Chapter 29

I let myself fall back to sleep, having a wonderful second nap. I wondered lazily if the Hobbits had second naps the way they did second breakfasts. Ok, that was when I knew I was dreaming. I woke up laughing, only to see a short-haired angel approaching.

“What’s so funny, McKenzie?”

“Hobbits. Second breakfastses. Second napses.”

“You’re not making any sense. Mom told me to tell you that supper is ready.” She helped pull me to my feet. “Oh, and that she used all the bacon.”

I looked around. “Where’s Dad? He was napping over there earlier.” I pointed to Grandpa’s favorite chair.

“In the kitchen. He’s helping Mom with the salad.” She tugged at my hand, although not hard; those abs must still be sore.

“Okay, let me get washed up and I’ll be right there.”

I found everyone at the table already. The extensions had been taken out so it was now of a size that fit the four of us. Dad took one side and we arrayed ourselves so we were blended. He did something he hadn’t done for over a year, taking the hands of the women to either side of him. They extended their other hands to me and we sat, joined by flesh and warmth and a sense of belonging. His prayer for dinner was longer than usual, but I wasn’t listening, concentrating instead on the smaller warmth filling the palm to my right. When the ‘Amens’ had been said, I looked up and wasn’t disappointed at all.

She did it, and it was perfect – bacon wrapped meatloaf. I didn’t care that all of the breakfast meat had been used. I didn’t care that there was pilaf instead of potatoes, I didn’t care about the salad, or the bread or anything else.

“My ‘Precious.’”

Paige rolled her eyes as I cut a slice off and began mumbling about preciouses. She provided context to the rest, in case they hadn’t caught it, Lord of the Rings.

We owned those movies, and Dad loved them almost as much as I did. It turned out that Evie and Paige were fans, too. That set the topic and tone for the meal, and it went by in a rush of happiness. When we were done, Dad asked for everyone’s attention again.

“Thanks,” he said when he got it. “Each Christmas, my wife, Jennifer, would decorate our tree by herself. She said it was a time for her to remember the past year and all of the trials and joys it had brought. She told me that she used to think of a happy memory for each ornament she placed on the tree.”

His voice faltered, “We didn’t have a tree last year.”

He looked at me, and I nodded to him – keep going.

“Tonight I’d like to propose a new tradition for as long as we can make it last. I want us all, as a family, to decorate the tree tonight. We don’t need it to be the prettiest, or the most symmetrically framed when we’re finished, but we need to do it with love, and hope, and good memories. How do you ladies feel about that?”

“I’d like that,” Evie told him softly.

There was a simple ‘yes’ from Paige.

“And, Tim? You’re okay with that?”

“Yeah, Dad. You and I made this a home for us. Let’s expand that so it’s a home for all of us.”

I started to rise, but was stopped by his hand reaching across the table.

“Hold on, Tim, you reminded me of something else.”

He looked to his left and settled on his right. “Evie, Paige, there’s something I need to tell you. I know you’ve had a lot thrown at you in the last week, and big changes like this are stressful. I’m about to add to it, and I apologize in advance. Tim and I and Dad have a Christmas gift planned for my mom, a huge one.”

He shifted his chair so he was looking directly at Evie. “Mom and Dad have lived in that tiny house for all my life. When Tim and I decided to build this home, we left the plans lying on her dining room table. Tim found her crying over them, and Pop said she cried again when we had the open house. We plan to use our gifts and talents to make her dream come true, and give her the house she’s always wanted, so we’ll be taking on another project this spring. It’s going to be on the same location as their current home, which means before we can start, there will be some demolition. Mom and Dad will be coming here to live, sometime in January, and will stay until their new place is ready for occupation.”

“What are you saying, James?” There was a quaver in Evie’s voice. “That Paige and I will need to find someplace else?”

His shocked expression indicated to the rest of us that he had never considered that his words might have been construed that way.

“No! Oh, God no! No, I want you here forever, or as long as you’ll have me ... us, both of you. I was trying to ask you if you could find it in your hearts to welcome Mom and Dad into our home.”

We all waited for her answer, seeing a gamut of emotions stream across her face. She seemed to settle on happy.

“Thank you, James. Thank you for our home. Thank you for asking. Yes.”

She stood up, taking the one step it took to put her in Dad’s lap with access to his heart and lips. “Yes, of course Candace and Lionel are welcome in our home, for however long they want to stay.” She gave him little kisses to punctuate her point.

Beside me, her daughter was trying to wrap her head around it all. “Grandma and Grandpa are coming here to live? I get to see them every day?”

I laughed, sharing my own private moment with one of the Goddard girls, “Like you don’t right now anyway.”

“It’s not the same, Tim. You’ve seen my grandparents, and the other ones aren’t much better. Yours are the ones I’ve always wanted, and now they’re coming here. Grandma can teach me how to sew, and Grandpa can tell me stories...”

“Uh huh.”

It sounded like Paige thought they lived in the eighteen hundreds. Clearly, it was her childhood wish fulfilled, and we’d see how the reality lived up to the fantasy, particularly when Grandpa or Grandma kicked us out of the house so they could have a spa day. I was fairly confident we’d see that sometime within the next six months.

Mom and Dad, oops, I mean Evie and Dad, had finished their private celebration and he was indicating that we all should join them in the great room for decorations. It was a lot of fun. Every once in a while one of us would slip into the kitchen and bring back goodies: apple cider, cookies, chocolates or little Christmas candies. The tree got decorated, a little lopsidedly, but none of us minded, we just turned it so the sparser side faced toward the corner.

When it was done, and we were sitting around looking at it, I excused myself to my room, coming back with wrapped presents to place under it. They were the first ones there, but by the time we retired for the night, they had been joined by other packages varied in size, weight, and recipient.

Evie was feeling better this morning. I could tell because she beat me down to the kitchen. The carafe was present on the counter, and the sign on it read McKenzie while there was a weak batch of coffee in the pot on the warmer. I grabbed a mug and doctored my McKenzie brew the way I liked it, then joined her at the breakfast table.

“So what are your plans for today?” she started off.

“Well, I need to pull the forms off and clean up around the pad before we really get going. We have to meet the crane over at the other place at nine, and then it’ll take probably an hour and a half to get the gazebo rigged, lifted, and settled on the flatbed. After that, we drive over here, slowly, and reverse the process. It could take us all day, or we could be done by early afternoon.”

“Oh. You know, it was a throw-away remark when I made it. I had no idea it would be this much work to actually get the gazebo here. Why didn’t you two tell me?”

“Because it’s special to you, which means it’s special to Dad, me and Paige. If it was too much work, we would have told you, and then built you a new one here anyway. So don’t feel guilty, but don’t expect anything else for Christmas either.”

She knew I was joking, as a number of items that found their way under the tree last night had her name written on them in a masculine scrawl.

“You’re good men, you McKenzies. Is there anything I can do to help?”

I thought about it. “Well, someone has to be here for the piano tuner, so you can do that. And we’ll need lunch for the four of us and Grandpa – Grandma, too, if she comes over. And maybe you could take care of dinner as well.”

“I’ll have you know, Tim, that I am a very successful businesswoman, designer and mother. All you have me doing is domestic chores.”

“Oh,” I didn’t see her grin, my head being buried in my cereal bowl. “I guess we can work something else out.”

She could see the wheels begin to turn as I applied my project management skills to slot other variables into the whole.

“No! I was just kidding. Jeeze, Tim, don’t scare me like that. You were already figuring some other way of getting that done, weren’t you?”

I nodded.

“Lighten up a little!”

“Sorry, I just have a lot on my mind today. Maybe next time you should say ‘Bazinga!’ or something so I know that you’re joking.” I delivered that deadpan, and it was fun to watch Evie try to not spew the mouthful of coffee she had, at me.

Dad joined me outside after he had eaten and together we cleared away forms, pulled stakes, marked sprinklers with flags, and generally got the site as ready as we could, before leaving to supervise the lift. He had a Sawzall in his truck, one of the new kind that were battery driven.

I think both of us were nervous, wondering what Evie’s in-laws had on tap for us, but the first part of the lift went fairly easily and unobstructed. The building was strapped onto the house-movers’ flatbed, and the tractor began the long pull up the yard to the drive, and then the road. The first bump we hit was when we tried to turn from the street that led off the Goddard’s neighborhood and onto the road that ran in front of our new place. Sheriff’s Deputies were there, stopping us.

You see, Grandpa had gone to the city’s department of public works, and not the County Commissioner’s office. The street signs on the road we wanted to take were all county signs, which were rounded at the corners and a duller green than those the city put up. Neither Dad nor I had anticipated this, but apparently Grandpa had. He pulled out his phone, and within twenty minutes we had city cops there, as well as the head of the public works department. He and Grandpa greeted each other the same way good buddies would, and at that point I knew we were going to be alright.

Our ally at the city began to pull maps from the truck he had brought, using the hood on one of the Sheriff’s cars as a table. With two deputies and an equal number of city police bent over the map, he explained that the City Council, in joint session with the County Commissioners, had approved the city’s expansion into the county. The new city borders now ended just on the other side of the property that Dad and I owned, and had been like that for over a year.

Of course, the County Mounties had to call dispatch, who called the Sheriff himself, who made calls to some Commissioners. The Deputies’ radios were pinned to their shoulder epaulettes which meant we could hear some of what they were being told. Words like, “bonehead,” and phrases such as, “return to the station,” were bandied about.

The short end of it was that we had a city police escort all the way to our driveway. We thanked the cops, laughing when we heard that this was the most fun they’d had all week, and then they took off. The government official was a different matter. He was still talking to Grandpa.

“I’m glad you gave me that heads-up, Lionel. You were right, there was some funny business that someone was trying to pull. A couple of people in my office are currently being looked at by the internal auditors, and the city attorney is all over this. You owe me a mulligan the next time we hit the links.”

“Sounds like you’re the one that owes me, Ted. Thanks, though.”

Grandpa caught sight of me and Dad, calling us over to introduce us to his friend. It was good to make connections with the people who ran things in government, so we spent some time schmoozing while the truck made its way down our drive. We all looked up at a blast from its air horn.

“Sorry to run, but that’s us,” Dad told Ted before shaking his hand and setting off at a jog. I followed suit, and soon both of us were on site.

It was a simple matter of directing the crane into position, then gently placing the gazebo on the new foundation blocks we had cut. After safety precautions were implemented, I crawled under, having cut the lattice work away to do so, and made the connections that would anchor the little building to our property. It was only one o’clock when we finished, so we saw the workers off, and then went inside to eat.

The first thing I noticed was that Paige was missing, followed by the realization that Evie was missing, too. I asked about that as Grandma put bowls of soup and hearty sandwiches in front of us.

“Everything is fine, Dear,” I was told, which didn’t ease my anxiety. Dad seemed to be feeling the same emotions that I was, which exasperated Grandma.

“One of them is a grown-ass woman, and the other is almost. They can take care of themselves, don’t you think?”

Dad’s “Yes, Mom,” did nothing to alleviate my tension, but it made her smile, so that would have to do.

I was eating the sandwich when something else came to mind. The lattice we had pulled off exposed the new pad, and I noticed again that both Paige and Evie signed their initials with an ‘M’ instead of a ‘G’. What was up with that? I wanted to say something, but Grandma’s gaze and my own hunger kept me otherwise occupied. Instead I focused on what we had to do yet to complete the building.

“Dad, do you think we can get everything in place by this afternoon?”

He knew I was talking about the gazebo. “Yeah, why? What did you want to do?”

“I just want to get it stained in time for Christmas and to get the lights in – let that be a little bonus for them.”

“I’ll help.”

Grandpa took off, but Grandma waited until the rest of our family came home. I saw the Audi pull in, and then some time later, Grandma’s Caddy pull out. We had stained all the replacement woodwork and we were just finishing up with the lighting. The benches and chairs that Evie had initially placed in her building had been sitting in the garage, waiting for the moment when Dad and I were done. We made sure that they were unblemished when we placed them in their original spots. After that, we knocked off for the day.

The two of us were walking back to the house when I was asked what I had planned for supper.

“I don’t know, Dad. Don’t you think that you could chip in there once in a while?”

He grinned, letting me know I had been set up. “I’ve been waiting for you to treat me like your father and not someone you needed to care for. Let’s see what I can whip up.”

We made our way through the mud room to find two excited women in the kitchen awaiting us and holding file folders behind their backs. Dad tipped an imaginary brim to them. “Mrs. Goddard, Ms. Goddard.”

“Nope, try again,” Evie told him.

His eyes narrowed. “Ms. Goddard, Miss Goddard?”

“Third time’s a charm.”

Dad considered her for a long while, finally spotting the smile that was struggling to find a place on her lips. “Ms. Mercer, Miss Mercer.”

“YES!” Evie screamed, launching herself into his arms. Paige was more restrained, showing me the paperwork which officially and legally changed her last name to that of her mother’s maiden one.

Neither of us were intended to hear Dad’s words to Evie, but he doesn’t whisper as quietly as he thinks he does.

“Good! His name didn’t belong on you.”

Paige and I went up to her room, finding places to sit on her bed. She had the paperwork in front of her.

“So how does it feel?” I asked.

“Weird. Different. Good. It’s like I’m someone new, someone who doesn’t have to be the person that other name demanded of me. After hearing what Louis and Janelle said, I’m glad to no longer be associated with them.”

“Well, can I put my dibs in?”

She looked at me curiously. “For what?”

“I call dibs on the heart of Miss Mercer.”

Her slow smile lit her face eventually. “I can live with that.”

There wasn’t much said between us after that, although our hearts and lips spoke volumes. Evie interrupted just when things were heating up.

“Ahem. If you two are done rolling around on my virgin daughter’s bed...”

“Mom!”

“ ... then maybe you could come back downstairs?”

Both of us blushed red, pulling clothing back into proper alignment, and straightening covers once we had hopped off said bed. I checked the hallway, no mother in sight, and gave my girlfriend one last kiss before towing her along behind me downstairs to find out what was needed of us.

“Come on, get your jackets. We’re going for Chinese,” Dad told us.

I looked around before theatrically sniffing the air, “Why? Did Evie burn dinner?”

On Saturday, December twenty-third, my day started lazily in bed. I had no cares in the world, all my jobs were done, and the only thing on the agenda today was housework. I was even looking forward to trying out a new soup recipe. Alas, the young Miss Mercer was sent in to make sure I was awake.

“Tim,” that whisper in my ear gave me shivers that I barely managed to suppress.

“Tim, get up,’ she breathed again. I felt a warm hand linger delicately along my exposed neck.

“Tim, you can’t sleep all day.” Her short fingernail traced the outline of my ear. I was beginning to think I could indeed stay like this all day.

“Can I try that?”

The second female voice in my room made me grab the covers all the way up to my chin, and sent the two young women into paroxysms of laughter.

“Get up!” Paige demanded, jerking the covers away and finding out with certitude what I slept in, or didn’t as the case may be. Thankfully, I had never slept nude, but the boxer briefs I had on didn’t hide very much.

“Oh ... sorry.”

She didn’t sound that sorry, plus Gloria was standing in the doorway between my room and the bathroom, ogling away. I grabbed the covers again, at least hiding the lower half of me.

“Out!” I commanded, annoyed.

They both listened, leaving me with apologies on their way through the bathroom. Well, that unexpected jolt had gotten me just a little bit wired. I grabbed sweatpants, pulling them on while I made my way to my door. There was a light pounding of feet down the hall as they heard me walking. The incongruous thought that maybe Dad was right, and I had a heavy tread, flashed into my mind, trying to restore a little bit of good humor, but I wasn’t having it.

There was a fair amount of annoyance in my eyes when I found the girls in the kitchen. It barely registered with me that we weren’t alone. There was one additional person there, with the exception of Gloria, who didn’t live in my house. No matter, my targets were in my scope.

“Listen up you two. We need to have a short chat about boundaries.”

I was taking big breaths, making my chest expand each time I inhaled. That, plus the work I had been doing lately, the workouts in the morning, and the fact that I was pretty toned to begin with, meant my abs and pecs were fully defined and flexing as I spoke.

“Here’s the chat – respect other people’s boundaries! Got it?”

They nodded like chickens mesmerized by a cobra about to strike. I turned my back on them, ready to return to the upstairs when it finally dawned on me who the other person was. Great ... Gloria’s mother.

“Evie. Mrs. Foster.”

I tried to let no hint of my embarrassment show as I walked out of the kitchen with what little dignity I could muster. It didn’t help that I still had the hearing of a young person when Mrs. Foster asked Evie in quiet tones, “Is it wrong to lust after the boyfriend of your daughter’s girlfriend?”

“YES!” I boomed, taking the stairs two at a time.

I made sure that the bathroom door to Paige’s room was locked, as was the door from my room. A long, hot shower was what I needed, so that’s what I indulged in. When the hot water had relaxed some of my tension, I realized that one; it was sort of funny, and two; we never really had set any ground rules. Maybe it was a little bit of an overreaction to go down and yell at them.

I figured I’d apologize to Paige and Gloria. The other two? Well, I’d pass that off like nothing happened.

Plan in hand, I threw on comfortable jeans, my favorite t-shirt, and a pair of warm socks before unlocking all the doors I had barricaded. I headed down to bell the cat, only to find Dad sitting alone in the kitchen.

“Was that you bellowing earlier?”

“Yeah.”

I told him what had happened, including Mrs. Foster’s comment. He brushed my worries aside.

“You’re right, we do need to sit down and talk about boundaries. As to Linda’s comment, you might want to take that as a compliment. Besides, she and Evie were giggling like schoolgirls when they took Paige and Gloria shopping. No lasting damage there.” He chuckled as he added, “I just wish I’d had video. Think of what your grandpa would say, or your grandma.”

“Boundaries, Dad, boundaries.”

“Right. Sorry.”

In the absence of anyone in the house, I did my laundry and then ran the vacuum cleaner over the shared spaces. I thought of running it through all the bedrooms but the word ‘boundaries’ kept popping into my mind. That was something we’d have to define, as it had never bothered me at all to clean Mom and Dad’s room in the past. It still didn’t, but somehow Evie’s and Paige’s suites were off-limits. If they really were family, that shouldn’t matter. It was going to take some time to work that out.

I have no idea what Dad did for lunch, since when I looked in the garage the Tahoe and my truck were still parked in their spots. There was a strange car in the drive which I presumed was Mrs. Foster’s. The four women had apparently taken the Audi. Well, he had been on his own before as had I, so it wasn’t any skin off my nose. I made myself a big pot of coffee, pouring it into my thermos to keep hot, grabbed a reading assignment for Mrs. Demeter’s class, my boots, a jacket and gloves, and made my way down to the gazebo. It was cool but nice down there. I arranged the cushions to my comfort, plopped down and began to read.

A car pulled up mid-afternoon, the garage door opening and closing, so I figured the Audi with its occupants was back. A little later another one made its way down the drive in the other direction. I could see the lights go on in the kitchen, so I wasn’t too concerned. When I had read about as much Jane Eyre as I could take, I grabbed up my considerably lighter thermos, straightened the cushions and walked back through the mud room.

Strains of beautiful piano music met my ears the moment I stepped foot in the house. It was one of Mom’s favorite pieces, Chopin’s Nocturne Op. 9, No. 2. I sat listening on the bench in the mud room. The pianist had a beautifully light touch. I suddenly knew that this was Paige at her instrument. As quietly as I could, I removed my boots before making my way into the dining room and sitting with my back against the wall where I couldn’t be seen. My eyes closed and I reveled in the music. It was meditative.

When she finished as much as she was going to play, I stood up, walking into the room where she could see me. She started to say something, but a shake of my head and an index finger held to my lips stopped her. I made my way around behind her as she sat on the piano bench, knelt so I could wrap her up in my arms, and laid my forehead on the back of her neck.

“Thank you,” I told her emotionally. “That was one of Mom’s favorite pieces. She would have loved you, and not just for that. She would have loved your quiet moments, your laughter, sense of humor, your joie de vivre, your sadness, and your delight.”

I felt silent tears fall from my eyes, wetting her neck, but she said nothing, only clasped my arms where they encircled her.

“I’m sorry for yelling at you this morning. When I thought about it, I could see the humor in what you did. We hadn’t really talked about what it means to be a whole family made up of two broken ones, so I can’t blame you.”

Her breathing got heavy after a bit, and the tears falling weren’t only mine.

An emotional Paige whispered, “Mom says your dad has the soul of a poet, but I think you inherited some of that too. You’re not the only one who’s sorry. Forgive me ... please.” She waited for my nod. “You aren’t angry?”

My knees were hurting after kneeling on the wood floor, so I joined Paige on the bench. “No, I’m not angry. Just please don’t do that again. I was enjoying it right up until there was another voice in the room and the covers were pulled back. Then it was embarrassing.”

“I won’t.” She sealed her promise by kissing my tears away, feather-light lips on my eyelids. “I think that you might be just about the most romantic man I’ve ever met, Tim McKenzie. And I think I’m falling for you.”

Evie and Dad were in the living room. They witnessed everything. I only realized that when Dad cleared his throat quietly. “Paige, Tim, could you come in here? We all need to talk about something.”

For once, they didn’t let us sit together, Evie grasping my hand and pulling me down beside her while Dad patted the cushion by him for Paige.

Evie took the lead. “James and I had a long conversation this afternoon about what we’re doing here. Paige and I have been on our own for ten years now, and the McKenzie ‘twins’ have been creating a new dynamic between the two of them for about one. We threw everyone together under a single roof and we expected things to click immediately. For the most part, it’s been smooth, but situations like this morning underscored that we need to define boundaries.”

She tossed it back to Dad. “James?”

“Mom didn’t help matters the other day when she had Tim and me assist you two into bathtubs. I should have put a stop to that, and I didn’t. I’m sorry. She was treating us like two couples instead of family.” He held up a hand when Paige wanted to object. “I’m not saying we aren’t, what I’m saying is that we’re trying to forge something greater and the way she went about advancing the issue was wrong for us. So we get to ‘boundaries.’ This morning was a clear violation, but it’s been resolved, unless I’m mistaken.”

He looked over to find me nodding. Yes, it wouldn’t happen again.

Evie picked up the thread. “We thought about what to tell you. We started down the road of rules and legalities, but that would have made everything too rigid. What we came up with was simple in thought, but difficult to realize. Love and respect each other. That’s it. Love and respect each other. All four of us need to put that into practice.”

She took a deep breath, “Tim, I owe you an apology. What Linda said this morning was inappropriate. I’ll have a chat with her after Christmas. I’m sorry.”

I squeezed her hand, apology accepted.

“Thank you.”

Dad watched us interact, smiling when we reconciled. “Okay, now that we’ve had the talk, when’s supper, and what does everyone feel like doing tonight?”

“It’s a little soon, Dad.”

“Yeah, sorry.”

He watched me watch an agitated Paige. “What is it?”

I ignored him, leaving Evie’s side and kneeling in front of Miss Mercer. “What’s wrong, Paige?”

She looked at her mom. “Don’t I get any punishment?”

Evie shook her head. “That’s not how we decided to do things.” She meant she and Dad. “Besides, didn’t you just apologize to Tim and promise not to do it again?”

“Yes.”

“Are you planning on breaking your word?”

“No.”

“Alright, then. You’re growing into an adult, and when you show by your actions that you can be mature, we’re going to treat you like one. You found out today how it felt to hurt the one you love, and then the two of you learned how to forgive each other afterward. I think that’s its own punishment and reward.”

I pulled Dad up out of his seat, pointing to the empty spot by Paige’s mother. “Move, old man.” We exchanged cushions and women, and all was right once more in the joint McKenzie-Mercer household.

“Now can we talk about supper?” I didn’t say it, that was all him.

We had one of those pans of lasagna, frozen, where all the consumer had to do was throw it in the oven for a specified amount of time at a specified temperature. It was surprisingly good, particularly when accompanied by French bread and a quickly compiled salad.

Dad still had two things he wanted to discuss. “First, tomorrow is Sunday, and it’s Christmas Eve. I propose we skip Sunday School in the morning, but we attend the service dressed in our new suits. Do you ladies have something appropriate to wear to accompany us?”

They looked at each other, smiling. How much did I want to bet that they had picked something up this morning and afternoon while shopping? A lot.