2 Weeks 'Til Eve (2 'Til Series Book 3) (8 page)

“I—I guess you could look at it that way, sort of,”
Fynn said, the wind knocked out of him.

“But I don’t have to call them that.” Definitive in a
way that immediately swelled Catherine’s heart to bursting with adoration for
this strong little girl between them.

“Oh, no. Not at all. They really like just being your
grandparents,” Fynn said with a relieved chuckle.

“That’s it, done.” Fynn stood back from the fireplace
and admired his work.

“One—two—three—four. But we need
five
stockings,
Daddy.”

Catherine was learning to absorb the shock of that
word when Cara used it. It was like she was testing it out here and there,
seeing how it felt, seeing how Fynn responded to it. Eventually she would
probably use it more often than not, until Fynn ultimately faded into oblivion
and he was simply Daddy, then Dad.

“What do you mean, five stockings?”

“One for me. One for you. One for Cat. One for the
baby. And one for Magnus!”

“How could I ever forget Magnus!”

“Good thing I was here,” Cara said.

“Yeah, it’s a good thing you’re here. I’ll have to fix
that,” he assured her, kindly skirting the fact that Catherine had only bought
four hooks for the four stockings she’d gotten. Not being allowed any pets in
her house when she was growing up, she hadn’t thought of a stocking for a dog. One
more thing on the must-do list. But at least Cara hadn’t included Jimmy too. A
stocking on the mantel for a mouse was simply too much.

Cara went back to putting ornaments on the lower branches
of the tree. Things that were unbreakable and could withstand Magnus’s tale
that was like a wrecking ball at one to two feet above ground, sweeping things
off the coffee table and whipping things off the tree. “Why didn’t we wait until
Gramma Lizzy and Pop-Pop got here to decorate the tree?” she asked, reaching
for another shiny plastic ball ornament from the box.

“Because this is our tradition. Just us,” Catherine
said definitively. She wanted to start building something solid and concrete to
grow on, not confuse things with an outlier visit from her parents. Besides,
her mother would expect the tree to be up. In the Hemmings house the tree
always went up just after Thanksgiving. Within days.

“When the baby comes it won’t just be us.”

“No, but then it will be
all
of us. Our
family.”

Once they finished putting on the ornaments, they sat
abreast on the couch, gazing at the finished product glowing before them. It
was nothing like last year’s tree that Fynn had chopped down for just the two
of them. That tree had held less than an appropriate number of ornaments and
was adorned with very old lights that conked out just as they finished opening
up their gifts—actually, it was while they were making love after the gifts,
amid the wrappings and ribbons. Some people dreamed of having sex on a deserted
island beach (obviously ignorant to what happened when sand met crevices);
others dreamed of sex in a lagoon or lake (disregarding the incompatibilities
between water and lubrication); and there were people who got hot over sex and
dessert (too sticky); sex on satin (too slippery); sex on a plane (in the
bathroom? just
eew
). Catherine’s dream had always been to do it under a
Christmas tree, in front of a roaring fire, carried away by the glow of the
season. And she’d finally had her moment. Worth waiting for. A memory she now
shared with only one man. The perfect man. The first and last man she would
ever make love to under the Christmas tree. Tingling warmth spread through her
and it wasn’t the hot chocolate this time.

They each had their own mug, lined up on coasters on
the coffee table. And there was popcorn in a big bowl, to be eaten not strung,
seeing as how it was buttered and salted and fresh from the microwave. It
wasn’t until they were mid-decorating that Cara had mentioned the popcorn
garland her mother would make with her. Catherine had never made popcorn
garland for a tree—which was obvious considering she didn’t have the right
popcorn around… or needles… or string. Edible garland was not the Hemmings way.
But since it was Cara’s mother’s way, she promised they would add it later
regardless of Fynn’s questioning glance over the popcorn and Magnus, who would
think it was a food tree.

“I love our purple tree!” Cara squealed. “It’s so
pretty and purple-y.”

“That it is,” Fynn said with a grimace that made
Catherine chuckle. “You love this,” he muttered.

“Yes, I do.”

“You girls have totally girlified my life.”

“You asked for it.”

“I don’t think that’s exactly what I asked for,” he
noted.

“I guess you weren’t really thinking much at all then,
because if you outnumber yourself with girls then that is what you’re going to
get.” Though in this case, it was all on Cara. She was the one who’d picked out
the purple lights. Catherine would have been perfectly happy with white ones,
or more traditionally hued strands of multicolor lights. Just so long as they
weren’t those “damned LED lights they’re shoving down the throats of
hardworking Americans” (her father’s words, ringing in her head—not many things
got William Hemmings riled, but lighting and phones were top on his list, and
she didn’t want to be a disappointment to her father too).

Fynn cradled a hand over her belly. “I still have a
chance of evening the score.”

She smirked at his naivety. He hadn’t a prayer. Cara
had him wrapped around her finger, and Eve would too. This was only the start.
It was too bad she couldn’t warn him.

They had both decided to let Cara guide their first Christmas
festivities as a family, letting her set the stage of traditions for the years
ahead. It only made sense, seeing as how they had only spent one Christmas
together as a couple and most of that time was spent naked. Not much to build
on. Nothing G-rated at least.

They had already navigated a minefield of events since
Cara had come to live with them, allowing her to lead the way. When she
requested a princess party for her birthday at the end of the summer, they made
it happen. When she wanted to be a mummy for Halloween, they tore up old sheets
and wrapped her up (two trips to the bathroom had them spending more time
winding and unwinding and rewinding than trick-or-treating). Now Christmas was the
biggest production yet—ergo the purple lights and the soon-to-be popcorn
garland and the angel topper—her mother’s childhood angel whose wings had
broken off somewhere along the way in a story that was lost along with Renée.

“Angels aren’t supposed to have wings,” Cara had
insisted, cradling the angel in her arms like a baby.

Tell that to Frank Capra; it would ruin the whole
end of his movie.

“They don’t need wings. They look just like us. Like
my mom.”

Her words stopped Catherine cold—a pointed reminder of
what Cara was going through, her unimaginable loss. She would be processing her
mother’s death forever, seeing her life through her loss, a lens tinting
everything afterward. And while Fynn had lost both of his parents several years
ago, it was different when you were young. Catherine knew. She was thirteen
when her sister died, and though Josey was no longer a constant white-hot pain
deep inside her, she was still there. The hurt. The sadness. But also the joy
of her. All of it. Carried everywhere.  Losing someone changed those left
behind forever, injecting a vulnerability to life. Once you lost you became more
aware of the possibility of losing again, and when it happened as a child, like
she had experienced, like Cara was experiencing, it was even more poignant,
because young people were supposed to feel invincible. Fear of mortality was a
learned trait that was supposed to come only with wisdom and time, not something
meant to rocket in and eclipse innocence.

So, yes, Catherine loved the tree that Cara had chosen.
She loved what it stood for. That it was Cara making her mark on this first
Christmas as a family.

“Oh, I almost forgot, there was something that came while
you were out,” Fynn said, jumping up from the couch.

“Not Tara on the machine again,” she groaned. “I told
her not to do that anymore.”

He retrieved a bland envelope, handing it over.

“Junk mail? Really?” she chuckled.

“It’s a telegram.”

“Yeah, that quirky marketing ploy has seen better
days.”

“No, it’s an
actual
telegram.”

“A wha—they actually still do that?”

“Western Union,” he shrugged. “Who knew?”

A stroke of brilliance came to her. “Do you know what
this is?” She held it reverently.

“I was hoping you would open it so we could both find
out.”

“No, I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

“This is the perfect gift for my father! Can you
imagine? One of those things! Do you think they even do that?” she asked. “You
know how they have all those…,” snapping her fingers, trying to grasp the word
she wanted, “… cards! The ones to all those places on that…,” wiggling her
fingers in the air when that word wouldn’t come either, “… thingy with the,”
poking now, like the pokey things that she could see and not grasp,
grrrrr
,
“… pegs!  Like at the grocery store!” She got more animated and louder as the
thoughts came harder. Like an idiot, she was. “You know, in different
denominations!” she demanded. How that word came to her when
pegs
wouldn’t was frustrating in and of itself.

Fynn stared at her like she was an alien just learning
human ways of communication.

Let him try to carry around a watermelon in his
belly and see how smart he is.

“Gift cards?” he offered all too easily, saying it
carefully in a way that said
maybe you need to consider medication for that
tic.

“Exactly! A gift card!” Thankful for the word if not
for the mode of delivery.

“I don’t think they have Western Union gift cards,” he
said, stepping all over her idea.

“What do you know, you didn’t even know Western Union
was still up and running.”

“Neither did you.”

“I’m just saying it would be perfect for my dad.
William Hemmings could spend the next ten years sending telegrams all over the
place. You know, instead of having to sink to using cordless telephones to talk
to people,” she chuckled. “Or heaven forbid using email or an actual cell….
Except isn’t texting really just a modern-day telegram anyway? I mean, can you
imagine people in the olden days sending LOLs and OMGs in their telegrams to
conserve on letters—though they probably would’ve meant “lots of love” and “oh
my goodness”. And their taglines would have been more like LSL for Leaches Save
Lives, or MADH,” she snorted, “Mothers Against Drunk Horses…. If you think
about it, it’s like the original Twitter. Telegrams could have birthed the hashtag…
#WagonHo #GoWest #PonyExpSnailMail… although they didn’t even use periods, so I
guess other symbols weren’t used either, maybe. Or had they not invented
symbols on the keys yet at all? Why didn’t they use—”

Fynn whistled and waved his hand in front of her face.
“Hey, hello there, are you done yet? Going to open it now?”

“Yeah, jeez, what’s up your butt?”

Cara giggled.

“It’s just that telegrams are usually important,” he
noted.

“People send them as wedding invitations now,”
Catherine pointed out, “so the level of importance varies, I guess.”

“They don’t send real telegrams though.”

“I guess not. But still.”

Fynn rolled his eyes.

“Alright already.” She tore open the envelope and read
the short single sheet:

GREAT IDEA –(STOP)- MUST MEET UP –(STOP)-
END OF WORLD AS WE KNOW IT –(STOP)- REM LOL –(STOP)- YOURS TARA

“What the hell—eck is this?” she blurted, stumbling
over her words as she tried to save herself from saying something worse.

“What’s a helleck?” Cara asked seriously, taking notes
for her mental dictionary.

“It’s an amount. Like a dozen or a bunch or a whole
lot,” Fynn said smoothly and quickly, stringing together a definition with
ease, using simple words Catherine would never have been able to grasp herself
right now.

“Is it bigger or smaller than a dozen?”

“Much bigger,” he assured her.

“A whole helleck bigger,” Catherine added, getting a
smirk out of Fynn.

“Oh, cool,” Cara said, spinning around and galloping
off.

“You know that one is going to bite us.”

“Probably,” he agreed.

“She’s going to be using it at school in math and we’re
going to be fielding calls about what kind of freak we’re raising.”

Shrugging. “Kids say things. We can always deny. Now,
what does
that
say?” He took the telegram from her and read it. “Tara,”
he sighed.

“Yes, Tara. I should have known.”

“What is she up to now?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.” And it was, because
she hadn’t touched base with Tara in weeks. Not since before Thanksgiving.
She’d never bothered calling her back. Thought about it once or twice and then
deferred to normalcy instead.

Catherine yawned, checked the clock. It was too late
to get into it now, with Fynn
or
Tara for that matter. It was Cara’s
bedtime and she could use some shuteye herself. Tomorrow was the beginning of a
helleck of judgment and she needed to be rested up for it.

Tuesday, December 5
^th

Catherine wiped her hands on her belly since it was
the most obvious place. The way her heart was racing right now would have been
more suited to standing backstage before taking to a podium to give a speech.
This wasn’t public speaking. This was “Hello, come in. Did you have a nice
trip?” All of it said to the people who had raised her and for better or worse
created what was standing here today, shaking in her boots.

She took an extra second, hiding behind the solid wood
front door, breathing much the same way she’d been taught in that birthing
class she’d taken with Fynn. She didn’t think she would need the breathing for
childbirth, as she was considering asking to be knocked out with a blow to the
head and woken up when it was over, but right now it was proving handy, a
calming force.

There was nothing more she could do; as ready as she
would ever be. She gave herself a once-over, noting that she
could
have
gussied herself up a bit, but nicer maternity clothes wouldn’t hide her gluttonous
size any better. Of course, Elizabeth Hemmings had gained just the right amount
of weight; even way back when it wasn’t frowned upon to totally let yourself
go. That figured. Catherine had already warned Fynn that he might have to hold
her back if her mother tried to say anything about that.

A final deep breath—in—out. Then she forced herself to
turn the handle.

“Howdy, stranger!”

Catherine was too confused to speak. The voice, the
face, everything was wrong about what she saw before her. Not just wrong in
place and time, but
off
. She stuck her head out the door and looked both
ways on the front porch as if expecting cameras.

“Great welcome. Is that how you always answer the
door?” Tara asked. “With a moment of silence?”

She looked so different; not just I-haven’t-seen-you-in-months
different but seriously
tempered
was the word that came to mind. The
hair wasn’t vibrant red like last time. It wasn’t black with a hue of purple or
burgundy like it had been before that. It was normal deep chocolate brown,
possibly
even natural, although Catherine didn’t know what Tara’s natural color was
seeing as how she had been dyeing it all the time she’d known her, not to hide
grays but to punch it to in-your-face shades. And the clothes, too, were so
much more conventional, if you could judge a woman by her muted outerwear. Like
a real live grownup, possibly one en route to a funeral.

“How did—what the—and you’re—I thought it was—” But Catherine
couldn’t capture her true feelings in words. Not any of those words at least. She
scanned the horizon, almost certain that her parents would be arriving any
second—the first chink in the plan of a picture-perfect life.

“Don’t seem so thrilled and overjoyed to see me.”

“It’s not that, it’s just, why didn’t you call? I—”

“Because you won’t answer your calls. Or call me
back,” Tara pointed out.

Catherine winced.

“Are you going to refuse to invite me in now?”

She blocked the doorway easily with her size, standing
firm.

“Wow, you really don’t like drop-ins, huh? Like
mother, like daughter I guess,” Tara shrugged.

She knew it for the jab it was. She didn’t like to be
compared to Elizabeth Hemmings, who was stiff and structured and unbending
about proper etiquette and appropriate behavior. Catherine was
go-with-the-flow, or at least she wanted to be. Welcoming at the very least.
And here she was acting just like her mother.

“Besides, this isn’t a drop-in anyway. I sent you a warning.”

“What?”

“The telegram.”

“That was a warning?”

“Nothing says urgent message like a telegram,” Tara
singsonged.

“So does a 911 text,” Catherine grumbled. “Or a
message on my voicemail that says you’re coming…. But why do I even bother?”
she asked the air above her. “Wait, you didn’t even say anything in the
telegram about coming here!”

“How else are we going to meet up? You can’t travel
like that.” Tara gestured disdainfully at her tumescence. “Really, Catherine
Marie, you have to think.”

“But I—you’re the one who—why can’t you just be normal?”
Settling on the last because it summed up her feelings best.

“Well isn’t that a fine kettle of fish,” Tara said.

“What are you, seventy?”

“I just thought, after all this time, maybe a hug was
a more appropriate greeting than—”

“We aren’t huggers; you know that.” And they weren’t.
Not like girlie girlfriends.

“Maybe I’m getting sentimental in my old age. We
septuagenarians know—”

“Seriously, Tara, what do you want from me?” Catherine
tapped her foot impatiently.

“Life got a little boring, so I was looking for a
change of pace; a little vacation from the humdrum.”

“Coming here? To a fly speck? Because New York City
got boring?” Something definitely smelled with that line. Bad.

“Well… yeah.”

“What about Jason?” As in, why not bother him if
you’re bored? The guy you’re sleeping with, who lives in Illinois, which is
definitely not here.

“Oh, that? It’s over.”

“Over?” Catherine hacked out. “When? What happened?”

Tara shrugged it off. “Not much. I just figure that
I’m not getting any younger, as you pointed out, and… well, I still have my
list to complete and, heck, I’m halfway to North Dakota as it is. Or maybe I
should head south to North Carolina and hit Kentucky along the way. Just me,
making my dreams a reality—”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked, ignoring the
rest.

“I
am
telling you.”

“When it happened.” She rolled her eyes at the
absurdity.

“Again, you won’t take my calls.” Low and slow.

“I would have been there for you,” she insisted. All
it would have taken was a
normal
message that she’d broken up. Simple. “I
thought it was just the usual… and I don’t really have time for any—”

“So you’re like a poor-weather friend,” Tara
clarified.

“A what?”

“Well, there are fair-weather friends, so I guess
there are poor-weather ones too, who aren’t there for you when things are
good.”

“Tara, we’re
friend
friends,” Catherine sighed,
rubbing her forehead with frustration. “All-weather friends if you want to go
there. I’ve just been really swamped here and trying to settle into this thing called
married life and motherhood and—”

“It’s not a big deal.”

“But it is. I should have realized what you’re going
through.”

“I’m not going through anything. I’m fine.”

“Come on, I thought you were happy with Jason. You
were different with him. Like he meant more than just your list. Heck, as far
as your
list
goes, you covered that part just by sleeping with him at
the wedding. Remember? If you sleep with a guy who was born and raised there,
that place is in his boner and it counts.”

“
Bones,
Cat. His
bones.
You’re just
being gross now.”

Catherine’s jaw dropped. “
I’m
being gross? I’m
not the one trying to screw a guy from all of the PINK states—Pennsylvania,
Indiana, Nebraska—”

“You’re cheapening it. I’ve learned a lot from my
quest.”

“You sound like a complete dork. D&D much?”

“I’m serious. Guys from New Jersey and New York?
Completely selfish lovers. No care for the woman at all. But guys from the
Midwest? A different animal. More passionate. More to prove, I guess. And they
are
proving it.”

“You can’t judge any of that from a one-night stand.
Anyone who’s into that is just trying to get off. It’s selfish by nature.
That’s
why Jason and his Midwesterness is different.”

“But—”

“Admit it, Jason
was
different. You could have
slept with him at the wedding and added him to your list because he was
actually from Illinois, through and through, but instead you saw him again. And
you kept dating him, Tara! Tell me, were you seeing anyone in New York all this
time?”

“I’ve already filled my New York quota by a mile,” she
mumbled.

“And we’re back to the list again,” Catherine groaned.
“Just admit it, you’ve been totally preoccupied by one certain person. You’ve
been in a
re-la-tion-ship
.” Speaking slowly and clearly. “In fact, until
recently, you had no time for me either. I should have known something was up.”

“Well, dicks always before chicks. Except in the
dictionary.”

Catherine scrunched her nose, thankful that Cara was
safely off at school.

“Come on, you obviously feel the same way,” Tara
admonished. “Case in point.” She motioned at the world that was the Trager
household. “That must be some dick Fynn’s got, to give everything up like that.”
She snapped her fingers.

“Do you always have to be so crass?”

Tara stared off into the distance for a second, like
she was really thinking the question over.

“Are you okay?” Catherine prodded.

“I’m here aren’t I?”

“That’s why I’m worried.”

Tara waved her off. “I’m fine. You know me, I can roll
with whatever. Besides, like I said, I still have some states left to visit and
guys left to do, which I obviously couldn’t do with Jason in my pants. Honestly,
New York to Illinois was way too much of a commute for a quickie, and sex every
few weeks is like a starvation diet. The long-distance thing was a nightmare.”

“Come on, Fynn and I made it work.”

“We aren’t all you and Fynn. You guys are freaks of
nature.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“I meant it as one.”

“So now what?” Catherine asked, rocking from one foot
to the other uncomfortably. This whole conversation could have been had over
the phone—a laugh, a tear, a talk-to-you-later—then simply hang up. But like
this, it was awkward. What now?

“Well, have you got any room at the inn?” Tara quipped,
fitting for the season.

Her jaw hit the floor.

“I’ll take that as a no, or a
hell
no, I guess,
considering the throbbing vein in your forehead—not terribly flattering, by the
way, Catherine Marie.”

“I just—my parents are coming and staying for a couple
of weeks, so I don’t actually have the room.” Though even if she had the room,
would she have given it to her just because Tara had the gall to show up?
Wasn’t there such a thing as tough love? Not giving in to other’s bad choices
to help them learn how to make good ones? This would certainly apply.

“William and Elizabeth are visiting? For Christmas?
Won’t that be merry and bright!” A jolly jab, Tara knowing full well that it
wasn’t either.

“Not for Christmas. Not that long. But they’ll be here
soon, so—”

“Well, don’t worry about me and Bessie, we’ll find a
place to crash.”

“You and Bessie?” Catherine blurted, wondering if Tara
had picked up an old lady hitchhiker out on the road.

Tara gestured behind her.

Catherine stepped out onto the porch and looked down
to the driveway below. There was Magnus, who’d obviously greeted Tara without
sounding the alarm about her arrival—completely useless as a guard dog. But
even worse, he was sniffing around the perimeter of a U-Haul.

Everything was obviously not
fine
and
breezy
and
simple.

Catherine turned to her friend, eyes popping out of
her head, wondering what else could possibly go wrong five minutes before her
parents were supposed to be here. Five minutes was a long time when it came to
Tara.

“Meet Bessie,” her friend said. “I wasn’t planning on moving
in. I just didn’t really have any place to put my stuff for the moment so I
rented her to hold everything—”

“What about your apartment… the one that was my
apartment… in New York? That
was
a home for all your stuff. That’s how
apartments work.”

“I gave it up.”

“Gave it up?”

“Yup.”

“And now you’re here… with all your stuff. Tara, this
is insane. And, honestly, I don’t have time for insanity.”

“You’d have time for Georgia,” she humphed.

“Actually, no,” Catherine said, finding her voice in
sudden indignation.

Tara looked back at her skeptically; ready to deny the
assertion as a bold-faced lie.

“First of all, it’s a moot point because Georgia would
never do anything like this. And secondly, we haven’t been getting along very
well and she would hardly even call me right now,” Catherine admitted, defeat
underlying her words.

“Like you’ve been doing to me.”

“No,” she said weakly. “You and I didn’t have a
fight.”

“And that’s supposed to make it better? You won’t even
talk to me long enough to have a fight.”

“Because this is what you do if we talk. Crazy stuff
like this, Tara.” She gestured at their surroundings, including Bessie.

“No,
this
is because you
haven’t
been
talking to me.”

“So now it’s my fault that you dropped everything and
came out here?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Pretty close.”

They stood there, a stalemate, until Catherine could
take it no longer. “Listen, Tara, I’m just trying to adjust. I’m big as a
house. My brain is completely useless. I’m trying to figure out this life I
landed in…” She noticed the look on her friend’s face, that one that said she
didn’t want the invite to her pity party. “And I have been a total shit to you
in the process,” she acquiesced.

“That’s a start,” Tara agreed.

“You deserve a better friend.”  

“I do.”

So go find one.
It was wrong to even think it,
but this was such horrible timing… that just got worse as Catherine glimpsed a
strange car rounding the bend in the driveway. “Shit,” she growled. All her
hopes that she would have everything in perfect order, welcoming her parents into
her grown-up house and grown-up life with her grown-up responsibilities in
check, were completely dashed. By Tara. And Bessie.