Five Kids, One Christmas (The Brannigan Sisters)

by Ramin, Terese

  He held back to listen.

  "That’s ’coz the vertebrae in your back are compressing and you’re shrinking, Great–gram," Libby was saying. "But I have grown. A lot. Probably two feet since you saw me last."

  Grandma Josephine nodded. "I thought as much. And I knew you’d know why I’m so short now when I used to be over six feet tall."

  "You were never over six feet tall, Grama!"

  "I was. Hasn’t your mother shown you my old pictures? Longest legs on a girl between here and Mississippi and taller than most of the boys in my high school graduating class—except for your great–grandfather, of course. They wanted to take bones out of my legs to make me shorter. You find the pictures, I’ll show you."

  She turned and her cane clunked the floor toward Nat. "You must be Helen’s Nathaniel." Instead of shaking hands, she stumped her way around him, once, twice. Nat felt scrutinized, not unlike a piece of prime Kentucky horseflesh, or the breeding record of a bull whose semen demanded a high price at auction. "You certainly are a handsome boy—blind as a mole, I understand, but well put together—"

  All right, so now he understood why Helen was hiding.

  Grandma Josephine palpated his chest, squeezed his biceps. "—good arms, plenty of muscle—" Took his hands and turned them palm up. "—old calluses, hard worker—" Dropped his hands and circled him, patted his thigh, his rear "—good strong legs, nice fanny… Mmm–hmm." She stopped in front of him and grasped one of his hands in both of her strong, bony and slightly arthritic ones. "Well, I think you’ll do nicely, dear. So long as you don’t let our Helen run roughshod over you, this marriage will work just fine."

  Pronouncement made, she clumped matter–of–factly away, calling over her shoulder as she went, "I’m in search of a comfortable chair, dear. Do be a love and bring my cappuccino and help me find one, won’t you? It’s in a very delicate china mug on the stove, near the front, so don’t burn yourself." She collected Libby and her voice trailed off down the hall. "Did you know the Queen Mum gave me that mug personally?"

  "She did?" Libby said. "Cool. Who’s the Queen Mum?"

  "Well, dear, I’ll tell you, but first…" Nat heard her pause. The rubber foot of her cane squeaked when she turned to face Libby. "Your mother’s hiding in the attic, isn’t she?"

  Libby sighed regretfully. "Uh–huh. She said to weigh anchor and not to tell you."

  "Well, you know, you don’t have to tell me because I’ve known your mother for a long time, longer than you, and she’s always hidden in the attic when I first get into town. Something to do with people telling her she reminds them of me and she’s not terribly sure what that means and I think it scares her to see what she’ll probably turn into when she gets to be as old as me, but then, it scared me, too, when people told me I was just like your great–great… Hmm, let me think, is there one or two more greats in there? Well, never mind, poppet, let’s just say it made me plenty wary when people started telling me I reminded them exactly of my Grandma Siobhan…."

  Trying not to laugh too hard when he picked it up, thus risking joggling and breaking the Queen Mum’s delicate china mug and sloshing hot cappuccino over his hand, Nat followed Grandma Josephine on her quest for a commodious stool.

  * * *

  "Helen," Nat called from the attic doorway a short time later. "I met her and she knows you’re up here, so why don’t you quit hiding and come out and face her."

  "Don’t want to," Helen grumped gloomily. Her muffled voice came from somewhere off to his left. "If I do she’ll make me do things. Terrible things. Things nobody should have to do."

  Nat snorted, moved toward her voice. "She’s ninety–eight years old, sharp as a whip and she seems like a good old bat—her word, not mine—to me. What kind of terrible things can she make you do?"

  "You don’t want to know," Helen assured him earnestly. "You can’t even begin to imagine, they’re that bad. And it’s not like she even really tries, it’s just—just… Well, you have no idea what kind of genetics I’ve passed on to Libby, and that woman will let you see them all."

  With an effort, Nat cleared laughter out of his throat, attempted empathetic commiseration. "If you mean she’s blunt and tactless, I already know that about you and Libby. I like it. If you mean she’s definite and reminds you of an indestructible Tiger tank charging across a desert, I already know that about you and Libby, too."

  "Oh…" Helen sighed moodily. "That’s part of it, but there’s more to it than that."

  Nat picked his way cautiously among piles of trunks and boxes, getting closer to her by the sound of it. "Like what?"

  "Oh, like she’s…" Another morose sigh. "Come to live with us and be our nanny."

  Nat stopped. "Excuse me?"

  "Oh, yeah," Helen said, gloom deepening, "You heard me. My sisters called her. She’s come to stay, bag and baggage, so we don’t have to worry about the kids after your surgery or during it or any other time if we both have to be gone."

  "She’s ninety–eight years old." The horrifying number and extent of the Very Bad Things that could happen if they took Grandma Josephine up on her plan to nanny for them went through his mind in a flash. They included every single one of the Very Bad Things that Amanda’s mother could misconstrue and attribute to an Old Lady Left Alone In The House With Young Kids. Death, fire, mayhem, destruction… "She could die any minute. The kids’ll get used to her and she’ll be gone. How much time could she possibly have left?"

  "Oh." Yet another heavy sigh. "Fifteen or twenty years. Her own mother didn’t die till she was a hundred and twelve—or so the story goes—and she might have been older than that. It’s hard to say, since her birth certificate went up in smoke during the Chicago fire or something…"

  He was laughing again. Couldn’t help it, Helen sounded so deathly glum. Which meant he should really try to be at least a little sympathetic, shouldn’t he?

  "Her mother’s mother was at least a hundred and six, but we’re not sure about that, either, because she had a tendency to lie about her age, make out she was younger than she was—"

  Oh, God, if he laughed any harder he’d choke.

  "—and I’m not sure that’s really the kind of genetic background you want nurturing your kids—"

  He got hold of himself enough to murmur, "Oh, I don’t know, I let you nurture my kids and you seemed to turn out okay despite the influence of genetics, and she seems pretty spry. If it wouldn’t solve ’em permanently, having her here might at least sidetrack a few problems for a while." Except maybe Emma, but they could and would deal with that together later.

  "Oh, sure, you say that now," Helen told him in a voice rife with Dire Predictions, "but just wait till she starts telling the kids the story of her life."

  Nat made an I don’t believe you face. "The stories she was telling Libby when I came up here were pretty good, creative exaggerations, entertaining tall tales, but—"

  "Not tall tales."

  "What?"

  "Not tall tales," Helen repeated darkly. "True."

  "True?"

  "Mmm–hmm. Every one of ’em. And she’s probably started with the tame ones. Wait’ll she starts telling ’em she was a suffragette and went to jail with Emmeline Pankhurst—"

  "She’s too young to have gone to jail with Emmeline Pankhurst, surely," Nat muttered.

  Helen ignored him. "—and gets them all charged up about some cause and gets Janna to jet them off to save the rain forest or the dolphins or Antarctica or Syria or something. Or tells them how she used to go leprechaun hunting with her sisters in Ireland in the middle of the night, sneaking out with no parent the wiser—or how she once married a Baptist and brought scandal to the Church. Or—or wait until she hangs the nude portrait Picasso painted of her over the living room couch and tells the kids how they were lovers or—"

  The laughter would kill him if he didn’t stop her, so he did. Cut her short with the most sobering news he could find.

  "Emma’s coming over after lunch to
decorate the house the way Amanda did it for Christmas last year to make sure nothing’s changed," he said quietly. "It ought to be interesting to see how she reacts when she meets Grandma Josephine and learns why she’s here."

  "Oh, geez," Helen moaned.

  When her sisters planned a disaster, why was it God forever seemed to want to dabble in it, too, and guarantee success?

  ~Third Sunday of Advent, Day~

  Helen’s brothers–in–law showed up just before lunch with Grandma Josephine’s orthopedic bed and a few other… items… she’d had Janna crate up and jet in with them.

  By the time the bed arrived, Helen had brought most of the Christmas ornaments down from the attic and reluctantly turned the main floor’s company best but also smallest and most private living room into Josephine’s bedroom. The guys, under Josephine’s and Libby’s determined direction, moved her in. Then Josephine and the kids unpacked her. Even Zach, intrigued in spite of himself, helped.

  It took longer than one might reasonably expect because every unpacked item had a story to go with it and every story had to be told. Helen carted Christmas ornaments and ignored everything else; Nat nearly exploded trying not to laugh himself sick, then nearly wept when he heard Zach guffawing loudly in his place. He hadn’t been sure he’d ever hear the sound again.

  After they’d unpacked her, Josephine and the great–grandkids fixed lunch. Great–gram, as she readily told them, was a terrible cook, which meant that the kids had to do the fixing so whatever they were going to eat would be edible. And they did, gravely and precisely—with a little lunacy thrown in for spice—fix a mostly edible meal.

  Nat thought Josephine was wonderful and told Helen that if genetics was going to force her to grow up to be like her grandmother someday, he might be tempted to stay married to her forever strictly in order to find out what would happen next.

  With grand and dire foreboding, Helen advised him to "Just wait."

  As foretold, Emma arrived immediately after lunch, impeccably dressed as ever, but looking a trifle vague and confused and… Lackluster. She didn’t sound or behave entirely like herself, either, but appeared almost docile, picking dilatorily through the boxes of ornaments and decorations as though searching for something she couldn’t quite recall losing. And instead of taking over the decorating as planned, she was almost diffident in suggesting that she, Helen and Nat might take the kids to the mall to visit Santa together, give Grandma Josephine a little time to rest after her trip and settle in.

  Helen had assumed Emma would object to Grandma Josey and her Mary Poppins plans out of hand, but Emma merely shrugged and said that it might be nice for the children to have the living history of a great–grandmother in the house.

  Neither Helen nor Nat could put a finger on what troubled them about Emma, aside from the outward differences in her manner. But since that seemed mostly for the better, they couldn’t find a reason to object to taking themselves and the kids out with her.

  With some misgiving and the children’s enthusiastic encouragement, they agreed to the trip.

  Leaving Grandma Josephine waving from the doorway and taking Toby in harness with them, they piled into Helen’s and Emma’s cars and went.

  * * *

  "Stop those coats!"

  Standing in the long, noisy Santa Claus line behind the fountain between Penney’s and the toy store with five children, Emma, Nat and his big yellow dog, Helen heard the shout and turned in time to see a rack full of fur coats barreling toward them, antitheft rings clanging from every sleeve. Behind the furs a straggly line of uniformed security officers gave inefficient chase—not for lack of heart, but because to a person they wore shoes that looked great but weren’t designed for running on slick mall floors. Without hesitation, Helen plopped Jane into Libby’s arms, grabbed her big, heavy purse from her shoulder and darted out to cut off the furs.

  "Come on, Toby, get ’em," she yelled.

  Responding to the urgency of her tone, the dog cast one apologetic glance over his shoulder at his harness and Nat before lunging after the woman who gave peanut–butter cookies to the three–year–old he adored and could always count on to share with him. With a startled, "Hey!" Nat went along. It was either that, have his arm jerked out of its socket or go sprawling headfirst into who knew what if he let go of the harness. Almost anything was preferable to that.

  Almost.

  Unfortunately, Toby took the high road.

  The velvet rope around the Santa Claus igloo tangled around Nat’s thighs. The movable posts the rope was fastened to went down with a clang. Nat stumbled, but years of athletic training of one sort or another—including rock climbing while blind—kept his feet under him. Reflex and terrific inner ear balance enabled him to get out of the rope and kick it aside.

  "Daddo, Daddo, step up, step up," Max screamed from somewhere behind him.

  "Raise your right foot, eighteen inches, right now," Zach hollered from off to the side, keeping pace. "Put out your hand, he’s goin’ through the igloo and over the fountain. Step up again, three feet, a step and a half across, jump down three feet—"

  Splash, slosh, slosh, running through the fountain, cold water sluicing off his jeans and gushing from his shoes. What the hell was going on?

  "—two more steps, step up and over right now, eighteen inches, you’re going out of the fountain. Get out of his way, people, get out of his way! You’re clear, Dad, go get ’em! Catch ’em, Toby."

  Catch who? Nat wondered, but that was all the time he had to devote to any activity except concentrating on not slipping and getting himself killed or killing anyone else before he had a chance to throttle Helen for starting whatever this was.

  He felt a whoosh and whistle of air beside his head. An instant later he heard the rattle and roll of small wheels, the clank of metal on metal, Helen’s fervent, muttered "Hit it, hit it, hit it!" and the solid thwack and oof of someone getting hit by something heavy. Detected the gathering of canine muscles in the dog in front of him, loosed a succinct expletive and prepared himself for Toby’s spring.

  When the dog launched himself, Nat simply trusted him and hung on, hoping for the best. Stupid, perhaps, when he had time to think about it later, but at the moment he was well beyond figuring out the logic of why he didn’t just let go of the damned harness instead of letting himself be dragged along for the flight. Together he and Toby hit the insubstantial wall of fur coats, the solid but already off–balanced body of the person hiding in the middle of the furs in an attempt to steal them. Together they crashed into a storefront—not glass, thank God—and went down atop the thief among the furs.

  It was a relief to come to a stop at last, but relief was short–lived. The fur thief struggled, kicking out from underneath Nat and Toby despite the dog’s snarling and Nat’s determined effort to hang on to whomever Toby had taken in such dislike. He lunged up after the flailing feet of the person he and Toby had taken down, ducked instantly when Helen commanded, "Stay down." Heard a sound he could only identify as cracking cartilage and felt the would–be thief topple across his back, land flat on the floor and lie still.

  The next morning’s headlines were great: Woman, Blind Man and Leader Dog Capture Runaway Furs Eluding Mall Security.

  But that was tomorrow, and although they had yet to discover why, tomorrow neither Helen nor Nat would have the desire to bask in headlines. They also still had today to get through.

  In the mall, security officers converged on the pile of now disheveled furs and their thief. Excitement and babble reigned, radios crackled, the Waterford Township police, a couple of Oakland County sheriffs and a newspaper camerawoman and reporter arrived to question everyone in sight.

  "Nat, are you all right?" In the midst of the hubbub, Helen came down on her knees beside him, frantically running her hands over him, checking.

  "Fine," Nat snapped tersely, brushing her hands aside. "But what the hell am I doing here in the first place?"

  "You didn’t let go of Tob
y’s harness when you should have, you big idiot, that’s what."

  "I’m not supposed to have to let go of Toby’s harness when he’s in it," Nat retorted somewhat testily—but who could blame him? "That’s why he’s in it—so I can hang on. Where is he? Is he all right?"

  Toby answered that himself by sticking his wet nose in Nat’s face and giving it a rough and thorough tongue lashing. Resigned, Nat worked a hand into the dog’s ruff and scratched energetically.

  "Dad, that was great! You should have seen the Colonel slug that guy with her purse, it was awesome." Zach dropped to the floor and slapped his father’s knee, threw his arms around Toby’s neck. "Good dog, Toby! You caught a robber, you’re a hero."

  "Daddo, Daddo, Daddo!" Max dashed up and flung himself into Nat’s arms, rocking him back to the floor. "You okay? I couldn’t say the directions, I didn’t know how, Zach had to do it and he was good, he did it ’xactly right and you didn’t get hurt and he’s a hero."

  "Yes he is, he did it perfectly," Nat agreed with heartfelt emotion. He reached for where he could still feel Zach hugging Toby, squeezed his son’s neck and ruffled his hair. "Thanks, Zach. I wouldn’t have made it without you."

  "No problem, Dad," was all Zach said, but he did so with shy dignity, more than a little pleasure and no defiance whatever.

  Before the scene could get mushier, Libby puffed up, lugging a tearful Jane.

  "Mom, she’s wet."

  "Tern’l," Jane sobbed, crossing her legs and squirming hard. "Have to doe potty right now."

  Helen was on her feet instantly, lesson learned weeks ago the uncomfortable way. "Oh, great, okay, I’ll get you there. Can you hold it a minute, babe?" She hoisted Jane into her arms. "Oh, yuck, you are wet, aren’t you?" Nodding, Jane buried her face in Helen’s neck and wailed. Helen rubbed her back soothingly. "Don’t worry about it, love, there was a lot of excitement and you couldn’t help it. I’ll take you down to the bathroom and get you cleaned up, we’ll rinse out your clothes and dry them under the hand dryers—or maybe I’ll just let you wear my sweatshirt, how ’bout that, huh? You want to be an army kid?"