©
2024 Duleigh Lawrence-Townshend. All rights reserved. The author asserts the right to be identified as the author of this story for all portions. All characters are original. Any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental. This story or any part thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the expressed written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a review or commentary.
For Curtis. I wish you were still here to read this. I'm sure you'd enjoy it if you were.
Thank you for being my friend.
All Aboard Andi's Dream
Chapter 16
Joyeux Noël
"Good morning darling," said Paul. "How are my beautiful women." Paul leaned to kiss his beautiful wife Andi. Short, curvy, blond hair, big breasts and a delightful smile. She was Paul's dream girl come to life.
"I'm doing fine," said Yi over at the stove. Yi was making oatmeal for the girls. "The twins don't look happy." And Yi looked like she was doing fine. The slim Asian woman with an incredible ass looked like she spent the evening getting fucked into paradise. Her smile was contagious. It was unfortunate only the men were catching it.
Andi was breastfeeding six-week-old Daniel, who was smiling around the nipple he had in his mouth. "Smart little man," thought Paul. That was a breast worth smiling about. His father-in-law Harold was astutely doing yesterday's Sunday Crossword puzzle with his wife Heather. Kenny, Yi's boyfriend (fiancé? Lover? Husband?), was helping Yi prepare breakfast and the six-year-old twins, Sandy and Madeline, came dragging in like they were headed for their execution. Kenny sat out the oatmeal for the twins, who sat at the table staring at their bowls.
"Come on girls, eat up all your breakfast and you can open your advent calendar!" called Andi cheerily. The twins wordlessly swapped their breakfast bowls with each other and began eating.
Just then Kit Mays came down the rear staircase and pulled up a chair next to Andi. Kit (Katrina Mays) was Andi's assisting RN in Denver and they've remained quite close. "Do I get an Advent Calendar too?"
"I thought you were Jewish," said Andi.
"Jesus was Jewish," countered Kit. "So is Lucy." Kit was in town for Christmas (hey - it's a party) and the wedding of their friend Lucy Kocis.
"Maybe you should go to church with Lucy," said Andi. Lucy was a messianic Jew and her church was quite interesting. Paul's brother John, the pastor at Springville Congregational Church, was considering having a joint bible study with the Zoar Valley Messianic Synagogue.
"Why couldn't Cholly stay last night?" moaned Sandy, the oldest of the two twins by two minutes.
"Not on a school night. Besides, he's a little young for sleep overs," said Andi. "Let's wait for him to start speaking English." Cholly is an eighteen-month-old orphan that was dropped in Paul's brother John's lap, literally. Through trial and error, they discovered Cholly has a grasp on French and John and his wife Macy are fluent in French.
"What is everybody doing today?" asked Heather.
"I have a Zoom meeting with my General Managers, and I have a new assistant to break in," said Paul.
"We're having a Countdown to Christmas sale," said Kenny, whose family's feed store was getting into sporting goods in a big way. "The sporting goods that we're carrying is really making a difference this year," he said with a huge grin.
"Chickens!" said Yi. "I need eggs for Christmas baking, we need eggs for egg nog, so I have to go squeeze a couple of chickens." The thought of squeezing chickens caused the twins to giggle.
"I'm going Christmas shopping with John," said Andi.
"Shopping with Unka John?" gasped the twins. "I wanna go too!" they said in unison.
"School," said Paul.
"I'm hanging with Andi," said Kit. Katrina came here to spend time with Andi, and she thought John was cute for a guy.
"I'm going to watch the little darlings," said Heather, who was passionately in love with sitting for her grandson that was named after her first husband, Andi's father, who died in Iraq. Daniel Cyryl (Or Danny Cecil) was named after both of his grandfathers. He will never meet them, but step-grandpa Harold will be there for him, the twins, and Cholly and Katarina. John and Macy's children somehow became Heather's and Harold's grandchildren as well.
"I think when Yi runs out to the farm, if Heather isn't swamped, I'll go see these chickens that my girls keep telling me about," said Harold. Suddenly, he was inundated with advice from the twins.
"Chooky is pretty nice, until she bites you."
"Melissa is the red one. You can pet her but you have to be quick."
"Don't worry if they poop on their eggs."
"Yeah, Grandpa Archie says be happy they're not cows."
"Robert thinks she's a rooster. She's loud."
"Come on you guys," said Yi. "We have to drop Kenny off at work."
"How come she can have a sleep over, and we can't?" groaned Sandy as the twins finished up their last bits of breakfast.
"She doesn't have school in the morning," said Paul as he prepared to leave himself. Still complaining, the twins put their dishes in the dishwasher, pulled on their snow boots, jackets, and toques (knit caps).
They were pulling on their backpacks when Madeline said, "Calendar!" They ran to the doorway that led to the formal dining room, and on either side of the door was an advent calendar. They opened their door on the 20th and each girl found a tiny Christmas tree. Each tree was actually wood painted with a metallic acrylic paint to make it look metallic emerald green. The girls put their tiny treasures on the kitchen windowsill, kissed their mom, brother, grandparents and father goodbye and charged out the door shouting, "Come on Yi!" They love school now that they found a grade level that challenges them properly. Yi backed the transport van out of the garage and opened the side door and the twins scrambled in and climbed in their seats that were far in the back.
When Kenny helped Sandy in her car seat, Sandy furrowed her eyebrows at him. He's never done this! But he had her clipped into the seat safe and secure as Yi clipped Madeline into her place. Then, with Kenny and Harold in the van, Yi backed out of the driveway. As they headed to their school, the twins mumbled to each other in their own language, the language they probably developed in the womb. The twins called it "our language" and Andi calls it TwinBabble®.
"Talking about Santa?" asked Grandpa Harold, who was sitting in a rear facing captain's chair. The twins scowled at Harold. Had he cracked the code? He's been listening to their babble for years, but there are certain concepts that don't have a place in their language, and Santa is one of them. He heard the word Santa as they talked.
Madeline let her feelings out with an anguished, "There's no Santa. He's not real."
"Really?" asked Harold. "Last year you guys were poor, your momma was this close to losing her apartment, and suddenly you have a big house, toys, a cabin and a dog..."
"And chickens!" added Sandy.
"Wonka is Poppa's dog, he lets us borrow him," said Madeline.
"Santa is a very special person who rewards us when we've been good," said Harold. "You and your mommy must have been extra special good for Santa to reward you so well."
"Kids in school say there's no Santa," said Madeline.
"How sad!" said Harold. He remembered being told over and over something last year. "Remember when you found Wonka? Those kids who think there's no Santa will never know the joy of those extra, extra special gifts that Santa gives you even before Christmas."
"Like what?" asked Sandy, hoping there was an extra present waiting for her to open.
"Like Cholly! You were wishing for somebody in your family, a brother or a cousin, that wasn't as little as Danny, someone you could play with, and a lady gave Cholly to Uncle John. She was one of Santa's helpers. Now Cholly is going to have his best Christmas ever also."
"Cholly's funny," said Madeline. "He's scared of the dark."
"He is scared of spankings," said Sandy.
"He should be. Sometimes when you do something very, very bad, a spanking is a reminder of how bad you were, but Cholly got spankings for just being a baby. And they were very, very bad spankings. So, if you do something that scares him, you need to cuddle him and tell him he's a good boy."
"
Bon garcon
!" said Madeline.
"Yes! Very good! We get to show Cholly what having a good Christmas is all about!" said Harold.
"He likes snow," said Sandy.
"He's just a little boy and has never seen snow before, you'll have to teach him how to build snowmen," said Harold as Yi pulled into a parking lot at school.
"Ok!" cried the twins. Harold unbuckled the twins, and they started to get out of the van. Then Sandy yelled, "MY GLASSES!"
"Hang on," said Yi, and she pulled a Sandy size pair of glasses out of her purse that matched Madeline's prescription glasses except that there were no lenses. Sandy wears glasses in sympathy with her sister and she wears Madeline's favorite color (Pink) while Madeline wears Sandy's favorite color (Purple). Sandy used to have lenses in her frames, but she made so much of a mess with them she could barely see, so Yi took the lenses out and Sandy never noticed.
Harold walked into school with Yi and the twins, and the place was an uproar of Christmas and Chanukah decorations made by the kids. "Miss Freeman, we brought our grandpa from Denver!" called Sandy into the classroom. The young teacher came to the door and shook hands.
"If you're here as a show and tell exhibit, that isn't until tomorrow, so you'll have to wait," she teased. "Are you here for Christmas?"
"And to visit the new arrival," said Harold.
"He's been a special guest several times," said the young teacher.
"We need to get Kenny to work," said Yi, tugging at Harold's sleeve.
"Gotta go," said Harold and they headed out of the building. "This is quite a school, is this the Academy that Andi was talking about?"
"Yes, it's very individualized learning," said Yi. "The twins get second grade reading, third grade math, and kindergarten art. Their hand to eye coordination still needs work and the socializing with kids their age in that class helps."
"Amazing," said Harold as they got back in the van and took Kenny to the feed store where his family was waiting for him. Harold, like Heather two months ago, was stunned at the "antiques" in Grandpa Archie's collection. The store front of Johnson's Feed Store looked like a combination of a flea market, antique tool museum, and Santa's Workshop. With the influx of cash when they recovered the business from a ruthless partner, Kenny's father Davis and grandfather Archie decorated the feed store like it was decorated for Christmas back in the 40s and 50s. Santa Claus was everywhere, garlands decorated every shelf and doorway, and Christmas music by Gene Autry, Doris Day, The Lennon Sisters, and Frank Sinatra filled the air.
"Good morning, Princess," said Archie as Yi and Kenny entered the store front area. Kenny had an arm load of wood for the pot belly parlor stove at the center of the room and he stacked the wood in the wood basket next to the stove.
