Chapter 29

Saturday, December 25, 1999

"Jason," Mignon called, "Would you like to do the honors?"

In the years since Christine died, there had been some Christmas dinners that Jason hadn't spent with the Varneys -- but not many. Somewhere along in there, he couldn't remember just when, Mignon had unilaterally decided that since he was so good with knives, carving the turkey was right down his alley. While he could make a good knife, in his own mind he was no great shakes at cutting something up with one, so he was grateful that electric carving knives made the job simpler and no one particularly cared how much of a mess he made.

This time, it didn't matter; he was glad to leave a discussion between Joe, Troy, and Casey about the dismal record of the Detroit Lions to join the women in the kitchen, anyway.

Joe and Mignon had a large kitchen, but it was pretty full with Mignon, Vicky, Alissa, and daughter-in-law Brittany out there, discussing the sorts of things women discuss when they're together and there's no mere man to get in the way. One of the topics, Jason had been dimly aware, was Alissa's pregnancy, now about halfway along; in a few months, she'd be the second of the Varney kids to become parents.

This was the first time in a couple years that all of the Varney kids and their spouses were together for a holiday. It is the way of things for families to grow up, mature, and scatter; thus it was with the Varneys. The thought was even more poignant to Jason, since for the first time ever Duane wasn't present at Christmas.

Though Jason knew that Duane was a little sour about Christmas, mostly since he'd lost much of the family closeness of it years before when Christine died, he'd at least been home for them all, mostly because there hadn't been much else to do, anyway. But this year, being new on the job, he'd gotten tabbed with working on Christmas Day, and he didn't have the time or the reason to get away and drive the long round trip considering that he'd been home for a week the month before.

Jason wasn't clear if he and Charlotte were going to be having dinner with her family, or by themselves, or whether just she was going and his Christmas dinner would consist of a Big Mac with fries at the McDonald's where he'd gotten a job. When he'd called to admit it -- "announce" implied a degree of pride he didn't have in it -- he'd agreed it was a piss poor job for his first one as a college graduate. Whatever happened it would serve to keep some bucks flowing until spring, when he hoped to be starting at some national park somewhere -- or at NOC if that fell through.

Beyond that, he wasn't hearing a great deal from his son. From what he could figure out, Charlotte's parents were in grudging admittance that their daughter was living with a guy in a tiny furnished apartment without benefit of marriage, but didn't exactly welcome it. Jason understood that; if he'd had a daughter Charlotte's age, he would most likely have felt the same way. For that matter, he wasn't exactly sure he fully approved of his son doing it, either. But it was his life to lead, and he was pretty sure that Charlotte's parents must have felt the same way, or they wouldn't have accepted her thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail, either.

But Jason also knew he wasn't in any position to criticize; after all, let him who is without sin cast the first stone. But then, the situation between Vicky and him was considerably different. To begin with, they weren't living together, although at times it seemed to be skirting the line, for Vicky spent far more conscious time on his side of the back yards than she did on hers. A lot of that time was spent making knives, of course; Kevin was usually there a couple nights a week as well, and sometimes Emily might be. After a year of working at it, Kevin was getting pretty good with the forge, although he didn't have anything like Vicky's skills at finishing techniques. Other nights, though, he and Vicky were there by themselves, sometimes working on knives, sometimes not -- and some of the latter, though surprisingly little under the circumstances, was spent up very close and personal.

Not a word had been exchanged between them on the subject, but somehow the agreement had been made that quality in their sex lives was more important than quantity. It didn't happen every night, or even every week, but every now and then the mood hit them right at about the same time. When it did, things got very memorable and satisfying.

The only problem was sometimes Vicky was willing to get up and go home for the night, especially if they'd spent an afternoon enjoying themselves. However, if it happened later in the evening, it was more enjoyable for the both of them for her to spend the night with him, cuddled closely and warmly in each other's arms. That probably would have been a little easier if she had been living by herself in some distant city, but living across the back yards from her parents, who had been friends for many years -- well, it got awkward, to say the least.

Not that Joe or Mignon had said one word about it to him -- since they hadn't, not even Mignon, who had briefly but memorably been his lover in the dim and distant past. The two of them shared a special bond as a result, and could talk about a few things in a way they couldn't with anyone else. Although Mignon must have had a pretty good idea what was happening between her daughter and him, there hadn't even been a hint that she knew. Since Jason knew from plenty of previous experience that Mignon was not blind as a bat, he figured that her silence meant that she knew what was going on but didn't quite want to give formal approval. That left Jason wondering if they didn't feel things were heading in the right direction for their daughter, and they trusted him enough to do the right thing if and when the time came.

"Jason, I have to admit," Alissa said, interrupting his ruminations, " I never figured my big sister for a Harley rider."

He glanced up from the turkey and looked over at the short, dark-haired woman who showed a lot of resemblance to Vicky without looking much like her; she was maybe five months pregnant, starting to show some but far from being huge yet. "Surprised me a little, too," he replied. "But she's really gotten into it."

Jason grinned at what Alissa was talking about. He'd slept in to allow the Varneys a little family time on Christmas morning, but had wandered over later toward the end of the Christmas gift giving and gave Vicky a small box, in which he'd a few minutes before wrapped the door opener to the Varney garage. Everyone had trooped outside, and when Vicky opened the garage door there was a 1991 Harley-Davidson XLH 883 sitting behind it.