Chapter 19

Christmas morning, we snuggled in and were ridiculously cute for a few extra minutes before we decided we needed to be up. We showered and dressed quickly and set out right away. May had promised us breakfast, so we passed on the hotel restaurant and drove straight out to the house.

When we arrived, May was already bustling around the kitchen. No one else was up yet. Glen would be helping by staying out of the way and Beth would end up being put to work doing minor chores around the edges of the action closer to meal time. As soon as we appeared, May pulled breakfast out of the oven and served us. She took enough of a break to sit and chat with us quietly while we ate. As always on the holidays, she’d made a big breakfast and there was still more waiting.

“You two made quite an impression on Beth last night,” she told us. “When you left, she asked how she hadn’t seen this coming. I told her that she hadn’t been looking, but that she should be happy for you.”

I nodded. “That’s really why I wanted to do it in person, rather than convince her over the phone. It’s one thing to hear that I’m doing better. It’s another to see it in person. How did she take things once the shock wore off?”

“I don’t know that the shock really has worn off,” she said with a shrug. “She was still a little spacey when she turned in last night.”

“I hope time to think doesn’t make Beth decide to disapprove,” I said, expressing the worst-case scenario.

“I wouldn’t worry,” Beth said from the doorway to the hall. “She’s not quite that much of a bitch. Don’t let it get around though. She has a reputation to protect.”

Beth came in and kissed me on the cheek before doing the same for her mother and giving Mel a small hug, exchanging exclamations of “Merry Christmas” with each of us. She poured herself a cup of coffee while May served her breakfast. She was still dressed in her robe and a nightgown that I knew all too well from her months of covering up for Stan.

“You two gave me a pretty good shock last night, but I can honestly say I was a little more worried about getting shot, than casting judgment on you.”

“Rand hasn’t taken me to the range yet,” Mel confided. “I don’t think he was worried about me shooting you, but I never really asked.”

I chuckled and shook my head. “We just haven’t had time since you’ve been back,” I assured her. “We’ll get there eventually.”

The four of us sat and had a pleasant enough conversation over breakfast. I was interested in seconds, so Mel and Beth were assigned to cleaning up. Glen’s habit was to sleep in and save his appetite for dinner. Once my plate was whisked away into the dishwasher, Beth poured herself another cup of coffee and leaned back against the counter.

“So, what do you and Melody have planned for the morning while Mom performs her usual Christmas miracle?” she asked.

May had always banned us from the kitchen while she worked before. Beth was never interested in cooking, so they’d never developed baking and cooking as their way of bonding.

“They’re helping me,” May said, patting her daughter on the cheek. “I have a much larger meal to plan for today. What time will Roger be here?” she asked.

“What?!!?” she gaped at her mother. “You’ve never let anyone watch you make Christmas dinner before, let alone help! When did this get decided?”

“Well, they were such a help yesterday that I decided I could use the help today, too,” May told her with a smile.

“Wait, you had them help with the baking yesterday?!!? You never let anyone help! What’s going on?” Beth demanded, unnerved more by this than by seeing Mel here last night.

Her mother looked at her tartly, in response to the demanding tone.

“Well, dear,” she said softly. “I’ve been worried about Rand lately. When the two of you split up, it left him without any family to anchor his life. I wanted him to feel welcome here, but since none of us were sure how you’d react to Melody, I decided to make sure that he could at least put out a meal like this if things went badly this week and he didn’t feel comfortable coming back. That way, at least I’d know that he wasn’t resorting to a restaurant or one of those awful TV dinners for the holidays. Fortunately, you’ve been very supportive. That leaves me a great deal of hope that they’ll be back.”

Beth shrugged. “It’s no big deal,” she said awkwardly. “I mean, at first, I was thinking, ‘I’m about to get shot’ when I first saw her. Then when she reached into her purse, I thought she was going to pull out a gun, but I’m starting to relax some.”

Mel scoffed. “If I didn’t shoot Stan, I think you’re safe,” she told her. “We definitely didn’t come all this way for an argument, much less a gunfight.”

Beth chuckled and nodded. “No, I suppose not. I wasn’t exactly thinking straight when I recognized you. So, the three of you are cooking dinner together? I’m going to stay out of the way, but I may look in from time to time to see how it looks to have Mom share her recipes.”

She nursed her coffee and shook her head at the thought.

“You’re not mad that she hasn’t trusted them to you yet?” I asked gently.

She shook her head again.

“Rand, I barely set foot in the kitchen back in Charlotte. I’m sure I’ll learn to be more than a helper in the kitchen someday, but I still don’t know where all the gadgets are here, much less how to use all of them.”

With that, she handed out hugs and retreated to the TV in the den while we started preparing the turkey and the other dishes. The next several hours were a blur of activity. We made a savory stuffing for the turkey, sweet potatoes, regular mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce from scratch. May also had pans of fresh bread rolls, buttermilk biscuits and cornbread. We had ears of corn, carrots, string-beans and May’s vegetable casserole which baked along with the turkey. The house slowly filled up with delicious smells as we worked, making everything perfect and producing an abominable amount of heat.

Glen appeared, dressed and looking eager to eat. He wished us a Merry Christmas and then retreated to watch whatever Beth had on the TV or fight her for the remote. Shortly after that, the doorbell announced Roger’s arrival. She brought him into the kitchen to meet us. Roger was taller than me, but not by a lot. He had a powerful build that spoke well of his commitment to staying in shape, probably because of his job. His hair was lighter than mine, blonde where mine is brown. He had an easy smile and didn’t seem uncomfortable with the situation. He and May greeted each other warmly before he turned toward me.

“I know who you are,” he said heartily with a smile that would serve him well when his career reached the level of political maneuvering. “Merry Christmas,” he said, shaking my hand. “I’m Roger. Beth’s told me a lot about you, but she forgot to mention you were bringing a friend.”

I was pleased that he hadn’t tried to crush my fingers with his grip. It was firm, but not dominating.

“Merry Christmas, Roger,” I grinned back at him before turning to Mel. “This is Melody. She’s my girlfriend. It was kind of a surprise to Beth that she was coming ... or that she existed. I didn’t want to tell her we were dating over a phone call.”

He greeted Melody and then Beth pulled him out of the kitchen so that we could get to work. Dinner was going to be in May’s treasured dining room that was off-limits except for special occasions. May hollered to Beth to start getting the table ready since dinner was almost ready. Twenty minutes later, the three of us started carrying dishes in to fill the center of the table. Glen carved the turkey and we all sat down. I’d learned a lot, not only about the dishes themselves, but about how May managed her time in the kitchen, planning when to start each dish in the right order so they were all ready at the same time.

Mel and I sat together across from Beth and Roger, while May and Glen took the ends of the table. We joined hands and said Grace, not because Beth, Mel or I were particularly religious, but because May insisted, and I rightly feared her skillet. We bowed our heads and she led us with words of gratitude for our blessings and for the blessing of our company today. With that, we dug in and conversation was limited for the first few minutes as we concentrated on our stomachs. Eventually, we were sated enough for conversation and it was Roger that started.

“So, Rand,” he said tentatively. “Beth said that your job is moving out of state. Do you have another job lined up at this point?”

I smiled and shrugged.

“I’m in a pretty good position financially. The company’s offering a generous severance package and I’ve decided to take it. I’ll stick around to oversee the final shutdown of the plant while the other engineers go on ahead to help set up the new operations in Mobile. Then I think we’re going to travel.”

“Not looking for work right away?” he asked, surprised.

“I haven’t taken a lot of vacation time in the past few years,” I admitted. “Mel and I would like to spend some time away from schedules and life’s daily problems. Besides, it’s really not like either of us need the money at this point. We’d rather take some time to be together and explore. She promised to show me around Miami for starters. Maybe we’ll drive down instead of flying and spend some time at Disney World since it’s along the way.”

He chuckled at that.

“A little old for Disney, aren’t we?” he asked, including himself in the assessment since he was the same age.

“There’s something for everyone at Disney,” I said lightly. “After that though, we talked about seeing all fifty states at some point.”

“That’s a lot of travel,” he commented. “I suppose you could do a lot of it in a summer by driving.”

Beth broke in and giggled.

“So, at thirty, you’re going to retire, buy an RV and travel around the South in winter and the North in the summer?” she asked, amused at the thought of the two of us packing up that way.

“That actually sounds like fun,” Mel said, delighted. “We could see a lot of the country that way. We should look into how much they cost.”

“Really?” Beth said, surprised. “I was just kidding. I figured that you’d be more interested in traveling first class.”

“I’m not quite so much of a spoiled trophy wife as people seem to think. I’ve never been camping or anything. It sounds like a good time. Maybe Glen could help us look for the best camping gear.”

She turned to Glen and gave him that Care Bear Stare that she called her smile.

“Would you? I’m sure that being in the army, you know the best of everything that we might need for something like that.”

Poor Glen. He was helpless before the power of her smile. It could melt rock and boil ice.

“Of course, I’ll help,” he assured her. “There’s all kinds of things that you can use for a trip like that. There’s a lot of it that I can get for you better and cheaper through the base PX than you’d pay commercially, like cases of MREs or boots or other tools you can use for camping.”

I smiled at him, knowing that he’d just been held-up at gunpoint. I had yet to meet anyone who couldn’t be won over by Melody’s winning smile and sparkling eyes. She was a force of nature all on her own.

“That’s the fastest I’ve ever seen someone carve a bird,”

May commented with a smirk on her face as she made fun of Glen for how effectively Mel had reduced him from a stern colonel to a doting father figure. That made Beth choke on her wine as she tried to gasp, drink and laugh all at the same time. Roger patted her back while she coughed, and we all laughed a little. Even Glen had a chuckle at his own expense.

We finished dinner and cleaned up the leftovers to be packed into the fridge. With six people to help, dishes were cleaned up and the kitchen tidied up much quicker than normal. Dessert was put off until after presents were opened since none of us had room for it just yet.

We adjourned to the den where the tree occupied the entire corner of the room and started handing out gifts. May and Beth were thrilled with their presents. Beth had been to the place once and took turns with Mel, telling May about all the different treatments she could get there from massages to pedicures to hair and make-up treatments.

Glen was intrigued with the sand table and thumbed through the book of battle layouts thoughtfully.

“I thought that this might be a hobby you’d like,” I told him. “It gives you a chance to examine and analyze a famous battle from geography, through troop placement. I work with a guy that does it. He spends hours tweaking little details from the historical account to see what might have changed the course of the battle. His favorite is the Alamo. He has a permanent setup in his basement where he plays with how to deploy troops and defend key points. I don’t think he ever turned the tide, but he said that he thought it was possible to have made the siege so painful that it would have changed other events.”

“That sounds very entertaining,” Glen admitted. “I’ve heard of these, but I’ve never given them a second thought.”

“I hope you get a lot of enjoyment out of it,” I told him sincerely. “I asked May if the basement was still unfinished and when she told me that it was, I knew that you had the space and the patience to pore over the details of a battle to get every detail right. I’m told there’s whole societies for people that put these together. You can display your work and see what other people are doing too, pick up pointers and trade tips of your own.”

“Thank you both,” he said with a surprised smile.

I’d usually just gotten him a war movie or a book. Mel went and hugged him, telling him that he was welcome. That only left Roger’s gift and one other.

“We didn’t know you very well, but my dad was a cop, so I figured this was something you could use,” I told him as I passed him the gift we’d picked out.

He unwrapped it curiously, surprised that we’d gotten him anything at all. We’d gotten him a good quality gun cleaning kit.

“Thanks,” he said sincerely.

“You’re welcome,” I told him. “I remember my father cleaning his gun at the kitchen table after dinner each night. It’s your most important piece of equipment.”

Then it was everyone else’s turn. Roger and Beth had gotten Glen a book on military history that he was very happy with, they got May a basket of bath soaps to pamper herself with. Beth got Roger a new pool cue in a very nice case, telling me one of his hobbies. Roger had gotten Beth a very nice necklace in diamonds.