All I Want for Christmas

by Jenn Faulk

  She leaned over and kissed him.

  “What’s that for?” he asked, holding her close for a moment as he returned her affection.

  “For being you.”

  Insufficient as an explanation, but he got her meaning all the same, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear.

  “Go on then.”

  She didn’t need to be told again. She got out quickly and made her way to the front door, ready to hug her brother, knowing that it had been too long since she’d been here, since he and Edie had been out to visit them in Louisiana –

  The front door flew open before she could even knock, and there stood Edie, smiling and glowing all at the same time.

  And she was showing, Lucy noted, joy coming to her heart as she took in the sight and evidence of her brother’s child, the next generation of Anderson men.

  What a joy.

  “Come in, come in!” Edie grinned, reaching out and hugging her, briefly, then pulling her into the house. “You’re early! I wasn’t expecting you or Hannah for another hour or so.”

  “We got an early start this morning,” Lucy said, sighing. “I couldn’t wait. I was too excited.” She put her hands right to Edie’s bump, not even stopping to ask permission. “When did this happen?!”

  “I know!” Edie laughed out loud. “The morning sickness disappeared, and this popped up in its place. Can you believe it?”

  Lucy could remember how it felt, what a joy it was when her pregnancy with Bethany had begun to show. She could remember how Jude had stood behind her as she stood in front of the mirror in their bathroom, right after she’d gotten out of the shower, how he’d slipped his arms around her, his hands fitting her changing body perfectly… right before she’d pulled away from him in a rush, kneeling in front of the toilet and throwing up everything she’d ever eaten.

  Ever. Years and years worth of vomit.

  “Yeah, that’s not how it was with Bethany,” Lucy said, remembering it. “I was sick the entire nine months…”

  And she felt queasy again, thinking about it. But that queasiness – the queasiness she was feeling now – was all about Tate, how she had so much to tell him –

  “Well, praise God for showing me mercy as far as that goes,” Edie grinned. “No more sickness for me. I’m feeling good enough to eat, like, two tons of food this Christmas. So hooray for that!”

  No wonder she was glowing. Lucy wished for a moment that she felt half as good as Edie appeared to be feeling.

  “Where’s Tate?” Lucy said, finally putting down her purse and looking around the small living room, walking down the hall, searching for her brother –

  The beginning strains of a loud song cut her off, though. Elvis music, of course, accompanied by the slam of the bedroom door opening wide and hitting the wall as the music piped through the speakers Tate must have wired into the small parsonage.

  He must have done that for Edie, of course. She loved Elvis music, and Tate must have wanted her to be able to hear it in every room in the house. How sweet.

  And speaking of Tate, there he was sauntering out in nothing but a pair of blue boxer briefs. Oh, and there was a Santa hat on his head, which he pushed up with a seductive wink towards his wife and an even more seductive roll of his hips, his attention solely on Edie as he began crooning, so much so that he completely missed Lucy standing there beyond the door he’d just come through, her mouth opened in dismay, her feet rooting her to the spot out of nothing but pure shock, even though everything in her was screaming that she needed to get out of here now, to keep from witnessing anymore of this.

  Tate started singing, completely oblivious. “I’ll uh have uh Blue Christmas –”

  Oh, good grief. She’d interrupted something. Something really weird and kinky –

  Just as she was trying to imagine a way that she could disappear to somewhere far, far away and bleach her eyes to remove these images that were likely forever scorched into her retinas now, Tate caught the look on Edie’s face (a warning look, even as she couldn’t keep from grinning at him) and finally turned around and saw his sister standing there.

  “Lucy!” he exclaimed, putting his hands in front of his crotch belatedly (as if that would help anything), before rushing back out of the room and slamming the bedroom door shut behind him.

  Neither woman said anything for a long, uncomfortable moment as the music came to a screeching stop.

  Finally, Edie sighed and shrugged towards Lucy.

  “Well, to be fair,” she said, “you’re early, so…”

  “Ugh…” Lucy managed, her nausea coming back with even greater gusto now.

  “It’s not weird,” Edie said reassuringly. “It’s perfectly normal. I mean, the Elvis impersonation thing is kind of weird, admittedly. But he doesn’t do that all the time we… well, you know.” She stopped for a second, thinking through this. “Well, he does it some of the time, Lucy, honestly, but you know –”

  “I threw up a little in my mouth just then,” Lucy said, her face bright red. “Edie, I’m so sorry. For a whole lot of reasons –”

  “Oh, please,” Edie said. “I have five brothers and sisters, and I can promise you that life with my family has always been just full of these kinds of TMI moments. Why should it be any different now that I’m married? We can just move on and forget this ever happened.”

  “Yes, please, let’s do that,” Lucy said, nodding, just as the front door opened back up again.

  “Merry Christmas!” Jude and Bethany yelled together as they came in with great enthusiasm, carrying the bags from the car, with Bethany still holding onto her lovey and wiping the sleep from her eyes.

  “Merry Christmas to you!” Edie said, going down on her knees and holding her arms open for Bethany, laughing with delight as her niece embraced her exuberantly.

  Lucy felt her heart tug a little at that. Bethany would miss out on these relationships here. But if they stayed in the US, she’d miss out on relationships with Jude’s family in Namibia, something that Lucy and Jude had talked about, prayed through, and long considered while making this decision.

  Either way, they would all miss out on something. But, Lucy reminded herself, she couldn’t focus on what they would miss out on, only what they would have, what God would do because they were being obedient to go where He was calling them, to go back to where they would raise their family…

  Family. They’d have family everywhere. Here, half a world away…

  Edie was still chatting with Bethany, holding the little girl in her arms, when Tate emerged from the bedroom, fully dressed again.

  Praise God.

  “Hey, Lucy,” he said with great resignation, hardly able to meet her eyes.

  “Hey, Tate,” she said, no longer as eager to hug him, unfortunately.

  “Lucy’s forgetting everything that happened,” Edie piped up, getting back up to her feet as Bethany, seeing Tate, ran towards her uncle with a squeal of glee.

  “Yes, I am,” Lucy said, her breath catching as Tate scooped Bethany up and twirled her around, making such a beautiful picture that she honestly did forget everything that had happened earlier, leaving room for nothing but this moment of sweetness. “Merry Christmas, Tate.”

  And without letting go of his niece, Tate reached an arm around his sister as well, pulling them both into his embrace. “The Botha girls,” he said, sighing contentedly. “I’ve been counting down the days, waiting for the two of you to get here. And Jude, of course.” He looked up and smiled at Jude. “Hey, man.”

  “Hey, there,” Jude said, just as Edie stepped up to him as well.

  “Gesende Kersfees,” Edie said, pulling him into a hug as well, using the Christmas greeting in Jude’s Afrikaans. “Merry Christmas, brother.”

  He was a brother to her now, just as Lucy was her sister. Edie would miss out, too –

  No, she had to stop thinking like this.

  Jude leaned over and kissed Edie on both cheeks. “I hope we didn’t come around too early,�
�� he said.

  “Caught Tate in his underwear, but other than that, no harm, no foul,” Edie said. “And you came a little early for lunch but right on time for brunch, provided by the some of the people in the church.”

  With that, she waved dramatically at all of the food set out before them.

  Ugh… Lucy could feel her stomach turning again as she took in the food, as she thought about eating…

  This stress was getting to her.

  “I can help you guys get your stuff to the guest room,” Tate said, seeing the bags that Jude carried, holding Bethany in one arm as he lifted up one of the bags that Jude had brought in with him. “We may have a little surprise for Bethany in there.”

  “Lead the way,” Jude said, carrying the rest of the luggage and winking at Lucy as he went by.

  As the two men went with Bethany down the hallway, Edie turned back to Lucy.

  “You look a little green, Lucy,” she said, studying her sister-in-law with some concern. “Still picturing Tate naked, huh?”

  “No,” Lucy said, grimacing. “My mind stopped me from going any farther with that. Praise the Lord.”

  “Not me,” Edie said quite frankly. “My mind had jumped way ahead to what was coming next.”

  “Ugh, well, no,” Lucy said, needing to forget those words now, too. “It’s the…” She indicated the food. “I’m feeling sick.”

  “You don’t think you have something, do you?” Edie asked. “A bug, a virus, a cold… the flu?”

  She saw Edie put her hand to her bump protectively.

  “We didn’t bring you the flu,” Lucy said reassuringly, emphatically. “I promise you that. We’ve all gotten our flu shots, and I have an elementary school teacher’s immunity, so I’m clean.”

  No, this stomachache was something else. Stress.

  “You’ve had it just today, huh?” Edie asked.

  “No, I’ve had it for a couple of weeks now,” Lucy said. Ever since she and Jude had officially decided on the move, telling Jude’s old pastor that he would be there to take the job as soon as they got all of their documents in order, their home in the States sold, and all of their things packed up.

  “A couple of weeks, huh?”

  Lucy looked up at the question, wondering what Edie was getting at. “Yeah, just a couple of weeks.”

  Edie was smiling at her. “You sick all the time, or just early in the mornings?”

  Lucy tilted her head, considering the question.

  “Mainly mornings, but…”

  Edie grinned wider.

  And then, it hit her, what Edie was implying.

  Pregnancy. Oh, no, that couldn’t be it. This was, like, the worst time ever to be pregnant.

  “Nooooo,” Lucy said, shaking her head. “I’m not… no.”

  But, a little voice in the back of her mind said, you could be. But no. No. That would make moving to Namibia even crazier. Why would God choose to overshadow all their best attempts to prevent conception at the same moment they were getting ready to uproot their lives and move half a world away, a feat that would be so much more difficult with a baby on the way?

  “Are you sure you’re not?” Edie asked, nearly gleeful as she asked the question.

  No. No, she wasn’t sure. Not at all.

  She looked at Edie, the doubt clear to the other woman, who grinned dramatically and bounced up and down a little at the thought.

  Lucy didn’t feel like grinning or bouncing up and down either one.

  She opened her mouth to tell Edie this, just as they heard footsteps coming back down the hall.

  “Lucy’s not what?” Tate asked, coming back in with Jude.

  “Not hungry,” Lucy said before Edie could answer him, not wanting anyone else to know what potential catastrophe might just be waiting for them all.

  “I am,” Jude said, slipping his arm around her waist. “As is Bethany. I told her I’d take hers back to the guest room, where she’s completely enthralled by that play kitchen Edie has set up.”

  “Isn’t that the greatest?” Edie smiled, blessedly turning her attention away from Lucy and any possible pregnancy. “A member of the church brought it by for us when we told everyone we were expecting. Said it was just sitting around her house now that her grandchildren are grown and thought we might be able to use it once the baby gets here.”

  “Very thoughtful of her,” Jude said.

  “Sounds like a good church,” Lucy said, thankful for this distraction, this change of conversation.

  Tate nodded. “It’s a great church.”

  Edie snorted.

  Lucy turned to her, confused by the cynical look being traded between the two Andersons.

  “Some of the church, maybe,” Edie said. “But there are a good many of them who’d run us out of town right this minute if they could. And they try to do just that on a regular basis. I feel like I’ve got PTSD every time we have to go to a business meeting.”

  “That bad, huh?” Lucy asked, trying to remember some of the harder times during her own father’s pastoral ministry and coming up blank. Her parents had done a good job of sheltering her and Tate both from any conflict.

  “They sound completely unpleasant,” Jude noted.

  “That’s because they are, a good majority of the time,” Edie piped up.

  “They’re our mission field,” Tate said, contentment in the statement. “A tricky mission field. Because they think they’re Christians because they know all about Jesus. But they don’t know Him, clearly, given how unredeemed they tend to act.”

  “And it’s a great mission field,” Edie said, smiling, just a hint of sarcasm in her tone. “Because what other mission field has the lost coming in week after week, hearing the gospel communicated clearly and succinctly? Of course, who knows if they’re even really listening, other than to pick up on points that they can later criticize and complain about, right, Tate?”

  Lucy watched as Tate let out a long sigh, a smile still on his lips as he looked to his wife.

  “And they don’t even know they’re lost,” Edie said, shrugging, still very sarcastic. “Most days I can’t tell if they’re lost sheep or wolves, because I’m sure sheep bite, but these guys –”

  “Yes, well, enough about that,” Tate said. “It’s Christmas, right?”

  Yes. And there was plenty they would need to discuss. This issue about Tate’s church (that Lucy was just now hearing about), the move up ahead for Lucy and Jude…

  “Fine,” Edie said, reaching out to put her hand on Tate’s. “Let’s go ahead and eat then, okay? Hannah should be here before too long.”

  And with that, Lucy’s mind was back on food, her nausea steadily returning, as she now found herself grappling with troubling questions of an entirely different variety.

  ~Hannah~

  She’d only been away from Owen for a few hours, and already she was missing him.

  She sat on the futon in the makeshift study in Tate and Edie’s parsonage, her phone held to her ear, taking in the surroundings. The parsonage was small, and the office had to be the smallest room in it. She’d volunteered to sleep on Tate’s old futon from college in this room, leaving the guest room for Tate’s sister and her family, knowing that she’d spend the majority of this Christmas out in the living room and in the kitchen anyway, doing her best to support Edie as she and Tate walked through a hard season of ministry.

  That – wanting to be with Edie – was the main reason she wasn’t back home in Houston with Owen, where she wanted to be more than anywhere else in the world.

  He’d understood when she’d told him that she needed to go and be with her sister. Edie couldn’t come home because of the church, but Hannah could go to her. And Hannah had understood when Owen said he couldn’t come up with her, that there would be no room in the parsonage anyway, that he’d need to spend Christmas with his mom and his sister.

  It was all very noble what they were doing, putting their families first this holiday season.

&nb
sp; They were both regretting it already.

  That’s why Hannah was on the phone, not even an hour into the Christmas festivities at Tate and Edie’s place. She could hear a football game playing on the television, interspersed with Jude and Tate’s voices. She could hear Lucy laughing about something and Edie’s responding giggles as the Elvis Christmas music continued to play softly in the kitchen. She could even hear Bethany moving gifts around the Christmas tree.

  She could hear all these things, but all that she was really listening to was Owen.

  “I miss you already, Hannah.”

  What a world. Last year at this time, she’d been in China, living her life for Christ on a distant shore, unable to imagine any different reality. And now, here she was, back in the States, serving at a Chinese church, a missionary to the Chinese in Houston as she worked closely with the Chinese embassy as a translator, and as she taught ESL classes at the large university in the city.

  Here she was, living her life mission in a different way.

  Here she was… completely and totally in love with Owen as she did so.

  “I miss you, too.”

  Oh, that was an inadequate way to say all that she felt.

  Owen said it even better.

  “I hate that we’re going to be apart for our first Christmas together,” he said softly.

  She closed her eyes at this, willing herself to do the right thing, to stay here for her sister when she was ready to run back to Houston as fast as she could.

  “This really isn’t our first Christmas together, though,” she said, just as softly. “We’ve known one another practically our whole lives, Owen. And there was that Christmas that you spent most of the break with my family anyway.”

  She could hear him give a deep, amused laugh on the other end of the line. “When I was fifteen. You remember that?”

  Yes, she did. Owen and Hannah’s brother, Beckett, had spent the whole break either in Beckett’s room playing video games or out on the basketball court in the driveway shooting hoops. More than once, Hannah had wondered why Owen was spending all of this time at their house – apart from just a few hours spent at his own home on Christmas Day. She’d even voiced the question out loud to her dad, wondering at how she’d somehow inherited another brother (as if she needed more of those), only to find herself unable to say anything when he’d exchanged a look with her mother, then told Hannah, very simply, that things weren’t good at home for Owen.