Christmas Surprises

by Jenn Faulk

  "But she's not all that sweet," Taylor said. "Look, Micah. Rachel's lip is bleeding."

  Sure enough, Rachel could taste the blood. The dog probably could, too.

  Well, good grief. They'd adopted a miniature vampire dog. For Christmas!

  Happy birthday, Jesus. Look at what we got our children -- a tiny minion of Satan!

  Rachel scowled at the dog and looked at the blood on the tips of her fingers.

  "Yeah, that's an abrasion, not a puncture," Micah murmured, his thumb brushing against her lips. "You'll live."

  "Maybe I need a second opinion," Rachel muttered, "from an actual doctor."

  "It's your mouth," he said. "And a dog's teeth did it. Both my areas of expertise. Lips and teeth. You'd be selling yourself short if you saw anyone but a dentist for those problems."

  "Thank you, Dr. Johnson," she said, moving to the sink to wash her hands. "But it --"

  Before she could finish, all four adults heard the sound of a bed creaking and shrieking laughter, likely Mia joining Zoe in her bed, which meant if this was like every other day, both girls would be rushing out of their bedroom in five, four, three...

  "Hide the dog! Hide the dog!," Micah whispered, holding onto the little blood sucker and looking for some place to conceal her, pacing the kitchen frantically as Taylor and Joy followed him.

  "Micah, have Taylor and Joy take her to their room!," Rachel whispered.

  "She'll pee on our bed!," Joy hissed.

  "Take the puppy pads!," Micah hissed back, shoving the dog into Taylor's arms and grabbing one of the pet store bags to thrust into Joy's arms. "Go, go, go!"

  "We'll come relieve you in a bit! No pun intended!," Rachel called after them, just as Taylor and Joy disappeared down their hallway and Zoe and Mia appeared from theirs.

  "Merry Christmas Eve!," Micah shouted, rushing to the two girls, doing his best to distract them from the noise their aunt and uncle were making even as they climbed the stairs to their room.

  As Rachel watched Micah pick their squealing daughters up into his arms and twirl them around, she smiled again.

  This really was going to be the best Christmas ever.

  Natalie

  It was probably going to be the worst Christmas ever.

  She was likely making a mistake, bringing him to dinner like this without an explanation beforehand, but as he reached across the seat so as to hold her hand in his as he drove, she concluded that she didn't care if it was a mistake.

  Because she couldn't imagine spending Christmas without him.

  Oh, who was she kidding? It was already the best Christmas ever.

  "You're being so quiet," he noted, even as he raised her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers. "Worried that they'll hate me?"

  How could they hate him? She'd put off asking Rachel if she could bring him, waiting until the last minute this morning, before he would be coming by to have breakfast with her like they'd been doing for weeks now, merging their lives into one like they’d been doing.

  He knew she'd waited until the last minute because she told him everything. He also knew that she was nervous about finally telling her kids about the two of them because she told him everything. He even knew that she was wrestling over how honest she needed to be...

  He knew it all, because she told him everything.

  And because he was who he was, he was okay with it. He was so happy and so content in who they were, no matter what anyone else thought, that he was okay with it.

  How could anyone hate him?

  "Not at all," she said, releasing his hand so she could touch his cheek and trace the lines of his lips as he smiled, the diamonds from her new engagement ring shining back at her.

  Oh, surprise, kids. I'm dating again. Well, just one guy. And surprise again. I'm not really just dating him. We're engaged. Surprise, surprise, surprise...

  They weren't kids anymore, though. They were adults. Married adults, who knew the value of coming home to someone every night, of having someone to make a home with, someone to understand where you were and where you'd been.

  They'd understand.

  And if not? Well... who cared? They were grown and raised, and she wasn't living for them anymore.

  She was a horrible mother for feeling that way, likely, but the guilt wasn't great enough to stop her from leaning over and kissing his cheek, even as he drove.

  Just like she was seventeen... even though she was a grandmother now.

  God had been so good to her, in unexpectedly bringing this man right to her.

  "They'll love you like I do," she said softly, thinking about how it had all happened.

  She'd met him four months ago at her widows' group, of all places. It wasn't just for widows, obviously, although the majority of the group members were women, all in varying stages of their grief.

  She had been a widow for several years. The car accident that took Chris from her had been quick, the death he'd experienced almost instantaneous, and it had set the tone for the years that followed. She'd made quick decisions, quick transitions. Like Chris had gone from life to death, she went from one thing to the next, quickly and without much emotion. There was Joy to take care of, Micah to worry about, church to continue serving in, her career to pick back up after a couple of weeks away, and life to go on.

  She'd thrown herself into it all, allowing herself grief as she'd allowed herself time. For the most part, though, she'd not been alone with her grief, not until Joy had married and moved out. The days were lonelier, the nights were quieter, and Chris's loss was felt in a way it hadn't been felt before.

  She'd been seventeen when she met him. Seventeen. Young love, quickly followed by marriage and so many years together but not nearly enough. Then, widowhood, too young as well. Depression set in, and she had stayed there for a long while.

  It had been the grandchildren who had made her see the light. Well, not Mia and Zoe themselves, but Rachel, who after five years of being everything to them at home, announced that she was entering a new season, that she was going back to work now that the girls were in school, and that her life was about more than being just a wife and a mother.

  Natalie had listened to this, and in the back of her mind, her own voice had resonated with this, saying, and you?

  She was more than Chris's widow, more than Micah and Joy's mother, more than Mia and Zoe's grandmother. Life had ended with Chris. Faith and hope had become less about living every day for Christ and more about waiting for a day when she would see her love again, something she knew wasn't right, because she was longing for a person more than her Lord.

  She'd listened to Rachel's declaration and made one of her own.

  She was going to live again. It wasn't too late to climb her way out of the pit.

  So, she'd found a grief group at a large church near her own small church. Solid, Biblical answers about what she had experienced, hope for tomorrow, godly counsel, and affirming friendships from those who were there - she experienced it all and remembered what life was about and just who she was made to be.

  She had just begun to feel like she was right with the Lord again, that life wasn't over, and that she was still here for a reason.

  And then, she met Brian.

  He was a leader in the group, a pastor from yet another church, two years widowed and empty nested himself, the father of three daughters and the Pops of ten -- yes, ten -- grandchildren. Kind, compassionate, thoughtful, and completely and totally uninterested in ever finding romance again because he said he'd never love anyone the way he'd loved Lisa, his wife.

  It was that last part that Natalie most appreciated. Because he wasn't looking for anything and neither was she, they were both comfortable with the friendship that grew out of that group time, the nights they chatted with everyone else, the evenings they all looked through Scripture, and the countless times that their eyes met when they were in silent agreement over how well their grief had been articulated by one of the counselors.

  From
there, they had conversations alone, apart from the group. About Chris, about Lisa, about those daughters of his, about Micah and Joy, about the ten grandchildren, about the twins, about how life doesn't always turn out the way you want it to. About work, about being a pastor, about being a research engineer, about the triathlons he did, about the cooking that she enjoyed, about retirement, about travel, about the future.

  It wasn't long before their eyes would meet during the group time for a different reason entirely.

  Being wooed and won over at seventeen had been one thing, but having it happen when you were old enough to be a grandmother was another. Natalie could well remember the talk that had confirmed it all in her heart that fall. They'd each been on their way to the group and had pulled into the parking lot at the same time, both of them five minutes late.

  Instead of rushing in together, though, Brian had gotten out of his truck, paused for just a moment, and asked her, "Have you eaten dinner yet?"

  She had. A big dinner with Micah, Rachel, and the girls at Grant's restaurant.

  "No, not yet," she'd lied. Lying to a pastor. It made what she was about to do feel even more dangerous.

  Because she'd known what she was about to do, watching him watch her, knowing where this was going, letting it happen, and thanking God even as she questioned Him, wondering at how her heart could even take another risk after all that she'd been through.

  To love someone again, after you'd lost everything. To know that you would likely lose him, too, one day, and still having enough faith to embrace it all.

  Terrifying. Thrilling. And right. So right.

  The conversation had been easy as he'd driven her to a restaurant in his part of town, as they'd sat down together for the meal, and as he'd taken her to his church afterwards to show her around.

  "We have the same Scripture on the stained glass above the baptistry at my church," she'd noted as they'd walked through the sanctuary, as he'd told her about plans they had for expansion for a new building project that he was hesitant to start this close to retirement.

  "Do you?," he'd asked, and his eyes had been on her, not on the baptistry.

  "Yeah," she'd said softly, calm despite the awareness she was feeling at every movement he made, the way she wanted to giggle at that awareness because she wasn't seventeen anymore, obviously... "I mean, it's in Spanish. But it's the same."

  "You know," he'd said, "I've never understood something about your church."

  "Oh, what's that?," she'd asked, thinking about the many conversations they'd had about her home church, where she'd literally grown up, where her Uncle Josh was still pastor, and where she'd raised her family.

  "Was Chris bilingual?," Brian had asked. Oh, the way he'd said Chris's name, the way he always said Chris's name, like he knew him, really knew him, like her first love's memory wouldn't be lost in whatever this friendship was turning into.

  "He wasn't," she'd answered. "Bless his heart, he had taken German in high school, so he was completely lost the first time he visited church with me. New believer and all. I probably should have recommended another church to him or gone to another church with him, but Uncle Josh was so good for him, coming alongside him and discipling him. And once it was clear that we were going to marry one another, well... he wanted to learn for me. So I could stay at my church."

  And so he could whisper wonderfully sweet words into her ear at night once they were married, speaking to her heart and her body in both languages, so eager to love her and know her as fully as he could.

  She'd remembered that, standing there in another man's church... and for the first time since Chris's passing, the memory wasn't as debilitating as it had been only a few months earlier.

  Brian had smiled at this. "Smart man," he'd said. "Picking up a second language like that."

  "Well, he was young," she'd answered, thinking about just how young Chris had been, how young they'd both been. "New things are a whole lot easier when you're young and... well, stupid. You just do what you want to without overthinking it all, you know? Take risks, put yourself out there, just... do it and all."

  She'd nearly held her breath, accustomed to being honest with him after all this time, yet still amazed that she'd been brave enough to say this, knowing that he would understand just exactly what she was saying.

  "Yeah," he'd sighed, slight anxiety in his voice, too. "Most things are easier when you're younger. Take triathlons, for example. It's humbling to hear that the twenty year old guys have crossed the finish line before I can even get my running shoes on."

  She'd tried to imagine Brian competing, using his time out on the course to work through his own grief, and celebrating what God had brought him through at each and every finish line.

  Wow. She'd love to see him do that one day.

  "I'd like to see those guys try to beat your time in another thirty years, though," she'd said, smiling, encouragement in her tone. "Fastest in your age group, surely."

  "Yeah. The old man group. I'd settle for just being alive in thirty years," he'd noted, making her laugh.

  "We're not that old, are we, Brian?," she'd asked, anticipation rising as he'd watched her with admiration.

  "I don't think so," he'd murmured. "It's not too late for..."

  She'd shaken her head, knowing what he meant. "Not too late."

  And it hadn't been.

  Falling in love. Discovering that loving someone new didn't change the depth of love that you'd had before. It was like when Joy was born, how Natalie had worried that she wouldn't love her second-born the way she so fiercely loved Micah, her first-born, and how every worry of that had been completely wiped away when she'd laid eyes on her daughter. Not because the diagnosis was confirmed by her physical appearance, not because the doctors were even then checking things that they wouldn't check on most babies, and not because she'd felt a calm resignation in her heart that Joy would need her in a way that Micah wouldn't, even decades from that day... but because Chris had echoed her very thoughts, saying, with awed reverence in his voice, "Praise God, she is perfect."

  She had been. And Natalie had been so overcome, learning that love didn't have to be spread thin to include more children.

  It just multiplied.

  The same was true for Brian, who didn't take away from Chris's memory or the happiness she'd had with him. He only added to it, bringing his own past with him as well, both of them confirming, even in their grief and their new happiness... well, that Lisa would have liked Natalie and Chris would have been Brian's friend.

  It had been easy to love him. There was no guilt in the way it had progressed from that night on, as Brian had done it right, treating her like a real lady when she'd all but forgotten that she was a normal woman, needing affirmation that she was beautiful, that she could be appreciated for who she was, and that she could be desirable. Dates the likes of which she and Chris had never had as poor college students and quiet nights at home between two grownups who were comfortable in their own skin, having had a lifetime each to become who they were.

  She knew him. Really knew him, even after such a short while. So, there had been no second guessing when he'd gotten down on one knee, told her that she'd been a happiness he hadn't expected, and asked her to marry him.

  No second guessing until now as they drove towards Micah's house that afternoon. Not for her decision and her life but for how she was sharing it with her kids.

  "Whoa," Brian breathed, the house in view now. "Your son's house is huge."

  "He and Rachel have enough room for Joy and Taylor to live with them," she said, thinking about this part of Micah, this generous, protective side of him. Surely he would be just as gracious and benevolent with her guest, right? "And he does really well with his practice. New patients all the time. Do you need a dentist?"

  Brian grinned over at her. "Let me meet him first and feel out the mood before I sign myself up for that, okay?"

  She grinned at this as well. "He's a good guy," she murmured. "L
oves Jesus. Loves his family."

  "Loves his mother," Brian said. "Loved his father, too."

  Yes. This is what she was worried about. Brian understood it, though.

  He understood it all.

  Which is why he continued smiling, even as she slipped the engagement ring off her finger, put it back in the box it had come in, and tucked it away in her purse.

  One thing at a time. But she resolved that her kids would know it all by the time she left today.

  "You ready?," Brian asked.

  And even though they were in view of the house, she couldn't stop herself from leaning over, kissing him again, and saying, "Sure am."