The Christmas Hope(18)

“Is the baby all right?”

“Yes! It’s just bored because we’ve been waiting so long for you to hand down what few Christmas boxes we have up there!”

“Don’t call my boy an it. That’s offensive.”

Meghan smiled. “What if this baby isn’t a boy?”

Nathan looked through the attic opening. “Didn’t you say he jumped the other day when we were watching football?”

“Yes, but—”

“No buts about it. You’re about to give birth to a cardcarrying Steelers fan!”

Meghan shook her head.

“Garland and wreaths coming down,” Nathan yelled. He threw the box and it landed at Meghan’s feet. “Ribbon and tinsel.” Another box landed on the garage floor. “Fragile,” Nathan said of the next box, watching Meghan’s reaction. “Nativity.”

“Don’t throw that one!” Meghan screamed, stretching her arms up toward the box.

Nathan laughed and climbed down, closing the attic hatch. He bent down and started carrying boxes into the front yard. “Don’t carry anything heavy,” he said, looking at Meghan over his shoulder.

Meghan rolled her eyes and picked up a box marked “Lights.” They had wanted to decorate the outside of the house sooner but Nathan’s hours at the hospital kept them from it. His third year of residency in pediatric cardiology kept him busier than expected at times. Meghan didn’t mind his schedule. She kept busy teaching and coaching high school track and when she could she worked on preparing the baby’s room. She was due the first week in January and couldn’t wait to be a mother. When she and Nathan married on Christmas Eve nearly three years earlier they’d said they wanted to wait five years before trying to have a baby but when Meghan started to feel nauseous during her first morning class she knew that their five-year plan was changing. They didn’t know the gender of the baby and didn’t want to know until the day of delivery. “Nothing is surprising anymore,” Nathan told friends and family who would ask. “This is really the last great surprise that’s left. Besides, I already know it’s a boy.”

Nathan began to string the lights around the small shrubs in front of their duplex as Meghan opened boxes, pulling out wreaths, handmade Victorian stars, and painted wooden angels. She pulled a wad of garland from a box and began to straighten it when a small box fell to the ground. She bent over and discovered it was an unwrapped gift. She turned it over to examine it. “What’s this?” she asked, turning toward Nathan. He was on his back underneath an evergreen bush making sure each branch was covered from front to back with lights.

He peered between the branches. “Don’t know. Maybe it’s the key to the Harley you bought me for Christmas.”

“Keep holding on to that pipe dream,” Meghan said. She examined the gift and threw her hands in the air. “This is that same gift we found last Christmas. The one with no name on it.”

When Meghan discovered the gift a year earlier, Nathan had held it between his hands. He was quiet and shook his head. “What’s wrong?” Meghan had asked.

“Just amazed at how stupid I am,” Nathan said, setting the gift aside.

“Why? What is that?”

“I don’t know what it is. Four or five years ago when I was doing my emergency-room rotation a patient dropped this. I found it after my shift and said I’d find the owner and return it. You can see what good intentions have done.” He had told Meghan he would take the gift to the hospital and see if there was any way to find the owner but he never did. He thought he had thrown the gift away last year but obviously he hadn’t.

Meghan knelt down and held the gift in front of him. “Why do we still have this? I thought you were going to do something with it last year!”

“What am I supposed to do with it?”

“Just open it up and find out who it belongs to.”

“Yeah. I’m sure there’s a business card in there with a name and address on it,” he said, stringing lights over a branch.

Meghan put her hand on her stomach. “I hope the baby didn’t hear that.”

“What?”

“Sarcasm at Christmas.” She slid the gift into his coat pocket.

“What are you doing?”

“I don’t want it here.”

“Why not?”

“It makes me feel guilty and this should clearly be your guilt. The baby and I shouldn’t have to suffer like this.”

Nathan laughed and put the gift out of his mind. Again.





A bird flew into the window and I jumped awake. I rolled over in such a way so as not to wake Emily. It was just after eight. I hadn’t slept that late in years. Girl followed me as I crept into my bedroom and took off the clothes I had worn to bed. I put them in the laundry basket and stepped into the shower. I had no idea what I would do today about Emily but figured that since the office was closed I’d have some time to call on my foster families. I put moisturizer on my face and tried to rub out the wrinkles around my eyes that made me look older than my forty-three years but it was no use. I dressed and more or less smeared makeup on and then tiptoed downstairs to the kitchen. I opened the back door and let Girl out and then looked in the cupboards. There was no cereal. I walked to the refrigerator, hoping I had eggs; if I didn’t I wasn’t sure what I’d feed Emily for breakfast. There were two little eggs in the bin and just enough orange juice for a full glass. Perfect. That’d be enough till I got to the store.