damp from the tears she’d shed while sleeping. “I’m sorry.” Self-consciously, she wiped her cheeks with her trembling fingers. “I didn’t mean to wake you up. Go back to bed. I’ll be fine now. Please, go back to bed.”
Michael had no intention of leaving her. “Scoot over,” he said.
She automatically did so, before thinking to question his actions. “What are you doing?”
Lifting the covers, he joined her in the twin bed, pulling the bedclothes back around them. Gently easing her into his embrace, he matter-of-factly settled her against him, spoon-fashion. “Go back to sleep,” he whispered against h
er ear. “I’ll be right here.”
“I can’t sleep with you here.”
“Sure you can.” He shifted his arm so that it rested around her waist, making sure to keep his hand away from her breasts. And then he started telling her about the Christmases he and his family had shared over the years. He was deliberately using a soothing monotone intended to put her at ease and put her back to sleep.
Only when he felt her relax and heard the even breathing that told him she was asleep, only then did he lightly kiss the vulnerable pale skin at her nape. “You’re not alone anymore,” he told her. “And you never will be again.”
“I never heard of Boxing Day before, but now that I have, I think I could get used to the idea,” Keisha was telling Brett the day after Christmas as the two women stood near the buffet table laden with food.
“I read about Boxing Day when I was a kid visiting the Christmas Around the World exhibit at the museum,” Brett said as she nibbled on a pfeffernüsse cookie Frieda had brought.
“They still do that? I went there on a field trip from grade school one time.”
“Yeah, they still do that. Michael, Hope and I went last week. Anyway, once I was on my own I started having a Boxing Day party the day after Christmas. It’s a great way to share leftovers.”
“You got that right,” Keisha agreed, sampling more of Consuela’s salsa. “It was nice of you to invite all the tenants.”
“I just hope Michael thinks so. I issued the invitation when I still had my own place.”
“Which is now empty. Does Michael plan on renting it out to someone else now?”
“I don’t know. We haven’t had time to talk about it. Listen, before I forget, I wanted to tell you that I’m delighted that Tyrone was able to make it here today. Finally I get to meet him after just hearing about him.”
“He’s mighty fine, isn’t he?” Keisha said proudly.
Brett nodded. In contrast to his outgoing and direct wife, Tyrone was quiet and more introverted. He seemed to be having a good time talking to Michael about the recent football play-off games.