What We Do: Christmas In Cheeseland
Completed: 12/21/04
Rating: R
Summary: Donna and Josh spend Christmas in Wisconsin with Donna’s family
Author’s Notes: This is the fourth follow-up to What We Do. You need to read the series before reading this.
“Toothbrushes?”
“Check.”
“Shampoo?”
“Check.”
“Refrigerator?”
“Check.”
“What do you mean by check?”
“Milk, cheese, thawed meats, and mayonnaise.”
“What about butter?”
“We don’t have any.”
“What about the sugar and flour?”
“What about them?”
“They’re out on the counter in those things you bought. Is there cause for concern there?”
“Not for the normal person, no.”
“Ok. I’m ok. It’s fine.”
“Good.”
“What about produce?”
“I thought you were fine.”
“Produce, Donna, produce.”
“I made a stew with the last of it the other day.”
“Is there stew in there?”
“No. We ate it all.”
“Ok. I think we’re ready.”
“Let’s go.”
“It’s not too late.”
“Too late for what?”
“The bed and breakfast, watching the waves, making love by the fire…”
“We made love by the fire right over there last night.”
“Not overlooking the ocean.”
“Trust me when I tell you that ocean or not, I was only looking at you.”
**********
“Do I look ok?” Did he just ask me if he looks ok?
“What?” Since when has Josh cared if he looks ok?
“Do I look ok? Do I have food on my face? Is my hair sticking up in all directions like… well, like it usually does? Is this sweater too casual? Are jeans ok or should I have gone with a suit? You know, do I look ok?”
This conversation sounds eerily familiar. And to me, Josh always looks good. Especially in jeans and a sweater. In fact, he looks hot as hell, I’ve had to bite my tongue to keep from suggesting something vulgar here in the airplane. We won’t go there; you don’t want to know. Suffice it to say, he looks good.
“Are you nervous?”
“Yes, I’m nervous,” he screeches. “Your ex-marine father and football coach brother are meeting us at the airport.”
“They’re just trying to intimidate you,” I say, smiling at him. He’s just so cute like this.
“Well, it’s working.”
“My mother adores you, stay close to her. They’re all afraid of her, they won’t hurt you when she’s around.” I put my hand on his knee and squeeze gently.
“What are you doing?”
“What?”
“What? No touching, that’s what.” To accent this, he picks up my hand and puts in on my own knee.
What? “No touching?”
“No. You cannot touch me this weekend.”
“I can’t touch you this weekend.” Like that’s gonna happen.
“No. Not near your father.”
“We’re on a plane. My father’s on the ground.”
“We need the practice.” He’s freaking out. This is so much fun.
I lean in very close to his ear, which makes him stiffen and choke a little. “What about the shower?” I say in a low, sexy voice.
He shakes his head back and forth very quickly several times. “The shower didn’t work. My mother knew. Your father will know and he’ll break the door down and kill me, marine fashion.”
I try not to laugh. “So we’re going to go three days without exploring?”
He looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. We’re still on the at least once a day, usually twice, occasionally three times schedule. “No. No. Don’t even joke about that. Didn’t you book the hotel?”
“I told you, my mom said we’re staying with them.” In separate rooms, but since there’s no touching, he probably won’t have a problem with that.
“Doesn’t matter, Donna. We book the hotel and sneak off there a few times a day.”
Can’t fault that logic. “You’re ok paying for a hotel for three nights that we’re not sleeping in?”
“It’s either that or three days without exploring. And that’s not an option. I could die.” He could die? I doubt that.
“Fine,” I say smiling and brushing his leg with mine. “I’ll call when we land.”
“Good, now don’t touch me.”
**********
The plane lands and it becomes hard to breathe. We sat in an emergency exit row, and I had my eye on the door the entire flight. If I’d just turned counter-clockwise and pushed and I could’ve been out here, what was I thinking?
Donna keeps touching me. I think she’s in on it with them.
When we finally get off the plane, I carry both our bags. She looks at me like I’ve killed Josh and replaced him with a double, but I have to be chivalrous in front of her father. It’s all part of the plan. The Tricking Donna’s Dad Into Liking Me plan. The plan has many parts to it. They are as follows:
So, that’s the plan. What do you think?
**********
Josh carries both of our carry-on bags through the airport and into baggage claim, then proceeds to get our one suitcase as well. Thank goodness it has wheels. I try to hold his hand twice, but am refuted both times. In fact, not only am I refuted, he gives me the Judas look as well. Does he think I’ve brought him here to sacrifice him to the Moss family?
No! They wouldn’t. Just as I’m thinking that Josh is being overly paranoid, I spot my dad, both of my brothers, my brother-in-law, six… no, seven of my uncles, two of my cousins, and one of my grandfathers waiting for us. Every one of them has his arms crossed over his chest and a look of contempt on his face. No wonder Josh is afraid.
My eyes get huge and I wave a little, trying to figure out how to tell Josh that my dad and brother turned into fourteen of my male relatives. He’s going to freak! “Honey, don’t panic.”
“Why did you call me honey?” he asks in a panicked voice. I shouldn’t have gone with a nickname. I should’ve known he’d see through it.
“It’s gonna be fine, Josh. Just remember, they’re only trying to intimidate you. You just have to show that you can take it and they’ll let you go. My brother-in-law went through this, two other of my sister’s boyfriends have been through it, just show that you’re tough. You’ll be fine,” I say, squeezing his arm.
“Don’t touch me, Donna. They could be anywhere.”
“Actually, they’re right there,” I say, pointing to the huge crowd of men.
“Where?”
I point again. “There,” I mumble.
“Next to those…” his voice turns into a squeak, “mean… looking… guys?”
“Actually….”
He looks at me like he might cry... or run. “No.”
I nod slowly. “Yes.”
“You said two, Donna! You said two!”
“That’s what I was told.”
He keeps shaking his head. “I can’t do this. I’m lunchmeat. I won’t even make it to the house.”
I put my hand on his shoulder. “You’ll be fine. Just remember, it’s a test.”
“Not one I can pass!”
“Joshua Lyman, you are a brilliant political mastermind. These are just men. You’ve chewed up more than that just for fun. You are tough, you are strong, you are powerful.”
He takes a deep breath and nods. “Right, I can do this.”
“That’s the spirit, let’s go.” He’s toast.
*********
Donna and I walk up to the eighty people who have come to kill me, and she gives one of them a big hug. I think he’s the father. He looks a lot like her, and he seems to be their leader. I stand back a few feet and let her have time with him. She can take as much time as she wants. I look around at the others with a smile, but they just stare at me. Help.
When she pulls away from the leader, she turns to me, takes me by the arm and pulls me up close to her. Too close I think. One of the others makes a noise, an animalistic I’m-going-to-kill-him noise. She and I need to review the no touching rule.
“Dad, this is my fiancé, Josh Lyman. Josh, this is my dad, Gary Moss.”
“Lyman,” he says sternly, shaking my hand so hard that it hurts.
“Mr. Moss, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”
“You’ve had opportunities before, I assumed you were avoiding me.” Well, we’re off to a good start.
“No sir, I’ve been looking forward to this for years,” I say with a smile. Let go of my hand please, I can’t feel my fingers.
See, Donna’s parents have been to DC five or six times in the six years she’s lived there. And yes, I’ve had opportunities to meet them several times, and yes, I’ve avoided it like the plague. Maybe more than the plague.
“And this is my brother Joe, my brother Anthony, my brother-in-law Eric, my grandfather Bill Rubino, my uncles Robert, Steven, Scott, Gray, Ken, Chris, and Len, and my cousins Daniel and Richard.” I quickly shake hands with each one of them. None of them smile, and they all shake really, really hard. Well, not her grandfather, but the others.
“Lyman, you’ll ride with Joe, Anthony, Eric and myself. Donna, you can ride with your grandfather and your cousins, we’ll meet you at the house.” They’re splitting us up?????
I play cool. Do not show fear, that’s what they want. Donna comes up to me and kisses me… on the lips! Is she trying to get me killed? I can’t act like she repulses me, so I chastely kiss her back and follow some people out of the airport. I just hope it’s the right ones. It’s worth mentioning that no one offers to help with the luggage, which just reiterates my theory that they only came for my death, and suddenly I’m thinking that I may just have kissed Donna for the last time and I didn’t even use tongue!
**********
“Lyman, wake-up.”
I open my eyes and… hell I don’t know, someone is standing over me with gloves on. He’s going to kill me and not leave prints.
“Let’s go.”
“Where are we going?” I ask in a whisper. I’m sharing the den with Richard. He and Anthony and his wife are the only relatives other than Donna that live outside of Madison. Because “this is home and you stay near your family.” I’m quoting Donna’s dad there. Anyway, he and I are sharing the den. He’s on the futon, I’m on a blow up mattress on the floor. It slowly deflated through the night and I’ve been sleeping on solid floor for the last few hours. I think they knew about the hole. In fact, I think they took a safety pin to this thing before I got here.
“We’re helping Grandpa Moss at the farm this morning.”
“What?”
“We’re going to Grandpa Moss’ to help on the farm. You’ve got fifteen minutes, you might want breakfast before we leave.”
“Umm… ok.” I get up and go into the restroom, where I proceed to panic. The farm? What the hell am I going to do on the farm? I can’t be trusted with machinery, I’ll get myself killed. Maybe that’s the plan. I don’t even know what to wear. Jeans? A flannel shirt? I don’t have a flannel shirt. All I packed were sweaters. I can’t do farm work with a sweater on!
I finally realize that I have no choice, and put on jeans and a sweater. I go for the oldest one, figuring it’s going to be a goner after today. Then I go downstairs where many men are eating cereal. I’m so confused. When we went to bed, there was only Richard, Gary, and Anthony here. Why are there fifteen guys standing around the kitchen, and why are they all staring at me?
“You can’t wear that.”
“I… Donna didn’t tell me we’d be working on the farm, I didn’t come prepared.”
“Damn politicians can’t even dress appropriately for an honest day’s work,” Mr. Moss says to one of the uncles. I don’t know which.
Stay calm Josh. They out number you. “I’ll make due in this, Sir.”
Thankfully, Anthony takes pity on me. “You look like an idiot. I’ve got something for you upstairs.” He doesn’t smile, but he leaves to get me something and I fight the urge to run after him and hug him, even though he did call me an idiot.
“You ever worked on a farm before, Lyman?” the brother-in-law asks.
“Not exactly.”
“What’s not exactly?”
“Well, I’ve… fought for more government funding for farmers,” I reply like a pansy-ass as I pour some cereal into a bowl sitting on the table. I pick up the milk and silently freak out that the sell by date was yesterday. I can do this. I can drink the spoiled milk. I’m going to be sick. Breathe, Josh, breathe.
I take a few bites, choking it down along with the bile that keeps surfacing, until Anthony saves me again by tossing boots, a long underwear type shirt, a flannel shirt, and some work gloves to me. “Hurry, there’s work to be done before dawn. We don’t have all day.” Again, I don’t care that he’s mean to me, I want to give him a big hug.
**********
“Where did they take him?” I ask, sitting down at the table with my mom, my sister Marie, and my sister-in-law Holly, drinking coffee and wearing flannel pajamas. I love flannel pajamas.
“You’re father said something about working on Grandpa Moss’ farm today.”
I look up. “But Grandpa hasn’t worked that farm in years. He rents it out to Mr. Stahlhut.”
“Yes.”
“They’re just trying to torture him?”
“He’ll be fine, honey. He’s a smart man.”
“But he’s not a farmer!”
“No one will let him get hurt,” Marie says.
“He’s pretty cute,” says Holly.
“Yes, he is,” says Marie. “We’re going to need some details.”
“Details?”
“Details. And not about work. We couldn’t care less about that.”
I look up at my mom and then back at Marie. “No details.”
“Oh, come on. I want details,” Mom says.
I take a deep breath and can’t help smiling. “Ok, but everything I say is vaulted. I don’t want your husbands using any information I’m about to give up.”
“Of course. Vaulted.”
“He’s amazing. He loves surprises, he likes to do little things for me, rub my back, buy me Ben and Jerry’s when it’s been a bad day. He’s big on anniversaries and statements; He took me to the exact place we met to propose to me. He makes me pancakes on Sunday’s and we spend the whole day in our pajamas lying in bed. He likes to blow dry my hair. And he touches me all the time. His hands are always in my hair, on my back, around my waist, it’s amazing. It gets better every day.”
“Isn’t that sweet?” Marie says sarcastically. “We were talking about sex.”
I laugh. “Right.” I look down into my coffee cup. “Unbelievable. At least once a day. Multiple orgasms,” I say as quickly as possible.
**********
Nineteen hours. I’ve been in Cheeseland for nineteen hours. “You’re doing it wrong, Lyman.”
“I am?”
“Is there any milk in that bucket?”
I look down into the bucket. “No.”
“That’s because you’re doing it wrong.”
“Oh.” Brother-in-law, Eric I think, sits on a stool next to me and shows me how to milk the cow. Which is just great, I’ve always wanted to do that, especially on Christmas Eve. But once he shows me, I’m not half bad at it. “Hey, milk!”
He smiles, but it goes away very quickly and the scowl comes back. “You might not be useless after all.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“I guess,” he says in a bored tone.
“Did they hate you at first too?”
“Nope.”
“Oh.”
“Of course, I wasn’t dating the baby. Who has not such stellar taste in men.”
“Right.”
“When you’re done there, Dad wants you to help him stack hay. He’s in the hay barn.” He calls him dad; I’m still at Mr. Moss.
“Kay.” I finish the milking, under the watchful eye of Eric. He helps a little, even though he pretends he’s above it. I think he feels for me. He accidentally smiled at me twice. He’s been where I am; he knows what I’m going through.
When I’m done, I leave the barn I’m in and look around. There are three other barns that I can see, how am I supposed to find the hay barn? I finally decide to just pick one and I head for the closest. “The hay barn!” Eric yells, pointing to one of the other ones and shaking his head at me. See, he’s helping.
When I get to the hay bar, Mr. Moss is standing up on a loft type thing. “Start bringing the hay over, Lyman.” What? Start bringing the hay over? The bales of hay are taller than me, not to mention width. I’m just supposed to pick them up and carry them?
I look at a bale. “How exactly am I supposed to do that, Sir?” I ask.
He rolls his eyes at me and points to a tractor with hay on it. “You’ve driven a tractor before, right?”
“Umm…”
“You’re kidding me,” he growls, climbing down and walking towards the tractor. Yeah, he hates me.
**********
It’s been six hours. If they aren’t back from wherever it is they took him in the next few hours, we won’t get to the hotel before dinner. I need to go to the hotel. NEED.
**********
We’re out in a field now. There’s no one else around. He could kill me and no one would have a clue. It’s just him, hay and me. I’m driving a tractor and he’s sitting next to me. We’re on our way out to get more hay to put in the hay barn.
“You’re old.” Here we go.
“Excuse me, Sir?”
“You’re old. What? Twelve years older than her?”
“Yes Sir.” Well, I knew this was going to come up.
“Is she a trophy to you?” he asks with squinted eyes.
“She’s everything to me, Sir.”
“You going through some kind of mid-life crisis?” No, that was Amy.
“No Sir, I just love her.”
“She’s not as educated as you.”
“No, but she’s as smart as me.”
“She has bad taste in men.”
Isn’t that the truth? However, I don’t think I should say that, so I nod. “I don’t pretend to deserve her, Sir.” You notice all the sirs? It’s part of the plan.
“Why’d you wait so long?”
“I didn’t want to risk her reputation. DC can be cruel.” i.e. Republicans can be cruel.
“Then why now?”
I look over at him and stop driving. “I couldn’t wait another second.” He just nods. Yes! Round one, Lyman.
**********
Finally! I hear Dad’s Tahoe pull up and go to the door. Josh gets out with a big smile on his face, but he grimaces just a little and puts his hand on his back. Then, as though it never happened, the smile is back and he walks towards the door. When he sees me, he leans over and kisses me on the cheek.
“You smell.” Whoa. What did they do to him?
“Very badly.”
“What happened to you?” He’s filthy. He has mud all over his arms and face, and little scratches on his hands.
“We were helping your grandfather out on the farm. We were working like men. I feel young, energized, in touch with nature.”
“Your back is killing you, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it hurts really bad,” he whines.
“We’ve got two hours before dinner. We could…go explore if you take a very quick shower. That is, unless your back hurts too bad.”
“I’ll be ready to go in ten minutes. Six. Six minutes.”
I make an excuse of needing to run to the store and seventeen minutes later, Josh and I are at the Super 8 two miles from my parent’s.
“I missed you today,” I tell him as I’m peeling his sweater off him.
Once it’s gone, his lips fasten themselves to my neck. In between little bites and kisses, he says, “I was working hard.”
“My big tough man,” I say, finding it hard to stand.
“I drove a tractor,” he says, pulling my t-shirt over my head.
“A big one?” I ask, unbuttoning his pants.
“Yes… and I milked a cow,” he says, capturing my nipple between his top teeth and bottom lip.
“Ahh… yes…that’s… yeah…”
“And I stacked hey,” he whispers, lightly pushing down on the bed and pulling down my pants. I sit up and pull his pants down, then push him on his back and straddle him.
“You’ve worked hard. Let me work now,” I say kissing my way down his stomach.
**********
“Wake-up, Lyman,” Anthony whispers to me.
“What?”
“Come on. We’re leaving in ten minutes. I put clothes in the bathroom for you.”
“Where are we going?”
“Hunting.”
“Hunting? On Christmas?”
“We gotta catch dinner. You know how to use a bow and arrow?”
“Yes?”
“You don’t, do you?”
“No.” He just shakes his head at me. They just can’t believe that someone like me has made it in this big bad world.
I get up and go into the bathroom. Camouflage? I’ve never worn camouflage in my life. The things I do for her…
I get dressed and go downstairs where everyone’s eating cereal. I look at the milk out of the corner of my eye. It’s the same milk as yesterday!!! How can they drink that?
Ten minutes later, I’m in the back of a pick-up truck. It’s 4:15. In the morning. In December. In Wisconsin. Just thought you should know. One of the uncles tosses something to me and tells me to put it on. I open the lid; it’s green… paint?
“It’s for your face, Lyman.” Why don’t they call me Josh?
“My face?” He just shakes his head and takes it from me, dipping his fingers in it and covering his face with it. Oh, good lord. When he’s done, he tosses it back to me. I stare at it for a minute and then put it on.
Thirty minutes later, I’m in a tree house wearing camouflage and green make-up, holding a bow and arrow. My instructions were “point, pull back and let go. Don’t hit anyone.” Ok.
I’m in the tree house with the brothers this morning. Anthony and Joe. I’m not real sure which is which. “She should go back to school,” one of them says.
“I’m sorry?”
“She should go back to school.”
And it begins again. “Well, that’s an option anytime she chooses it.”
“Schools in DC are pretty expensive.”
Just nod and smile. “If she wants to go back to school, she can go.”
“She dated a guy who cheated on her once,” the football coach one says.
“I know.”
“We beat the shit out of him,” he says, looking me deep in the eye.
I stare right back at him. “Good.”
“Got one!” someone yells. Got one what?
“Let’s go,” football brother says, climbing out of the tree we’re in.
I follow and we run I don’t know how far until we get to a clearing where Mr. Moss, brother-in-law, and seven or eight of the others are standing in a circle looking at the ground. Please don’t let it be Bambi.
We walk up to the circle and there’s a dead turkey lying there. “I caught it, that means I don’t have to clean it,” Richard says.
There’s a round of good jobs, and compliments on the size and then the fateful words. “Grab it Lyman, let’s go.”
Grab it? “What?”
“Come on. We gotta get it home and cleaned so Mom can cook it,” brother-in-law says.
“Pick it up?”
“It’s dead, it won’t bite.”
“Umm… are you sure it’s dead?”
“Pretty sure. Just grab it by the feet and let’s go.”
I stare at it for a few more seconds and then I hear one of the cousins make some comment about me being a pansy. I obviously can’t let that go unanswered, so I bend down and pick it up by its feet, and carry it as far away from my body as possible to the truck. It’s about a ten-minute walk, and it’s pretty heavy. No one offers to help.
When we get back to the house, it’s almost seven. I’m thinking that the worst is over until Grandpa Moss tells me to take the bird into the garage. He follows me in and the next thing I know, I’m plucking the damn thing! I miss DC.
“I’m eighty two years old,” he says out of the blue. Let me reiterate. I’m plucking. He’s just standing there telling me what to do.
“Yes Sir.” How do you respond to a statement like that?
“I fought in World War II.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
“Thank me? Why?”
“I had a grandfather in a concentration camp, Sir. I’m grateful for what you did to help him.”
He looks at me. I don’t think he was expecting that answer. “Did he survive?”
“Yes, Sir, he did. He passed away when I was eleven.”
“What would he think of my granddaughter?”
I smile. “He’d think I was the luckiest man in the world.”
He nods at me. “He’d be right.”
“Yes, Sir, he would be.”
**********
“We have to hurry, Josh.”
“I’m hurrying.”
“We have to be back in forty-five minutes, I have to help make dinner.”
“Then stop interrupting me.”
“I’m just saying, we don’t have time for all the bells and whistles.”
He looks up from between my legs. “Bells and whistles?”
I gesture between his face and my… you know. “Bells and whistles.”
“But I like the bells and whistles,” he whines.
“Oh, believe me, so do I. Tonight, we’ll come back after dinner and presents and you can bell and whistle all you want to.”
“Promise?”
“Absolutely.”
**********
I look out the kitchen window into Grandma and Grandpa’s backyard. The boys are playing football. Between the eight uncles, my dad, my brothers, Eric, Josh and the cousins, it’s pretty much a full game. I’m not surprised to see that Josh is blocking Joe. Joe went to the University of Wisconsin on a football scholarship, and has been a high school football coach for eight years. But even if he didn’t play at all, he’d still be kicking Josh’s ass; he outweighs him by about eighty pounds. Yet, every time Joe knocks him down, Josh gets right back up and blocks him again. That’s my man.
About a half hour later, my nephew Jeff runs into the kitchen. “We need a few band aids and maybe an ace bandage.” Oh no.
“What happened?” my mom asks.
“Uncle Joey killed Donna’s boyfriend.”
My mom, grandmother, sister-in-law and I go out to the backyard. Josh is up walking around, limping like one of his legs is six inches shorter than the other. “Are you ok?” I ask, running up to him.
He nods through gritted teeth. “Yeah, I’m good. Just playing a little football.”
My grandmother turns to my brother. “What did you do to him?”
“Nothing! He just got in the way when I was running to the goal line.”
“I got the tackle,” Josh grits out.
“Luck,” Joe says.
“Honey,” my grandmother says to Josh. I’m not going to say anything, but I think she has a crush on him. “Go inside and take off your pants so I can look at your leg.” See? I told you.
“Umm…” Josh looks at me for help. “I’m fine.”
“Come on, Josh. Walk it off. Don’t be a wuss,” my uncle Chris yells.
“Josh,” I say quietly.
“I’m fine,” he says, kissing me on the cheek and running back to the game, trying to hide his limp.
“Women…” Eric says.
And just as I walk away, I hear Josh say to him, “Aren’t they amazing?”
**********
After dinner, we open gifts. What kind of weird tradition is that? Gifts Christmas night? Whatever, I’m not going to say anything. We’re out of here in less than 24 hours; I can make it.
Donna picked out the gifts for her family. There was a drawing done at some point, so the only people we had to buy for were her parents, her sister-in-law Holly and her uncle Chris. Joe drew me, and got me a really cool scarf glove set that everyone knows his wife Holly picked out, and Donna’s aunt Beth picked her and bought her some perfume. Her parents got us a crystal vase from Tiffany’s. Donna and I are exchanging gifts tomorrow night when we get home, but we brought one gift each here to exchange with the family. I had to be careful when deciding which gift to bring for her to open. I didn’t want to bring something cheap, but I didn’t want to bring something that would look like I was trying to show off either. I opted out of the necklace I bought her, which CJ made me buy even though it limits my access to her neck. I also opted out of the lingerie I bought her from Victoria’s Secret for reasons that should be clear. I also opted out of the day at the spa I bought her because I got CJ one too so they could go together, and I wanted them to open it together. Instead, I went with…
“Tickets to ‘Aida’?”
“You like musicals.”
“I love musicals! I can’t believe you got me tickets to a musical!”
“And I’m not even going to complain while we’re there, it’s part of the gift,” I say with a big smile on my face. I did well; all the women in the room are oohing and aahing.
“These are for New Year’s Eve!” one of the aunts says, looking at the tickets.
“Yeah, they come with hotel reservations on Broadway so we can watch the ball drop after the show,” I say quietly.
And then Donna jumps up from her spot and throws herself into my arms and I decide to forget the no touching rule for the time being and hold her close and whisper that I love her. Then she decides to break the no touching rule even more and kisses me long and deep right there in front of all the men who want me dead. But I decide that it’s worth it and kiss her back.
**********
“Wake-up, Lyman.”
Oh hell, not again. “I’m up,” I whisper.
“Come on, we need you down stairs.”
“Coming. Just gotta…” I point to the bathroom.
“Hurry.”
A few minutes later, I go downstairs, at 5:22am, and the men are in the kitchen staring at me. What now? “Morning everyone.”
“Lyman, we need breakfast,” a cousin says.
“What?”
“The girls left to go shopping. We need you to make us breakfast.”
“Make you breakfast? All of you?” There’s like twenty of us.
“Of course, all of us. You gonna make breakfast for just some of us?”
“Right. How ‘bout we go out to breakfast? I’ll buy.”
“No. It’s football day,” one of them says as though that explains everything. Ok, whatever. It's 5:22 in the morning, we don't have time for IHOP before the first game?
“What do we have to make?” I ask.
“Nothing, you’re going to have to go to the store. We want eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, toast… anything else?” he asks the men around him.
“Get stuff for omelets. Do you know how to make omelets?”
“Yeah, sure.” No I don’t know how to make omelets!
“I’ll go with him. He’ll just get lost on his own,” Mr. Moss grumbles out. Yeah, haven’t quite succeeded with the plan yet. I grab my wallet and off we go.
Ten minutes later, we’re walking through the Wal-Mart SuperCenter, buying enough food to feed a small army. I’m over buying, I know, but I’m not going back there with too little.
“Donna seemed to like her Christmas gift from you,” Mr. Moss says to me.
“I hope so, Sir. I like to make her happy.”
“What are your plans for the future?” Told you this conversation would come up.
“Well, Sir. I can’t answer that question completely. I’ll have several options after President Bartlet’s term, but Donna and I will have to choose what the best option is for us at the time.”
“What are those options?”
“I could teach political science at the college level, go into freelance consulting, work for a politician, work campaigns, write a book, work as a lawyer…”
“What would you choose if you were thinking only of yourself?”
“Honestly? I’d find a good, honest person and get them to the White House some day.”
“You don’t want to run for office yourself?”
“No, Sir. I’ve never wanted that.”
“What about my daughter. Will she always work for you?”
“I doubt it. I’d love it if she did, we’re an amazing team. But I think she wants to branch out. She doesn’t now because she knows what we do it once in a lifetime, but when we leave the White House, I think she’ll go off on her own professionally.”
“What about money? You don’t have to be rich, but can you provide for my daughter?”
“Yes Sir, I can.”
“You work too much. She needs someone who comes home at night to her and their family.”
“Yes Sir, I agree. It’s not bad now because we’re doing it together, but when we don’t work together and when we have children, major changes will need to take place. That’s why I’m keeping my options open. Donna and I are going to have to find something that works for us as a family.”
“She can be stubborn.”
"Yes Sir.”
“She’s not the most confident person.”
“No Sir, but she’s so much more confident than she used to be. It’s really quite amazing to watch her grow.”
“When she loves, it’s with everything she has. She deserves that in return.”
“She has it from me, Sir.”
**********
We get back from shopping, loaded down with anything and everything we can carry, and walk in to find the men watching football, drinking beer and napping. There's a new aura to the place. Josh, Anthony and Eric are in a heated discussion about the Packers and the Steelers, and men are calling him Josh and randomly hitting him on the shoulder the way men do. It looks as though he's finally passed the test.
An hour later, we’re packed and ready to go. Every thing is loaded in the Tahoe and everyone’s standing in the front yard to say goodbye to us. The women hug us like they’re never going to see us again, my mom cries, and my sister tells me to call when we get in.
The men hug me and pat Josh on the back, joking about coming to DC to hunt turkeys. My dad drives us to the airport and helps us bring our luggage inside to the United counter, then hugs me and turns to Josh.
He looks at him for a long time, then pulls him in and hugs him hard. “It was a pleasure meeting you Son. Welcome to the family.”