Chapter Text
Lilith Sorrengail runs Christmas with militant precision, always has. There are lists, and they are checked twice. There’s a schedule with exact times for the run of show, when the ham comes out of the oven, when we pose for photos, and when the Christmas tree gets plugged in.
The entire thing is in military time and posted on the fridge.
08:00 Wake up, 08:20 Breakfast, all the way to 17:45 Christmas toast, 18:00 Secret Santa exchange.
It’s thrilling, truly, talk about holiday magic.
There was a time I thought it was absolutely deranged. I still do, if I’m honest, but at least now it brings a sense of comfort, of home. With Dain and Mira at my side this year, I think maybe I can endure the insanity that is a Sorrengail Christmas.
Dain’s more than familiar with our particular brand of madness, having grown up in his own military household. As a kid, Christmas was always on bases, sometimes in hot, dry deserts, sometimes in the most humid of rainforests, but never at home. It was family that made it Christmas, that made our home as we moved from place to place. And for a long time, Dain was a part of that, as our parents often stationed together. Though that was a long time ago now.
These days, with Mom retired and Brennan out of the service, it’s more often that we all have Christmas together. Which, I think, is part of why my mom is so crazy about scheduling every minute, since we haven’t always known how many holidays we’ll get together. And in the grand scheme of things, we have so few, always have.
So as I survey the schedule stuck to the fridge with a 'Greetings from San Diego' magnet, I restrain my eye roll and skim Lilith’s plan for all of us.
We got in late last night. I’d picked up Dain in Boston on my drive from the city. He’s staying with his dad across town. So today I’m just getting my bearings and coming to terms with the fact that, for some inconceivable reason, I decided to visit for two whole weeks this year. Part of it was work, part was Isabel’s school schedule. Either way, I’m back in Navarre, and I need to make the most of it.
The small town in Maine is where my brother was born, and where my mom was from before she became a hotshot general in the US military. It’s where she met my dad. Basgiath, one of the big universities, is the town over. They apparently fell in love at my grandparents' coffee shop. Lilith worked weekends, and Asher, like any thesis-writing researcher, had a coffee addiction.
Knowing my parents as I did, thinking of them falling in love at “The Archives” feels fake, because neither of them was ever a rom-com meet-cute sort of person. But the bookstore & cafe is where their love story began.
It's also where I spent summers working when my mom would ship me off to her parents in high school. So despite having never properly lived in Navarre, it's the closest thing I have to a hometown.
“Mama!” My lips quirk up as I spin, hearing the impressive pounding of feet as Isabel rounds the kitchen island.
“Look what I made.” An abstract dragon drawing is presented to me with all of the reverence it deserves. She’s been going through a bit of a dragon phase, some kids like princesses, mine likes fire-breathing monsters. She has good taste.
I crouch and raise my brows, inspecting the work as I ‘ooo,’ and she smiles, grasping her hands and swaying at the praise. “It’s gorgeous, Isabel. Do you have a plan for it?” She shakes her head, curls bouncing with the motion. “Can I put it on the fridge for Nana?”
She grins wide, dark brown curls flying everywhere as she changes the direction of her head and nods instead.
I scoop her up and bring us over so she can place the drawing where she wants it on the door, right below the Christmas Schedule.
“Beautiful, baby, I love it.” I set her back down, and she scampers off, returning with my older brother in tow, still rubbing sleep from his light brown eyes.
“Uncle Bren, look what I made!” Her voice is high and her words soft in the way a toddler’s often are, not quite enunciating all the consonants, but still getting her point across.
They make quite the pair. Brennen, standing somewhere around six feet, dark auburn hair askew, pale freckled skin, sleep shirt hanging low on his shoulders, black ink curling along his arm from below a sleeve. Isabel, all 2 and a half feet of her, dragging him along. She has warm, deep bronze skin, dark brown eyes, and curls that float around her face in umber ringlets.
Lilith steps into the room, another sheet of paper in hand, not bothering to greet us before diving straight in. “Ok, so. We have to go to the grocery store today, the dollar store, I need to pick up apples from James down at the farm, and we need to decorate the tree tonight since we’re having company tomorrow.”
I sigh, “Ma, Dain isn't company.”
“We are not decorating for the Aetos’s.”
She looks sharply at each of us as she rebuts our complaints. “He is, and we are. And sweet Isabel gets to put the angel on the tree this year.” My mother is an evil master mind. Choosing this moment to scoop up my toddler and flash her a blinding smile.
“Yay, mama! Tree decorating.” I flash Lilith a glare when my angel isn’t looking.
“Ok, we will have a perfectly picturesque family tree decorating.”
“Wonderful, I’m so glad you agree, Violet. Car in 10.” And she strides off, taking her grandbaby with her, surely to wrap her in the new winter coat she insisted on gifting the moment we arrived.
I groan as I flop my upper body onto the cool kitchen counter, wishing I’d made a shot of espresso this morning instead of settling for the communal drip pot.
“Regretting coming already?” Brennan’s voice is soft and teasing, but I want to strangle him all the same.
“Why don’t you have to go on this shopping extravaganza?” He sips his coffee and watches me over the lip of the mug. “Like, come on.”
“I took a bullet for—“
“Oh, get over it already, you’re fine.” His laugh is cutting, and I know my smile is silly in return.
Brennan getting shot was, in fact, one of the most terrifying things that's ever happened in my life. And because of how our world works, I didn’t even know until after he was stabilized and medivaced to another country. I still don’t think my heart calmed until I finally saw his face on a video call, and I don’t think I truly settled until the moment he was back and I could hold him myself, ensure he was alive and well.
But he’s been milking it for years, to the point that it’s nearly a running joke in the family, one that's only funny because he's out of the service, and the risk of him being shot has decreased exponentially.
Bundled up, a scarf covering my nose, I step outside and join my mother as she settles Isabel in her car seat. There’s snow on the ground, only an inch or two, but the wind is still biting as we get settled. I slide into the passenger seat and throw on the seat warmers as soon as Lilith starts the car.
Running errands around town with her is exactly as I expect, exhausting.
“Is this your youngest?”
“Oh, and I’ve heard so much about you Isabel.”
“Such a pretty girl, you have your mother’s…smile.”
I don’t know what my mother tells people about her grandchild, and I don’t really care. As long as they don’t say anything weird or rude to Isa, they can think what they like. Lilith glares at the woman who made the smile comment, and talks smack about the cookies she brought to the church fundraiser the whole ride home.
Lilith is hard to have as a mother, but a smile teases at my lips as she goes on, because she’s also the best person to have your corner. She’s a strong believer in the school of thought that she can say whatever she likes about her kids, but no one else is allowed to even look at us funny.
I know it will be a long two weeks. But as Isabel babbles in the back, jumping in on Lilith's cookie rant to ask questions and make observations about the world whipping past through the car window, I think it might actually be good for us.