Five Kids, One Christmas (The Brannigan Sisters) Read online

  She hesitated, because the next piece of rationale didn’t sound as good to her today as it might have, say, a week ago; she didn’t necessarily want to go back to Washington five days a week, but she hadn’t come up with any other solution to managing the career half of her life yet while keeping the kids—and Nat—ensconced in theirs. "And if we’re married, we could really split the responsibilities, have legally sanctioned obligations to each other. It’d be easier for me to hire a housekeeper and spend weekdays in Washington, weekends here with the kids…."

  Her voice trailed off, sounding unconvinced. She looked at her sisters. They looked back.

  "Ah," Alice finally said wisely, managing with difficulty not to roll her eyes.

  "Well, that makes perfect sense then." Meg nodded, hiding the follow–up not! she mouthed at Edith behind a strategically placed hand. "And I suppose distance might help it to work."

  "Oh, a marriage of convenience," Edith agreed. "That’s completely different."

  Sam snorted and said it for all of them. "If he thinks marrying you for the kids’ sake would be convenient and you agree with him, you’ve both lost your minds."

  "Yeah," Twink said, "I mean, I’ve heard of people not getting divorced because of the kids, but to get married? Isn’t that like expecting the cart to pull the horse?"

  "Oh, I don’t know," Grace disagreed. "People get married all the time for kids—look at all the teenagers who get married because they ‘have to,’ because she’s pregnant and somebody doesn’t want the baby to be illegitimate. I mean—" she looked at Alice "—you did it. You were only seventeen and you got the marriage annulled right away, too, but you did get married because you were pregnant and you kept the father’s name so Allyn and Becky wouldn’t wind up illegitimate Brannigans."

  There was dead silence for a millisecond while they all digested this. Then Alice exclaimed, "Helen!" Aghast, she glanced furtively around, making sure no children were in earshot. "Are you pregnant?"

  "Oh, Helen," Meg murmured, equally appalled, equally furtive. "You’re almost forty years old. I thought sure you understood the principles of safe sex by now."

  "Yeah, Helen," Twink scolded, not the least furtive. "You’re the one who always reported us to the condom police and now you didn’t? I’m shocked."

  "Oh, God." Helen buried her face in her hands, groaning. Why did they always insist on jumping to the wrong conclusions in spite of the fact that in doing so they were rarely right?

  Because messing with somebody’s head is fun, she answered herself. Same reason you do it to them.

  "I am not," she announced aloud with some force, caught herself, scanned the area for eavesdropping ears and lowered her voice. "I am not," she repeated in a whisper, "and be advised, you’d better hear this now before someone with big pitchers walks in here and mistakes your ass—" she stressed the syllable "—umptions for gospel and spreads the non–news to the family tabloids. I am not, repeat, n–o–t pregnant now nor will I be at any time in the future by Nat or anyone else."

  "Well, of course not," Sam agreed, disgusted. "Who said you were? We all know you had your tubes tied after John divorced you because you were afraid you’d meet another guy, fall in love marry him, have another baby and lose it in the next divorce. Which, by the way, is another good reason to think before plunging headfirst into marital waters that look a little shallow to me."

  "She had her tubes tied?" Grace was dismayed at having been left out. "Nobody told me."

  Twink patted her hand. "Well no, of course we didn’t, dear. You were pregnant with number three at the time and we didn’t want what Helen did to influence you in any way."

  "Oh, fine," Grace snapped. "I’m twenty–eight years old, I’ve got four kids and you guys still think of me as the baby—"

  "I told you that in confidence." Helen turned on Meg. Meg shrugged. "They’re confident. Besides, they weaseled it out of me."

  "Nobody weasels anything out of you, Mary Margaret, unless you want it weaseled out. You’re the original ‘mum’s the word.’"

  "I didn’t tell Grace," Meg retorted.

  "Oh, like that excuses you."

  "It doesn’t?"

  "No, it damned well does not—"

  "Girls, girls!" Edith murmured placatingly. "Fighting won’t get us anywhere, and we still have to figure out Helen’s wedding. What with the holidays coming up and all…" She shook her head. "It’s a little tight."

  "What wedding?" Helen asked. "I didn’t say anything about a wedding. Marriage, yes. Wedding, no. Not with you guys planning it."

  "You have to have a wedding, Helen," Sam said, "with a shower and a bachelor party and a rehearsal dinner and relatives and everything else. Otherwise it doesn’t count." She rubbed her chin, thinking. "Now let’s see, if you’re doing this for the kids and to get Amanda’s parents off your back, you’ll want to do it soon, so you won’t have time to get a priest—"

  Twink nodded. "Waiting requirements, six months at least. What religion is Nat?"

  "Ah…"

  "Why don’t we ask the judge next door to perform the ceremony?" Grace suggested.

  Sam tapped her chin. "What about a church deacon? Could he do it sooner?"

  "I don’t think so," Edith said. "I think they still have to ask about whether or not you love each other and all that stuff and make you wait to make sure the vows’ll last and announce bans, and I don’t think we want to get into that."

  "Oh, yeah, I forgot, you could be right there, but hey, what about a woman Episcopal minister? That might be nice—different, but apropos."

  "I don’t know." Alice shook her head. "I think you’ve still got the questions."

  "True, and I don’t think they want to be asked if they love each other. Do you?"

  They all looked at Helen.

  Her mouth opened and shut soundlessly. They were pushing all her buttons, and they knew it. She hated that; life was far better when she was pushing theirs.

  Alice nodded. "Thought so. You know, you can’t consummate the marriage if you don’t love each other."

  "That would be wrong," Edith agreed.

  "Says who?" asked a curious male voice from the front hall doorway.

  Oh, great, Helen thought, mortified. Speak of the devil. Hunkly Gorgeous in the flesh and no place to hide.

  Literally.

  She watched her sisters stare as Nat, holding his cane, slouched comfortably against the doorjamb—all seventy–three magnificently well–developed inches of him showcased to perfection by a barely belly–length, cutoff, sleeveless Wayne State University sweatshirt, a pair of comfortable, well–worn sweatpants and bare feet. He was a man very definitely in his element and enjoying it to boot. In front of him, six unembarrassed Brannigans outnumbered the one, Helen, who would have sold her soul to sink through the floor and fade to black even though he couldn’t see her and especially because they could.

  "Says who about what?" Twink asked, innocence personified.

  "Says who we can’t consummate the marriage—if there is one—for any reason at all?" Nat returned patiently.

  "Oh, geez," Helen moaned.

  For a moment silence reigned while the Brannigans digested male challenge and contemplated response. Then Alice looked at Meg, Meg turned to Edith, Edith nudged Sam who raised a you–take–it brow at Twink who clicked a thumbnail between her teeth and figuratively passed the gauntlet to Grace. Wrinkling her nose in disgust, the baby of the family planted her elbows on the table, her chin in her hands and said, "Well…"

  "That’s what I thought," Nat said—smugly, to his discredit.

  Sam sent him a glance of withering disapproval, glanced at Helen. "You’re going to have to watch him," she advised.

  "Got an answer for everything," Meg concurred.

  "Too tricky by half," Edith affirmed.

  "Got to be a flaw we can exploit there somewhere," Grace said puzzled, "if only I could decide what it is."

  "Well, I like him," Twink stated flatly, "and t
hat’s a good point you made, Nat. I think he’ll be good for you and you should marry him immediately, Helen."

  "I agree," Edith added. "Alice?"

  "Oh, there’s something definitely flawed with his argument," Alice said, "but there’s something flawed in Helen’s, too, and since they’ve obviously thought this out just about as far as they’re going to think it, I think they should pick a day and worry about the after–marriage details later."

  "Ah…" Well out of her depth, Helen looked around wildly, hoping to find an opening that meant escape. There wasn’t one. She eyed Nat in the doorway, the only way out that didn’t mean going through herds of children. As though anticipating her, he casually straightened, then slouched again to block the entire passage.

  "Time to play truth or dare," he told her quietly. "How ’bout it, Helen?" He held out a hand. "Marry me, won’t you?"

  "I… I—I don’t—"

  "The judge next door is a woman," Grace suggested again, speaking up while the speaking was good. "She won’t ask anything except to see your marriage license and the certificate that says you took an hour of AIDS counseling and understand the consequences of unconsidered actions."

  "Thanksgiving’s on its way," Alice said. "All the relatives will gather, so it would be a convenient time to stage a marriage of convenience."

  "Give you the two weeks you need to get blood tests back, too," Sam agreed. "Even though you don’t have to have ’em, it might be a good idea, show a little planning to Emma…"

  Helen blanched, knowing without doubt that several of the misdeeds she’d once sowed upon her sisters had just come home to roost. "I don’t—I don’t—"

  "Dad, Dad!"

  There was a sudden stamping down the back staircase, and Zach, Cara, Libby and the older cousins appeared, big–eyed and out of breath.

  "Dad, Colonel there’s—"

  "—two police cars and—"

  "—police and one of those social workers—"

  The front doorbell buzzed; all the children except for Libby froze.

  "—on our porch," she said.

  Despairing, wondering if Amanda and John could see what they’d wrought, Helen reached for Nat’s hand. His fingers twisted around hers, lips thinned grimly. As expected but hoped against, they’d come.

  "Better answer the door," he said.

  Chapter Six

  They didn’t take the children, but it was a near thing for a while.

  With eighteen kids and six sisters gawking from doorways and the staircase, Helen and Nat together let the law in, ushered the two women and one man through the frankly curious—and somewhat hostile—family and into the living room. When the protective services representative requested a private area in which to interview the children individually, Nat—grim faced and with a sinking heart—guided them into the library, where they sorted Zach, Cara, Libby, Max and Jane out of the gathering. The male police officer herded them away from everyone else into the dining room while the social worker set herself up in the library. When she was ready, the female officer collected the children in random order, starting with Jane, and led each off to talk with the woman who held the power to determine whether or not to leave them in their own home or remove them into protective custody, where they would spend time at Children’s Village until the court decided on disposition.

  Because of some peas, a thoughtless interpretation and a grandmother’s fearful love.

  Regardless how small or inconsequential it seemed at the time, like dominoes set up to illustrate the workings of a chain reaction, every little thing you did affected your life forever after.

  It was better this way, Helen and Nat tried to convince themselves, each other—tried to persuade the sisters, who wouldn’t leave no matter how late it grew, no matter how hard Helen attempted to reason with them to get them to. "Reason" and "family" never had had anything to do with each other when it came to Brannigans defending or supporting other Brannigans. It was better that the system worked too hard to ensure the safety of their children rather than vice versa.

  Better, that is, except when it didn’t work at all, when it tried to protect children who didn’t need it, failed to protect those who needed safeguarding either from their home lives or from themselves—or, in tragic, too–oft–reported instances, failed to shield their communities from them.

  Mostly, though, Helen and Nat didn’t talk, they paced or stood tensely outside either the dining room or library doors, comforting each other without realizing they did it with a brush of the arm here, a squeeze of the hand there.

  At one point Helen suddenly remembered the marinara, got her sisters to feed their kids, made the cop watching hers—and they were hers, she realized all at once; that was how she thought of them, as hers and Nat’s, unplanned but fiercely wanted all the same—feel guilty about how hungry the youngsters must be since their normal dinnertime was six and it was now seven–thirty and they had school tomorrow. Then she offered to feed the officer, too, because she could hear his stomach growling and her dead ancestors would roll in their graves to think that one of their descendants had been so uncharitable as to let a hungry man remain so.

  The stern–faced officer in question unbent a bit at that, almost smiling, and accepted the plate he could hardly avoid when Helen handed it to him. Then she fixed two more plates and had the next child to be called through the library door—Cara, as it happened—deliver them to the policewoman and court officer on the other side.

  "Nothing ventured," she muttered under her breath, rocking on her heels and watching the door as she might a window, looking for revelations on a foggy day.

  Nat, listening, chuckled in spite of himself and the circumstances. Trust Helen to work out the logistics of a situation and turn it on its ear. Even before he’d met her he’d followed her military career—as had most of the officers who’d ever had occasion to deal with the adjutant general’s office after she’d been posted there—with some amusement. Though she’d never admit it, Helen had a certain innate genius for taking any faulty but overly stuffy and ordered department, slicing the red tape around it to ribbons, shredding all the outdated forms and organizing the resulting chaos into a more–genial, more–efficient, people–oriented unit. Enlisted personnel loved her as much as the non–coms, and junior officers bulldozed out of her path hated her—until they needed her on their side again.

  This time when Helen passed him in her pacing, Nat reached for her, slipped an arm around her shoulders and kissed her temple.

  She leaned into him for an instant, almost hugging him back, then moved quickly on her way.

  A short time later, when the interviews were finally finished, the determination was made that in this instance the complaint against Nat and Helen had been filed in error—the children appeared well if not yet completely readjusted, and thanks for dinner. The children’s services rep, who had implied but not formally offered an apology, hesitated for a moment on her way out the door.

  "Look," she said, turning uncomfortably back to Helen and Nat, "I don’t usually make this kind of observation to people I’m called out to investigate, but, ah, in this case… I get the feeling this whole thing is some sort of internal family dispute, ah, former in–laws against their late daughter’s single former husband and, ah, I kind of wonder if things, er, might not go more, ah, smoothly for you both in that regard if you were married instead of just, um, living together…"

  Nat shrugged. "Thanks," he said, "but we—"

  Helen hushed him with a finger against his lips. "Thanks," she said, "and we will be married—" she looked at Nat, slipped an arm about his waist "—by Thanksgiving."

  Nat touched her face, absorbing the smoothness of her skin through his fingers, feeling the tightness of determination along her jaw. Wished he could see her, read her eyes. "Really?" he asked softly.

  "Yeah," she said firmly, "really."

  "Well, good, congratulations," the children’s services rep said, and seemed to mean it.

/>   In his turn, Nat hugged Helen hard and whispered, "Good," and hoped neither of them would find any reason to regret such a hasty decision.

  ~THANKSGIVING~

  Turkey day dawned bright and clear, with sun glittering in prism colors through the frost on the windowpanes and a light dusting of early snow on the ground. The house smelled from days’ worth of preparations for a feast—of cinnamon and cloves, pumpkin and apples, yams and cornbread stuffing and the luscious, heavenly scent of turkey.

  Feeling like she was about to leap into the chasm between herself and reality, Helen was up before dawn, with Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary flopped open to the Cs on her bed, nervous as the proverbial bird about to be beheaded, stuffed, basted and devoured.

  Convenience: [Latin, from convenire, to come together, join suit.]

  The absence of that which annoys; personal well–being; comfort.

  That which gives ease or comfort or makes work less difficult and complicated; a handy device.

  A condition personally favorable or suitable; advantage. At one’s convenience: at a time, or in a place or manner, suitable to one.

  As, she thought, moodily supplying her own example, a marriage of convenience.

  Which definition, after all, said nothing about the word mutual. And brought to mind convenient’s antithesis, inconvenient, as in disharmony, discord, dispute and hassle.

  Scrutinizing herself under the bright lights at the bathroom mirror, Helen grimaced and sighed. No, no matter how hard she looked, she still couldn’t see anyplace where she twinned Alice, so why did she feel like she’d turned into her oldest sister?

  Because somewhere along the way, when her impending marriage to Nat inevitably failed for lack of a finger to stick in the dike of convenience, then they would undoubtedly get it annulled—as Alice’s first, very brief marriage had been. Only theirs would be annulled for lack of consummation.

  After an appreciable amount of discussion and a great deal of thought—which included kissing and a little light, over–the–clothes but really blood–boiling petting, let’s face it—she and Nat had finally, albeit reluctantly, agreed that the fewer complications they allowed in this "marriage," the more likely it was they’d be able to stay married at least until Jane was through high school.