Chapter Thirty-Six
Jason
I was ecstatic that Lucy was spending Christmas with us this year. When I had told Jenna, she threw her arms around me and thanked me profusely, and then she had told me it readily made up for me chasing her away for Thanksgiving. While Jenna was only a little girl, she was incredibly intuitive about the world around her, and the statement had both shocked me and made me laugh.
“Why didn’t you tell me she had so many gifts already for Christmas?” Lucy asked, bringing me back to our conversation.
“Because I didn’t realize how many we’d gotten her,” I said.
“Between the television for her room, the collection of Disney princess DVDs, the new toys, and the tablet with all her electronic games, she’s gonna have a better Christmas than us,” she said.
“Yeah, and that’s just what I got her. I don’t think we’ve made it to what you got her, yet.”
“Nope, it’s all still out in the car. I figured that was a safe place to put it since she’s been over every day since we got back from camping.”
“I think she thought you weren’t gonna show up or something,” I said.
“Is there any way I can make up Thanksgiving to her?” she asked.
“You’ve got it in your trunk,” I said, chuckling. “And anyway, Thanksgiving is my fault, and I think she understands that.”
“You think? I mean, she’s a bit young to understand what happened.”
“She told me the other day that she was excited you were coming for Christmas, and that it made up for me chasing you away on Thanksgiving,” I said.
“She did not,” she said, giggling.
“Oh, yes she did. She’s a little spark of fire, I tell ya.”
“I never had a Christmas like this, honestly. Birthdays were the big thing in our house growing up.”
“So, you guys got big birthdays?” I asked.
“Nope. But they were bigger than Christmas,” she said.
“I never really had birthdays or Christmases like this,” I said.
“Why not?” she asked.
“We weren’t that kind of family, I guess.”
I really wasn’t in the mood to talk about my family on Christmas Eve, but I could tell she was watching me out of the corner of her eye.
“Do you wanna talk about it?” she asked.
“There’s really nothing to talk about. My parents weren’t the best, and I got jobs as early as I could to help out financially.”
“Did your father not work?” she asked.
“He did. They both did, sometimes. But, they also drank their excess money away, which doesn’t make for a good way to pay bills.”
“I’m so sorry, Jason. I had no idea,” she said.
“I don’t talk about it much. Danielle was actually the one who convinced me I wasn’t responsible for their happiness or their security. I owe much of my life the way it is now to her.”
“She sounds like she was a phenomenal woman,” she said.
“She was. I was lucky to have known her,” I said.
“Well, I’m glad Jenna’s getting a big Christmas like this. We’re about done wrapping these gifts, so I’ll go get the ones from my car,” she said.
I turned and gave Lucy a kiss before she started for the door, but I heard her footsteps stop before the door opened. The house went eerily silent, and I could hear her breathing picking up, so I ventured into the kitchen to see what happened.
“Lucy, what’s—”
“Someone’s outside,” she whispered.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I lunged for her, grasping her arm and pulling her away from the window, and then I pulled her into me and forced her gaze up to mine.
“There’s a pistol in the cabinet in the corner in the living room. Get it out. I’m gonna go get my shotgun. Don’t go outside until I’m with you.”
“Got it,” she said, whispering.
She raced to the living room while I ventured back into my closet. I heard fluttering around outside while Lucy and I crept around the house, and by the time I got back to the door, she was standing there, waiting for me. My heart hammered in my chest while we stood there and listened, and when the sound happened again, the two of us slowly crept onto the porch.
Lucy raised the pistol out in front of her while I cocked my shotgun, and we both slowly ventured around the house. I rushed out to the storage unit we had and pulled it open while Lucy opened our cellar, and the two of us thoroughly checked the grounds before we made our way to the middle of the backyard. We couldn’t see any shadows, nor was there any sort of movement around us, and it caused us both to breathe a sigh of relief.
“I swear to you, Jason, someone was—”
Just then, I went to go move my foot and tripped on a rock. I stumbled, catching myself on Lucy, trying not to shoot off a gun in the middle of the night.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
But my eyes were trained solely onto the ground.
Lucy had left the cellar light on to cast a glow around the backyard, and I was looking straight down at a footprint. It was smaller than mine but bigger than Lucy’s. Where the hell had that come from? They weren’t exactly in a place where someone could accidentally traipse through my backyard.
Still, it wasn’t necessarily a reason to throw any red flags. The mud surrounding it was frozen, which meant it wasn’t fresh.
“There it is!” Lucy said. I caught the movement out of the corner of my eye and whipped around with my gun ready. I was prepared for whoever the fuck thought they could step onto my property on this beautiful holiday and scare the people I loved the way they were, but Lucy’s giggling settled my gut as I finally realized what I was pointing my gun at.
“Holy shit, it was just an owl,” she said. “Oh, my God. Jason. I’m so sorry.”
I dropped the barrel of my gun, a smile crossing my face, and I wrapped my arm around her shoulders. She laid her head into the crook of my body and continued to laugh, and I knew it was her way of getting rid of her nerves. The movement of the owl had apparently really scared her, and I could feel her body trembling with the release of adrenaline she had experienced thinking someone was actually walking around the house.
“It’s all right, Lucy. Come on. Let’s get those gifts out of your car and get inside.”
“I think we should put our guns away first,” she said. “Someone might think we’re robbing something.”
“Good idea,” I said.
The two of us walked back to the house and put the guns away before we went out and got the gifts from her car. I could tell she was still trembling a little bit, and even though we had found the owl, there was something else running through her mind.
“Is everything all right?” I asked.
“Yeah. Yeah, everything’s all right,” she said.
“Lucy.”
She whipped her gaze up to mine, and she couldn’t hide that she was still scared. I put down the tape and the wrapping paper before I reached out to her, pulling her into my body. She wrapped her arms tightly around me and sniffled into my chest, and the only thing I knew to do was run my hands slowly through her hair.
“Holy God, that scared me so bad,” she said.
“I know it did, Lucy. I know.”
“What if it had actually been a person? What if something had happened to Jenna?”
“Well, with the both of us being the good shots we are, they wouldn’t have gotten into the house before we would’ve nailed them,” I said.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I really thought someone was there.”
“Shhh,” I said, hushing her in her ear. “It’s all right. Just take some deep breaths.”
“If anything ever happened to you two—”
“Nothing’s happening to anyone. I promise,” I said.
But, even as I said that, I looked out the porch window and could’ve sworn I saw something running across my lawn.