I'll Be Home for Christmas -- Matt and CJ

Bill Houston had been the kind of father who made Christmas absolutely magical for his son.  There were traditions... the blueberry pancakes for breakfast on Christmas Eve, followed by the placement of the ceramic angel on the top of the tree, then a long ride followed by hot chocolate with marshmallows in the kitchen, and then dinner and midnight mass, and then finally his father reading "The Night Before Christmas" before bed as Matt anxiously awaited the moment when he could race downstairs and see what Santa had left behind.

Then there were the surprises that Bill had made part of every holiday, like the time he planned a cowboy campout, and he and Matt had slept under the stars with the ranch hands, who Matt looked up to like super heroes for their mastery of the horses and other animals they cared for, or the year that he'd tricked his son by putting wrapped empty boxes under the tree except for one with a note that led Matt on a treasure hunt through the house which led him to a collection of toy soldiers, a new set of toy cars, a new football and finally a direction to go outside, where the little boy discovered a remote control airplane he had been asking for all year.  And of course the best surprise ever had been the Christmas morning his father had awakened him to go outside and see the tree house that seemed to have materialized overnight in the big oak out back.

Then something had happened that made Matt wonder if Christmas could be magical ever again.

They were in the car coming back from the cemetery, the November day bitter cold, and Matt was huddled against his father for warmth despite his heavy wool cool.  The idea that Mr. Parsons was dead was something his young mind wasn't really able to wrap itself around.  He understood that C.J.'s father was gone, that they wouldn't be seeing him anymore, but because his own mother had been absent his whole life, Matt didn't know how his friend was feeling right now.  He didn't know what it was like to have a parent there every day and then suddenly disappear with an explanation full of big words and tears that meant your life had changed forever.

So Matt looked up at his father and felt himself warm up a bit when the older man smiled down at him.

"What's on your mind, son?"

"Do you think C.J. will still be sad at Christmas?"

Bill sighed and hugged his son a little closer.

"I think C.J. will be sad for a long time.  But I think you and I can do our part to make Christmas a little better for her.  What do you say?  We'll put our heads together and think of something, okay?"

Agreed, the Houston men had set out to accomplish their mission, a feat made all the more important when C.J.'s mother decided to go to Europe indefinitely the first week of December.  Bill had explained to Matt that Mrs. Parsons was still in shock after her husband's death, and she just needed some time alone.  It was only later in life that the enormity of her mother's behavior registered to Houston, explaining volumes about the awkward, stilted relationship between his oldest friend and her sole remaining parent.  Caroline Parsons had planned to leave C.J. with the housekeeper... and with no definite plan to return, she'd left no instructions as to how her child was supposed to spend Christmas.  So Bill had stepped in, offering to let C.J. stay with them. 

C.J.'s arrival at the house a few days later had created one of the most lasting memories of Matt's childhood, though sadly for all the wrong reasons.  Instead of her mother bringing her over and reassuring her that everything would be okay, Caroline had sent the housekeeper to drop her daughter off at her temporary home.  His friend's face had been so sad, and when he saw how hard she was working trying not to cry, he walked over and slipped his hand around hers, holding on tightly.

She brightened some when Bill scooped her up into his arms and hugged her, warmly welcoming her into their home, and Matt had insisted on carrying her suitcase up the stairs to her room even though at that age, it had been a struggle to lift the little bag.  But even though she was wanted and loved in the Houston home, the sense that his friend's sadness had grown even deeper at her mother's leaving was not lost on young Matt Houston.

So even as his father had planned the Christmas to top all Christmases, complete with a Christmas Eve party including all their friends from school, Ma Gracie making C.J.'s favorite chocolate cake for Christmas dessert and an ice skating adventure after they opened gifts, Matt decided he needed to do something else... something just from him... to try and bring a smile to C.J.'s face.

He began his effort by spending a few hours at the art table his father kept well-stocked for him, complete with modeling clay, glitter, construction paper, scissors, crayon and markers.  When he was finished with his masterpiece, he then went into his room, waiting until he was sure that no one was around to spy on his secret hiding place before pulling one of his most prized possessions out of the metal lockbox his father had given him for "important things."

Matt's final stop was the kitchen, where he asked Ma Gracie if she knew how to wrap presents.  She smiled and beckoned to him to bring his treasures over to the table, and she carefully helped him box them and wrap them in pretty paper, each topped off with a twisty, curled ribbon.

It had taken almost that whole few weeks before Christmas, but by the time the party started, Bill's constant attention and Ma Gracie's warm motherly ways had C.J. acting more like the C.J. Matt remembered before her father had died.  It made him so happy to see her smile again, even if it was just a little smile and not the big, pretty one he loved.

So when he noticed she was missing from the Christmas Eve party, Matt was surprised.  She'd been playing with some of the other girls earlier... they'd been doing a puppet show... and he'd gotten busy in a slot car race with some of the boys and lost track of her.  And the longer he went without being able to find her, the more worried he got.

He raced up to his room, to hers, he even checked his father's room in case C.J. was hiding there.  But Matt couldn't find her anywhere.  Thinking of the kitchen as the next logical place to check, he found Ma Gracie staring out the back window as she finished decorating a tray full of cupcakes.

"Ma Gracie, did C.J. come in here?"

The older woman shook her head and stopped her work to bend down so she was eye level with the little boy.

"She ran out to the tree house.  I've been keeping an eye out, but maybe you should go check up on her."

Nodding, Matt turned and started toward the door, but he paused and instead ran back to the pantry cabinet where he had hidden his carefully wrapped gifts earlier.  Packages secured, he raced off to the tree house, the cold nipping at him a bit, and he wondered if C.J. had thought to bring a coat because at least he had on his sweater, and her dress had short sleeves.

He carefully climbed the ladder into the wooden safe haven, making sure not to crush the boxes he'd taken such care to put together for his friend.  When he reached the ledge to the entry, he stretched his arms up and sat the boxes down, then he hoisted himself up the last bit of the way and climbed over the gifts and inside.

C.J. had not remembered her coat, but thankfully they'd left a blanket folded carefully over the baby they pretended was their little girl when they played house.  She had it wrapped around herself now as she sat in the back corner, tears glistening on her cheeks.

"I was worried," he said, the phrase sounding so grown-up from his little form, and he sat down next to her and put his arm around her shoulders.

"I'm sorry," she answered.  "I was playing with Annemarie and Sunny and Sunny asked me to be the mommy puppet and Annemarie said I didn't know how to do the mommy voice because mine went away."

She sniffled and Matt hugged her tighter.

"I'm gonna put sand in her punch.  I'm gonna put sand in her punch, and I'm gonna get a worm from the backyard and put it on her cupcake."

C.J. looked at him, her eyes wide.

"Matt, you can't do that!  That's mean."

"Annemarie is mean.  That was a mean thing to say."

His friend sniffled again and swiped at the tears on her cheeks.

"It was.  And then I just missed my daddy so much because even when my mommy wasn't home to hug me or kiss my boo-boos, daddy always was.  And now I don't have anyone."

Tears pricked at his eyes as he heard how heartbroken she was.  Matt couldn't imagine anything in the world he could hate more than seeing her so hurt, and he turned slightly and put his other arm around her so he was giving her a real hug.

"You have me, and you have daddy.  He's good enough at hugging and kissing boo-boos for both of us.  Okay?"

The little smile he'd seen over the past few days returned to her face even as a few more tears slipped out of her eyes.

"Wait here," he said, standing up and rushing back to the tree house entry.  Balancing on his left food as he leaned forward, Matt retrieved the two gifts and then turned and offered the first, bigger one to C.J.

"I know it's not Christmas yet, but you need this one for tonight.  So you can open it now."

C.J. let the blanket fall from her hands as she reached out for the gift, her fingers tracing over the ribbons.

"It's so pretty!"

"Ma Gracie helped.  I didn't want it to look bad."

She giggled a little and then opened the present, carefully trying to keep the damage to the paper at a minimum.  When she made her way into the box, C.J. drew back the tissue paper and pulled out a paper snowflake that had been decorated with red, silver and green glitter and tied onto a black silky ribbon.

"Normally Daddy and I put the angel on top of the tree in the morning, but he decided to wait till after the party, and we both have special ornaments to put on, too.  So you had to have one."

She smiled as she held it up and let it twirl around as it dangled from her fingers.

"It's so pretty, Matt.  Thank you."

Matt shrugged and said a shy "you're welcome" before holding out the second box.

"This is so you get something really special this Christmas no matter what Santa leaves under the tree."

He watched anxiously as her small hands worked the paper off the second box.  He knew the instant she saw what was inside that she recognized it.

"But this is your specialist marble ever!"

It was.  The crystal green cat eye with a pale streak of yellow in it had been won in a game of marbles played against three older boys, and with C.J. cheering him on, Matt had won.  Cord Cody had actually said a bad word as he yelled about losing the cat eye, which had been a gift from his father.

"Matt, I can't take this.  It's your favorite."

She stretched out her hand, offering it back to him, and he smiled at her.

"It's my favorite for sure.  But you're my best friend.  And I wanted you to have something special.  And it's the most special thing I had."

C.J. looked down at the marble and rolled it around in her hand for a moment before she closed her fingers over it and then reached forward, hugging her arms tightly around his neck.

"It's the best present ever!"

Matt felt his cheeks burning a little as she pulled back, but when he saw her smile... the big, pretty one that he loved... he smiled, too.

"Let's always spend Christmas together, okay?  From now until forever."

He nodded, happily agreeing, unable to imagine ever being anywhere that she wasn't.  And then the two friends picked up the beautiful snowflake, and C.J. carefully tucked her new special marble into her dress pocket, and then they climbed down from the tree house and ran hand in hand back toward the house.

As he recounted the memory to his cousin Will nearly two decades later, Houston felt himself smile all over again as he pictured his fiancée then... the beautiful little girl she had been, her joy over the gift and his friendship so on display.  Now she was all grown-up, even more beautiful, and as soon as he could convince his cousin that they'd done their fair share of service in Vietnam, he was going home to make C.J. Parsons his wife.

"Man, Cuz, you have it bad.  Not that I don't get it, I mean... C.J. is pretty great.  But you are gone."

Will laughed as Matt shook his head and took a drink of his beer.  They were in Saigon waiting on supplies, and so "safe" for the holiday, but being this far from home at Christmas was harder than he'd imagined.  It was the first time since that Christmas Eve so long ago that he and C.J. weren't together, and though he knew she understood, he couldn't help but feel like his obligation to his cousin had led him to break a promise to her.

"All right, I'm gonna go pick up Reynolds," Will said, chugging down the last of his beer.  "I'll meet you over at the phones in twenty, and we'll make our calls and then head to dinner?"

Houston nodded, more than ready to leave the bar for the day.  Somehow being in the dimly lit room was making the fact that it was Christmas Eve back home seem all the more hard to believe.

"Oh, and before I forget... I'm supposed to give you this."

Will pulled a small padded envelope from his jacket pocket and slid it across the table to his cousin.  When Houston picked it up and saw that a small tag was affixed, reading "To Matt, Love C.J." he looked up curiously at the delivery man.

"She gave it to me before we shipped out.  I was so scared I'd lose it, I've carried that thing on me every day.  The last thing I need is your woman coming after me."

With a sly wink and a chuckle, Will headed off outside the bar, and Houston stood, dropping tip money on the table before heading out into the sunlight to open the mysterious package.

Ripping the envelope, he found a small white box inside with a note taped to the top.  He carefully pulled the piece of paper free and unfolded it.

"Because we're still together today in the ways that really count.  I love you.  Come home safe.  C.J."

He smiled even as he felt his throat tighten from the rush of emotion her words brought forth.  This was just one of a thousand things he could list for someone who wanted to know why this was the woman he was meant to spend his life with.  She just loved him in a way he knew no other woman ever could.

When he opened the box, Matt's eyes took a moment to register what he was seeing.  Carefully cut and folded lay half of the glitter-adorned snowflake his childish hands had made years earlier.  Beneath that lay a perfectly machine-cut half of the infamous cat eye marble, the random dash of yellow disappearing at the center, telling him the rest lay in another half that was thousands of miles away with the woman he loved.  A piece of brown leather cord ran through the clear top of the halved orb... a cord just long enough to leave the piece of glass near his heart beneath his uniform.

The time difference meant that it was Christmas Eve at home, and Houston could imagine the tree, the angel being placed on top, even his father and C.J. going for that traditional horseback ride together so that they might miss him a little less.  And even though his heart ached to be with them, the idea that she wasn't alone brought a smile to his face as he waited for the operator to complete his collect call back to Texas.

"Merry Christmas."

Her voice filtered over the line to him as the call finally went through, and Houston reached up and rubbed the marble pendant with his fingers.

"I'm wearing my gift," he said, and he heard her laugh softly.

"Tell Will I'm very proud of him for not losing it.  I hope you don't mind that I split the best Christmas present ever in half.  But the halves will be together again someday soon, so I figured it was okay."

He laughed in spite of his heavy heart, somehow seeing the day when he'd tell their children about that Christmas and how he was pretty sure he'd known on that very night that their mother was the love of his life... even if it had taken him a little while to tell her that.

"The halves will be together again someday very soon," he promised.  "Thank you, and Merry Christmas."

For the next five minutes, as his fingers rubbing idly over the glass piece that was both a part of his childhood and a promise for his future, he listened to all the details about the holiday celebration going on so far away.  And despite the miles, for just a few moments, Matt Houston was home.