Page 48 of Four Calling Birds

ChristmasEve

Griff was stitched up and sent home. But like most of my vagrant children, he had no real home to go to. None that had people to help him recover. So he was bunking in the guest house with Taz taking up the other room and helping him recover with her bizarre brand of nursing.

If Taz was fire, then Griff was gasoline. The two were just an explosion waiting to happen. The question was what kind of flame would come out of it?

But, like clockwork, every morning Taz was under his arm, helping him limp down the road to the main house. She’d sit him down at the kitchen table and serve him coffee while Lotte made breakfast.

Bo and I had started sleeping in a little more. I’d wake up to the scent of cooking bacon and the chatter of friendly voices as I walked out with my t-shirt and flannel pajamas. My faithful mut’s long nails would clack on the wood floor beside me.

This old dump was starting to feel like a home.

The morning of Christmas Eve, Bruce was in the vegetable patch, rooting through the falling snow. I had made good on my promise, and kept putting out a stash of corn. But he still liked to be a pain in the ass. I was starting to think that he liked the scarecrow, and it’s rock music.

“The deer doesn’t bug you so much anymore?” Lotte asked.

“Nah,” I said, as I took a sip of the black-as-tar coffee. Just how I liked it. “We’ve come to an understanding.”

“Wow, did you write up a treaty or something?” Taz said with a smart-ass smile on her lips. “From what Lotte says, you had it out for that creature.”

Taz was still calling my wife by her name, and not “Momma Mack” as they used to. She was still trying to hold on to some of that stubborn resentment, as if divorcing me meant that she had divorced her as well. Telling her that wasn’t true wouldn’t change her opinion. The only thing that could fix that was time and proximity, and we had plenty of both now.

I hadn’t told them about Bruce’s assistance the other night. I wasn’t ashamed about someone getting the drop on me, not really. But I would be ashamed if I had to tell my team that the only reason I survived was because a deer decided to gore him like a bull after a red flag.

“My priorities changed,” I said, pulling the chair out. “Veder still not coming in?”

“Nope,” Taz said, side-eyeing Griff. “He’s out plowing your driveway. He wanted to get it salted before Goose came by…”

Like clockwork, we heard the low, responsible hum of Goose’s dad-mobile crunching the gravel drive. Then his booted steps up the stairs, and the creak of the front door as it opened and shut.

“We found a house!” Goose announced from the foyer.

“Yay!” We all said in unison as we applauded.

“It’s down the road, has a room for both the kids and me, and it’s right by their school.” He pulled off his jacket, shaking the snow off before putting it on the coat rack. “Which means the little brats can walk there.”

“You say that,” Taz teased, looking over her shoulder at him. “But I bet you twenty bucks, you’re gonna be a crossing guard so that you spend more time with your spawn.”

“Is crossing guard a real job?” Goose asked, his head popping up like he had just heard something intriguing.

Taz and Griff looked at each other, smiled, and chuckled as if they were sharing an inside joke. They weren’t. The truth was that since the loss of his wife, Goose had been a more attentive parent than necessary, trying to compensate for his children’s lack of a maternal figure. The guilt of not having been the primary parent until that point weighed down on him every single day. Even I could see that.

“I’m pretty sure that it’s not,” Lotte smiled as she started spooning out pancakes and bacon to everyone at the table. “Will someone get Veder and tell him to come in and eat?”

Where the hell was Veder? I didn’t see him moping around the barn that morning. What kind of trouble was he getting himself into?

“Or don’t,” Griff said, with a shrug. Taz slapped him on the shoulder, and he theatrically winced, massaging where she hit. “What the hell? I’m injured, Psycho! You should be nicer to me.”

“I helped you take a piss in the middle of the night,” Taz pursed her lips. “I’m plenty nice to you.”

“I’m only wounded because of you!” Griff leaned into her, giving her a wry smile. “You let someone get right up on you! You hadnosituational awareness that night!”

“I was waiting to set off my babies…”

“Who calls explosives their babies?” Griff interrupts her. “How un-fucking-hinged is that?”

“As un-hinged as you’ll be when I start forcing you to use a bedpan at night.”

They went back and forth. Jesus, they were annoying. So was the constant stream of people coming in and out of the house. We were a week away from Christmas, and the house had more evergreen boughs inside than they did out. Everything was covered in red plaid fleece, and in small ways, Taz and Lotte were talking again. Not about anything important. Not yet.

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