Andi's Dream - Joy To The World

"What about the time you came home a protestant pastor instead of a catholic priest and had a black wife to present to momma and poppa?" asked Macy as she re-arranged the stockings on the parlor fireplace.

"Ok, I'll admit, that one was a little bit tense," said John, "but momma was just worried that our kids would come out zebra striped." John turned to Lucy who had covered her mouth but was giggling. "You laugh, but it's true, she was terrified of that. She said that she was going to have to go to the zoo to visit her grandchildren."

"I told her that when we have children, that we were going to encourage them to get jobs as zookeepers to make their grandmama happy," grinned Macy, which sent Lucy into gales of laughter.

"You laugh, but it happened," said John.

"Mama was funny," said Macy. "She was teasing us... I miss her."

"And when mama finally settled down it turned out to be one of the better Jarecki Family Christmases in a long time." Seeing that Macy had finished arranging the stockings he turned to stack presents under the trees.

The largest collection of gifts was in the parlor underneath the huge, beautifully decorated blue spruce that was harvested by John and Paul from their secret grove of "Christmas Ready" trees on Paul's property shortly before Andi arrived. These were the gifts that would be opened Christmas morning. The gifts for people that were coming later for dinner or the Boxing Day gifts were under the living room tree.

Gus had a ball putting together the Big Wheel bikes for the girls, both were blue, and each depicted a different female character in the latest Disney cartoon. Each one came with two racing pylons and Gus put the four pylons in a line down the center of the Library floor giving plenty of room at each end to allow the twins to negotiate the turns of "Jarecki Speedway."

Finally, all the preparations were complete, the final gift placed in its proper position, the final stocking filled to bulging and hung in its proper place. Much needed folding chairs brought up from the basement storage and placed at the ready for the visitors, and the good punch bowl and mug set readied for the morning. Seeing everything in order and ready for the morning, John and Macy headed upstairs.

"I don't know if anyone told you, but this is a sleep-over party, said Gus as he dimmed the lights in the Parlor and now the only light coming from the tree, the window behind the tree, the fire, and the occasional candle. "There's three unoccupied bedrooms up there, just grab one and nap until 6:00 AM if you want."

"Does it have to be unoccupied?" asked Lucy with a smile. Gus didn't answer, he smiled and turned toward the tree. "It's still snowing," said Lucy softly.

"It's beautiful, nearly as beautiful as..." Lucy stopped Gus by placing her soft hand on his lips.

"Gus, don't get any ideas. I can't be a lover; I can't be a girlfriend. I'm not a lesbian but then I'm not quite anything really. I want to get to set records, so I train, I want to be a doctor, so I work. I don't wear fancy dresses; I wear speed suits and scrubs. I don't...

Now it was Gus's turn to stop her with a hand calloused from decades of hard labor laid gently on her lips. "You're breaking up with me before we even exchange phone numbers?" He shook his head. "I'm not looking for a lover, I don't even know if I deserve a girlfriend, but what I do know is that I am attracted to you, you're in my thoughts constantly and I sure like talking to you. Why don't we hang out together and see what the future has in store for us?" He leaned forward to kiss her and she didn't pull back.

After their lips parted, they stood looking at the beautiful tree and watching the snowflakes swirl around outside through the holly lined window. Gus put his arm around her waist, and she leaned her head on his shoulder. Millions of possibilities of a future that included Gus somewhere swirled in her head like snowflakes. "Where do we go from here?"

"I was thinking down to the media room to watch a great Christmas movie."

"Like what?"

"Die Hard."

She suddenly put a hand on each side of his face and looked him in the eye. "One or Two?"

"It's not Christmas until Hans goes off the 23^rd floor of the Nakatomi Plaza."

"This is going to be a wonderful friendship!"

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It was 6:23 when Andi and Paul crept into the house. Andi put on coffee while Paul brought in a large, covered bakers pan, larger than any normal sheet pan. He placed it on the formal dining table and uncovered it: there were buns and rolls, ham egg & cheese on bagel, donuts, coffee cake, and fruit salad.

Paul put the bagel sandwiches in the microwave oven while Andi went upstairs. She first checked on the twins who were sound asleep, Wonka laying on a rug at the foot of their beds. Wonka appeared to be asleep, but his eyes traced every move Andi made.

The bedrooms in the house were arranged in two rows of three divided by the grand staircase. The two bedrooms at the balcony end of the row had their own bath and walk-in closets so one was the Master, the other was the "other-master" for lack of a better designation. The only difference was the location and the view out of the window. Paul had chosen one master to sleep in, only because the construction when that room was rebuilt was complete first, but as soon as Andi moved in, she disagreed with the view, it looked straight into the neighbor's tree. The other overlooked a quiet street in a peaceful village. She moved all of Paul's clothes and toiletries to the master bedroom of her choice after she redecorated the room.

When Andi and the twins moved into the house, Paul had moved onto the couch in the media room rather than one of the other bedrooms to deal with the desire to 'commute' in the middle of the night before the wedding. With Paul out of the way Andi was able to complete the move without his knowledge, so when he came to change clothes one day, he found his room to be completely empty.

Hearing splashing across the way, he walked into the other master bedroom and found it tastefully decorated, his clothes neatly hung up in the walk in closet, and in the bathroom he found Andi and the twins splashing in a sea of bubbles the large free standing tub. When he walked in the twins held an armload of bubbles up to their chests and screamed. "You taught them that?" he asked Andi. She smiled and nodded.

"It's a skill that may come in handy someday," she smiled and lifted a couple of handfuls of bubbles to her chest to end the twin's demanding "Momma! Cover up like me!"

Paul gave her a kiss and said, "I love the room." And that was all that was said about her redecoration.

Andi found John and Macy snoozing in the "other-master" bedroom and roused them. She checked the remaining bedrooms, but they were all unoccupied except for the twins' room.

She went down to the kitchen to mention this to Paul, but he was gone too. She went down to the basement and found Gus and Lucy snoozing in each other's arms while some space movie played on the big screen. She bent over the back of the couch and shook Lucy's shoulder gently and Lucy slowly came to consciousness. She looked up at Andi and said "Hey, sexy."

"Hey sexy yourself. Breakfast is ready."

Lucy looked up at the snoozing Gus and snuggled in, closing her eyes.

"We'll be up in a few minutes," said Gus without opening his eyes.

Andi headed back up the stairs, her huge fluffy slippers making no sound. She walked out to the breakfast nook in the kitchen dining area and saw something that made her heart fall. Paul was standing in the driveway talking with her mother. Damnit. Andi opened the door a crack to hear what was going on. Her mother was on a roll, that's for sure.

"I just don't think it's proper, you and my daughter holed up in your love nest with my grandchildren doing God knows what..."

"God knows certainly well what we did with the children there, and he knows what we did there without the children last night..."

"And now they're in there with your African American nanny, how dare you!"

"She's neither African nor is she American, and she's not a nanny...

"I don't care what she is..."

"She is my brother's wife, she is now Andi's sister, and she is a doctor of theology AND a doctor of psychology, and if you didn't care then why did you bring her up?"

Just then Andi's stepfather, Harold Driscoll, grew a pair and stepped into the fray "Now dear..."

"Don't 'now dear' me! You just let me..."

Paul started talking to Harold and ignored Heather completely "She's pretty upset because she was left out of her daughter's wedding ceremony, replaced by a dog. Now I admit it would have been nice if their grandmother led the twins up the aisle, but she is the one that cut off Andi thoroughly yesterday and left us high and dry. It hurt Andi a lot and I really took offense to it also. Great offense. Then there is what she said and did about Frank." He gave Andi's mother a look that up until now only Frank has seen.

"Frank was a nice man, he cared for Andi, he..."

Paul leaned in close and whispered into her mother's ear so Andi couldn't hear but it must have been about the rooms in Blackhawk, her mom looked horrified. Yep, Blackhawk. Paul then spoke louder "We have the DNA evidence, the twin's father is a Russian mobster who fucked a helpless, blindfolded Andi to clear Franks gambling debts." With that bit of news Heather broke down crying in the driveway. Andi never saw her mother cry, when Andi was a kid if her mom had a problem, she would just drink it away. "Harold, when she's ready bring her inside, it's Christmas, the twins want to see her... We don't want an apology from either side, we just want our children's grandparents in the family. Oh, and we want you to wear these, it's a pajama party Christmas." And he handed Harold and Heather Driscoll two wrapped packages.

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"Yaaaaayyyyyy!" The twins came roaring down the back stairs into the kitchen as fast as their tiny legs could carry them. They both had red "foot jammies" and red plaid robes that they were both dragging. They came around the corner at the bottom of the stairs and slammed into Paul. "Poppa!" and they were off again racing as fast as they could through the kitchen where they could find their desired target: Wonka. He was just coming through the dog flap after doing his morning business and was blindsided by the twin tornado.

"It's Christmas Wonka!"

"Maybe Santa left you a reindeer for breakfast!"

"Sounds like someone told the twins what wolves eat," said Andi angrily glaring at Paul, but Lucy was looking pretty guilty.

"Can we open presents now?" asked Sandy and Madoline as they bounced up and down in excitement.

"Photo first," said Andi and shooed her babies into the "Pretty Room" (as the twins called the Parlor). Seeing the gifts under the tree the twins shrieked "SANTA WAS HERE!" and headed for the piles of gifts. It took a heroic effort on Andi and Paul's part to keep the twins from diving in and tearing open the mountain of gifts, but soon they had the girls under control and dressed in their red robes.

All grouped up in front of the tree; Andi, Paul, and the twins in red plaid robes, everyone else in green plaid robes. The colors were intended to reflect the colors at the wedding but only Andi, Macy, and Lucy caught on to that fact and would point it out for years to come. The robes all matched, either red plaid or green plaid, and the men's pajamas were either red or green, but the women's pajamas were picked to match their personalities, Lucy had a cozy green flannel nightgown, Macy had sexy green babydolls, and Andi was simply wearing the top to Paul's red men's pajamas.

Paul set up a DSLR on a tripod and took several pictures via remote control and it was starting to remind Andi of the wedding photo shoot only 12 hours ago. The twins were starting to get antsy to open presents and they were getting ready to dive into that when Andi's mom and stepfather came in. Even Paul was surprised when Andi cheerily said "Hurry mom! Get your robe on and get in here!" Some more photos of the entire group were taken with Grandma and Grandpa Driscoll in their red plaid robes, several with Grandma and Grandpa and the twins, and some with Andi and Paul before the bride and groom could settle down on the love seat.

"That was right civil of you to treat your mom so nice."

Andi looked Paul right in the eye and said softly in his ear "It's easy being civil when you spent the night getting your guts rearranged by a giant dick," and planted a big kiss on him.

To start the morning John put on the Christmas music, the music he and Paul grew up with - Andy Williams, Jo Stafford, Mel Torme, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Steve Lawrence and Edie Gourmet, and all those big instrumentals. To the Jarecki boys the spirit of Christmas is in the music, and this music has been playing all month and would be in the background for another twelve days.

The twins wanted to dive into the pile of gifts but Paul said, "Stockings first!" so with Auntie Lucy's help they got the stockings down and discovered candy, crayons, coloring books, small toys, and a giant orange in the toe of each stocking, but in Madeline's stocking was a piece of paper that was scorched and burned at the edges. "What is it?" asked Andi.

The girls shrugged and were about to toss it aside when Paul said, "See if there is something written on it."

Madeline opened it up and they saw it was the exact letter they sent to Santa via smoke signal. They were shocked, mouths hanging open, and their expression made Andi's favorite Christmas photo for years to come and even featured prominently on future family Christmas cards. They suddenly ran about the room waving their letter about, showing it to everyone with the pronouncement "Santa got our letter!" That is when Gus wheeled the tricycles into the living room.

"Here is something that Santa brought especially for you," he declared. The twins saw the Big Wheel tricycles and dropped the letter. "Hop on, give them a whirl," said Gus.

They hopped on leaving the scorched letter forgotten and took off in a household wide rally.

John bent over and asked Paul, "What was that whole burning the letter thing?"

"We were running late to get to the church last night and the girls suddenly remembered that they didn't write their letter to Santa," explained Paul.

While Paul reminisced on the joy of helping the two munchkins generate a list, Andi continued, "Paul had them write a letter to Santa, which he burned up in the fireplace. I'm told that Santa gathered the smoke up and put the letter back together."

"He did! See?" cried Sandy as she slapped the letter into John's stomach before she remounted her Hot Wheel and chased after her sister.

"That Santa, what a guy," chuckled John glad to have taken part in making Santa Claus become real for a pair of little girls.

"Père Noël has a special gift in the living room for Monsieur Paul," said Macy with a huge smile. "Debout!"

"What's a doo-boo?"

"It means get up!" growled John, pulling on his brother's arm.

Paul allowed himself to be led to the living room, and there everything looked normal, the gifts were rearranged a little, but no major changes, even the spotlight continued to shine multiple colors of light on the silver tree with more noise and heat than could be considered safe. He was about to ask, "What's the deal?" when Andi crouched down and adjusted the speed lever of the train's transformer. The M-10000 "Tin Worm" emerged from the tunnel of packages in its art-deco, brown and yellow, streamlined glory. Three articulated trainset included the locomotive/baggage/rail post office in the lead, hauling two passenger cars, the M-10000 was the train that began the downfall of the steam locomotive. For seven years the M-10000 raced across the American west shuttling passengers between Kansas City Missouri and Salina Kansas, until it died of exhaustion in 1941 with a million miles under its belt.

"It's beautiful!" gasped Paul, "I-i-is this prewar?" There are some beautiful reproduction Lionel M-10000 models out there, but one made before WWII while the real M-10000 was kicking up Kansas dust in the real world was utterly worth the collector's value. Their father had an M-10000, bought second hand from a Buffalo NY icon: Chester Spoonley, also known as Spoonley The Train Man.

"Yes, it is, and the entire set, including the track and transformer was rebuilt, by hand, by Chester Spoonley the third. I told "Trey" who it was for, and why we wanted it, and he seriously put his heart and soul into it."

For Paul there were no words, he held John tight and wept muttering "Thank you so much, it's so beautiful."

Confused Andi turned to Macy and whispered, "It's just a toy train."

"Non," whispered Macy, "it is so much more." She picked up a photo album from the 50's vintage coffee table and flipped to a marked page. She showed Andi a black and white photograph of a boy sitting next to a Christmas tree as a Lionel M-10000 streamed past. "It is a link to their father. They know so little of their father Josef Jarecki, he shared so little of his past with them."

"I wonder what ever became of dad's train," said Paul as he and John headed back to the parlor with Paul wiping the tears with his bathrobe sleeve.

"Who knows, sitting on a shelf somewhere? Maybe going around a Christmas tree in South Buffalo? I can't see throwing something that nice away. Maybe this is dad's train? You never know," and John led Paul back into the parlor.

"Boys and their toys," smiled Andi.

"Andi," said Macy in a scolding tone. She took hold of Andi's left hand and pointed to her rings. "This piece of metal is so much more than a trinket, just as that train is so much more than a toy. It is the meanings that we give them, the memories they invoke."

Andi looked at her ring and remembered the night, walking in the gentle snowfall and looking at the Christmas lights, waiting for Mr. Wetzel to finish crafting the ring that is now on her finger. The grilled Danish, the hot, delicious Tim Horton's double-double, the festive window displays, twins running in circles trying to catch snowflakes on their tongues, and Paul placing this ring on her finger. She had a feeling that she would remember that evening forever because of these rings. Looking at her ring she said, "You're right, these items tie us to who we are."

"And you have come to an important truth in life," Macy grasped Andi by the shoulders and stared into her eyes. "Repeat after me; Macy is always right."

"Wait... what?" Andi spanked Macy's butt causing her to laugh and step out of the way.

As if on cue, the twins appeared, their eyebrows lowered, their jaws set. "What are you doing?" demanded Madeline.

"We're playing Smack The Sister," replied Macy who swatted Andi in the butt.

Quick as lightning Sandy reached out and gave Madeline a quick smack in the arm and cried out "I win!"

"Hey!" cried Andi and Madeline.

Just then, Gus stuck his head into the living room and called out "Paul said that any presents left unopened are his by law." That ended all familial feuding and the girls raced to the parlor.

The gifts Paul gave Andi were varied and beautiful, tons of clothing (picked out by Macy and Lucy), the mother's ring which Andi was expecting, and a present that completely shocked her. It was a wonderfully bound book titled A Portfolio of Our Assets. She knew that Paul had worked very hard turning a near bankrupt chain of 3 automotive dealerships into one of the largest auto chains in the NY-PENN region, and he worked consulting at two different cardiology departments. This book showed a breakdown of various investments and other side businesses that Paul managed out of the sheer boredom of a life lived alone in solitude. And now he is sharing the entire estate with his beloved.