Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 82077 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82077 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
“And that means I can’t like soft stuff?” She seemed affronted. “How dare!”
He groaned loudly, and she leaned sideways and kissed his cheek. “Thank you so much, I love…oh, her!” she squeaked out, reading the name off the tag. “Her name’s Eloise. How sweet is that?”
David squinted at her as she squeezed the cat more. “You would have liked the small box better,” he assured her.
“No,” she told him, squeezing the Squishmallow again. “You did good.”
He glanced at me, and I gave him a nod.
Spontaneously, he got another kiss, and then she flounced off into the house, carrying her new prized possession.
“Soft stuff,” he said, nodding. “I called and asked Kola for ideas before I bought the wildly extravagant gift that I’ll have to put in my safe now until our fiftieth wedding anniversary.”
“I like your optimism,” I conceded. “My son told you soft stuff?”
He nodded. “Softer the better, he said. Everyone said that was what to get. Harder to find than I thought, but clearly, not beyond my ability to acquire.”
“Nope,” I agreed, patting him on the shoulder. “Have a nice Christmas, David.”
“And you, Mr. Harcourt,” he responded, and then was off my porch for the second time.
Jake was not pleased with David’s gift and smacked Kola in the back of the head as he sat on the couch beside Harper.
“What’d I do?”
“Traitor,” he accused my son, glaring as he went to the kitchen.
“Oooh, what’d you do?” Harper wanted to know.
“Nothing, I—when David called and asked me what he should get Hannah, I just said her bed is like a giant nest of soft comforters and pillows and a lot of plush. Get something that would fit. Something soft.”
Harper was shaking his head.
“Wow, man,” Sam chimed in with a grimace, “way to sell out your boy.”
“Thank you,” Jake grumbled from the kitchen.
“Oh, come on,” Kola grumbled at all of us.
I might have cackled.
It was fun, we enjoyed ribbing Kola, and eventually all settled down to play Monopoly. It didn’t help Jake’s mood that when everyone was curled up later to watch Die Hard, Hannah had her favorite blanket—that Kola had bought her the year before, the softest, thickest, fluffiest cloud of a blanket I’d ever touched in my life that was covered in blue unicorns—and David’s gift. She took a photo, called it Christmas Eve Happy, and posted it to her Instagram. Jake’s mood went from petulant to murderous, and Kola had to finally get up and make his buddy a sundae with chocolate chip cookies from scratch.
“Why are you making that on Christmas Eve?” Hannah asked as she got snacks from the kitchen before Home Alone started. “We already have so much stuff.”
Kola looked at his sister, then over at Jake, who was glaring at him, and back to his sister. “I might’ve forgotten the buddy code.”
“The what code?”
“Never mind,” he grumbled, his voice full of disgust and regret. “Make me popcorn, and put M&M’s in it and furikake.”
“Oh, that’s gonna be disgusting,” she commented as she complied immediately.
“And lots of butter.”
No one missed the gagging noise.
Jake flew out to California the day after Christmas to visit his mother and sister and finally meet his new niece. Hannah went with him, which I was happy for her about, but sad for me because they wouldn’t be back until New Year’s Day. It would be the first time we’d been separated for New Year’s Eve, ever, and I was working really hard to hide my disappointment.
There was some craziness that involved an inter-agency task force, and Sam was gone the following morning, promising on his way out the door, Chris Becker in a car waiting for him at the curb, that he would be home before New Year’s Eve come hell or high water. I wasn’t holding my breath.
Kola and Harper decided to visit friends they hadn’t seen in a while and so headed up to Parkridge. They would definitely be back before New Year’s Eve because Harper’s mom wanted him home as well.
It was odd to be alone in the house with only the dog and the cat for that weird twilight zone week between the holidays where time blended together. The good news was, I took down Christmas in stages, and it was sort of soothing. Normally, with all the help I had, things were dismantled quickly and there was no rumination on how beautiful this piece or how that ornament had looked, but this year I had the time to take more pictures than usual, do close-ups of the tree and of the lights in the interior as well, because Sam was a master of the inner lights as well as the outer. He had it down to a science.
I also really enjoyed getting up and having it quiet. Getting my coffee, sitting, catching up with news, and just going at my own pace instead of competing ones. I missed my family, but there was something to be said for an empty house.