Page 95 of Forever Finds Us
Merv nodded, and she leaned over to kiss my cheek.
Taking a deep breath, I climbed down, patted the horses and thanked them for their hard work, and then I helped Merv down from the sleigh, and she followed me to the Fittses’ front door, where a wreath had been hung, decorated with dried oranges, berries, and deep red bows. When I pushed my finger to the doorbell, a bell chorus of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” rang out.
Thirty seconds later, the door swung open, and I could hear little kids squealing in delight. Somewhere inside the house in a room I couldn’t see into, a TV played Miracle on 34th Street, and it sounded like another TV in a different room was playing a football game. Glasses clinked together and more than two women were arguing about something animatedly and laughing.
Roxanne’s parents’ house was a busy, happy clatter of Christmas sounds, sights, and scents. The smell of warm cinnamon wafted out to me on the front porch, and balsam and cedar hinted in the air.
Finally, I focused on the person who’d opened the door, and it was a man with a bit of a beer gut under an Oklahoma Sooners T-shirt, a trimmed, graying beard, and a hint of laugher in his eyes.
“Duuude,” the man said, eyeing me, my cowboy hat, my mama, and then the sleigh. “You’re gonna put all these women in an uproar.”
I straightened my coat and my sweater beneath. “Excuse me?”
“We were just lookin’ you up online, and all five of Riri’s sisters, including my wife, said they’d leave their husbands for you.”
My face flushed Christmas red. “Uh. Well… sorry?”
“Drew,” he said, chuckling and extending his hand to shake mine. “You’re a brave man, Brand Lee. Good luck.” He stepped back from the door to allow Merv and me inside and jabbed his thumb over his shoulder. “Go on then,” he said, “go get your girl. She’s in the kitchen.”
“Thank you. Uh, this is my mama, Mervella.”
“Come on in, Merv. May I call you Merv?” Drew asked with faux formality.
“I wish you wouldn’t,” Merv said with her usual sneer.
Drew laughed. “I think you’ll fit in just fine around here.”
We entered the small foyer, I removed my hat and tucked it under my arm, and a little girl appeared from the living room. She reached for my hand and held it. “Are you Aunt Riri’s boyfriend? She told my mommy you were fifty shades, but you look like one color to me. Like my tan crayon.”
A woman came charging at us, her face the same shade as the red bulbs on the huge fir tree behind her, and her hair was the same color as Roxanne’s, light brown with hints of wheat and shiny flax. “Oh my God, Maizie. Leave the man alone. I’m so sorry,” she said to me, embarrassed, and pulled Maizie away by her hand. “Maizie, get your cousins. Grandma said y’all can open your Christmas Eve gifts now while Aunt Riri and the nice man talk.”
Maizie, who couldn’t have been more than seven, pumped her fist in the air, smiling and flashing a missing front tooth. Her white sweater had a knitted Christmas tree on the front, with little light-up bulbs sewn into it and tiny, multi-colored pom-poms for the ornaments.
“Present time!” she screeched to her cousins.
A scurry of children poured out of every room and headed straight for the tree, some near Maizie’s age and others older and in their tween and teenage phases. They all knelt or sat cross-legged around the tree, staring at the opening that led to the kitchen.
An older man and woman appeared through the rounded arch, each carrying a mug, and the woman, Roxanne’s mama, held a third mug. She nodded at Merv and me and handed the extra mug to Merv. I could see the shape of Roxanne’s eyes in her mama’s, and she had her dad’s height and regal stature.
I assumed Roxanne’s sisters were the five women now huddled up by the fireplace, watching me and whispering to one another, and their husbands were the men plopped on a sofa, in a small den off the living room, all of their eyes fixed on a huge flat-screen TV showing a football game playing at a low volume. Drew threw me a thumbs up over the back of the couch, and the other men peeked occasionally, trying to appear uninterested but clearly curious about the unexpected Christmas Eve drama.
“Hello, Brand. I was hopin’ we might get to meet you. I’m Doris, and this is Ed, Roxanne’s parents.”
Ed reached out to shake my hand and then Merv’s. “You’re both very welcome,” he said with an easy smile.
“You can meet everybody else later,” Doris said, and she shooed me toward her kitchen. “Mrs. Lee, please join us, won’t you, while your son and my daughter talk?”
Merv looked up at me and I nodded. What I needed to say to Roxanne didn’t really warrant a peanut gallery, so I left Merv there with Ed and Doris and took the last steps to their kitchen and my destiny.
When I saw her, Roxanne stole the breath from my chest without even touching me.
She stood in front of the kitchen counter, her hands planted on it to hold her up, watching me coming toward her, breath heaving in her chest, fire-lit eyes glued to mine. The look in them was curious but wary, and I saw a little hurt still there too.
“What are you doin’ here?” she asked, breathless, and the sound of her voice reminded me how much I’d missed it.
I’d missed her more than I could ever say, missed her laugh and her willingness to try to see the good in everyone. I missed the way I could feel her heart slow and her body relax when I touched her. I missed the gentle way she touched me, even when we were in the throes of hard sex.
She’d only said it twice, but I missed the way her eyes had flashed with forever when she told me she loved me.
