I smiled. I couldn’t wait to meet her, and the rest of Kallum’s family, even if I was a little nervous too. What if they didn’t like me? What if theydidlike me, but Kallum and I broke up and then I would have lost another chance at a family?
“And hey,” said Kallum, gesturing around to the toy shop, and to Christmas Notch at large, “this is kind of a family too, isn’t it?”
I thought of Kallum and Gretchen and Pearl and even Jack Hart and Luca and Sunny and Bee. I thought of late nights on set and jostling shoulders at the craft table and the layers of inside jokes that built and built over the days. I thought of how it felt to be here, to be the Winnie who wasn’t Old Winnie or New Winnie, but Now Winnie, and I thought of how happy Now Winnie was with the zany, melodramatic, oversexed Christmas Notch gang.
“Yes,” I agreed, happiness unfurling a little in my chest, like a flower in the sun. “It is like a family here.”
Three days later, and I was sweaty and yawning as the shuttle stopped to unload several bathrobed elves and me at the toy shop to change out of our costumes. (Not that there was muchcostumefor the elves to change out of—the backdrop for Santa and Holly’s big fight was an eggnog-fueled elfish orgy, and the extras had been wearing nothing but modesty patches and waterproof foundation.) Kallum had ducked out of the back lot the minute we’d wrapped today, needing to take a call about a missing shipment of pizza boxes, and I was hoping I could get changed and back to my room in enough time for us to have sex before I crashed face-first onto a bed. We’d been working nonstop to get all the new scenes and transitions filmed for Pearl’s rewrite, and this pregnant narcoleptic was exhausted.
My obstetrician had recommended going off my narcolepsy meds since the research around their fetal impact was limited,and had prescribed me “as much coffee as you want” in its place. Even though pregnant people were often advised to stay away from caffeine, in my case it was safer than the alternatives, and medically necessary to keep me upright while I was working.
Not that it mattered—even sucking down coffee as fast as craft services could brew the stuff, I was still so tired that I sometimes fell asleep between takes. Once, memorably, with Kallum half naked on top of me while they reset the lights. (He had to wake me up by blowing raspberries on my neck.)
I yawned hard enough that my jaw hurt as the elves trooped into the toy shop and I staggered out of the van and onto the sidewalk. Jack Hart, who’d used the shuttle to get back to town from the back lot, was getting ready to strap MissCrumpets into her BabyBjörn-esque carrier when the toy shop door banged open and Luca strode out.
“You’re so tall,” Jack complained, squinting up at Luca. “Stop it.”
Luca pointed a finger with no less than three rings on it. “One of the elves has a modesty patch stuck in their pubes. You need to fix it.”
“Me?” Jack said, his Ken Doll face full of irritation. “Why?”
“Because they’re your weird little patches!” Luca said. “If anyone would know the best way to get them off, you would!”
“What am I, an adhesive expert? Try peanut butter or something!”
Luca sniffed. “I have a peanut allergy. And if you don’t come inside, I’m bringing the elf out here to you, and then all of Christmas Notch can see what you do to people’s pubes.”
Jack glared.
Luca glared back.
“I still can’t believe Angel agreed to marry you,” Jack relented with a grumble.
Luca gave him a beatific smile. “Just wait until you see my wedding dress. Nowinside.”
Jack turned to me and before I could speak, gesture, or consent, MissCrumpets was put into my arms like a baby. She settled in with a fart, gave my upper arm a half-hearted lick, and then fell asleep.
“Don’t feed her macadamia nuts,” Jack instructed ominously—and unnecessarily—before disappearing back inside the toy shop with Luca, leaving me alone on the sidewalk in a red velvet dress that was practically lingerie.
With another yawn, I started pacing MissCrumpets back and forth on the sidewalk, letting the warming evening breeze ruffle her fur and dry some of the sticky sweat still in my hair. It was a little preview of having a baby, maybe, of being exhausted and having to rock and sway with a little farting bundle in my arms—
“Winnie?” an alto voice said from behind me.
My spine stiffened, my shoulders set. My heart gave a series of quick, sharp beats, as if my body wanted me to run away. Which was ridiculous, because of course I didn’t want to run away, of course I was happy to hear that voice.
I turned and saw my mother and father for the first time in two years.
Joy—it must have been joy—crashed through me, hot and shaky, and suddenly all the stuff I’d said to Kallum earlier was bullshit. All the hopes and dreams and fantasies of my thirty-two years were still rooted deep inside me, still trying to push their way to the surface.
“Hi, Mom,” I said, a little shyly. “Hi, Dad.”
“Hello, sweetheart,” my father said in his deep baritone. I’d always thought he looked and sounded like the perfect father. Even more than myIn a Family Wayfather had—but then again, my TV father had been more than someone who merely looked like a dad. He’d also been silly and playful and kind to everyone on set. In my darkest moments as a child, I’d wished my TV fatherweremy real father... and then I’d beg God for forgiveness for thinking such a horrible, ungrateful thing. How could I when my real father so perfectly looked the part? Even now, years later, my father’s face was folded in an expression you could find underpaternal lovein the dictionary.
“We got your message,” Mom said. Her expression was similar, so full of love, and she was so pretty, with her soft blond bob framing her face and her smile. It faltered a little when her eyes ran over my body—with a flush, I remembered how skimpy my costume was, how much I must look like a fallen woman to them—but then her smile came back. “Winnie, we came because we hate this distance between us. We want to be with you.”
“You do?” I asked, shifting MissCrumpets in my arms. She gave a little snorfle and went right back to sleep. “I thought you’d be mad.”
“It’s not our place to be mad,” Dad said. “And this is a gift. A blessing.”
