Page 95 of Just Say Christmas
He seemed to know that she needed to talk the minutes away, because he obliged. “True, but maybe it’s a good time to say it. First, I’ll say again that whether this is it or not, it’s not our last chance. You’re thirty-one. As we know, I’mforty-one, but fortunately, I’m not obese and not impotent, at least not yet, so maybe I’ve still got a hope. And if it doesn’t happen, we get tested, that’s all, and make the next set of decisions. That’s all life is. One set of decisions after the other. Oh, and as for what I want?” The clock was still flashing in the window. She could tell he had one eye on it, and that was also why he was still talking. “I want to have a baby with you. I want to watch your belly get bigger. The idea is sexy as hell to me, sorry to say. Can’t help it. After that, it gets a bit more noble. I want to be there when it’s born. I want to choose a name with you. I want to show Casey and Isaiah how to change a nappy. I want to watch you feeding it. That could make me feel all sorts of things. Some of those may even be noble, too. I want to keep being a dad. That’s what I want. And it’s finished, baby.” His voice was gentle. “Have a look.”
Oh. She’d forgotten. She’d been watching him. She tried to read the answer in his face. She thought maybe she could. He had her hand, and they looked together.
Yes.
* * *
RHYS
Casey wore her red dress, and he fixed her hair with the red bows and the mouse ears. They ate bacon, and pancakes with chocolate chips and whipped cream and caramelized bananas and maple syrup. He skipped some of those things, and so did Zora, but the kids ate all of them andweren’tsick.
After that, they decorated the tree, with its thousand tips molded from real branches to be more realistic, and its lack of required fluffing. About a thousand ornaments, too, all white and silver and gold. “Like a princess tree,” Casey said happily. “Like on my wall. It’s like a magic tree.”
“Well, not really,” Isaiah said. “But it looks nice, I guess. It’s kind of shiny, though.”
“That’swhy,”Casey said. “That’s thepoint.”
Isaiah didn’t shrug, but he clearly wanted to. He hooked another silver icicle onto one of the thousand tips, then added a crocheted snowflake while Casey hung golden balls and silver bells that really rang, and she and Zora worked together to hang the twelve different flower fairies, their skirts the only spots of color.
They didn’t tell the kids. Not yet. He wanted to hold this close, between the two of them, for a little while longer. It was there in his heart and hers, and that was enough. But he wanted to take her to bed. He wanted to do that right now. He was in two places at once, because he wanted this family time, and also . . . he wanted to take her to bed.
Some things, your body needed to say.
When the tree was glittering and sparkling, when the twinkle lights were on and the whole thing looked like a rich-list teenager’s fever dream, against the improbable backdrop of a brilliantly blue-skied summer’s day, looking over the emerald hills to the calm waters of Manukau Harbour, Casey sighed and said, “Itismagical.”
“Maybe it is,” he said.
“Now we have to do the angel,” she said. “The angel is last.”
She took it out of its box. It had gilt wings and blonde hair, and its velvet dress was red. Casey stroked the fabric and said, “My mom liked red the best. She said red was a happy color, and besides, red is for Christmas.”
Zora said, with all the tenderness you’d expect from her for this child she’d chosen to love, “Then I think you should have your dad lift you up, and you should put your angel on our tree. And you can take a little minute to tell your mum you love her.”
“And that I have a family,” Casey said. “And a dad, who’s my real dad, because he chose.”
“We’ll tell her that, too,” Zora said. “We’ll all tell her that.”
Rhys took Casey by the waist and lifted her up. In the poinsettia dress he’d bought her, and with the red bows in her hair he’d put there. Red for her mum’s favorite color, and for Christmas. Casey put the angel carefully over the top of the tree, and he held her up there a minute longer, so she could see it. And he thought,Thank you, India Hawk, for loving her so well. And know that you can rest in peace. I have your little girl safe, and I’ll be taking good care of her. You have my word.
45
Diamonds in the Daytime
Friday,December 25
ZORA
Zora wore her Christmas present for Christmas tea. It was overdressing. She didn’t care.
Hayden and Luke got to the house first. Hayden was no sooner through the door, though, before he was taking her by the upper arms and standing back for a good look. “I think I know who’s been a good girl,” he said, “because Santasoclearly loves her.”
She was laughing as Casey said, “That wasn’t Santa. It was my dad. He gave her the earrings for Christmas, and he gave her the pearl necklace before. They’re real pearls and real diamonds. They’rereallyfancy. Even though Auntie Zora usually isn’t fancy, she likes being fancy sometimes.”
“And she already had the dress, of course,” Hayden said. “A wee bit sleeveless, a wee bit ruby-colored, and a wee bit form-fitting. The difference is, todayisthe right time to wear it.Exactlythe right time.”
“Because red is for Christmas,” Casey said.
Zora’d had to put her hair up to show off the earrings. When she’d opened the box last night, because Rhys hadn’t been able to wait until Christmas, she’d said,“Rhys.”
