I asked Ed, “If my father gets married, do you think his new wife will want to come over on Christmas Eve? What if she has children and they always have their dinner then?” My father always stays overnight with us on Christmas Eve so Ed and I can go to the midnight service.
“Jesus Christ, Charlie.”
“He didn’t mean that, God.”
“I can repent by myself, thank you.”
“Well . . .”
“Well, what?””
“God’s waiting.”
“How much did you and the girls have to drink?”
“I didn’t keep count, since I didn’t have to drive. But anyway, what do you think?”
“About what?”
"What we’ll do if my father gets married again and he can’t come here Christmas Eve.”
“Charlie . . . your father isn’t engaged. He isn’t even dating.” I don’t know why Ed keeps sighing whenever we have conversations in bed.
“Nikki says he must be having sex, since he was so pleasant. He did seem happier.”
“Well, if he’s dating, it may not be just one person. And even if it is, he probably wouldn’t get engaged for a year or so. And then it might take a while to get married.”
“But if they’re engaged, they’d have to spend Christmas Eve together.” Then I had a disturbing thought. “What if they’re engaged and they want to sleep together? I couldn’t let them do that with the children here.”
“ One of them could take the guest room and he could sleep in Josh's room or she could sleep with one of the girls."
“Do you think one of them would sleep on the air mattress?”
“I thought English majors got sarcasm.”
“Of course, by that time, Betsey may be old enough to babysit the others. But she may want to go to the service and it wouldn’t be fair not to take her.”
“We can pay her.”"But it's so nice to have everybody together.”
“Tell that to your father’s fiancée.”
“But if she has a dinner, she’ll want us to come. We’d have to go, too.”
“Maybe it will be fun.”
“Or maybe she always does her dinner the Saturday before Christmas, so her children can go to their in-laws’ Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. That would be great.”
“Explain all this to you father and tell him that if she won’t watch the kids Christmas Eve, that has to be a deal breaker.”I was about to fall asleep when I remembered something. “Did you tell God you’re sorry for swearing?”
“I’m going to right now. In fact, He’s going to get quite an earful,”
“That’s good.” Then I did fall asleep. It’s lucky we have an air mattress.
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