Page 18 of A Stag Family Christmas

“We didn’t get it out last year because Petey was still putting everything in his mouth,” Alice explains. “But you know better now, don’t you, angel?”

He nods. I sit on the floor next to them in delight, helping snap everything in place. Tim looks very serious when he hands Petey a beat up old engineer hat and shows him how to work the train controls. “This isn’t a toy, young man,” he says, sternly.

“Of course it’s a toy, Tim.” I punch his arm. “Petey, dude, it’s a toy train. Don’t listen to him.”

“Ty, please don’t undermine me when I’m trying to tell my son he cannot crash his trains into each other, or into his toy cars.”

Tim and I dive into a heated argument about the fun of running over toy action figures while Petey manages to get the train going on his own. Juniper watches it all with a smile on her face, one hand on her stomach, and I want to float away thinking about how this will be us with our kid in such a short amount of time. Then Gram asks me about flying out to our next game in Vegas, and I feel an icy dread in my stomach. I have to leave in the evening on Christmas to get to our game on the 26th.

When Petey starts to yawn, Alice declares it’s past his bedtime. I guess that’s our cue to go home.

I look over at my brother, who still hasn’t said anything. “Thatcher, you want a ride home?” As I help Juniper into her coat, she starts yawning, too, and Thatcher shakes his head. He still doesn’t say a word. I sigh.

Alice scoops Petey up the stairs and Tim walks us to the door, shivering a bit in the drafty entryway. “See you two tomorrow night?”

Juniper smiles, her eyes twinkling in the glow of Tim’s holiday lights. “We’ll be over as soon as our appointment’s done at the midwife center,” she says. “We’re going to hear the heartbeat!”

Tim pulls her in for a hug, and I love seeing how genuinely happy he is for her. For us. For our family. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, and while I love actual presents, I can’t shake the sense that all I really want is to be over here with all of them. Not just tomorrow, but every day. I definitely understand why Alice insisted on living walking distance from her dad and siblings. I drop a final glance at Thatcher by the fire and send out all my hopes that he and Emma will work shit out tomorrow. Nobody should be in a fight on Christmas.

There’s no traffic in the afternoon on Christmas Eve, as it turns out. Juniper and I find a parking spot right outside the Midwife Center for our appointment. I know Carol the midwife stayed late and penciled us in as a special favor, so I made sure to make a hefty donation to their fund for healthcare for low-income women, which probably goes a long way to explaining the smile Carol gives when she sees us.

Carol opens the door as we walk up, shivering a bit. “Looks like snow,” she observes, and as we walk past she dips a scooper into the bin of rock salt near the door, scattering some on the sidewalk out front. “Can’t have our pregnant mamas slipping, now can we?”

We walk up the stairs to the exam room and on the way, I stop and stare at the rows of photographs. Decades of women and their babies smile down along both sides of the stairwell, including my own mother and me, moments after I was born. I kiss my fingers and touch them to the glass covering the photo, following my wife up to the exam room while Carol asks Juniper about her symptoms and talks about her transition to her new role as a judge.

Juniper gets herself situated on the couch in Carol’s office while Carol whips out a stethoscope, checking out JJ’s heart rate and blood pressure and stuff. “Everything seems to be going well,” Carol says, massaging her hands around Juniper’s abdomen. Carol grins at me as I wring my hands. I know all this stuff is important, but I wish she’d get a move on with that doo-hicky that lets us hear the heartbeat. That’s the only part I can really experience, the only connection I have to the baby at this point. I’m jumping out of my skin wanting to hear that sound.

“I think maybe Dad is a little anxious to hear what’s going on in there,” Carol says, leaning over to grab her microphone thing. “Juniper, can you slide your pants down a bit and pull up your shirt? You should be far enough along today that we can hear Baby Stag’s heartbeat with the Doppler.”

And then, Carol grabs hold ofmyhand and wraps it around the wand. She squirts some goo on my wife and asks if I’d like to try to find the heartbeat. I shake my head, terrified, and Carol says, “You aren’t going to hurt a thing. I promise. Here.” She guides my hand toward Juniper’s stomach and together, we press the wand against her taut skin. Juniper smiles as we start to hear the swirling static from the machine and then there it is.

“Aha!” Carol says, as Juniper blinks back tears. The static clicking sound makes way into thumps. An unmistakable, magical connection into the life my wife’s body is building. Carol drapes her other arm around my shoulder as I start shaking, trying to hold back this wave of emotion washing over me. I don’t want the sound to end, never want to break this connection with my child, but Carol turns off the machine, smiling, saying, “Heartbeat sounds just perfect. Perfectly healthy, like all the Stag babies I’ve seen.” She cups my cheek. “Including you.”

I feel so grounded right now, here with my family and this woman who literally caught me as I came into this world. I tune her out as she putters around, talking about Juniper’s hormones. I lock eyes with my wife, not bothering to wipe away my own tears that fell while we listened to our baby’s heart. “JJ,” I whisper. “I’m going to retire from hockey. I want to stay home with our baby.”

19

TIM

“What time are they all coming again,” I ask Alice from the dining room table as she flies through the house. She’s been a little off lately, nervous and on edge. I keep telling her to relax, that this is just like any other family party we host every week. “It’s like…” I look at my watch. “Babe, it’s 8am.”

Alice has her arms full of wrapped gifts she stacks by family unit. I see a six-pack of our favorite hazy beer from Grist House on the coffee table and curse under my breath that her brothers get the good stuff since I never remember to drive out there and buy my own. “I’m just excited,” she says, but her eyes don’t quite seem joyful. After she arranges all the gifts, then rearranges them, she flicks on the stereo and blasts a Christmas mix from the radio. She and Petey start dancing as he crashes his trains into his toy cars. I grit my teeth and curse my brother Ty under my breath.

“Hey, Alice,” I pat the chair next to me. “Come sit with me for a minute?” She shakes her curls over one shoulder and sighs. She bites her lips and walks over. As she plunks onto the seat next to me, I run my fingers through her hair and inhale the citrus-sweet smell of her. I plant a kiss on her cheek and say, “I want to give you your present early.”

She shakes her head. “No way, Tim Stag. What am I going to open tomorrow morning?”

I laugh, but lean over to get the box I have sitting on the floor by the wall. “Don’t worry about that, Mrs. Stag. But I want you to open this before you get too deep into your kitchen operation for today.”

She cocks her eyebrow at me suspiciously and begins to tear open the wrapping paper. Petey runs over, wanting to help, and Alice grins as she lets him. Then she sees the label on the box and squeals, jumping out of her seat and clapping her hands. “Oh! Timmy! Yes!!”

I bought her one of those electric pressure cookers. The woman at the store said they’re very popular right now and even “real” chefs like my Alice would appreciate them. I’m thrilled to see she was right. “Tim! It can do so many things. I wanted one so bad. How did you know?”

I pull Petey up on my lap and he laughs, watching his mother dance around with her kitchen gadget. “I’m going to make yogurt for the kids for tonight,” she says. “Ooh, or should I use it for oatmeal for tomorrow morning? Oh! I wonder if I can pull off both…”

She sets it on the counter and sits on the floor with the instruction manual. I lean back in my seat, watching my wife enjoy herself, feeling like king of the world. I see my phone out of the corner of my eye and notice a text from Nicole. A glance shows me the thumbs up icon, and I chuckle. In the few weeks she’s been at Stag Law, Nicole has written a strategic plan for the next 5 months, 5 years, and 5 decades. She’s got systems for everything and has been talking to me about something called Human Centered Design and how she wants to apply it to our law practice. I pretty much do what she tells me in between sinking my teeth into big clients I suddenly have more time to prepare to meet. I spent this entire month fostering relationships with people I’ve been unable to touch base with for a long time.

Alice shakes me out of my reverie when she squeals. I look over and see a plume of steam escaping from the pressure cooker. “Petey, you must never touch this, ok,” she quips. “Look! I’m manually releasing the pressure from my practice run!” We joke about the page she holds from the manual, sternly advising us to never put our face over the steam release.

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