Epilogue
JASPER
December 25
One Year Later
Kristen’s parents live in a tiny ranch house, barely three bedrooms, and the barely is because the third one is basically a thin-walled closet, hardly enough room for the futon Kris and I have been sleeping on for the last three nights to be unfolded. My back hurts, I’m sex-deprived, and last night I stayed up until three a.m. helping Kris’s brother-in-law build a dollhouse for his daughters.
I am having the best time.
“Okay, last one,” Kris says, passing me yet another pot from the stove. I don’t remember there even being enough food options on the dining table this evening for this many dirty dishes, but I haven’t much minded the escape, Kris and me alone in the small kitchen while the rest of the family relaxes and digests in the other room. It’s been fun, my second official Fraser family Christmas, but it’s been noisy, too, and hasn’t allowed for much privacy. Later tonight Kris and I will drive over to Traverse City, where we’ve rented a cottage right on the lake. Our Christmas gift to each other, and a private continuation of a tradition we started last year at the Dreyers’.
“I’m getting good at this,” I tell Kristen, scrubbing at a spot of stuck-on potatoes. “Your mom is gonna love me.”
Kris makes a clucking noise. “Please. She already loves you.”
I smile down at my soapy hands. She’s said it casually, jokingly, but the truth is—I think her momdoeslove me. I think her whole family does, and I’m as proud of that as anything I’ve ever done, especially since it made it easier to ask them—two nights ago while Kristen built a snowman with her nieces—for their blessing about a particular question I’m planning to ask Kris soon.
Tonightsoon, if I have my way. I’ll be breaking a promise to her, saying the cottage was the only gift for the holiday this year, but I’ve got a feeling she won’t mind.
“I talked to Carol,” Kris says, interrupting my thoughts. “She opened our package. She says it’s her new favorite.”
“I can only hope her family put on sunglasses before she turned it on.”
Kris laughs, swats me with a towel. Keeping Carol on after the Dreyer deal lapsed hadn’t been easy, exactly. We’d had to downsize, moving into a space with only one private office, but as it turned out Kris and I liked sharing, and we’ll probably re-up the lease, even though we’re back—way back, thanks to a new deal we’ve recently made for Gil Dreyer that’ll keep him and his patent in Massachusetts—in the green. But it’d been worth it. Worth it to keep Carol, who still hums and plays annoying music all day. Worth it to be with Kris side by side, working together better than we ever have before.
Just as I’m rinsing, the screen of my phone lights up on the windowsill above the sink. I’d ignore it, but once I see the name I’m flicking my hands dry. “You mind?” I ask Kris, showing her the screen.
She grabs the pot I’ve just washed, leans over to give me a kiss. “Nope. Tell him hi.”
I duck out, down the hallway into the closet-bedroom.
“Merry Christmas, man,” Ben says when I answer.
“Hey, same to you. How you guys doing?”
“Hi, Jasper,” comes Kit’s voice through the phone, somewhat at a distance. “Ben, tell him hi!”
“I heard her. Tell her Merry Christmas,” I say.
“Same to Kris. I can’t talk long,” Ben says. “We’re on our way to my dad’s place for dinner. He’s trying to fry a turkey. I gotta get there before something goes real wrong.”
A year ago, this might’ve hurt a little, hearing Ben talk about his family holiday plans. But not long after Kris and I got together, I realized something. All that missing I did—for her, for us—it had a whole lot to do with what I’ve been missing since I was seventeen years old, on my own and learning what it was like not to have a home. And what she and I have between us now is everything I knew I was missing and also everything I didn’t know I was.
Including Christmas.
“Right,” I say. “I think I’ve got to go sing some carols or something.” In the living room, I can hear Kristen’s mom playing scales on the small piano they have by the back door.
There’s silence on the line for a few seconds. “What the shit did you just say?”
I laugh. “It’s a Fraser tradition.”
“Did I call the right number?”
I laugh. “I’m a changed man. I wore a Santa suit for Kristen’s nieces yesterday.” That’d been a hit. With the nieces, first, who squealed in delight and clapped when I’d come in the front door with a bag of presents, and then later with Kristen, who’d shoved me into this bedroom, pulled down my fake beard, and kissed me in a way that was entirely inappropriate for a television movie.
“I’m happy for you, bud,” Ben says.
