Chapter 49

“Yaaaaayyyyyy!” The twins came roaring down the back stairs into the kitchen as fast as their tiny legs could carry them. They both had red “foot jammies” and red plaid robes that they were both dragging. They came around the corner at the bottom of the stairs and slammed into Paul. “Poppa!” and they were off again, racing as fast as they could through the kitchen where they could find their desired target: Wonka. He was just coming through the dog flap after doing his morning business and was blindsided by the twin tornado.

“It’s Christmas Wonka!”

“Maybe Santa left you a reindeer for breakfast!”

“Sounds like someone told the twins what wolves eat,” said Andi angrily, glaring at Paul, but Lucy was looking pretty guilty.

“Can we open presents now?” asked Sandy and Madoline, as they bounced up and down in excitement.

“Photo first,” said Andi and shooed her babies into the “Pretty Room” (as the twins called the Parlor). Seeing the gifts under the tree, the twins shrieked, “SANTA WAS HERE!” and headed for the piles of gifts. It took a heroic effort on Andi and Paul’s part to keep the twins from diving in and tearing open the mountain of gifts, but soon they had the girls under control and dressed in their red robes.

All grouped up in front of the tree; Andi, Paul, and the twins in red plaid robes, everyone else in green plaid robes. The colors were planned to reflect the colors at the wedding, but only Andi, Macy, and Lucy caught on to that fact and would point it out for years to come. The robes all matched, either red plaid or green plaid, and the men’s pajamas were red or green, but the women’s pajamas were picked to match their personalities, Lucy had a cozy green flannel nightgown, Macy had a sexy green babydoll, and Andi was simply wearing the top to Paul’s red men’s pajamas.

Paul set up a DSLR on a tripod and took several pictures via remote control. It reminded Andi of the wedding photo shoot only 12 hours ago. The twins were getting antsy to open presents, and they were getting ready to dive into that when Andi’s mom and stepfather came in. Even Paul was surprised when Andi cheerily said, “Hurry mom! Get your robe on and get in here!”

“Gamma Gamma Gamma!” cried the twins as they dashed for their grandmother. Some more photos of the entire group were taken with Grandma and Grandpa Driscoll in their red plaid robes, several with Grandma and Grandpa and the twins, and some with Andi and Paul before the bride and groom could settle down on the love seat.

“That was right civil of you to treat your mom so nice.”

Andi looked Paul right in the eye and whispered in his ear, “It’s easy being civil when you spent the night getting your guts rearranged by a giant dick,” and planted a big kiss on him.

To start the morning, John put on the Christmas music, the music he and Paul grew up with - Andy Williams, Jo Stafford, Mel Torme, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Steve Lawrence and Edie Gourmet, and all those big instrumentals. To the Jarecki boys, the spirit of Christmas is in the music, and this music has been playing all month and would be in the background for another twelve days.

The twins wanted to dive into the pile of gifts but Paul said, “Stockings first!” so with Auntie Lucy’s help they got the stockings down and discovered candy, crayons, coloring books, small toys, and a giant orange in the toe of each stocking, but in Madeline’s stocking was a piece of paper that was scorched and burned at the edges. “What is it?” asked Andi.

The girls shrugged and were about to toss it aside when Paul said, “See if there is something written on it.”

Madeline opened it up, and they saw it was the exact letter they sent to Santa via smoke signal. They were shocked, mouths hanging open, and their expression made Andi’s favorite Christmas photo for years to come and even featured prominently on future family Christmas cards. They darted about the room waving their letter about, showing it to everyone with the pronouncement, “Santa got our letter!” That is when Gus wheeled the tricycles into the living room.

“Here is something that Santa brought especially for you,” he declared. The twins saw the Big Wheel tricycles and dropped the letter. “Hop on, give them a whirl,” said Gus.

They hopped on, leaving the scorched letter forgotten and took off in a household wide rally.

John bent over and asked Paul, “What was that whole burning the letter thing?”

“We were running late to get to the church last night and the girls suddenly remembered that they didn’t write their letter to Santa,” explained Paul.

While Paul reminisced on the joy of helping the two munchkins generate a list, Andi continued, “Paul had them write a letter to Santa, which he burned up in the fireplace. I’m told that Santa gathered the smoke up and put the letter back together.”

“He did! See?” cried Sandy as she slapped the letter into John’s stomach before she remounted her Hot Wheel and chased after her sister.

“That Santa, what a guy,” chuckled John, glad to have taken part in making Santa Claus become real for a pair of little girls.

“Père Noël has a special gift in the living room for Monsieur Paul,” said Macy with a huge smile. “Debout!”

“What’s a doo-boo?”

“It means get up!” growled John, pulling on his brother’s arm.

Paul allowed himself to be led to the living room, and there everything looked normal, the gifts were rearranged a little, but no major changes, even the spotlight continued to shine multiple colors of light on the silver tree with more noise and heat than could be safe. He was about to ask, “What’s the deal?” when Andi crouched down and adjusted the speed lever of the train’s transformer. The M-10000 “Tin Worm” emerged from the tunnel of packages in its art déco, brown and yellow, streamlined glory. The three car articulated train set included the locomotive/baggage/rail post office in the lead, hauling two passenger cars, the M-10000 was the train that began the downfall of the steam locomotive. For seven years, the M-10000 raced across the American west shuttling passengers for the Union Pacific Railroad between Kansas City, Missouri and Salina, Kansas, until it died of exhaustion in 1941 with a million miles under its belt.

“It’s beautiful!” gasped Paul, “I-i-is this prewar?” There are some beautiful reproduction Lionel M-10000 models out there, but one made before WWII while the real M-10000 was kicking up Kansas dust in the real world was utterly worth the collector’s value. Their father had an M-10000, bought secondhand from a Buffalo NY icon: Chester Spoonley, also known as Spoonley The Train Man.

“Yes, it is, and the entire set, including the track and transformer was rebuilt, by hand, by Chester Spoonley the third. I told “Trey” who it was for, and why we wanted it, and he seriously put his heart and soul into it.”

For Paul, there were no words. He held John tight and wept, muttering, “Thank you so much, it’s so beautiful.”

Confused, Andi turned to Macy and whispered, “C’est juste un train jouet.” Her pronunciation was horrible but Macy understood the message (It’s just a toy train).

“Non,” whispered Macy. “it is so much more.” She picked up a photo album from the 50s vintage coffee table and flipped to a marked page. She showed Andi a black and white photograph of a boy sitting next to a Christmas tree as a Lionel M-10000 streamed past. “This is papa, and this toy is a link to their father. They know so little of their father Josef Jarecki, he shared so little of his past with them.”

“I wonder what ever became of dad’s train,” said Paul as he and John headed back to the parlor with Paul wiping the tears with his bathrobe sleeve.

“Who knows, sitting on a shelf somewhere? Maybe going around a Christmas tree in South Buffalo? I can’t see throwing something that nice away. Maybe this is dad’s train? You never know,” and John led Paul back into the parlor.

“Boys and their toys,” smiled Andi.

“Andi,” said Macy in a scolding tone. She took hold of Andi’s left hand and pointed to her rings. “This piece of metal is so much more than a trinket, just as that train is so much more than a toy. It is the meanings that we give them, the memories they invoke.”

Andi looked at her ring and remembered the night, walking in the gentle snowfall and looking at the Christmas lights, waiting for Mr. Wetzel to finish crafting the ring that was on her finger. The grilled Danish, the hot, delicious Tim Horton’s double-double, the festive window displays, twins running in circles trying to catch snowflakes on their tongues, and Paul placing this ring on her finger. She had a feeling that she would remember that evening forever because of these rings. Looking at her ring, she said, “You’re right, these items tie us to who we are.”

“And you have come to an important truth in life,” Macy grasped Andi by the shoulders and stared into her eyes. “Repeat after me; Macy a toujours raison, Macy is always right.”

“Wait ... what?” Andi spanked Macy’s butt, causing her to laugh and step out of the way.

As if on cue, the twins appeared, their eyebrows lowered, their jaws set. “What are you doing?” demanded Madeline.

“We’re playing Smack The Sister,” replied Macy, who swatted Andi in the butt.

Quick as lightning, Sandy reached out and gave Madeline a quick smack in the arm and cried out, “I win!”

“Hey!” cried Andi and Madeline.

Just then, Gus stuck his head into the living room and called out, “Paul said that any presents left unopened are his by law.” That ended all familial feuding, and the girls raced to the parlor.

The gifts Paul gave Andi were varied and beautiful, tons of clothing (picked out by Macy and Lucy), the mother’s ring which Andi was expecting, and a present that completely shocked her. It was a wonderfully bound book titled A Portfolio of Our Assets. She knew Paul had worked very hard turning a near bankrupt chain of 3 automotive dealerships into one of the largest auto chains in the NY-PENN region, and he worked consulting at two different cardiology departments. This book showed a breakdown of various investments and other side businesses that Paul managed out of the sheer boredom of a life lived alone in solitude. And now he is sharing the entire estate with his beloved.

As she flipped through the book, Andi bookmarked several pages with scraps of wrapping paper for later review. She shifted her sore posterior in the seat next to Paul, ignoring his explanation of how the charter income will pay for the expenditures and how he’s contracted a crew that can yadda yadda yadda. All she knew was that her man was securing the future for her and her babies. She went through the portfolio again, looking at the different accounts, stock acquisitions, and income as CEO of Jarecki Motors INC. That’s not even including his income as a consultant to Springville and South Boston hospitals.

There was a list of debits, there was still some outstanding debt on the farm on Trevet road but it’s almost paid off. “My student loans will mess this whole thing up,” she muttered grimly.

“Hmm? No.” he flipped back a page and showed her a chart that showed where her loans were scheduled for payoff, December 27th. “I have your Toyota listed as a debit, but I know a couple of salesmen, we can deal with that.”

“Wait ... my debt is gone?”

“Not yet, day after tomorrow.”

Andi gasped. “My debt is gone? MY DEBT IS GONE!!!” she shrieked, and she threw her arms around Paul’s neck and peppered his face with kisses.

“Well, yeah we absorbed it and your bills are paid off ... except for your car.”

What impressed her the very most was the sizeable annuity he set up for the twins, and the will which left everything to her. She stared at that, stunned. It was worth more money than she could imagine. “When I sell my condo that money won’t even make a ripple when it hits this pond,” she said in shock.

“No, what we can do is set up an...” Paul almost started into a financial tangent when Andi covered his lips with hers.

“Stop,” she whispered, “it’s Christmas, can this wait until after the honeymoon? Where are we going anyway?”

Paul looked stunned. “Our boat of course, unless you’d rather not, but it’s in the portfolio. I was figuring we could spend a couple of weeks on our yacht...”

“We have a yacht?”

“Well, yeah. It’s kind of a Christmas present for the four of us. Didn’t you notice?” He opened the portfolio book again and flipped to a bookmarked page.

Andi saw a sheet full of numbers and slowly it swam into meaning. This was describing a pretty nice boat. Is seventy-two feet a big boat? Then she turned the page, and she saw a photo of a large motor yacht, “That’s the same as Frank’s boat...” she thought, then she saw the name “Regal Dream,” yeah, it was Frank’s boat. But the next page showed a series of pictures of the boatyard men repainting the stern to read “Andi’s Dream” and the realization caused her to squeal and scream. She hopped up and threw her arms around Paul’s neck, laughing and crying at the same time as she kissed his face. The dragon of her nightmares was now leashed, and the leash was handed to her!

“Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! I have a boat! WE HAVE A BOAT!” she grabbed the portfolio and ran about the parlor, showing the pictures and inviting everyone on the maiden voyage.

“Andi dear, you can’t invite everyone, it only has four cabins...”

“It has cabins? Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! My boat has cabins!”

Paul stopped trying to calm down his wife and leaned back to enjoy the show. The bedlam only got worse when Macy opened a box and found inside a folder with all the paperwork needed to build...

“CABIN! We have a CABIN!” Macy went ecstatic when she saw that John and Paul were going to build her a cabin identical to Paul’s cabin on his farm on Trevette road.

John tried to explain. “Paul and I figured that since he now has a family his cabins will be full so...” Macy stopped his explanation with a lingering kiss.

“Merci beaucoup mon amour.”

Andi finally calmed down and eased her sore posterior into the love seat next to Paul. “Cabins! We both got cabins,” she sighed and leaned in for a kiss. They kissed again, sweet and long, and when they broke the kiss, they looked and there were the twins staring at them. The twins had exhausted themselves in the Library racetrack, parked their tricycles haphazardly, then returned to the “Pretty Room” when they heard their mom scream.

The twins were used to some pretty lean Christmases and the Hot wheels bikes and a big room to race in, not to mention the huge stockings and stuffies they saw under the tree were more than they could have ever hoped for, until they heard their mom say, “Aren’t you going to open your presents?”

They started at each other eyes and mouths opened wide in surprise and joy and were ready to dive into the mountain of gifts when Poppa Paul said, “We have some rules here,” and immediately their shoulders slumped, and their faces changed to comical frowns as they awaited the words they dreaded. “Since you guys can run the fastest,” Paul continued, “you get to help deliver presents and...” he produced a box of garbage bags, “you collect wrapping paper.”

“Ok!” That wasn’t too bad an exchange for unknown heaps of Christmas loot.

Aunt Macy was sitting on the floor sorting out presents and the twins really enjoyed delivering the gifts to the adults in the room, often getting it right the first time. Exchanges like “No, I said that goes to Grandpa Harold” or “Here, this one is for you, the twins gave it to me,” were heard, but that never slaked the joy the twins felt as they carried and sometimes pushed packages around the room to the adults. Before long, Andi had quite a stack in front of her, as did Macy and Lucy. Even Wonka, who didn’t let the excitement ruin his chances for a nap in front of the fireplace spoil his fun, had a small stack of gifts to open.