2 Weeks 'Til Eve (2 'Til Series Book 3) Read online

  “They take potatoes and dry them into flakes, then you add water to them and you get mashed potatoes,” Catherine explained in layman’s terms—stated by a layman who had little to no knowledge of just how flakes were made out of potatoes.

  Cara’s face screwed up in disbelief, like it had to be a joke.

  “They are completely real,” she insisted.

  “They don’t taste real. They taste like something that is like potatoes. Not potatoes.”

  She didn’t think they tasted much like potatoes either. At least not like the potatoes she grew up on and loved, especially when covered in her mother’s gravy. But she hadn’t paid any attention to those potatoes growing up. Other than eating them.

  “Are these the potatoes we have to have on Christmas?” Cara asked, turning her fork upside down to test them against gravity. “We could have French fries, right? I love French fries. I could eat them every single day. Even on Christmas.”

  “We don’t actually have to have potatoes at all,” Catherine said, as if that fixed any problem therein.

  “But we have to have potatoes with turkey. And French fries are the best potatoes in the whole world!”

  “I don’t know if we’re having turkey,” Catherine noted casually. Cooking a whole bird? By herself?

  “No turkey?” Cara asked as if that were ludicrous.

  “Maybe we’ll have ham.”

  “That’s for Easter.”

  “Do you know Elizabeth Hemmings?” she challenged under her breath. Cara sounded like a pint-sized version of Catherine’s mother, structured and certain, and unwavering in her perceptions.

  “That’s Gramma Lizzy’s name, right?”

  “Yes,” Catherine sighed.

  “Whatever you want to have for Christmas dinner is fine with me. Peking duck or cheesecake or KFC,” Fynn said helpfully.

  “Duck?” Cara was aghast.

  “Duck is a very traditional meal for holidays,” he pointed out.

  And something I would be even less able to cook, Catherine thought.

  “But we like to feed the ducks at the lake.”

  “It wouldn’t be those ducks,” he said.

  Cara’s brow furrowed.

  “We’ll figure something out,” Catherine jumped in to stop the helpful man who was helping her into a whole new kind of problem. One that could spread to other things Cara was perfectly happy eating at the moment. Like those nuggets on her plate that she hadn’t yet equated to running around and clucking chickens on farms.

  “Why don’t we go to Andrew’s for Christmas dinner, like on Thanksgiving?”

  “Andrew’s?” Catherine asked, confused.

  “Aunt Drew’s,” Fynn said slowly, for his dumb wife.

  “She makes gr-r-reat mashed potatoes!” Cara cheered, like Tony the Tiger over his Frosted Flakes. Problem solved. A good meal could always be found there, while Christmas by Cat was going to be questionable at best.

  Ouch.

  “Aunt Drew and Uncle Klein are going to visit his family in Kentucky for Christmas,” Fynn explained.

  “So we could go there.” Simple as that to a six-year-old.

  “But Uncle Klein’s family isn’t our family.”

  “Are they Aunt Drew’s family?” Another wormhole.

  “Well, yes, they’re her in-laws.”

  “In-laws?”

  “That’s what they’re called. When you marry someone, their family becomes your in-laws. Uncle Klein’s parents are Aunt Drew’s mother-in-law and father-in-law.

  “So Garret and Lyle and Jake have in-laws?”

  “Well, no.”

  Cara looked confused all over again.

  “Only the one who is married in has in-laws. Aunt Drew is their daughter-in-law and they’re her in-laws too. They are legally family because of the marriage. Aunt Drew and Uncle Klein’s kids, though, are all related to his family by blood—” He stopped there, looking stricken that he was getting into where-babies-come-from territory when Catherine knew he would be quite content to have Cara believe babies were ordered off of Amazon.com and delivered by a big brown UPS stork.

  “By blood?” Cara asked.

  “Garret and Lyle and Jack are Aunt Drew and Uncle Klein’s kids together so that makes Uncle Klein’s parents their grandparents by blood.”

  “Because Aunt Drew carried them all in her belly,” Cara offered.

  “Yup.”

  “Like my mommy carried me in her belly,” she smiled.

  “Exactly.”

  “So, since you and Cat are married, Gramma Lizzy is your mother-in-law and Pop-Pop is your father-in-law.”

  “You got it,” Fynn said, relieved to be off babies and bellies.

  “Then they are my in-laws too.”

  It hit like a punch to Catherine’s gut.

  “Because you’re my legal guardian and you two are married. So I have in-laws.”

  “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.

  -13-

  “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.

&nbs
p; “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.