EVE
follows "Destined"

They had sent her to bed at ten, but she wondered how she was supposed to sleep. It was Christmas Eve: her first in her new home, her first with a new surname.

Olivia counted in her head. On Christmas Day 2023 at 11:26 a.m., she would officially be Olivia Goren for three whole days.

She lay tucked under blankets in the middle of her bed, wearing her cherry-red flannel nightgown with the crisp white piping, staring at the ceiling and listening to the murmur of the television down the hall. So different from the past years! Papa Marcel heaped bounty upon bounty upon her and Maman at Noël: a tree decorated by the local florist who provided other seasonal items for their flat, culinary goodies of all kinds—foie gras, caviar, and Swiss chocolates among them. Despite the pointed looks from Madame Pepin, she always spent a few hours of Le Réveillon at Maison Duplantier's formal-dress party with Papa Marcel's friends and government cronies, the sprawling house professionally decorated ("to the nines," Maman said acidly), with a nearly four-meter tall pink Christmas tree with silver and green baubles as Madame fancied. Olivia would wander the house in her best party dress amongst the women in their long, sparkly scoop-backed gowns and the men in suits or even tuxedos, chatting to the few people who would speak with her: Papa Marcel's secretary Toinette, and also his office manager Cecile, Laurent and Maitre Archard, Laurent's jolly red-haired friend Sébastien. The talk she heard from the adults was chiefly inane chatter or gushing over Madame's art collection. No one talked about business or world events at Le Réveillon.

Maman was never invited, of course, but she would be there, welcoming and full of hugs for both of them when they returned to the flat for more celebration, which went on past midnight ending with the big feast: Beef Wellington with its tasty pastry crust, oysters, and a bûche de Noël special ordered from Carrifer.

She eventually did fall asleep, bedroom door cracked so that she could hear her new parents—official parents, she reminded herself—Alexandra Eames Goren and Robert Goren, chuckling over a "rerun" of a series called Monk about a detective obsessed with cleanliness. Slept oblivious to them sneaking packages from some invisible location since the house was so tiny, or Bobby letting Sam, the big tricolor collie, out for a last sniff and run, or Alex covering up Bandit, the primarily white with grey budgerigar, or showers and then a final huddle under the mistletoe hung in the archway to the living room.

But at four, she was awake again. She thought about turning on her night table lamp and reading The Legend of Holly Claus, but Papa or Mama might see the light.

Inspiration struck: she could use the loo to sneak a look in the living room! Papa had left the tree lights on—all the other Christmas lights, too—he said it was tradition: his mother had told him it was so the Holy Family could find their house. Her maman had told her God was just nonsense. Still, something was appealing about the tale of Baby Jesus born in a strange city, surrounded by gentle animals like Sam. Papa and Mama believed anyway. She'd watched them set up the Nativity scene, an inheritance from Mama's father, on top of the DVD cabinet; the figures had been purchased two and three at the time over the years, Mama told her, from something called the five-and-dime store: the main figures first, then shepherds and Magi, finally sheep and camels, even a goat and a dog and a piper. The oldest figures (chalkware, Papa said) were chipped in places, but Mama glowed with nostalgia as he handed her each piece.

She slipped from her bed and, in good faith, used the toilet, then emerged from the bathroom to stare through the archway at the tree. It looked more magical in the dark, the sparkle and color enhanced, the multicolor lights dancing as they reflected off the...Papa called it tinsel, although, in France, they were called glaçons—icicles. For the past two years, Mama told her, they had just had bead strands and tinsel garland, but Papa had wanted to make the tree extra special this year and had ordered the icicles...tinsel.

In his usual fashion, Papa had also given her their history as he meticulously applied a half-dozen strands to each branch—Mama had murmured under her breath that he was being so precise that it looked as if he was examining evidence, and Olivia had giggled. At first, Papa told her, icicles were thin slices of twisted metal with hooked ends that spun in candlelight but cut tender hands, then for years had been narrow strips of shiny silver made from lead foil. But children swallowed them, and there were fears of lead poisoning, so modern icicles were sleek, slender silver strips of mylar, like party balloons, flyaway but still beautifully reflective.

She had watched Alex's fond smile as Bobby spun his tinsel tale. He loved imparting those nuggets of information; she said he should have no trouble lecturing in the future on that front at least. He was already practicing almost daily to improve his lecture style—speaking to crowds had never been "his thing," Mama said.

The house was small, the decorations simple: jadeite reindeer, a homemade bouquet, and a Christmas night light in the kitchen, little wreaths on the bedroom doors, holly garland around the arch to the living room with that mistletoe center, pine garland and a red bow around the stairway rail and newel post, bottle brush trees flanking each side of the Nativity on the DVD cabinet, and a Christmas tree, as Mama had explained some months earlier, not out of an American decorating magazine, but a mixture of multicolored fairy lights, homemade Ojo de Dios which had been made by Ana and Carlos, the specialty glass ornaments Papa had bought the previous year, each with their own significance—a basketball for Big Brothers, a laptop for Mama, a budgie and a collie for Bandit and Sam, and more—mixed with glass ornaments from the craft store, and finally the cross-stitch ornaments Olivia had worked through the summer and fall for each household member: books for Papa, lilacs for Mama, a bone for Sam, what looked like wheat but was meant as millet for Bandit. The ornament she'd made for herself had a little fox on it, with multiple tails—her kitsune mascot.

It was the best Christmas tree she had ever seen, better than any magazine model.

She padded into the living room, drawn by the lights, but her eyes veered to the stack of gifts under the tree. Which were hers, Olivia wondered, eyes tracing the square corners and outlines bumped out where there were bows. Careful not to frighten Bandit under his cage cover, she gingerly settled on the sofa only to look, her hands folded in her lap, entranced by hues and sparkle.

"Looks nice in the dark," said a voice from the chair, and she started. Eyes only for the tree, she hadn't noticed Bobby sitting in his recliner, blending into the darkness in his chocolate-brown bathrobe.

"Papa! What are you doing up?" she whispered, half startled and half scandalized.

"Used the bathroom, came in a minute to look at the tree. Then I heard you get up and stayed mum to see if you could resist. I never could."

"Did your...mother ever catch you doing this?" Olivia asked. She already knew mentioning William Goren was a touchy subject.

"a few times. She was a night owl. She was the one that showed me how magical it was to lie on my back under the tree and look up."

Olivia tilted her head at the stacks of gifts under the tree and said wryly, "I s'pose I should have done that before you put the presents down," to which he gave a low chuckle.

"The space will be cleared by tomorrow night. Did you enjoy Nochebuena?"

"Oh, yes!" she exclaimed. Everyone, including Papa's great-aunt and her family, had been at their party earlier. Mrs. Diaz has feasted them with favorite Puerto Rican treats and, thanks to Shard and TJ's space heaters, the guests had been able to spill out onto the porch. Olivia, Ana, and Carlos had trooped out to the shed with the older cousins, Eddie and Sophie and Eleanor and Molly, bundled in jackets, unmindful of the cold.

Finally, she couldn't bear it any longer. "Which are mine?"

"Most of them," said Alex from behind her, her amused voice giving her unseen grin away. "You both are as bad as Lizzie and I."

Bobby commented slyly, "So listening at doors wasn't your only naughty deed as a child?"

Alex stepped forward. "Nope. It started when I was two, I think, but the first time I remember I was three. Lizzie was eight and Dad had promised her a bicycle that year. She whispered in my ear, 'C'mon, Allie, let's see if Santa came,' and put on my slippers and robe for me and we crept down the hall like two little mice. The tree lights weren't on—Dad was always frugal with the electricity—but the streetlights came through the open Venetian blinds and made the tree sparkle." She added mischievously, "Dad just threw the tinsel at the tree, not applied it with a tweezer," to which Bobby laughed.

"So was there a bicycle under the tree?" Olivia asked with anticipation.

"Nope."

"Poor Aunt Lizzie!"

"Oh, there was a bike, but Dad didn't bother bringing it inside. It was chained out on the back stoop. He'd just come off a 12-hour shift, 9 to 9, and was exhausted. Nothing but belligerent, drunken revelers all day. Lizzie and I could hear Mom and Dad talking about it from our room." She closed her eyes. "Mom made him coffee. Our room was just down the hall from the kitchen so we could hear it perk and smell that heavenly smell." When she opened her eyes again, her voice was pensive. "We loved that smell. Not just for the scent, but because it meant Daddy was home safe that night."

Bobby rose from his seat to envelop her in a bear hug, and Olivia bit back a smile. During the daytime, Papa was Bobby or Agent Goren, curious as a cat, coming up with diverse facts about icicles and interstate crime, his mind wandering back to his work, while Mama was Alex, the practical one, who kept the house ticking like a well-oiled clock, coming up with new fundraising ideas for Big Brothers/Big Sisters as easily as she took her morning run. It was only at night, within the shelter of the little house—at least most of the time—that the two lovers came out; never flamboyantly demonstrative as her maman or Papa Marcel had been, just quiet things, a hug, a touch, the flash of eyes as they met, even a mutual smile.

Bandit gave a cross little cluck from under his cage cover, and Sam finally rose from his dog bed at the foot of the stairs to amble to her and thrust his long nose in Olivia's lap to be petted.

"Now everyone is awake," Alex said in her "Mum voice," as Renata would have termed it. "Since the mutual Christmas tree admiration society is complete, time for us all to get back to bed."

"May'n't I open one gift?" Olivia pleaded.

Alex paused, waiting for Bobby to say yes, as she knew he would.

"But I get to pick which one," he stated unexpectedly.

"All right," she said, puzzled.

"The smallest one at the top of the stack. You can take it to bed with you afterward."

It must be a stuffed animal, she thought until she focused on the gift pile and realized the smallest item was a thin, six-inch long box wrapped in silver paper with a satin red bow.

"Are these gifts truly mostly for me?" she asked dubiously as she unwrapped the gift as neatly as Luisa, her old nanny, had instructed.

"I told your mother two years ago I didn't need any Christmas gifts because I had her," Bobby said comfortably. "And she always tells me she needs nothing. So we buy each other tiny things which we don't need."

"But this year we have our gift already," Alex added with a smile.

"Two days, sixteen hours, and thirty minutes ago," he finished, making Olivia swallow and blink hard.

The gift proved to be a jewelry box containing a gold locket engraved with a large scrolled "O" between a smaller "M" and "G." When she opened the locket with her fingernail, her new parents' faces smiled back at her, Bobby with his head slightly tilted, a perceptive look returning her gaze, and Alex wearing her mischievous smile, eyes crinkled. a heart shape was engraved on the back; inside the shape were the words "nous t'aimons."

Olivia said nothing, biting her lower lip and blinking more, and fumbled with the lobster clasp to don the locket. Finally, in a voice clogged with emotion, she said thank you, only to find herself in another hug.

"Bedtime now," Alex said quietly a few minutes later, smoothing the hair at the top of her head. "Soon it will be time for breakfast, then we have to pick up Aunt Agnes and the others to get to Aunt Lizzie's in time for dinner."

"We'll have to play sardines in the car," Olivia grinned, glad that they were driving only as far as the Amtrak station in Beacon Falls.

"They say you get closer at Christmastime," quipped Bobby.

Alex groaned. "Now you've really arrived. That's pretty close to the realm of a Dad joke."

"I suppose they can be learned rather than handed down," Bobby sighed.

Olivia's blog entry for Christmas Day seemed to scroll endlessly, recounting every event: being wedged in the CRV like a slice of cheese; the happy train journey to Penn Station, and thence to Liz and Steve's apartment and a buffet dinner (since the apartment had no table seating that large) and a stroll around the streets of New York afterward; a video call from Donna Hastings to show them the baby's room—all "our" gifts, Donna accused in amusement, were actually for the "jellybean" growing quietly within, and they could hear Penelope Saltonstall's laughter in the background—and another from her half-brother Laurent to show off the Quebec "cottage." In typical Marcel Pepin style, Laurent found himself not in a quaint cabin as his father's will implied but instead having inherited a well-appointed ten-room house, completely furnished, with a garage, and staffed with a cook/housekeeper and a groundskeeper. He'd feasted on tourtières, scallops, and also the traditional bûche de Noël with his best friend Sébastien Anouilh.

She had concluded her blog entry for December 25 after once again being chivvied to bed at ten, but that had not ended her day. Instead, she had crept out of bed when she heard music that was not a Christmas song she recognized and spied on Mama and Papa  dancing by the light of the tree to a ballad called "You Make It Christmas," Alex's head resting in the hollow between his shoulder and his collarbone, Bobby's nose buried in her hair. She watched with wistful eyes, then she saw Bobby's head tilt, lower slightly. Alex murmured, and then their arms opened as they had the night at Fortunato's Landing, making a space for her, and she ran to join them.

In their embrace, she remembered the magic of their early morning, happiness shared in the glow of the tree, feelings too deep to have written about properly on her blog. Maybe someday, she hoped, she could explain the joy of the brilliance and the tinsel sparkle combined with their words, and portray the light the three of them made together.