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29
MALLORY
Christmas in Murdock was a special affair. A rather small community, Murdock was still a wide area of space, and the citizens of it were spread out. Doing a tacky light tour was harder because it required too much driving, so the whole town got together and blitzed the hell out of Broad Street.
It was called Christmas Street during December, and I was currently walking down it, hand in hand with Graham as we did some last-minute shopping. Christmas Eve had snuck up on us, and I still had a couple of things I wanted to grab for Owen and my mom while I still could. With Mom watching Owen, it meant a rare afternoon and early evening out with Graham before Christmas Eve dinner with everybody together later.
Tessa and Kat had joined us for a little while but had just departed, excited to meet up with us again on Christmas afternoon. As we waved at their passing car, Graham kissed the top of my head.
“Have you talked to Tamara today?” he asked.
“Yeah, she said she would be here around noon tomorrow,” I said.
“I’m sure you’re excited,” he said. “I can only imagine what it would be like to have your parents decide to spend the holiday in another country.”
“It’s not the first time,” I laughed. “Tamara’s parents often go on a trip for Christmas. They always invite her to go, but she just didn’t want to go this time. She’s come home with me to Murdock for Christmas before.”
“I remember you mentioning she had,” he said, opening the door of a specialty novelty shop for me. “Too bad she couldn’t make it in time for dinner tonight.”
“She’s just excited for the party tomorrow,” I said. “She said she has a car full of presents for Owen, so he’s going to be over the moon.”
“I’m sure,” he laughed.
“Auntie Tamara is going to hook him up,” I said. “Dale and Steven sent something too, but it’s apparently still stuck in the mail.”
“Speaking of being stuck,” he said, eyeballing the inside of the store, “we’ve got about twenty minutes, I think, before we need to get out of here if we’re going to make it back to the house on time.”
“Well then,” I said, cracking my knuckles, “let’s get to shopping.”
He laughed, and we dove in, moving shoulder to shoulder through the aisles and seemingly picking things up at random to toss in the cart. If it vaguely looked like it would work as a gift, it got tossed in. I’d figure all of that out later.
Graham got in line ahead of me to save a spot while I finished up shopping, and when he got to the register, I met him with my hand basket of items. As we paid for everything and grabbed our bags, I looked at my phone. Proudly, I showed it to Graham.
“Wow,” he said. “You’re good at this.”
“Twenty minutes exactly,” I said. “I told you. If you can shop in downtown Manhattan and still catch the subway on time, you can handle Murdock, Texas Christmas Street.”
We headed over to Mom’s place to do Christmas Eve dinner, and Owen met us at the door. For once, coming back to my mom’s house, he wasn’t covered in chocolate. Instead, he looked absolutely perfect in a Christmas sweater and his hair parted smartly to one side. I wrapped him up in a big hug and carried him back inside.
The house smelled amazing as we walked in, and I dropped Owen off in the living room with Graham to play and hang out while I went to help Mom in the kitchen. She was usually pretty particular about the big holiday meals and the preparation for them, assigning me duties to fulfill, usually the ones she didn’t like doing. This time, though, she was being more open-ended and letting me jump in where I wanted.
There was a silent acknowledgement in that. I was married now. It wasn’t just that I had a kid, but I was actually married, was living with Graham in our own place, and wasn’t over quite as much as I used to be. I didn’t want her to feel like she wasn’t important anymore, but she seemed to be handling it well. She was starting to ease into the idea that she had done what she needed to do and now could hang back and be a grandma.
I helped Mom finish dinner and then we sat down to eat, enjoying being together and having classic Christmas movies on the TV in the background. Owen was getting sleepy before we even got to the gift-opening portion, and though he woke up for the presents he got from his grandma, he was already asleep thirty seconds into the drive home.
When we got him back, I took him upstairs and put him to bed, tucking him in tight and shutting his door. His door creaked, which was something we didn’t want to fix, since it alerted us if he got up and was moving around. That came in especially helpful for what we were doing.
Gathering up the wrapping paper and bringing what unwrapped presents there still were into the living room, we sat down with our supplies and got ready to play Santa. As I started wrapping the newer items, Graham arranged the tree, filling all the available space under and around it with gifts. I looked away to get some things wrapped, and when I looked up again, I gasped. It looked amazing, and was easily the biggest pile of gifts Owen would ever wake up to.
“We still have a ton of stuff to wrap,” Graham said. “But I don’t know how we’re going to display it all.”
“Well, before we get to that,” I said. “I have something I want you to open.”
“Are you sure?” he asked. “I can wait until tomorrow morning. I can open my gift with Owen, and we can do a whole thing.”
“No, I think it’s better if you get this one tonight,” I said. “I don’t want you to be too tired when you open it and tomorrow will be super busy. I want you to have it tonight.”
“Are you sure?” he asked.
