Day 15: Christmas Eve

Jon thought Monday night was an awful time for a Christmas Eve, but at least he had the day off. Actually, he had the entire week off; Polkiss-Leyton Dentistry was closed from the Monday the 24th to Tuesday, January 1st. At the very least, he would be a relaxed and well-rested secretary next Wednesday.

Caitlyn had made it through her finals without too much trouble, in her estimation at least, and the grades posted online last Thursday had confirmed that hunch. Her GPA had dropped a little bit—understandably, considering the circumstances of the last two weeks—but Jon had been a little confused when she wailed over the results. "Why, what's wrong with a 3.67?" Caitlyn had just shaken her head and walked away.

Once she was out of her last final, though, things had turned peaceful, almost idyllic. They had spent a day at the mall, scrounging up Christmas presents and making alarming but (they agreed) necessary gouges in their bank account. There were too many people who had been kind to them of late: Dr. Polkiss and Dr. Leyton, Jon's parents, Larry Pendleton, Dacey Klein and Gerald Mormont, Uncle Max Cassidy, his parents Blanche and Gordon Cassidy. Jon bought small gifts for the members of Octapella, and they collaborated on things for the Chamberses and the Cranes, who (of all things) had offered to come up on the 26th and help them move. It wouldn't be polite to ignore their friends—but even more than that, they wanted to thank them. In two weeks and a day they had received more support than they had ever imagined.

Caitlyn had immediately began planning for their formal wedding reception, which they had decided to hold on Saturday March 9th, which was the soonest they felt they could get their ducks in order, and by coincidence was exactly 90 days after their wedding. It was in the middle of March, yes, but most everyone they were inviting lived locally anyway, and they hadn't planned on anything more than a get-together with a big white cake involved. She had also begun to draft advertisements to post around town, marketing herself as a harpist hirable for special occasions.

Their sex life continued unabated; there were times when they didn't want to crawl out of bed, and times when they didn't have the strength; only propriety, and the fact that they were still in Jon's parents' house, kept them from dropping where they lay. They hadn't gone doggie-style since that initial encounter, not out of distaste for it (Jon had loved it for the raw energy and the depth of penetration, and clearly Caitlyn had enjoyed it as well) but rather because most of their sex just wasn't like that; a drowsy, languid morning session was far more their style, or a sensuous midnight run beneath the blankets. Jon's favorite was the same as his favorite sleeping position: to spoon up behind her, snuggling against her while he took her from behind; she preferred plain missionary, so she could wrap her arms and legs around him, which in truth he liked too. When he realized that they both loved being able to hold each other during their lovemaking, he started them in woman-on-top and then rolled them both to their sides, freeing their arms up entirely. Ultimately, this was not very comfortable—their legs kept getting tangled up, and one of them had to stay on an elbow at all times—and the angle of penetration was not the greatest, a big problem for a couple who loved the feeling of him burying himself to the root deep inside her. But still, if they could make it work, it would solve all their problems.

And when they weren't in bed or squinting over harp music or job offers, they were packing. Jon had a great deal more things than he'd realized; aside from four years in the dorms at college, he hadn't ever lived away from his parents. Much of Caitlyn's stuff, on the other hand, was still at her parents' house, and would likewise need to be packed and sorted. Some of it would undoubtedly be left with their parents, and Jon was already anticipating some sort of major yard sale, with anything unsold being donated to charity, probably. The hardest part was not deciding what to throw away, but deciding what to take. They wouldn't have much room in their apartment, and they had already decided to pack at a minimum. Unfortunately, that was far easier said than done, and Jon found Caitlyn calling his decisions time and again: "You don't really need this. You don't really need that." Most of the time, she was right.

And there was the giddy happiness of just being able to be in each other's company for hours and days at a time. Jon, going to work, knew that he was performing a needed service, that every hour he spent and dollar he earned would make Caitlyn's life better. But, at times, that was the only reason he was able to bear it. With Octapella on Christmas hiatus and most of his friends from outside that group just as busy with their own jobs and their own lives, Caitlyn was the sole momentum of his life, and it was hard to sit at a desk smiling at people with bad teeth when all he wanted was to be at her side. But after he'd left on Friday, he'd been left with the glorious prospect of eleven whole days without anywhere to be, except with his wife, and he intended to enjoy it as best he could.

But today they had better things to do than languish in bed. Christmas was Jon's favorite holiday, because of the big shindig that took place on the eve, and because so many people would be there. Jon, like many children of the Baby Boomers, had more aunts and uncles than he could count on two hands, and though a few had succumbed to disease, cancer or old age, many of them were still alive, and all lived in the nearby area (except for one maverick uncle who preferred Los Angeles). Under his parents' leadership, both sides of the family had united, and Christmas Eve was the day that everyone he was related to by blood gathered under one roof: aunts, uncles, cousins, grandmothers (both grandfathers having passed away before he was ten), and even Maren, daughter of his cousin Janice. Jon wasn't sure if this made him an uncle or just a very fancy cousin.

And, of course, there was the newest member of the family.

"Are you sure I look okay," Caitlyn asked him for about the fifth time that day.

"Yes, baby, you do," he said.

"I just want to make a good impression on your folks," she said.

"I know, and you will," he said. She looked beautiful, in his opinion—black slacks, a cotton hooded coat that hung to her knees and flowed when she moved, and a form-fitting V-necked sweater with red striping across the breasts and just enough neckline to show a bit of cleavage. He had always loved that ensemble. She had the bearing and dignity of a 40-year-old, and with her hair in a bun she made the staid, respectable look good; but these clothes made her look young and beautiful. And sexy.

Her face was far from relaxed, though. "Just think: I haven't even met most of these people, but now I'm family. I'm a, a niece-in-law, or something."

"And if you relax a little bit," said Jon, feeling a bit exasperated, "I'm sure they'll learn to love you for who you are. I mean," he said, turning to her, "I did. So you can't be all that bad."

She gave a timid smile. "Yeah, but, you... Jon, you have so much patience. You put up with... All my fears about hugging you, and, and my crazy parents, and—"

"Because you're worth it," Jon said. He took her by the shoulders. This train of thought must not be allowed to conclude. "Because I love you, and because you're worth it, and because look how little it took to make you blossom. I was just the one lucky enough to see it. Now everyone will see it."

"Because of you," she said, stepping into his arms. "Because of you."

"No," he said, shaking his head, "I was only the messenger. Baby, I couldn't've turned you into something you're not. I'm not a fairy godmother, with a magic wand to wave. All I did was give you permission to be what you were already."

She clutched at him, her head against his shoulder. "And I don't owe you anything for that?"

He kissed her forehead. "Nothing at all. Because, baby, it's not a one-way street. You did the same for me. You... You brought out all the... All the good things in me. You're my other half. You're my better half."

She gave a happy sniffle. "How can that be, when you're my better half?"

"Good," he said, with a smile, "I'm glad we got that settled."

I never get tired of this, he thought. I never get tired of just being here, of just holding her, of just... Being near her. You'd never would have thought, especially after all we do now... But...

When she finally loosened her hold, she glanced at herself in the mirror and gave a sniffly laugh. "Oh great, now I have to redo all my makeup. And your shirt got wet."

He dabbed at his sweater—yep, damp. Instead, he kissed her. "I will wear it as a badge of love over my heart."

She rolled her eyes theatrically and slipped back into the bathroom.

Downstairs, preparations were in full swing. Jon had already spent the morning helping put things in order and set the large dining table up with plates, utensils, chairs and so on, whereas Caitlyn had offered to help with the cooking and promptly whipped together a chocolate cake so rich that even the smell made him feel sated. Other family members, his father's unmarried aunts mostly, were already in the kitchen helping Jon's mother with her cooking or fixing their own dishes. The newlyweds had only just now, at half past four, managed to retire upstairs to change into something more suitable to the occasion. Part of Caitlyn's concern was the sheer informality of her wear; even Jon, in khaki slacks, pale blue collared shirt and sweater of green wool, looked more dressy than she. But once they got downstairs and saw that most of Jon's family, like Jon himself, dressed with more of a mind for comfort than appearance, she seemed to calm down a little.

Janice and her husband Bill were already there, with little Maren toddling around happily scaring the cat. This was only her second Christmas, and a big deal it was for her indeed. It was the cat's third Christmas, but Whiskers seemed to have taken the concept of 'scaredy-cat' to heart; she was quite friendly, but even slightest unexpected motion or sound or thing could set her to flight, and with all the food and relatives and presents coming in, she was in a state of high tension. The only thing that kept her from darting behind the couch was the fact that a very large and spiny green thing with lights on it was in the way. Most of his father's side of the family was there too, even Auntie Eve, who had been in the hospital not three days ago. The wild thing was that Jon's father's mother, Grandma Lynn, was still going strong. She had seen a husband and her second-eldest daughter into the earth, and now her firstborn was weak on her feet, but she herself showed no sign of stopping.

For Jon, though, the real excitement was his mother's side of the family. Cousin Janice was nearly forty, her older sister more than that, and the only other cousins on his dad's side (the ones in LA) were not yet fifteen. On his mother's side, though, was cousin Mark, the oldest at three years senior to Jon, and cousin Maxwell, and then Alison and Andrea, the youngest and the only one not yet in college. He wasn't sure what had driven Uncle Jack and Aunt Ruby, or Uncle Kevin and Aunt Sally, to give their children such alliterated names, but Andrea was a head taller than Alison, and Max much quieter than his older brother, so Jon figured Caitlyn would be able to tell them all apart. Surely she wouldn't go confusing Mark and Alison, at least.

Everyone knew who Caitlyn was, of course—the news had gone out long ago, and a few had even managed to make it to the impromptu ceremony. And Jon could see them giving her all possible benefit of the doubt, a distinction he doubted she'd need for long. Nonetheless, he could tell she was a little unnerved by the intensity of attention being focused on her, and while they wandered for a while, meeting and greeting everyone there, he took them out of circulation as quickly as he thought it polite to do so. There'd be time. Caitlyn wasn't going anywhere.

Upstairs, the "kids" (such as it was, with only little Andrea not yet alcohol-legal) were indulging in their normal party-going activity: playing Smash Brothers. Jon felt a lot more comfortable up here, and he knew Caitlyn would feel better with something to hide behind. Plus, she was at least a little familiar with these people; she had joined them at family dinners several times over the course of their relationship. Jon, a psychology major, knew what comfort familiarity could engender.

The conversation was casual and unobtrusive, but with little actually said. It was such a difference from the wide-open conversations Jon and Caitlyn had shared with the Cranes and Chamberses, but a welcome one. All of the members of the Hastings clan, including Jon's mother, were fairly private people, and both Jon and Caitlyn fit that mold well. The next biggest news, next to the unexpected marriage, was that Mark had proposed to his girlfriend of three years, but she wasn't here and Jon had never even met her; that was simply not the sort of friendship he shared with his cousins. Of course, this being a family affair, with not even Mark's fiancée in attendance (what was her name, anyway?), Caitlyn was eventually asked as to why she was not with hers. These questions ended once the situation was related—without too many nasty details, as this was supposed to be a joyous occasion, but just enough to pass on an understanding of the less-than-nurturing lifestyle at the Delaney house. The real clincher was when she repeated her mother's directive on the matter: "If you walk out that door..." Jon's family was a good deal more sympathetic from that point on, and Jon could feel Caitlyn relaxing in their company.

The food was, as always, delicious; this was the major holiday of the Stanford/Hastings clan Jon's parents had welded together, and no expense was spared. The cat Whiskers was plied with liberal handouts, with Melinda laughing over how she preferred garlic bread to bits of roast beef. Jon's mother's mother had made her specialty, a huge glass tray of shepherd's pie. When Caitlyn's cake was trotted out there were murmurs of approval; she had frosted it to perfection, even inscribing a snowman on the top, and the first taste (awarded to Jon's chocoholic aunt Susan) was pronounced heavenly. Caitlyn turned pink at the praise, but Jon could see it was doing wonders for her.

The most chaotic part, of course, was the gift exchange—and not a traditional one, but a white-elephant snatch-and-grab free-for-all. Each person contributed a small gift ($15 or $20) and was assigned a number; when that number was pulled out of a hat by the game's administrator (in this case Aunt Theresa), that person would get to select a gift from the pile and open it... Or, if they so chose, steal a gift someone else had already opened, at which point that person would select a new gift. Steal-backs were not allowed in the same round, and an object could only be stolen three times before being taken permanently out of circulation. Uncle Jack and Aunt Ruby, Mark and Max Hastings' parents, could always be counted on to provide cutting-edge DVDs, which were always in demand; but it was Jon's own mother, Martha Hastings Stanford, who was the queen of theft, often setting off huge chains of steals with her choices.

Jon's luck went utterly sour. His first choice was an oddly-shaped package: oval-shaped on the horizontal surfaces, and with a single long vertical side. This turned out to be two festive and New-Age boxes of Kleenex, which he revealed at large while Max roared with laughter. Fortunately, the perpetrator (probably Max) had kindly tucked $15 in small bills into the wrapping paper. Then Jon was stolen from by Alison and Andrea's mother Aunt Cindy (who had either taken pity on him or was short on Kleenex) and got to pick again. He chose this time a small globe, perhaps the size of a tennis ball, wrapped in bright red. This turned out to be nothing other than a set of orchid-colored Victoria's Secret panties. He wasn't entirely sure how he was going to get rid of those... Until Caitlyn took pity on him and stole them, earning them both red faces and all sorts of catcalls. Finally Jon gave up and picked the present he himself had contributed, a gift certificate to Barnes & Noble, which people seemed content to leave him alone with.

When the last gift had been stolen (a DVD of the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie, which Jon knew his dad was sad to lose) and the last consolation prize picked (a large box of chocolates, which Jon's father immediately swapped with Andrea for the Pirates DVD), the general present-opening began. Jon's family was also in the habit of slinging money around (or at least gift certificates), so there were very few boxes to pass out, and hadn't been for some years; Jon could have given Caitlyn her gift, but was saving it for Christmas Day. What did surprise him was how many envelopes were handed to him. His mother had passed out the declaration when he was eighteen that he was 'too old' for Christmas presents, and holiday-based income had been rather scarce since then. Evidently being a new-married man had changed some opinions (certainly most of the envelopes were addressed to 'Jon and Caitlyn Stanford' instead of just the usual 'Jon,' or 'Slimeball' if it was from Melinda). And when the Stanfords had finished going through and tabulating what they'd been handed, they were almost $5,000 richer than they had been ten minutes ago.

Later, it seemed to Jon that he said "Thank you" that night more times than he had in the entire rest of his life. Of course, he also meant it more than he had for the entire rest of his life, too.

Then there were good-byes and farewells and merry-Christmases, and then a constant flurry as they shelved leftovers and started putting the house in enough semblance of order that it wouldn't fall apart overnight. Jon was in such a daze that he almost didn't notice his parents putting coats and shoes on.

"Where are they going," Caitlyn asked.

Jon snapped to. "What? Oh. Uh. Christmas vigil."

"At the Catholic church," said Mrs. Stanford.

Caitlyn looked at them for a moment. "Can we come with you?"

"We?" said Jon.

"Of course you can, if you like," said Mrs. Stanford.

"We??" said Jon again.

"Jon, I think this is important," said Caitlyn.

"Cait, the thing lasts until like one in the morning," Jon said.

"And that's late for you," said Melinda, who routinely went to bed after Jon left for work.

Caitlyn drew him aside. "Jon, it's faith. I've been meaning to talk to you about it ever since we went to see Larry Pendleton, but we've been so busy. But now's as good a time as any. I think we need to spend some time developing your faith life."

"At twelve midnight," Jon said.

"It's Christmas. Think about the meaning of that word. Christ's Mass. This is where our whole religion started, Jon. If you can't come to church on Christmas, what's the point?"

"It's not faith I have a problem with, it's religion," Jon said. "Churches have said some pretty stupid things over the years."

"It's hard to mess up Christmas," Caitlyn said. "Come on, Jon. I think it would be good for you."

What occurred to him, absurdly, was the blowjob.

It didn't have anything to do with Christmas, certainly; especially if you believed that Catholic dogma that the Virgin Mary never had sexual contact for her entire life (another thing Jon thought was stupid). What he remembered was the fear in Caitlyn's eyes, and the nervousness, and how she had gone on and done it anyway. What he remembered was how she had been willing to place his wants and needs above her own. What he remembered was how she had inconvenienced and maybe even endangered herself... Solely because she knew it would make him happy.

"Okay," said Jon. "Okay. But I warn you: it's late, and I'm tired. I'm not going to be able to engage as fully as I might have otherwise."

She kissed him on the cheek. "And I'm sure God will take that into account when He smiles down on you."

And that was how Jon found himself sitting in a hard wooden pew, crammed in (or so it felt) with about a thousand old ladies in winter wear that smelled alternately like mothballs or cat pee. He and Caitlyn seemed to be the only people there between the ages of 10 and 40, and the church was packed.

Still, it was a pretty scene: the dais done up in garlands of evergreen with red bows, a life-size Nativity set in one corner, a Christmas tree in the other that must be almost as tall as the ceiling. Jon thought it nice, but Caitlyn seemed less impressed. "It's so gaudy," she said. "Like, I dunno, 'Look at us, we're faithful' or something. Haven't they heard that deeds speak louder than decorations?"

"If you don't like it, we could go somewhere else," said Mrs. Stanton, clearly disconcerted but intent on being obliging.

"Oh!" said Caitlyn, "no, no, I wasn't... It was just... It's not what I'm used to."

It wasn't what Jon was used to either. He had spent eight or nine years of his life here at this church, before his Catholic high school ended any thoughts or pretensions of religion in his life, and the preacher he remembered was much more of the fire-and-brimstone variety, an act he had alternately snored and choked over. Fortunately, that pastor had gone on to greener pastures (ones less denuded by fire and brimstone, probably), and his replacement was a much quieter man. He was balding and bespectacled, but still spry, and there was an air of kindness and wisdom about him—of godliness. And his message was one Jon did not remember hearing ever before in his life.

"When the decorations you see were proposed to me," he said, "they seemed a bit excessive, though still undoubtedly lovely. Which is not to say that we should not be thankful for our lovely and well-maintained church, because we should be. But we should also remember what Christ would have us do. The faith he called us to is not one of sitting quietly in pews in warmth and comfort and splendor. Christ would have us go out into the snow and minister to all his children. Christ would urge us, Go, go out, forget the comfort, forget the warmth and splendor. Those don't matter. What matters are the people out there who need your help.

"Christians have a bad reputation out in the world sometimes, and I can't say we're faultless. Within our walls hide many who use their holiness as a shield on their sins—or, even worse, a weapon with which to hurt others. They hide their sin behind Christmas trees... And sometimes, only a tree as large as ours will hide them. Well, there is nothing we can do about them, and they shall receive their comeuppance in the end—and I certainly have nothing against Christmas trees. This one is lovely, isn't it? But let us think of it, not just as a decoration, but as a reminder. What is it we might hide, behind the shield of our faith? What sins might we indulge in? And what are we doing here, here in our comfort and warmth and splendor?

"The Christmas tree should stay; it is us that should leave. Let us go out, and minister to those in need, and be such a beacon of love and light and peace and joy that those Christmas-tree Christians who would use our faith to hurt others are simply drowned out. Let us be so loving that those false ones among us are rejected, not by ourselves, but by the others who come to see them for what they are.

"Christ taught us to love. To be kind, and patient, but above all to love. And I can think of no better birthday present to give him than to follow his example... From this world into the next."

Then he led the congregation in a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday.

As they got ready for bed that night, Caitlyn said, "I think that was for us."

"What was? The Happy Birthday?"

"No," she said. "The sermon."

Jon blinked. "What do you mean?"

"I think God was trying to tell us something," Caitlyn said. "I mean, look at what he talked about. The tree hiding sinners... The ones who use their faith against other people... That's my mother. And what did the pastor tell us? To go out, and love, and ignore them, and let our deeds speak for themselves and let their deeds speak for themselves, and let people see. What he's saying is, If we love each other, and are good to each other as husband and wife, then... All this other stuff will work itself out. My mother will see. And... And she'll understand."

"No, no, wait, wait, wait," said Jon. "God... Is speaking... To us."

"Yes," said Caitlyn, surprised. "Didn't you hear Him?"

"I heard a preacher, not God." He slid into bed next to her.

"I heard God speaking with a preacher's voice," said Caitlyn. "Didn't I tell you that God works through human hands?"

"Yes, but... God, speaking... To us?"

Caitlyn frowned at him. "I thought Pastor Pendleton and I made more headway than this."

"You could have," Jon agreed, "but then we got distracted. And," he added, bending to kiss her, "I'm kind of getting distracted with you right now..."

She pushed him away, laughing. "That's not how we got distracted in the pastor's office."

"No, we started talking about your parents."

"Yes, and see how God just picked up where we left off with Him?"

"You're determined to see God in this, aren't you."

"If you're determined, you can see God in just about anything. Which is kind of the problem. George Bush saw God in making war on Iraq, and look what a fiasco that's been."

"So what if it's just coincidence," he asked.

"Where you see coincidence, I see God," she said. "And Jon... Look, your pastor could have preached on anything tonight. He could've talked about any million of things. But he didn't. He talked about sin, and hypocrisy, and how to defeat it. He talked about things that were directly relevant to us. God meant for us to hear those words, and to take counsel from them."

"Yes, but what about all the 998 other people in that room," Jon said.

"I don't know, maybe God had messages for them too," said Caitlyn. "But what they heard from Him doesn't matter. What matters is what we heard from Him, and what we decide to do about it."

Jon stifled a jaw-cracking yawn. He was getting distracted—but not by Caitlyn's body, sweet though it was. "Let's... Let's pick this up in the morning."

"Okay," said Caitlyn. "G'night."

"I love you."

He was going to kiss her, but he fell asleep halfway through it.

Day 17: Moving Day

Jon was awakened by the blazing trumpet of his cellphone. It was a number he didn't recognize—but on the clock was a number he did recognize, all too well; 9 AM. Way too early for Boxing Day. "Yeah umh hngh hello?"

"Hello?" said a disgustingly bright and chipper voice. "Is this Jon Stanford?"

"Mmm speaking."

"Jon, it's me, Christa!"

"Oh?"

"Yeah. It's Boxing Day!"

"Oh. Oh, right."

"So, you forgot to tell us where you live. We're about an hour out right now, and we didn't want to get too lost. And we figured we'd better get there as early as possible to help you guys move."

"Mmmm right," said Jon. This whole conversation was moving a little too fast for his brain. He gave his address mechanically, and the person on the other end agreed to be there in an hour or so.

"Donwannageddup," Caitlyn murmured.

"Yeah," Jon agreed, sitting down on the bed. Who was that? Who's Christa? What did she mean about... —Oh!!! "Caitlyn! Caitlyn! That was the Cranes! They're on their way here right now!"

"Whuh?"

"We're moving today!"

"Whuh?" said Caitlyn. And then: "—Oh!!!"

They showered quickly, and Jon felt his sluggish brain beginning to catch up to speed. It was very late in the day, for a man who was used to rising at 6 AM, but Jon and Caitlyn had been invited to the Cassidy family Christmas dinner; Uncle Max and Aunt Velma and Lawrence and Heath had all been there, and Grandma and Grandpa Cassidy had hosted. Nothing was said as to the Delaneys and their presence or absence. Both Caitlyn and Jon had drunk a little too much—partially out of sheer nervous dread, partially out of sheer relief at the good company—and when they got home, the bed play had lasted several hours, their longest session by far, but quite a bit of which Jon did not actually remember. He didn't feel any worse for wear because of the wine, but he certainly felt slow.

He stepped out of the bathroom and surveyed his room. The place was a wreckage—some boxes sealed, others opened and half-packed, and some things (like his computer) not even dismantled yet. Suppressing a sigh, Jon reached for the nearest unsorted object.

When Caitlyn came out, she immediately pitched in, but after a moment she wandered over to the nightstand, where last night's crop of used condoms was resting. "Boy," she said, "we sure had fun last night, didn't we. How many times did we do it, anyway?"

"Umm... God, I don't remember... Three times, maybe?"

"Are you sure?"

He squinted back into the mists of dim memory. "Umm... Yeah, three times. 'cause, remember? I said, like, Third time's the charm, huh? And you said, If we need charms on our third try, then—"

"Jon, there's only two used condoms," said Caitlyn in a tight voice.

Then they dropped everything and went scouring around on the floor, behind the nightstand, under the bed, everywhere. They could find no trace of a third.

"Jesus," said Jon, mopping his face with his hands. "We just don't like contraception, do we."

"Jon..." said Caitlyn in a small voice. "The woman at the Planned Parenthood... She said the best time for a couple to have sex, if they want children, is a week before her period."

Jon saw where this was going. "Like now."

"Jon... What are we going to do?"

"First off... We have to get another morning-after pill. Second... We might have to break our lease, because that tiny apartment won't hold two people plus a baby..."

"No, we won't. The lease is up in June, remember? Even if I got pregnant right this second, the baby wouldn't be here until... August, maybe even September."

"Right, you're so right..."

"You're not thinking. Jon, I need you to be smarter than this. You should've known better than to go sticking that thing in me without a condom—"

"Me?? I was half-drunk. You were half-drunk. You didn't remember either! Who's supposed to be 'responsible for our bodies, ourselves'?"

She turned away from him. Suddenly, he felt absurdly guilty.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"It's all right," she said. "It's not your fault. It's not my fault either. It was just an accident."

Jon grimaced. "One big fuck-all of an accident."

"Just... Good thing we didn't start doing this before we got married, right? —I mean, imagine what it'd be like if we got married because I was pregnant."

Jon wondered about that. What would it have been like? Would it have happened at all? If Caitlyn had ever expressed interest in having sex with him, he would have tried to get her on The Pill in plenty of time to spare. How she would have hidden the pill packs from her mother, he had no idea. Maybe she would've found those instead. And then we'd be right back here, where we started—gunshot wedding, to make it impossible for them to keep us apart. Except we'd be a little ahead on The Pill schedule. Though, knowing our luck, probably not much more ahead.

Caitlyn was looking at him with an odd expression. "What would you do if I were pregnant?"

Jon shrugged. "Marry you. And have the family we've always wanted to. Things would be tricky... But how is that any different from now?"

The smile on her face was like the sun.

When the doorbell rang, they hadn't gotten all that much more packed than when they'd started, and Jon realized with a guilty start that he might have forgotten to tell his parents of the impromptu plans. Sure enough, Mr. and Mrs. Stanford looked a little startled at the advent of four college-age kids on their doorstep, all married and one with a babe at the breast, but they had gotten good at taking things in stride, and within moments Zach's easy charm and Christa's sunny disposition—not to mention little Laurelyn—had put them at ease, and they retired with the confidence that their son and daughter-in-law were in good hands.

"So," said Christa, rubbing her hands together. "How are we going to do this?"

"Well," said Jon, feeling acutely uncomfortable. "Most of my stuff is upstairs. It's, uh... We're not quite done packing yet."

"Of course not," said Zach, "no one ever is."

"Don't worry, we're good at this," said Christa, smiling. "We've had to move practically a household worth of stuff back and forth from Mount Hill to Greenfield every year."

"And who's fault is that," Zach asked her.

"Yours, Mr. I Can't Live Without My PlayStation," said Christa.

"Look who's talking, Mrs. I Can't Live Without My Hair-Dryer."

"And it's quite a hair-dryer," Meredith offered. "Once she shorted out the entire dorm with it."

Christa was quite red at this point. "Look, the point is, if you'll take us to where your stuff is, we'll start figuring out how to best load and pack it all."

Jon had finagled the use of his parents' minivan, and Brandon had a smallish SUV and Zach a pick-up truck from his parents, so there was plenty of room. The major problem was the actual packing. They weren't bringing a lot of Jon's furniture, just a desk and some chairs; and he had never needed much to sustain himself beyond a computer (both desktop and laptop for convenience), the Internet and some books. And of course he needed his clothes, his toiletries, things like that. He wasn't even taking his PlayStation, though maybe he'd return for it one day. On Christa's orders he packed his underwear and socks in a laundry hamper and covered them with his towels; a second contained his computer and bathroom peripherals (packaged together because they weren't made of cloth), and a third his books (by far the heaviest). For his clothes, she poked holes in the bottoms of plastic trash bags and threaded the hanger loops through them, turning them into giant suit bags. The computer's monitor and tower were the only things that weren't packaged up somehow. And of course there were Caitlyn's two bags of clothes, plus assorted toiletries and harp paraphernalia, not to mention the lap Celtic and the full-size themselves. These were stowed carefully in the back of Jon's van.

While they were stripping the room in preparation for the move, Brandon held up something. "Hey, Jon, was there a reason this was in your pillowcase?" It was a used condom, half hanging out of its wrapper.

Jon and Caitlyn exchanged looks.

"Boy," Jon said, "we sure were half-drunk last night, weren't we?"

"You were," Brandon agreed. "Can I stop touching this now?"

When they were done and after Brandon's hand had been most thoroughly sanitized, most of Jon's things were still on the floor, and so the Cranes and Chamberses helped him sort them into "Throw Out," "Give Away" or "Try to Sell and Then Give Away" piles, with the very few "Keep"s remaining where they were. Quite a bit more ended up in the "Throw Out" and "Give Away" piles than Jon had anticipated, which he later attributed to the peer pressure of having his friends nearby.

"So, is that all you two are going to live on," Christa asked.

"No," said Jon, feeling a sinking dread in his gut. "There's a lot more at Caitlyn's place."

They lingered at the apartment unloading and setting up the few scant furnishings; the desk was placed in the bedroom, and it became clear that the Stanfords would need to buy some more furnishings (a dining table and chairs, a couch for the main room, perhaps a chest of drawers) and definitely some kitchen utensils and groceries. The harp was wedged very carefully in the corner, with fervent wishes for good sound-proofing in the walls. Jon's computer got into the Internet in a trice, much faster than any of them had anticipated, and he ceremonially read his new e-mail aloud before they went to lunch. The only message was a gibberish-laden offer to increase his penis size, which, subsequent to its oral recitation, was just-as-ceremonially deleted.

While they were eating, Caitlyn came to a realization, to judge by the hand she slapped to her forehead. "That reminds me, I wanted to talk to you about the conversation we had the other day. I wanted to finish the conversation we had the other day."

Jon, who had been hoping she'd forget, said, "Oh."

"But we can't, now, not in company," said Caitlyn.

Jon, who had been hoping she'd feel that way, said, "Oh."

"What conversation," Meredith asked.

"It was about God," Caitlyn said.

"What about Him," Meredith asked.

"Whether He speaks to us," Caitlyn said.

"Oh, no question," Meredith said. "Constantly. Just, never in His own voice, only through the words and actions of others. We just have to be smart enough to recognize Him when we see him."

"That's part of the game, kinda," said Zach. "The game of life. Where, if you can keep an open mind and an open heart, you can hear God's voice. The game part comes in where you have to figure out what's God and what's Man and what's just gibberish. Which can be hard. But it's fun, you know?"

"Why, what did God say to you," Christa asked.

Caitlyn related the sermon from the Christmas vigil. Jon was half-expecting her to get it wrong—religion just made him queasy like that—but she repeated it almost word-for-word, and then went on to give a summary of her interpretation. The others were nodding before she was half-way through.

"I think Jon's church is very lucky to have that pastor," said Christa. It's not my church, Jon thought.

"I think that's definitely God," said Zach. "I mean, like you said, Caitlyn, that guy could've talked about anything or anybody for his Christmas vigil sermon. But no: he chose to talk about something directly applicable to your lives. I'd feel confident about calling that a message from The Big Guy."

"What do you think, Brandon," Meredith said.

Brandon gave Meredith a short, direct look, and Jon could have sworn he was saying, We'll talk about this later. "First off," he said, "I don't know if I believe in God either," and suddenly Jon felt a lot better. "Regardless, though, it's good advice. I mean, face it: the only choice you guys have, to win over Caitlyn's mother—or to reconcile with her, for that matter—is to just stay the course, and grow your marriage to the point where it speaks for itself. So that when your mother finally gets her head out of her ass and looks around... Grandchildren, too. It's hard for any parents to argue with grandchildren."

"You had some trouble with yours, didn't you?" Caitlyn asked. "What do they think, now that they have Laurelyn?"

Brandon bit his lip for a moment. "They died," he said finally. "Private plane crash outside of DC."

There was a period of silence. Jon opened his mouth to say something, but from the look on Brandon's face, thought it might not be appropriate. Meredith gazed at her husband's face in clear anxiety for a moment, and then turned to fuss over the baby.

"My parents are delighted with her," she said, less than cheerfully. "After my brother died... It took a lot of the heart out of them. Seeing them with Laurelyn... It's like... They came alive again."

There was another moment of silence. Jon was burning with questions now (What brother?), but this didn't seem to be the time.

"Okay, this is no fit talk for newlyweds," said Zach. "We should be telling them raunchy jokes and sex suggestions, not all this... This stuff about death and parental stupidity and. Like. Stuff like that. I mean, come on! You're newlyweds! Parents are over, you don't ever have to go back there if you don't want to!"

"Jon's been telling me that since the first day," said Caitlyn softly. "And yet we still keep going back."

Jon squeezed her hand.

"Okay, I have a question," said Brandon, breaking out of his self-imposed lethargy. "What was with that condom in the pillowcase?"

Jon and Caitlyn turned bright red.

But after they were done eating and laughing and the good mood had been restored, there was no putting off the visit to the Delaney house. They were bringing out Caitlyn's bed for its larger size, and some of the furniture in her room (a chest of drawers, for instance) and possibly her three-quarters harp, though it might bankrupt them to obtain it. Jon had had to bring his checkbook, of course; they'd only paid for and bought the full-size harp so far, and there were still some clothes and other things to secure.

Jon also immediately realized that today, a holiday, was the wrong time to call: while Caitlyn fumbled with the key, the door was opened (tearing the keychain from her grasp), revealing her father in the doorway.

"What are you doing here," he said in his gravelly voice.

"Came back for my stuff," said Caitlyn, daunted but trying not to show it. Mr. Delaney was a big man, and could look very forbidding when he wanted to—now, for instance. A quick glance over Jon's shoulder showed that, for his friends at least, it was working; only Brandon still had his poker face on, though Meredith was rapidly reasserting hers.

"And these?" said Mr. Delaney.

"Hard to move a bed with only two people," said Caitlyn.

"We could've helped," said Mr. Delaney.

"You could've," Caitlyn agreed, her voice already stronger. "Would you?"

Mr. Delaney looked them over.

"They can't come in."

"Then we'll just set up camp right here on the doorstep," said Brandon.

"Brandon," said Christa in a cold undertone.

There was a flicker of motion behind Mr. Delaney: his wife, coming to investigate. When she saw them, her eyes hardened. "I told you to leave and never come back."

"You did," Caitlyn agreed. "You didn't mean it the first time."

"I did the second," said Mrs. Delaney coldly.

"Then get out of our way, and we'll get what we came for and never trouble you again," said Caitlyn, her voice just as hard.

Mrs. Delaney's face turned pale, but she moved aside and let Caitlyn lead her squad upstairs, trooping muddy meltwater on the clean floors.

"Jeez!" said Zach, looking around her room. "Beanie Babies! Like, half of the world's Beanie Babies right here! I hope you weren't planning on bringing them with you, 'cause we'd need five or six more cars to—"

"It's okay," Jon whispered. "It's okay. You don't—" You don't ever have to come back here, he had been going to say, but they kept disproving that statement; saying it again wouldn't make it any more true. He stroked the back of Caitlyn's head and wished there was more he could do.

"It's not easy to stand up to your parents," said Meredith softly. "One of the drawbacks of being born is that we automatically love our parents. And when we have to hurt them, it hurts us, too."

"Shouldn't it work the same for parents to kids," said Christa.

"Yes, it should," said Brandon. "But downstairs is living proof that it doesn't always."

"Now hold on," said Zach. "Sure, they may not act like they love Caitlyn very much... But from what you guys've told us, they wouldn't know how to act loving if their lives depended on it. At heart... Caitlyn, do you know what the opposite of love is?"

"No," Caitlyn sniffed.

"Hey, this is my line," Meredith protested faintly.

"It's indifference," said Zach. "If they didn't love you, Caitlyn, they wouldn't have reacted at all when you showed up. They would've just said, 'Fine, whatever,' and left it at that. The fact that they're reacting to you at all... It means they love you. Or at least care about you. Now, the problem is, they show it in ways that you don't understand—that any of us understand—but that doesn't change the underlying fact that they do love you."

Brandon and Meredith turned to each other. "We taught him too well," Brandon said, "he's taking our place."

"Shouldn't the opposite of love be hate," said Caitlyn.

"No," said Zach. "—or, rather, yes, within the range of emotions. But you don't hate someone who's insignificant. You don't hate someone who isn't important to you. You hate, I dunno, George Bush, because he can screw you over. But you don't hate an ant, because what can an ant do to you besides crawl up your pant leg?"

"I dunno," said Jon. "I woke up with an ant crawling on my face once. It wasn't fun."

"So I guess it wasn't necessarily accurate to say that they love you," said Zach, "but it is accurate to say you're important to them. You matter to them. There are good, true, emotional reasons—however misguided—that cause them to act towards you the way they do."

Caitlyn sighed. "I'm not sure if that's reassuring or not."

"Worry about it later," said Christa. "It's going to take us hours to get all this sorted out."

And take them hours it did; it was past dinner-time before the final load had gone into the shell-covered back of the Crane family pick-up. Caitlyn had given a final run-through of her clothes and other possessions, delineating some for movement to the apartment and consigning the others to storage at Jon's house, where they would meet their various fates (yard sale or permanent storage; the Throw-Away pile was being left here). Jon, Zach and Meredith ended up making an early run at about 4 PM, taking the first load of stored things to Jon's house; the remainder filled all three cars, though to be fair, some of it was furniture. Mr. Delaney, glowering from the recliner at the foot of the stairs, seemed inclined to open his mouth about the property they were carting away, but when he saw Brandon's face he apparently thought better of it.

About a quarter of Caitlyn's clothes were left here, and another half went back to Jon's house; the rest went with them, along with the bureau, a small kitchen table and attendant chairs, bookshelves with books, and the queen-size bed, which turned out to be long enough, though Jon still thought his extended twin would be smarter. They could wedge the full-size harp into the bedroom with the twin in; and besides, what was the point of such a huge bed when he and Caitlyn would be taking up so little space in it? But Caitlyn wanted it, so he bit his tongue. The thing he was most worried about was the clothing; she had enough of it to fill their small closet, and then where would his go? But it could be worse; going back to his house for storage was, by far, the majority of her property: all three-hundred-odd Beanie Babies, crammed into boxes, and her dolls and doll furniture, not to mention books, paintings, paperwork, the three-quarters harp and fifteen years of personal diaries. Jon had never known that a person could have so much they couldn't bear to part with, but then he stopped to wonder just how much of this might appear for sale on eBay in the near future—and, for that matter, how much of a profit they might reap from it.

Laurelyn was, for the most part, a model of patience and forbearance, but she was also only 368 days old, and she had only so much tolerance for noise and chaos and laughter and jostling around. A couple of times she cried. The first time she was satisfied by Meredith's breast to suckle (Jon thought to himself that any number of men could be similarly pacified), but the second she squalled for nearly fifteen minutes, and nothing Meredith could do would placate her. Or maybe it was just a ploy; after some attention and playing around, the baby quieted down, and Meredith could return to packing full-force. Jon caught Mrs. Delaney sort of hanging around during these periods of baby crisis, but she averted her eyes and bustled off every time he saw her. He wondered what was going through her mind. In any case, it was at dinner that Laurelyn really took off, yowling her head off to the point that Meredith was forced to retire from the restaurant for the relative peace and quiet of the Chambers's car. "Well, at least we know she's definitely our child," she quipped. "She hates big crowds."

Christa watched her go in admiration. "I don't know how she does it. There's times when that kid just drives me nuts, but you never hear Meredith complain."

"Maybe it's different 'cause it's her kid," said Zach.

"Yeah, but she's like a sister to me," said Christa, "shouldn't that count for something?"

"It does bug her," said Brandon quietly. "You just... She doesn't talk about it to most people."

"As in, to anyone but you," said Zach, smiling.

"Hey, I am her husband," said Brandon.

"God, look at us," said Christa, shaking her head. "We just helped our friends move into an apartment. I'm legally drinking a Piña Colada. My best friend's a mother, for heaven's sake, and one of my other best friends is due in... What, two weeks?"

"About," Brandon agreed.

"When did we get so old?" Christa exclaimed.

"Weren't we always," Caitlyn asked.

Everyone looked at her.

"I don't know about you, but... I've always felt... Mature," said Caitlyn. "I never felt like I was a child, or that the things that happened to me were any less important because I was young at the time. There was never a moment of, I dunno, 'Oh, I'm not a child anymore, I'm an adult now.' There was never a moment of, 'Oh, I'm a child.' I've just always been... Grown-up."

Jon found himself nodding. So was Brandon. "I know Meredith felt the same way."

"And you guys... Well, you're the most stable people I know," said Caitlyn to Zach and Christa. "You never lose perspective, you never get tripped up by the details, you... It's like nothing can faze you. And it takes a lot of maturity to be like that. There are adults who never learn it."

Everyone was nodding now.

"So... I don't think it's that we're extra grown-up now," said Caitlyn. "—Or rather, I don't think that we're extra grown-up now, I think it's that we've always been this grown-up, in our hearts at least, and it's just our bodies that have finally caught up. So now we're just being who we've always been. Now we can finally be who we've always been."

"Hear, hear," said Christa, raising her drink

"Crazy," said Brandon.

"What?" said Zach. "I think it makes sense."

"No, as in, that's what we've always been," said Brandon, grinning. "Crazy."

"Crazy for sex, you mean," Zach retorted. "Crazy for pussay!!"

"Guys," said Christa, with a grin but also a warning, directing them at Caitlyn's red face with a slight nod.

But Caitlyn made a weak grin and said, "Well, if you're sex fiends, no wonder you got married so quickly. How else would you get it regularly?"

Zach and Brandon stared at her.

"Did she just... Join in the banter?" Brandon said.

"Quick, grab a Bible," said Zach. "Look for other signs of the Apocalypse."

Dinner was like that: a light-hearted, enjoyable affair filled with good food and good company. The Cranes insisted on paying for it. "You can pay us back by cooking us dinner one day. Neither of us can cook, so most of the time we don't eat very well." Jon and Caitlyn laughed and promised to do so, even going the ultimate step of making a pinky-swear with Christa. It was the most fun Jon could remember having in a long time.

Back at the now rather-cramped apartment, the Chamberses and Cranes helped move furniture around—quickly, as it was now getting fairly late, and they still had a two-hour drive to get back to their beds in Mount Hill. The most critical object was, of course, the bed: it was not only largest, heaviest and most difficult to move, but it was also the one they would need the soonest. But while they were at it, they also managed to maneuver the bureau drawers into the bedroom, and then stood the bookshelves up, parked the table and chairs in the middle of the room, and declared the furniture 'in place.' "At least, at the moment," said Brandon. "You'll probably want a couch, a TV, kitchen gear..."

"Yeah, there's gonna be a lot of shopping tomorrow," said Jon.

"And a lot of unpacking," Caitlyn said, eyeing the boxes, hampers and crates without enthusiasm. "If we're just leaving in six months, maybe we should just leave everything boxed."

"Not the clothes," Jon said, "those we at least gotta hang. Or shelve."

"Yeah, but, everything else."

"Not if you want this to be, like, our place. Things in boxes is just a storage room. Things on shelves, decorations on the walls... That's a home."

"Yeah... We could put my lighthouse painting up on that wall... —Ooh, and the harp one over in the corner. That can be the harp corner! And—"

"Well, I can see our job is done here," said Brandon, grinning.

"Thank you so much for your help," Jon said. "I'd offer you folks room and board for the night, but... As you can see, there isn't a lot of room, and even less board."

"What is 'board,' anyway," Christa asked.

"Food," said Brandon, the History major.

"Yeah, we offered you that," Christa said, grinning.

"Why 'board'?" said Meredith, nursing Laurelyn. "Am I a board?"

"No, it's... I dunno, something about tables," said Brandon. "Like, a buffet table or something?"

"What, am I a table," said Meredith, genuinely confused.

Jon laughed and bade them goodnight.

Caitlyn was already wandering around the room, scoping out their various options for decoration. "Do you think the Kelsings will mind if we repaint their walls?"

Jon laughed. "I think that we should ask them before we hit the Sherwin-Williams store, if that's what you're thinking."

"Yeah, we should, but, wow, we could do such cool things with this room! This white stuff on the walls, it's boring, we could, I dunno, we'd need something to match the carpets, but after that... And we should probably get an air freshener in here, and..."

Jon kissed her on the cheek and left her to her excited burbling. For his part, he wanted two things: a piss and a shower.

The stall was not quite big enough for two people, but he thought they could squeeze if they really had to. We might have to try some of this standing-up sex thing. He also realized he should probably be careful about his shower durations; they were drawing from a communal hot-water heater, and a needlessly long shower could empty the reservoir for someone else down the line—or maybe even for himself. Fortunately, five-minute showers were his norm. Caitlyn might have some problems, though; she liked a half-hour or more.

It was only 10 PM, but the truth was, he was tired. It had been a long and demanding day—a rewarding one, to be sure, but demanding as well, both physically and emotionally. He had made some new friends, but faced down some enemies too; and on top of that he'd been physically moving non-stop except for lunch and dinner. As he saw it, it was time to get some rest. He unpacked his clothes, hanging most of them up and designating a single bureau drawer for his underclothes, and then went out for the bedclothes that Caitlyn had brought from her home.

"Going to bed already?" she asked.

"It's late," said Jon. "—Well, it's not that late. But it's late enough, and I'm tired."

"You're an old man," said Caitlyn, grinning.

"And you're married to an old man, so who's out of luck there," Jon returned with an arch smile.

"You weren't old when I married you," said Caitlyn. She gave his body a once-over. It had become their custom to sleep without clothes on; it was a lot more convenient. "You look pretty spry, too, for such an old geezer."

"Well," said Jon modestly. "I do my best."

"So," she purred, slinking over to him. "This 'sleep' you speak of. Is that an invitation to... Join you for some... Private time?"

"Actually, I was just going to sleep," said Jon, and she gave him such an eyebrow that he laughed aloud. "But, obviously, if you can convince me otherwise..."

"Hmm," she said, grinning. "Give me a few minutes to shower, and maybe I can."

But he never found out, because by the time she came out of the shower, he actually was asleep, and that was that.