Chapter Text
First Week of December
“My nose is sort of cold and the rest of me’s way too hot,” Lily complains breathlessly the second Tashi closes the door behind her. “It’s supposed to be the winter.”
Tashi drops her purse and bags of festive decorations on the floor, careless since Lily insisted on carrying the box with the paper-wrapped breakables. She plucks the pink beanie and purple scarf from where Lily’s head peeks out of her puffer coat and says, “Baby, I told you we don’t have to bundle up like this in California.”
“Can we move someplace they have to have mittens and stuff?” Lily asks. “Please?”
“Ask your dad,” Tashi says, prying the box of ornaments from her grip and helping her unzip her coat.
“Daddy hates cold,” Lily says, pointedly kicking off her shoes.
“It might get a little colder by Christmas,” Tashi says. “You know, technically, it’s not even winter until December twenty-first.”
“No way. Why?”
“I don’t know. It’s just how the calendar works.”
“What’s today?”
“The fourth.”
“Okay.” Lily counts out days on her fingers, stops somewhere around thirteen, and shrugs. “I can just wear my jean jacket until then, I guess.”
Tashi never cared about these things as a kid. The lull in the tennis season and snow on the courts at the park dulled the glitter of Christmas, and she disliked “Jingle Bells” and the color red. At Lily’s age, she was focused on begging her parents—bypassing Santa entirely—for a nicer tennis racket for Christmas, something a real player would use at going-on-six instead of the one she’d foolishly picked when she was four because the hot pink matched her bike helmet. Her dad had pointed out it wasn’t as nice and she wouldn’t be using those at the same time anyway, but she insisted. Her parents probably only splurged on the new racket because they got to say I told you so.
They’re going to think she’s lost her mind when they come for Christmas.
For multiple reasons.
Tashi can hear Art laughing in the kitchen, a more familiar sound in the weeks since he announced his retirement and Patrick dumped two duffels of clothes, some tennis gear, and his slightly bedraggled self in their guest room.
Coaching Patrick, initially more of a mutual dare than a serious pursuit, is going weirdly well. The coming season might be the most fun Tashi’s had in years, not that she’d admit it to anyone. Living with him would also be easier than expected, if not for the frequent, jarring feeling she’s the one intruding.
“Go ask Daddy to help bring stuff in?” Tashi asks Lily, hanging up their coats and kicking off her boots.
Lily scampers to the kitchen to announce, “Attention! We’re back!” before she drags Art by the hand into the hallway, where he blinks at the array of bags on the floor.
“How many stores did you guys buy out?”
“We had to go to three,” Tashi says. “She had a list. Grab those ones for me? We need to unpack it so she can decide where it all goes.”
“Which room?”
“It’s temporary,” Tashi says. “Who cares?”
“Alright,” Art says, grabbing several bags and balancing the box under one arm. “Lily, grab one and come to the kitchen.”
“Take the one with the stockings, those are light,” Tashi tells her. “Don’t drag it on the floor.”
They pile everything on one side of the island, Lily eagerly climbing up to kneel on one of the stools, while a post-workout Patrick keeps eating his lunch at the other end. His t-shirt’s stretched out at the collar and drenched in sweat, which she has to remind herself really should be gross. He’s talking to Art with his mouth full, which actually is gross, but since he actually used the gym while they were out, she doesn’t mention it. It’s never a guarantee with him, although she has to admit he’s been remarkably adherent to her schedule so far.
It’s usually Art, floundering in the absence of routine and far too stubborn to admit he’s already bored, who’s responsible for any diversions. He cycles between listless brooding around the house and gleefully goading Patrick into impulsive, haphazard day trips or nostalgic marathons of ancient sitcom reruns and B-movies on channels Tashi never knew existed outside of run-down motels in landlocked states after dark.
Tashi has fond, if limited, memories of teenage Art, but she’s less accustomed to living with him than Patrick, who’s taken the return of his once and future roommate in stride and apparently still disagrees with him about how to make a grilled cheese—for Lily, of course—and the best season of Futurama.
She doesn’t know if she’s jealous of one of them—or which—or both. She doesn’t know if she feels left out or relieved not to be involved in half their conversations. She doesn’t know if she should feel guilty; she might not be the cause of all their bygone problems, but she can’t pretend she didn’t fuel them. She doesn’t know if things will feel normal again once Patrick gets his own place or if Art’s retirement was always going to be an incremental reversion to who he was without her.
She knows Art still loves her, at least, despite everything. She hopes, in reality, that Patrick never did, which is different from wishing, which is nonsense Tashi doesn’t indulge in. She probably is losing her mind.
“Hey, uh,” Art says, rifling through one of the shopping bags and lifting out exactly what Tashi hoped he wouldn’t find first. “What the fuck are these?”
“Swear jar,” she and Lily say in unison. This wasn’t always such a problem. Art’s worst influence snickers into his sandwich and earns a glare from Tashi that makes him grin.
“What the heck are they?” Art corrects through gritted teeth, dropping them back into the bag. He pulls out his phone, and Tashi’s pings with a notice that ten dollars have been added to the swear jar account.
Tashi didn’t think less was sufficient incentive for Art—or her, honestly—to stop swearing in front of their daughter. Patrick is charged one dollar per transgression since he moved in. He still complains this is highway robbery. Tashi hasn’t decided where the money is actually going; until recently, the sum was small enough she was thinking of just letting Lily spend it, and that’s no longer a reasonable option.
Patrick says, “Let me see,” and Lily proudly holds up the decorations littering the countertop, one at a time.
Lily demanded them after a kindergarten activity about Christmas traditions, one evidently so comprehensive Tashi probably needs to reevaluate her school’s curricular priorities. She wanted plenty of string lights, of course, and garlands and baubles for the artificial tree they haven’t bothered to put up since she was two. There’s a useless oversized candy cane—fully edible, so at least it’s not plastic kitsch that will be stuck in her house or a landfill for eternity, but Tashi doesn’t plan to confirm this to anyone else in the household—and a small holly wreath Lily wants to put on her bedroom door with some extra tinsel.
And then there’s perhaps the stupidest purchase Tashi’s perpetual maternal guilt has ever enabled: a few sprigs of mistletoe.
“It was Lily’s idea,” Tashi says to Patrick’s delighted expression and Art’s unchanged frown. “It’s just a decoration.”
“Yeah, but you have to kiss me if I go under it or it’s bad luck,” Lily reminds her. She turns to reassure Patrick, “Just on the cheek or something. No spreading gross germs.”
“Those are going at Lily’s height,” Art says, coming closer to inspect the rest of their haul. “Right?”
“No,” Lily whines. “It’s for everybody. It’s tradition.”
“What do you mean, it’s tradition?” Patrick says. “You’re five. You don’t have traditions.”
“I actually think we should let Patrick raise her Jewish,” Art says.
“I know about Hanukkah too,” Lily threatens. “You get to light candles on fire.”
“That’s true,” Patrick says, grinning. “And eat deep fried crap. And gamble. And get eight days of presents. Perfect holiday.”
“Isn’t ‘crap’ a swear word?” Art mutters, tucking his chin over Tashi’s shoulder. He wraps an arm around her, a little too deliberate, and she feels him smirk against her cheek when Patrick’s eyes flit from Lily to them as if on cue. Art pointedly pushes the bag with the mistletoe further away from Patrick.
“No. We aren’t billionaires,” she says, patting his cheek.
“You really get presents all eight days?” Lily asks Patrick, wide-eyed.
“Sure, if you have rich parents,” Patrick says, catching Tashi’s eye and grinning.
“Hmm.” Lily nods to herself, solemn, and says, “I want to do that instead.”
“Lily,” Art sighs. “I was just kidding.”
“We already have all the Christmas things, baby,” Tashi says, leaning over to fix one of Lily’s glittery barrettes where a curl obstructs her perfect, pouting face. Lily ducks her head patiently—a miniature of her father when Tashi fixes his hair, a more frequent occurrence with Patrick constantly ruffling it—then reaches up with a grimace to adjust it herself when Tashi’s done. Typical. “We have all those lights and stockings and a whole gingerbread house to decorate.”
“And mistletoe, apparently,” Patrick says.
“We’re just going to put that in places we don’t normally go,” Tashi says calmly, standing up. “Lily can stand under it when she wants attention—“
“Tashi,” Art says.
“I don’t mean it as a criticism,” she insists. If anything, it’s an indictment of their parenting that Lily gets so excited when her parents remember to do stuff like hug her or stay in their own home long enough to decorate for the holidays. They’ve spent the last few years pretty distracted. A kid’s gonna have some issues. “She deserves attention.”
“She’s right here,” Art says. “Stop talking over her head.”
“Is that not what you’re doing?”
“Hey, show me the rest of the stuff you got, Lily,” Patrick says. Tashi truly hates being grateful to him.
While Lily explains her choices of stocking and ornaments to Patrick, Art beckons Tashi closer and says quietly, “Mistletoe? Really?”
“It made her happy,” she says. “We don’t do enough that’s just for her.” And she already felt guilty on several fronts for vetoing a nativity scene. Lily’s happy enough with a secular holiday. Babies and the Bible are among the last topics Tashi wants to discuss right now.
Art softens a little. “Yeah, I know. It just feels like asking for trouble, Tashi. It’s been fine until now.”
“Exactly,” she says, even though he’s right. They’re athletes. Even if it’s childish, superstition comes with the territory. They’re going to be antsy all month about inviting the possibility of bad luck into the house. “We just have to be adults about it.”
“I swear to God,” he says, “he kisses you one time and he’s out of here.” Which is rich, since he’s the one who immediately said, So? We have three extra bedrooms, back when Tashi agreed to try coaching Patrick during the offseason and Patrick pointed out he didn’t actually live in California.
She sighs. “What about on the hand or something? If Lily thinks we’re being spoilsports?”
“Come on. Don’t use her as an excuse,” Art says.
“You’re being way too touchy about this,” she says, crossing her arms. “You and Patrick find some reason to stick your fingers in each other’s mouths or something, like, twice a day.”
“That’s a ridiculous exaggeration,” he says, mirroring her. “And that’s not even—I’m not the one with a history of cheating with him.”
“I’m not going to kiss Patrick, okay?” she says. “But you aren’t either. For the record.”
“Yeah, that goes without saying,” Art says, irritated. “We don’t need a rule for something that’s not even a possibility.”
“It’s a possibility,” she insists. “You’ve done it before.”
“Oh my God,” he groans. “I am not doing this with you right now, Tashi.”
“I’m just saying. Not even as a joke.”
“Tashi.” Art presses both hands into his eyes like he thinks if he concentrates hard enough he can fast forward through the conversation. “You’re being—”
“What am I being?”
“Just drop it.”
“Can you help her put up the lights while we’re out on the court?” she asks. “We’ll deal with the mistletoe later.”
“I was planning to go for a run,” Art says.
“You couldn’t have done that while we were out?”
“I was in the gym with Patrick.”
She looks at his perfectly dry hairline, then over at the disheveled state of Patrick, who’s nodding along to Lily’s explanation of some ambitious gingerbread architectural plans with a tiny smirk that means he’s eavesdropping.
“You were in the gym with Patrick,” she repeats. “And didn’t think to, I don’t know, spend a few minutes on the treadmill while you were there?”
“He was on it,” Art says, shrugging.
“So you were…what?” she asks. “Just there to watch?”
“We were talking,” he says. “I figured I could spot him if he did any weight training.”
“You were talking,” she says. “Why was he running at a pace where he could maintain a conversation?”
“Mostly he was talking,” Patrick says, apparently giving up the pretense of ignoring them once Lily’s distracted herself trying her enormous stocking on both feet.
It’s not like Tashi and Art are great at whispering, but she still says, “Did I ask you, Patrick?”
“Let him go for his run,” Patrick says. “I can do the lights. I’m taller anyway.”
“What? No, I’ll do them,” Art says, frowning at him. “Lily, come on, let’s go out front and you can show me where you want them.”
Patrick bows with a little flourish of his hand once Art and Lily are safely out of the room.
“I’m not impressed,” Tashi tells him.
“Yeah, neither am I,” he says smugly.
“Go get your racket,” she says. “And then when I’m done with you, go fuck yourself.”
“No need,” he says. “I have a date later.”
“Again?” Tashi says. “Jesus.”
Patrick’s been on more dates since he arrived than Tashi thinks she and Art combined have ever been on. As long as he doesn’t bring them home with him, she encourages this. A sexually frustrated Patrick is a problem—possibly several—waiting to happen, and an ever-present Patrick is even more of a cockblock than their kid.
Also, swiping through Tinder profiles for him, with commentary, has replaced awful reality TV as their new guilty pleasure pastime.
“Patrick,” Tashi said the first time he handed over his phone for this purpose. “Why are your age settings eighteen to forty-five? Are you conducting market research?”
“Basically, yeah,” he replied. “I toggle them when I’m not just browsing.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” Art asked.
“I pretty much only fuck people who are old enough—well, and young enough, I guess—to live alone,” Patrick said, like this should be obvious. “Way more convenient on the road.”
Tashi glared at him. “And when you’re not on the road you leave the teenagers in there?”
Patrick shrugged. “I wanna know if they’re into me. You can raise the upper limit to like sixty, if that helps.”
“Ew,” she said. “I—ew. What?”
“He’s not fucking teenagers or senior citizens, Tashi. He just says this shit,” Art said, swiping left on six profiles in quick succession. “Patrick, stop being disgusting in front of my wife.“
“You only know that because I’m differently disgusting in front of you.”
“Stop doing that too,” Tashi said.
“No promises.”
Art squinted at another profile. “Are the dudes also there for demographic data?”
“Eh,” Patrick said. “Depends.”
“On what?”
“On what answer would be most disturbing for you.”
“His profile says he’s straight,” Tashi said.
“Where?” Art asked, swiping left on two more profiles before Tashi took the phone back and showed him Patrick’s.
“Exactly. Guys swipe on the pictures,” Patrick said. “The profile’s just for women.”
“Right,” Art said. “Really clears it up. So glad I asked.”
“When’s the last time you were in an actual relationship?” Tashi asked.
“What counts?”
“What do you mean what counts?” Tashi asked. “Have you been past a third date since the Bush administration?”
“Again,” Patrick said, “what’s your definition of date?”
“I think we should stop asking each other questions,” Art said. “Ideally permanently.”
Patrick doesn’t tell them the details of which matches he ends up seeing, which is probably for the best but still drives them both a little insane. He usually doesn’t stay the night anywhere else either, just comes back late and plays up his good mood in the morning.
“So,” he says a few minutes later on the backyard court, after returning her first couple of serves. “Mistletoe. Which of us are you trying to torture?”
“I’m not repeating a conversation you already overheard.”
“I’m just saying,” Patrick says, neatly knocking over one of the targets on Tashi’s side of the net, “I’m behaving myself, and you’re literally dangling the idea in front of me. You don’t think that’s a little cruel?”
“Patrick,” she warns, picking up another ball. “Drop it.”
”He won’t.” Patrick glances back at the house. “He’s probably brooding right now because we’re alone out here.”
“Well, whose fucking fault is that?” she snaps. “If he ever wants to practice with you he knows he’s welcome.”
He still hasn’t. Art brushed off the suggestion the first couple of weeks after the season ended, and Patrick’s done the same since, whenever it comes up. She understands Art’s tired of competing. She can’t understand giving up tennis, cold turkey. Wasn’t he the person most proud of her for not quitting?
When she pictured his retirement, she imagined him gently coaching Lily, telling her stories from his glory days. Playing exhibitions when it suited their schedules. Doing some guest commentary and befriending the next generation. Pitching in when she needed a neutral perspective with her next player.
It hadn’t occurred to her she’d be surveilling him for any sign of lingering interest in the sport, afraid to ask outright if he’d ever pick up a racket again. She anticipated him resigning himself to the passage of time, not simply losing interest once he was no longer a star.
“Tashi,” Patrick groans. “Just let the guy have a break.”
“Fine.” She knows he’s right. She also knows she needs to focus on the person still in the game if she wants her own career to outlast her husband’s. “You too. Don’t rile him up about the mistletoe. None of it. No jokes about catching me under it, no cracks about making the Yuletide gay, no wolf whistling at me and him. Got it?”
They get an hour or so uninterrupted before Art calls both of them—and Google—in for reinforcements to finish the lights, and then they call it a day tennis-wise and let Lily direct the rest of the decorating. Patrick offers to hang the mistletoe, which both Art and Tashi loudly object to even though his height probably would make it easier.
Lily wants one bit of it dangling from her bedroom doorway and another over the living room TV. (“Okay, but you can’t stand there when we’re watching tennis,” Tashi warns. She’s worked for months to dig up as much footage of Patrick’s previous matches as possible, and they’re working their way through it when they’re not on the court.) Both easily avoidable areas unless they’re putting Lily to bed, when Art and Tashi kiss her good night anyway.
Then she wants to put the last bit in the kitchen, which Tashi vetoes, so she runs around the house looking for other places they’ll all see but the adults aren’t likely to visit.
“I know!” she finally shouts.
“Yeah?” Tashi follows her. Lily points proudly at the bookshelves covering one wall of the living room. Nearly everything on it was bought by their decorator and shelved by size and color. Tashi hasn’t even read the titles.
God, they’re bad role models.
“Yeah, that’ll work,” Art says. “I’ll get the stepladder.”
Once he sets the first piece in place, Lily gasps and sing-songs a delighted, drawn out, “Daddy…you’re under the mistletoe!”
“I guess I am,” he agrees. She waits for him to climb down the ladder and jumps into his arms, kissing his cheek twice with an exaggerated mwah.
“I love you,” Lily says, clinging to him around the neck. “I love Christmas. It is the most wonderful time of the whole year, except birthdays and when we go to New York.”
“It’s pretty fun,” Art agrees, kissing the top of her head. “You think we have enough decorations yet?”
Lily squirms out of his hold and runs around the room to survey tinsel placements, carefully adjusting her favorite ornaments on the tree before she nods decisively. “It’s good.”
“It looks perfect,” Tashi agrees. “Want to go read a story with Daddy while Mommy and Patrick watch tennis?”
“No,” Lily says firmly, chin lifted high like she’s giving a prepared speech. “I wanna watch the scary Spider-Man.”
This is another new problem since Patrick, after his first mandatory household viewing, declared Into the Spider-Verse “not bad, but no Spider-Man 2.”
Art quickly countered that it was better because it wasn’t too scary. Tashi expected Lily to argue with Patrick for Spider-Verse’s superiority; instead, she’s been entranced ever since by the idea of the forbidden, superior Spider-Man.
“No,” Art says. “I told you. It’s too scary.”
“I’m not a baby,” Lily insists. “I’m really, really not scared of any bad guys.”
“It’s PG-13, sweetie,” Art says. “You can see it when you’re thirteen.”
“That’s so long,” Lily says, sniffling. “That’s so unfair.”
“How about,” Tashi suggests, “you practice reading a story with Daddy, and then we can all watch a Christmas movie?”
Lily’s tears retreat. Cautiously, she says, “What kind of Christmas movie?”
“There are tons of them,” Art says. He holds out his hand. “Come on, we’ll look at some upstairs.”
“After you read a book,” Tashi insists.
She joins Patrick on the couch and, as usual, resists the impulse to sit right next to him, leaving a whole segment of the sectional between them. Art never gives it a second thought, their knees or elbows or ankles always in contact when she finds the two of them in here. She’s mostly stopped drawing attention to it just as they’ve mostly stopped startling away when she does.
Down the hall, Lily asks, “Are there Christmas movies with lots of bad guys?”
“Oh, sure,” Art tells her. “Plenty.”
“Scary bad guys?”
“I don’t know, you might be too brave for them,” Tashi hears faintly from the stairs.
“She’s gonna talk him into Spider-Man,” she says.
“I showed her the trailer on YouTube yesterday,” Patrick admits.
Tashi sighs. “Really? Patrick.”
“Sorry,” he says. “She’s, like, genetically engineered to boss me around. I can’t say no to that face.”
“You do nothing but argue with her parents,” she points out.
“Combined, though?” Patrick says, grinning. “In a baby? Come on.”
“She’s not a baby anymore,” Tashi laughs. “Don’t let her hear you say that.”
“Yeah, I know,” Patrick says. “I’m not an idiot.”
Tashi scoffs. “Since when?”
“Well,” Patrick says. “Okay. You got me.”
“You have time for this before you head out?” She jerks her head at the TV.
He nods, turns it on, and tosses her the remote. Tashi’s eyes catch on the mistletoe over the screen as it lights up.
“It does kind of feel like I just put three time bombs in the house,” she mutters.
“Tashi,” Patrick laughs. “In case you haven’t noticed, three time bombs already live here.”
“Is that supposed to be reassuring?”
“Not even a little,” he says, but somehow, probably because Tashi’s finally lost her mind, it almost is.