She turned back over. “Is this why you won’t sit with me?”
He nodded, his eyes still covered by his fingers.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I won’t ever say it again. I promise.”
He opened his eyes, gathered her into his arms and wept openly. “I just miss them.”
“I miss my family too,” she said, beginning to cry too. “Can’t we be a family now?”
“Yes,” he whispered. “Of course.”
When Michael looked in on them an hour later, Forrest was asleep against the wall and Melissa lay nestled in the crook of his arm with Laddie stretched across the foot of the bed. He smiled, turned out the light and closed the door.
Forty-Six
Thanksgiving came and went without a great deal of excitement, but it was an okay day for everyone, and by that time the three newcomers had begun to assimilate fairly well. Emory and Sullivan even began sharing a shift in Launch Control, and this allowed Forrest and his men to enjoy shorter shifts of their own. Marty enjoyed talking physics with Melissa, who knew a surprising amount about quantum field theory for a person her age, and though Marty was no physicist, he was able to enhance her understanding of fermions and the latest theories at the time of the impact.
Now it was Christmas Eve, and the look on the children’s faces when two different Santas came Ho-ho-hoing into the main room—one black and one white, each wearing a pair of Blues Brothers sunglasses and carrying a red bag over his shoulder—was one of utter astonishment. Most of the children had been worried that Santa Claus was dead, but suddenly here he was, and he had brought a friend with him. A couple of the kids looked suspiciously back and forth at their mothers, wondering if it was a trick, but they only smiled.
Karen squeezed Michael’s hand, whispering, “Look, Terri thinks they’re real.”
Michael grinned, pointing discreetly at Joann’s daughter. “Look at the discernment on Beyonce’s face. She’s not buying it for a second.”
The Santas began to call the children’s names in deep voices, handing out packages wrapped in Christmas paper. The kids tore excitedly into their gifts, delighted to learn after only a few moments that both of the Santas had something for each one of them.
After the children’s names were called, the Santas began to call the mothers’ names one at a time, and each mother had to sit in Santa’s lap before she was given her gift.
Melissa’s name was the last to be called, and she was given a brand new laptop computer that had never even been taken out of the box. Her eyes lit up when she opened the box, and even Ulrich was stunned by what he saw.
“Did you know she was getting that?” he asked, leaning into Michael’s ear.
“No,” Michael said, impressed. “Didn’t you?”
The laptop was no run-of-the-mill civilian model. It was mounted in an army green, titanium, rubberized casing just over two inches thick when closed. There was the subdued image of an apple in the lower left-hand corner of the lid.
“No,” Ulrich said dryly. “That’s a Delta-OSS… a military prototype worth a couple of hundred grand. It was designed to interface with any U.S. military satellite system.”
“Where the hell did it come from?”
“Jack must have asked Jerry to send it along with that shipment of MREs. There were only a dozen or so of the damn things ever made.”
“Will it decipher that code Melissa’s been working on?”
Ulrich shook his head. “That kind of software wouldn’t have been standard. Ninety-eight percent of what that thing can do, we haven’t any use for. Not so long as the satellite signals are smothered by the atmosphere. I’m sure Jack’s got the sat receiver down here somewhere.”
“That’s why he’s giving it to her,” Michael said. “For the future.”
After the presents were given out and the kids had coerced the Santas into eating six or seven Christmas cookies apiece and drinking two big glasses of lukewarm reconstituted milk, it was time for the St. Nicks to be off. They Ho-ho-hoed their way into the hall heading for the cargo bay, where presumably they would find their reindeer patiently waiting to fly them back to the North Pole.
The children were put to bed a few hours later, and the adults were treated to a few bottles of wine. They played Christmas music and sat around happily talking in the light of the tree. The married couples cuddled together about the room, and though the single mothers found themselves feeling more than a little envious, everyone very much enjoyed the spirit of the evening, wishing that every day could be Christmas.
They all fell asleep in turn, but six A.M. came around quickly and the cooks got themselves up to start preparing Christmas dinner. The children didn’t sleep long beyond that, and soon there were some cranky disagreements over who was and wasn’t allowed to touch someone else’s toys. Those entanglements were cut short, however, by a rare break in protocol when Forrest personally made it clear to the kids that the Santas had not given them their new toys to fight over and that they were expected to share.
After that there was harmony in Toyland.
“You should lay down the law more often,” Taylor said, kidding him in the kitchen.
“Oh, no,” he said, cocking an eyebrow as Lynette shooed Laddie from the kitchen with an apron. “The Grinch only comes out at Christmas.”
Marty sat talking quietly with Emory at the back of the cafeteria. “Did you talk to John about my idea?” he asked.
She ran her finger around the inside of a foil tuna packet, being sure to get every last morsel. “He doesn’t want to go,” she said, licking the finger. “He says he likes taking a hot shower every day.”
“But there’s no future down here, Shannon. They’re postponing the inevitable.”
“Have you seen how much food they’ve got down here? We’re set for another year at least, and in case you haven’t noticed… I’m getting fat.”
“I’m not saying we should leave before the baby’s born, I’m—” He looked up as Sullivan stepped into the room.
The soldier stood behind Emory and began to massage her shoulders. This was an unspoken arrangement between them; he massaged her neck and shoulders at least once a day, and she made sure she found the opportunity to help him with his needs a couple of times a week. Emory knew that he had fallen in love with her, but he didn’t gush, and when he did say something romantic it was always during one of their intimate moments under the main stairwell between the blast doors.
To her profound surprise, he bent down and kissed the nape of her neck.
“What was that for?” she said, feeling her face flush.
He shrugged and continued to massage her shoulders as though nothing had happened, winking at Marty. “So you want to split, huh?”
Marty took a Christmas cookie from the plate in the center of the table. “Eventually, I think we should, yeah.”
“For what?”
“To find those geologists at Altus Air Force Base. Keep things moving forward.”
“What things forward to where?” Sullivan said, irritated. “We don’t even know if there’s anybody alive up there, and even if there is, it’s snowing like a bastard now.”
“They’ve got two Army trucks in the cargo bay. We can ask them to give us one.”
Sullivan let that pass, shifting his attention to Emory. With the progression of her pregnancy, he was finding her ever more attractive. Unable to help himself, he kissed the nape of her neck a second time, and she whipped her head around, hissing through a mouthful of cookie, “Quit it!”
He chuckled as he sat down beside her. “No one was looking.”