Page 73 of Carry on Wayward Son

“That is a plan.” I kissed her, slow and deliberate, and then cursed Willa thoroughly in my head because the timing was genuinely unreasonable. “That is absolutely a plan.”

We got up. Got dressed. Navigated the bathroom in the comfortable overlap of two people who had figured out how to occupy the same space, and made our way downstairs.

Willa was already at the fireplace in her robe, practically vibrating. The stockings hung from the mantel—mine, Willa’s, Sawyer’s—and at the end of the row, hanging slightly crooked, one that hadn’t been there last night. LAYLA had been somewhat clumsily embroidered onto it. I watched her come down the stairs and stop at the bottom and see at it.

Willa turned from the fireplace and clocked her expression, and immediately looked pleased with herself.

“Good morning,” Layla said. She’d come down with a robe over the pajamas I’d talked her out of last night, her hair fully loose around her shoulders in the way it rarely was unless we were alone together.

Willa stared at her in consternation. “Okay, you just got up. How is your eye makeup that perfect?”

Layla laughed. “Because it’s tattooed on.”

Willa’s mouth opened, then closed again. “That is the most practical thing I’ve ever heard.”

“I thought so.”

Sawyer appeared from the kitchen with coffee and handed cups around. I had to appreciate a man who had correctly identified the most useful contribution he could make to Christmas morning. I accepted mine and stood next to Layla at the fireplace as she took in the stocking with her name on it. Emotions flickered over her face that she didn’t quite manage to put away before I saw them. She reached out and touched the edge of it. Just briefly. Then she picked up her coffee.

The morning had the quality of Christmas mornings I’d forgotten. Not the ones from childhood with my parents, which had their own texture, but the ones that felt chosen. Willa had clearly been awake for hours constructing this. Cinnamon rolls somewhere, by the delicious, yeasty smell of it. Roy had a new toy that he was transporting from room to room with great ceremony. Koa had found a bag of treats with his name on it and was sitting in front of it with an expression of profound dignity, waiting for someone to acknowledge this development.

“Koa,” Layla said. “Down.”

He lay down. She gave him a treat that he received with the grace of a dog who had never once been undignified in his life.

The gift giving was unhurried and warm and exactly what Willa had clearly intended it to be. She’d thought about all of it—a book for Sawyer that he immediately started reading the back of, something small and right for each person, a ridiculous ornament for next year’s tree for me that made me laugh because it was exactly the kind of thing she’d have gotten me at twelve when she was trying to get under my skin. The print I’d found for her in Manteo, the wild horses at dawn, made her go quiet in the way she went quiet when something hit her exactly right.

Layla had settled in the corner of the sofa with her coffee and her loose hair and the stocking in her lap, working through its contents with the careful attention of someone who had not expected to have a stocking this morning and was taking each thing in properly. I watched her without making anything of it.

When it was her turn, I handed her the box.

She looked at me once before she opened it.

Inside the tissue paper, a tiny hummingbird rested. The pendant was made out of a twist of silver, with the bird on one side and a trumpet vine on the other. The inset sea glass wasn’t quite as vibrant as the tattoo on her wrist, but I remembered what she’d said about the birds reminding her of joy, and I’d wanted to give her that feeling.

She stilled, one finger hovering just above the necklace.

She looked at it for a long moment, and then she looked at me, and what was in her face was not performed and not managed, and was clearly costing her something to let me see.

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

She leaned across and kissed me, and Willa made a sound from across the room that I chose to ignore entirely.

“Pancakes,” Sawyer said from the kitchen doorway, with the timing of a man who understood exactly when a room needed redirecting.

I knew better than to ask why there would be pancakes when there were clearly already cinnamon rolls. I was an equal opportunity carb lover when presented a choice.

When Layla offered me the box, I gently picked up the necklace and fastened it around her throat. Then everyone moved toward the kitchen. The dogs followed. Willa was already telling Sawyer something about the batter while he listened with the complete attention he always gave her.

My phone buzzed.

I pulled it out expecting nothing in particular and saw Dax’s name.

Dax: Merry Christmas. Check your secure email.

I looked at the kitchen doorway—the noise of it, Willa’s laugh, the scent of bacon starting on the griddle—and stepped out to the deck.

The sky was caught somewhere between blue and gray, as if it was trying to give us a little color. To the east, the sun was just cresting the horizon, stretching fingers of light across the otherwise gray ocean. I opened the secure app and pulled down the file Dax had sent, and I started reading.