A Very Special Reaper Diaries Christmas: Part 2
29 Dec 2015Michael Wolfe
Part 1 can be found here, in case you missed it!So far, so good.
Mom and Dad had gone all out to celebrate Christmas. The house was decorated, they had put up a Christmas tree- why anyone would want a slowly dying tree in the middle of their house was beyond me, but it was beautiful and even had twinkling lights all over it.
Underneath and around the tree was the pile of Christmas gifts we had all bought for each other, adding to the festive atmosphere. Mom had cooked a gigantic meal for only having four people in the house- a main course of prime rib (not synth!... an actual giant chunk of cow meat. Smelled delicious, though), a ham, mashed potatoes and gravy, yams, stuffing, cookies, and chocolates.
Needless to say, dinner was amazing.
One thing about my family is that there is never a lack for conversation. Since the entire occasion was a research project through my father’s university, he was explaining the history behind the archaic holiday that we were all celebrating. I found it interesting, but I could tell that Mom and Kyndi were politely nodding, at best:
“Of course, no one has ever really been able to pin down where exactly Christmas came from, or what it’s truly supposed to mean. On its face, it stems from the old Christian myth celebrating the birth of their savior figure, but it appears to have been adapted from a pre-existing holiday. As time went on, the occasion underwent a number of transformations, until it was widely celebrated in an equally secular context.”
He chewed his prime rib thoughtfully, and continued:
“This, of course, was before the Neo-Pagan revival of the 23rd century, and even longer before the pan-holistic religions that sprang up in the 27th. At that point, the meaning of Christmas became even more convoluted- leftover religious groups in Federation space wanted to focus on the archaic Christian symbolism, the Neo-Pagans wanted it to be a Galactic Winter Solstice celebration, and everyone else just wanted to get their shopping over with!”
He chuckled to himself. “Fortunately, we don’t have to bother with all that tonight. The twentieth century was pretty simple, as far as religious differences went. People fought over which version of the same deity to worship, unless you observed more than one, or none at all!... in which case the monotheists would call a truce to gang up on you!”
Shaking his head, he continued. “So simple to us, and yet so complex for the people at the time! I wonder what they would have thought of the next thousand years?”
While Dad was chuckling to himself again, mother seized the opportunity to smile at Kyndi and change the subject.
“So Kyndi, Matt hasn’t told us a thing about you!”- she smiled unapprovingly at me- “and we’re just dying to know how you two met!”
Kyndi and looked at each other, smiling uneasily. Her eyes widened and she motioned almost imperceptibly for me to say something.
I turned to my mom. “Well, sometimes pilots run into each other when they’re at the same port, and- you know how it goes. Conversation, things in common, things going from there….” I smiled and shrugged.
By which I mean we were both looking for the same illegal alien artifact to smuggle, found it under a dead guy in a wrecked Anaconda, and then she paralyzed me just as I thought I was about to get laid.
Kyndi must have been thinking something similar, because there was just a hint of knowing in her own otherwise gracious smile. Mother wasn’t satisfied, however.
“And what is it that you do, Kyndi?"
Kyndi just kept smiling and replied. “Oh, I’m a truck driver, same as Matt here. Pick it up someplace, sell it somewhere else for more!”
Mother cooed and turned to father. “Did you hear that? ‘Truck driver’! We’re going to be sounding just like two old hands if these two stay around long enough!”
Turning back to Kyndi, she narrowed her eyes playfully. “And if your motive is taking one number and making it into a bigger number, then I can’t approve more! I’m in the accounting business, you know, and I can imagine that expense management is key to what you do!”
Again, Kyndi and I exchanged a look.
Yep. That’s the essence of it. Unless you’re scooping up illegal salvage, in which case you’re cashing out pure profit at the next black market you hit. Or if the job is to just kill as many pilots with bounties on their heads as you can, in which case the accounting is boneheaded simple.
I could tell that Kyndi was thinking something similar. She just held her glass of wine and forced a smile. “You’ve got it, Mrs. Lehman! Buy low, sell high!”
They exchanged a polite laugh, while my father and I concentrated on our food. Not that doing so was a chore by any means- all of the food was delicious, and there was enough for three times our number. Still, I couldn’t stop thinking of Kyndi the entire time. Though I felt at ease around my parents and with my childhood home, I was trying my best to see things from her perspective- and nothing could be further from how Kyndi spent a typical day. When she was in her ship, she would wear anything from a flight suit to nothing at all, watching holovision, eating a ration bar in one hand and smoking an Onionhead joint from the other.
On the rare occasions when she was staying in her apartment, she would sit on cheap, pre-fab furniture, sleep on a bare mattress on the floor, and wade through piles of clutter. She would most likely be alone, unless she found a piece of masculine entertainment to use and then kick out. That had been her life for years.
And now here she was, dressed in a way that any other day she would have sneered at, sitting on padded wooden furniture, and eating a home-cooked meal with polite company. There wasn’t an expletive or Onionhead joint to be found.
She's probably on the verge of exploding, I thought.
Dinner was finished, and Father and I retired to take care of the dishes in the kitchen. The last thing I saw was Kyndi flashing a look of “help!” in her eyes as mother took her away for more womanly chatter.
As awkward as things were for Kyndi, I’d be lying if I said that it wasn’t good to be back home. Dad and I fell into the same easy routine and conversation, made easier by the fact that we were both grown men, and could dispense with the faux-authoritative filter that defined being a parent to a child. For all that, Dad was still, well- Dad. He was gentle, passionate about history, and kind to everyone he met. Hell, he was even still peppering his speech with the occasional folksy bits of wisdom that still flashed in my head from time to time.
So easily did I fall back into the old routine that I momentarily forgot that Kyndi was probably in desperate need of distraction, so I excused myself from the kitchen the moment the dishes were done and went into the living room to check on Kyndi. There she was, sat on the couch with Mom, strained smile on her face, nodding politely as Mom was recounting the story of how her and Dad met in college.
She saw me enter the room, and stopped mother’s story with an almost over-the-top apologetic look on her face. “Mrs. Lehman, I am so sorry, but I think I left something on our ship! If I don’t get it right now, I know I’m just going to forget about it the whole time I’m here!” Kyndi looked up at me with a desperate gleam in her eye.
I turned to Mom and smiled graciously as I helped Kyndi into her coat. “I’d better go see if it’s anything I can help with. Be back in just a few!”
Exiting through the front door, we walked silently back to the Last Chance, Kyndi’s Cobra. As we walked up the ramp into the living area, Kyndi still didn’t say anything. She walked into her ship's sleeper, picked up a pillow, held it over her face, and muffled the pent-up scream that had been building since we walked in. I put my hand on her shoulder from behind.
“That bad, darlin’?”
She glared back at me. “Yes!”
Sitting down on her bunk, she started to fish through her gear, no doubt looking for an Onionhead joint. Not finding anything, she looked up at me, a defeated expression spreading across her face.
“No. I mean, yeah, I’m a fish out of water here, but it’s nothing against your folks. They’ve been models of generosity and hospitality since we got here, Matty- but there is so much ‘not me’ in that beautiful house that I have no idea what to do!”
I sat down next to her, putting an arm around her shoulder. “I know it’s a change of scenery, darlin’. And I know that being around parental figures again after so long-“ She turned to face me at hearing that, eyes watering slightly- “Well, I can’t begin to know what’s bubbling up to the surface, even if your folks were completely different than mine.”
She smiled a bittersweet smile at me and looked down at her lap. “Yeah. That’s a part of it.” For a moment, we both just stared straight ahead.
Then, she slapped me in the thigh and stood up. She put her hands on her hips and looked at me. “But mainly it’s that I can’t abide pointless small-talk, and your mother is champion of all the ‘verse at it!”
I stood up and held up my hands. “You’re doing great, darlin’. Just keep on keepin’ on!”
Kyndi shook her head again and tiredly laughed, hugging me tightly. “Well, if I can make it through a year of being a damn slave for the Kumos, I can make it through three days at your parents’ house, right?”
We both had a chuckle. Kyndi took a deep breath and wiped away the tears that had started to form. She gestured back towards the Cobra’s exit ramp, and we both walked back the snowy path to my parents’ house, warm light coming through the window. I felt Kyndi squeeze my arm.
“Thanks for letting me vent back there, Matty. I really needed it.”
I smiled and held the door for her. “Don’t thank me just yet, darlin’. I think they were planning on putting you up in my childhood room.”
“You really are twelve, aren’t you?”
My parents had left my old room more or less intact. On the walls was the same strips of starry wallpaper. On the shelf was my old telescope, and my old spaceship poster was still by the bed.
I had forgotten about all this. Maybe I had spaceships on the brain earlier than I thought?
Kyndi was dressed in the same red flannel pajamas that she had liberated from the crew quarters of the wrecked Anaconda. I shook my head.
“I think that most commanders are just twelve-year-olds at heart, finally flying a spaceship in real life.”
Mom appeared from behind us, interrupting.
“Oh, I hope that Matt’s old room will be ok! Not that we object to you two sharing a space, but-“ she shook her head- “That old bed of his is just so small!”
We both looked at the bed. It was larger than a typical ship’s bunk, and certainly larger than the space we had shared more often than not while we had been together. Kyndi turned to Mom.
“I really appreciate that! We pilots need room to stretch!”
Ha ha, Kyndi. Good one. Thanks a lot.
Thus, I was handed a folded blanket and spare pillow to keep me warm during my luxurious stay on the couch. The last thing I saw before closing the door was Kyndi settling into my old bed, surrounded by my old spaceship posters, a smartass look on her face.
I walked downstairs, slightly jealous of Kyndi getting my bed. The couch was not a good substitute, but I had slept in far worse. Pulling the blanket up to my chest, I reflected on the times spent in that room. I chuckled to myself in the darkness. The image of Kyndi curling up to sleep in my old bed brought back long-forgotten adolescent longings.
Well, you HAD wanted a beautiful woman to one day spend the night in that bed since about the age of fifteen, hadn’t you?
I chuckled bitterly. Of course, the idea was that you were in it, too!
“Merry Christmas, Matty!”
I woke up to see Mom, Dad, and Kyndi looking down at me. All three were beaming, and all three were holding cups of coffee. Well, at least that’s something to bond over, right?
Kyndi leaned over and hauled me up to a sitting position. “Ready to open some presents, Matty? Your father tells me that it was customary to do so first thing in the morning on Christmas!”
Yawning, I looked around. It was morning, all right. There was snow outside, the light was shining through, and there was coffee in the kitchen, ready to be poured. Once I had a sip, I settled back down on the couch, next to Kyndi and mom. Dad sat in his leather-bound easy chair, and the gifting commenced.
We had chosen well. Kyndi had purchased an all-day experience at a local beauty spa for mom, with facials, baths, massages, and pedicures thrown in. For my dad, she bought a new winter overcoat in a style very fashionable in the core worlds. It was dark grey, but also very soft and warm. Mom even laughed and said that he looked both dashing and professorly. For me, she had bought a sampler pack of beers from around the bubble, a collection of gourmet microbrews chosen regardless of if they were Imperial, Fed, or Indy.
The woman knows me.
Eventually, there were only two presents left- the ones I had bought for Mom, and the one for Kyndi. I excused myself to pour another cup of coffee, listening to the sounds of paper being torn and unwrapped. Almost immediately after that, I heard a squeal of happiness from Kyndi.
From the kitchen, I could hear her excited voice “Oh Matty, I just love it! It’s perfect!”
Smiling, I walked back in from the kitchen. I hadn’t expected that enthusiastic of a response from Kyndi, but sometimes, even I get it right. Feeling proud of myself, I took a sip of coffee and looked into the living room to see Kyndi clutching-
… her brand-new chinchilla fur blanket and extra thick wool socks.
Oh shit.
Next to her, my mother was holding up the golden capsule from the ornate dragon chest, a puzzled look on her face. Kyndi saw me and jumped off the couch to give me a big hug, already wrapped up in “her” new blanket. Patting her on the back, I watched in horror as my mother real aloud the note I had included:
“'Just tell everyone that it’s perfume'?”
No, no, no, no, no….
She opened the capsule, took a sniff, wrinkled her nose, and passed it towards my father, who did the same and pulled an even bigger surprised face then she did.
No, no, NO…
They both looked at me at the same time, a gravely concerned look in their face. My father cleared his throat.
“Um, son? Is this what I think it is?”
By now, my heart was beating almost out of its chest, and even Kyndi had broken her enthusiastic hug to look curiously at the item.
This is what I get for mixing booze and gift labeling.
I shrugged, defeated. “Yeah. Yeah it is. I- I don’t really know what to say.”
By then, even Kyndi was catching on. She looked up at me, eyes full of amused curiosity as to what would happen next. Mom and Dad continued to look at me, looked at each other, looked down at the capsule of Onionhead, and-
Started smirking.
Smirking turned into head shaking, and head shaking gradually turned into full-blown belly laughter.
Kyndi and I exchanged a what-the-hell-is-going-on? glance, and waited nervously for the laughter to subside, still clutching each other.
Eventually, my father wiped a tear from his eye, stood up, and clapped a hand on my shoulder.
“I knew I couldn’t keep those old holos hidden forever, now could I?”
Huh?
I smiled and tried my best to play along. “Yeah, well, you know-“
Mom set the capsule of extremely illegal narcotic down and shook her head, still smiling a little. “Well, dear, it was only a matter of time, anyway. Matt couldn’t have stayed in the dark forever.”
She looked up, still smiling. “Although I’m pretty sure it’s been at least thirty years!”
I suddenly connected the dots. Thirty years since… what? Since my upstanding, law-abiding, straight-laced parents smoked goddamn Onionhead?
It was actually getting hot under my clothes. The very conceptual foundation upon which my parents were built was in danger of collapsing. I sat down, forehead sweating from the stress and embarrassment. My breath was still coming in ragged gasps from the adrenaline. Mother noticed my reaction, and nudged dad, who was examining the bronze chest in which the Onionhead had been shipped.
“Um, dear? I’m not sure if he knew, after all.”
Dad looked up, and also noticed. He looked at mom, and then Kyndi, drawing a line between them in the air with his finger.
“So, if Matt didn’t know, then this”- he pointed to the chest- “Was actually meant for her”- he pointed to Kyndi.
Now, Kyndi got a defensive look on her face, hugging the chinchilla blanket to herself protectively.
“I’m already attached to this blanket,” she declared.
Mom looked at Dad and shrugged. “Cat’s out of the bag, dear.”
She looked at Kyndi and smiled. “I’d have loved that blanket, Kyndi”. She held up the capsule. “But if we’re going to revive some ancient traditions, I say that we revive some goddamn ancient traditions!”
Kyndi broke into a wide grin. “Now you’re speaking my language, Mrs. Lehman!”
Mom put an arm around Kyndi, leading her to the deck. “As of right now, dear, you are to call me Sarah!”
Kyndi turned around, and flashed the first genuine smile I’d seen since she got there. Her and my parents hadn’t even had breakfast yet, but the ice was broken once and for all.
No, it wasn’t broken. It was sliced up with a class three beam laser, blasted into smithereens with a flak cannon, and the leftover ice chunks destroyed by well-placed railgun shots. I looked outside through the window, watching Kyndi and my parents rolling an Onionhead joint, still laughing and talking. All I could do was put my head in my arms.
I’m the one who’s supposed to feel at home, and she’s the one who’s supposed to be among strangers!
Eventually they came back in, and Kyndi and Mom hurried to the kitchen to keep chatting and start making breakfast. My dad seemed happier than he had been in years. He turned on a game of holoball and settled into his leather-bound chair.
My dad watches holoball? My dad, the stuffy academic? How the hell long has this been a thing?
Eventually, the ladies called us into the kitchen, where a really great breakfast had been prepared: pancakes, bacon, eggs with cheese melted in, and orange juice all waited. Normally, it was a sight that would have delighted me, but now I just sat, smiling and nodding politely as Kyndi listened and laughed as Mom and Dad told stories from their wild college years together. For the most part, I let the other three do the talking, the tasty food being my main source of happiness that morning. And afternoon. And late afternoon. We pretty much spent all day grazing on leftovers, since there was more than enough to feed us all for a week. My parents and Kyndi spent the entire day bonding. I felt like a stranger in my own parents' house.
While the other three were upstairs on the deck, smoking themselves silly on the best Onionhead in the ‘verse, I found myself sitting on the frozen chair on the front porch of my childhood home.
I need the time to process. Everything had been turned upside down. On the scale of things, smoking a little O-head was trivial- so why did it upset me so much? I had never thought a thing of it whenever I had been around Kyndi, or anyone else for that matter. So what was the problem? Was I jealous of how easily Kyndi had had gone from needing comforting to becoming the life of the party?
Or was it that I had so jealously guarded the idea that I was the only one allowed to have secrets?
Whatever it was, it was enough for me to want to get the hell off-planet and back into the Hand of Blue- blasting criminals, downing Old Sol, and living in a world where things made sense.
So deep was I in my own pity party that I hadn’t even noticed my father join me out on the front porch until he laid his hand on my shoulder. I looked up, and he was settling down beside me, looking a little more collected than earlier. He was acting more like his old self- calm, collected, mug of hot cocoa in his hand instead of a damn O-head joint.
“Hey, son.”
“Hey, Dad.”
For awhile, he didn’t say anything, just sitting beside me and staring out at the snowy field ahead of us, Kyndy’s Cobra in the distance. Eventually, he took a drink of his hot cocoa and smiled.
“Hell of a lady you brought home with you.”
I chuckled, despite my misery. “Yeah. Yeah she is.”
Dad looked at me out of the corner of his eye, a knowing look in his eye. “So, what did you say she does again? ‘Truck driving’?”
I shrugged and smiled ironically. “She hauls merchandise from point A to point B, and gets paid for it.”
My father’s eyebrows raised and his mouth curled up into a grin. “I’m sure you’re telling the truth in a general enough way, but something tells me that there’s more to it than that.”
I gestured back towards the house. “She’s probably in a pliant enough mood that you can just ask her.”
He chuckled and shook his head. “No, no. No need to pry. That’s your mother’s job”
We stared ahead for awhile. My father finished the last sip of his drink, and again clapped me on the shoulder.
“Of course, that goes for you, too, you know.”
I turned, curious. “What do you mean?”
Again, I received my father’s knowing smile. “I’m not going to ask how you spend your time out there, and I’m not going to ask how it is you make a living.”
A look of concern crossed his eye, even as his smile held. “I just want you to know that your mother and I love you, and we hope you haven’t forgotten who you are.”
Shit. Way to put a goddamn lump in my throat, dad. “I told you- I’m a hauler, same as her.”
Dad stood up, and sighed. “Like I said, son- it’s none of my business to ask about your affairs. And I may be just a sheltered old academic, but”- he tousled my hair, like he used to when I was a boy- “even I know that Kyndi isn’t the kind of woman you run into by flying the straight and narrow!”
With that, he went back inside the house, chuckling to himself.
Ahead of me, the white snow contrasted against the decorative red paint on Kyndi's Cobra. Thinking of my father’s words, I shook my head.
Just when you think you have everything squared away, life swoops in and corrects you.
Inside, the muffled sounds of laughter echoed through the house. I stood up, readying myself to rejoin my family. That’s when it hit me.
The best gift you could have given Kyndi wasn’t some stupid box of fancy Onionhead. It was the chance to be with family, even if that family isn’t hers.
I looked up, thinking of my mom, dad, and Kyndi. And that’s exactly what she got. Who cares if your parents smoked a little back in the day? Or even just now? This is the closest thing that Kyndi’s had to family time, since-
I looked down, not wanting to remember what she had told me.
-since her folks were taken from her.
I walked back in, and both my parents and Kyndi were happier than I had seen them in a long time- not just being polite, not just passing time- but happy. It was only too comforting to join them for the rest of the night, getting a little tipsy on the beer that Kyndi had bought me, while the other three got more than tipsy on the Onionhead.
Eventually, Mom and Dad decided to call it a night, and stumbled to their room. Kyndi and I both said goodnight, and I settled back down into the couch while Kyndi changed into her red flannel pajamas. After all the lights were turned off, I just laid there, the couch now feeling comfortable and familiar instead of an afterthought that had been imposed on me. I smiled at the thought of my parents passed out from their first O-head in thirty years.
Some of us are full of secrets, and others are just full of surprises.
I was just drifting off to sleep, when I felt a familiar touch on my shoulder. I opened my eyes, and there was Kyndi, looking down at me, finger over her lips. She took my hand and led me upstairs to my old room. Carefully closing the door, she smiled mischievously and gave me a deep, satisfying kiss. While she was doing so, she began to loosen the tie on my pajama pants.
“O-head this good calls for a little celebrating!” she whispered.
No arguments here, darlin’. I smiled and wordlessly kissed her again.
As I unbuttoned her flannel pajama top, my thoughts drifted back to fifteen-year-old me. Looks like that dream of mine is happening, after all.
I woke up next to Kyndi, still softly snoring on my shoulder. She had a serene, peaceful look on her face, so I decided to just let her sleep and get up by myself. Mom and Dad were already up and making breakfast, and for a moment, I almost felt like I was reliving a day from my childhood, waking up just in time for breakfast and a day of playing outside in the snow.
As she was serving eggs and waffles, Mom looked at the empty chair and frowned. “Where’s Kyndi?”
I shrugged. “Still sawing logs.”
My father leaned forward, a twinkle in his eye. “Up late, son?”
Mom swatted him with her spatula. “Robert!”
We three sat and ate breakfast, laughing and joking- not quite like old times, because I’m not a child- but like three adults who are utterly at home with each other. Like family.
When we were finishing up, Kyndi stumbled down the stairs, still in her pajamas, and still a little sleepy. Wiping some sleep from her eyes, she drowsily sat down at the table. I gave her slumped-over form a big side-hug while mom poured her some coffee.
“Good morning, sleepyhead!”
She frowned and looked at me, her eyes narrowing. “That’s my line, Matty!”
“Well, you got up later, so I get to say it.”
She yawned. “I know… I never outsleep you! This house must have tired vibes or something.”
My mother sat down at the table and looked at us both, shaking her head. “Speaking of getting tired of things, don’t you two think that just because Christmas is over that it’s time to pack up and leave!” She pointed a finger at me. “I don’t see nearly enough of my son since he decided to live as a nomad in a spaceship, and don’t think that you can just show up for a few days and call it good for a year!”
Turning to Kyndi, she smiled. “And I haven’t had so much fun since… well, I don’t remember when! If Matthew doesn’t bring you over every time he’s here, he is grounded!”
I rolled my eyes as the women had a laugh at my expense. But Mom wasn’t done. “Now, I know I said that the Christmas project was up by now, but I will insist that you two stay at least another day! Having a son at home is good for a mother’s soul.”
Dad chuckled as he swabbed the last piece of his waffle in syrup. “Better listen to your mom, son. I know that voice, and there’s no point in arguing.”
Kyndi and I looked at each other, smiled, and shrugged. I felt Kyndi’s fingers intertwine with mine under the table. She turned to my mother.
“Well, I suppose we could stay just a little longer!”