9. Sunday
She has to admit: she’s more excited about the potential for snow than for the holiday itself. Not that Christmas isn’t lovely and warm and festive, but the talk of snow is so exciting.
“Like this?” she asks Banks, stringing several kernels of popcorn and then a single cranberry on a piece of thread. She’s never made her own garland like this before, but Banks swears that his mother used to do this with him and his brother every Christmas Eve.
“Perfect,” Banks says, eyeing her creation over the top of the reading glasses he’s just started to wear.
They’re sitting in the living space of his tiny guest house on Ruby’s property, where he still lives, but even though it’s just temporary housing and not the kind of house a person lives in forever, it feels like the coziest place on Earth. Sunday flushes with happiness as she keeps stringing popcorn.
“How are things going at your place?” Banks asks. He’s turned on Christmas music for them to listen to, and because his house has no fireplace, the heat is cranked up high to fend off the cold.
“Not bad,” Sunday says. She’s given her house to Cameron, Olive, their little families, and to Peter for the holiday, insisting that they all use it as home base while she stays with Banks. It’s the best choice she’s made in a while, as she’s within steps of Ruby’s front door, and she’s been forced into close proximity with the man of her dreams. She beams at him happily, watching as his oversized hands fiddle with a needle and a small piece of popcorn.
“Cameron says Peter is already bored of the island,” Sunday adds, “but I think he just needs to relax. He’s never been good at appreciating a moment, or understanding that time is fleeting.” She picks up another piece of popcorn. “Owen won’t be a baby forever, and tomorrow can bring any number of things, so it would be in his best interest to just chill out and enjoy today.”
Banks takes their coffee mugs to the kitchen and refills them. “Nearly impossible for most of us,” he calls to her as he pours a bit more cream in each cup of coffee. “Especially if we get too ‘in our heads’ about stuff.” Banks sets her mug back down on the table and she turns her head up to him, puckering her lips for a kiss. He obliges.
“I’m the queen of getting in my own head,” Sunday admits. She pulls her feet up under her and wiggles her toes around inside the fuzzy socks she’s wearing. “But since moving down here, I’ve really learned to just go with the flow. I mean, what else are you gonna do?”
“That’s fair.” Banks is back to intently working with his popcorn and cranberries, watching his own meaty hands as they slide each kernel down the length of thread. “Speaking of going with the flow, do you think we should talk more about…the future?”
Sunday lifts an eyebrow over the tops of her reading glasses but continues to work on her garland. “As in the adoption process?” They’ve talked about it a few times already, but more in the sense of “This is something we want to do,” instead of “This is how we’re moving ahead with this.”
“Yeah.” Banks sets his string of popcorn on the coffee table and turns to face her on the couch. “Not to be morose, Sun, but we’re in our fifties. The time is now.”
“The time might have been twenty years ago,” Sunday laughs, but it’s a dry, wistful laugh. “Sorry. Bad joke. I hear you.” She lets her garland fall into her lap as she reaches for her coffee mug with both hands. They sit together in companionable silence for a long moment, listening to “Merry Christmas, Darling” by the Carpenters as the tree in the corner of the room twinkles.
Banks usually doesn’t decorate for the holidays, but a boat showed up at the dock the week before with a load of trees for sale, and before he knew it, Sunday had purchased a small one and dragged it to his guest house with a huge, proud grin on her face. He’s amazed almost every day at the things he never thought to do before Sunday, and he loves the little ways that she’s changed and morphed his life. For instance, he’s never been one for details like putting a beer mug in the freezer, or using a towel straight out of the dryer, but these are the kinds of touches that Sunday does without even thinking—just handing him a warm towel or an extra-cold beer with a smile on her face.
“I don’t want to do it if you aren’t one hundred percent serious about it,” Banks says with emotion in his voice. “It’s too big. Too important.”
Sunday finally turns to look at him, searching deep in his irises before speaking. In his eyes, she can see the years that he’s longed to be someone’s father, and the ways that it will fill him with joy and a sense of completeness. He’d given up entirely on the idea, accepting the fact that his ex-wife had gone on to have children with someone else after years of him being reticent about it, and now he sees that his life isn’t set in stone; the book isn’t closed on fatherhood for him just yet.
Sunday puts one hand to his face, brushing her fingertips against the grain of his unshaven cheek. “I’m one hundred percent serious,” she whispers. “I am. Being a mother has been the great joy of my life, and it’s something I desperately want to share with you.” A thrill runs through her that she hasn’t felt since the first time she’d decided to adopt. “I had no idea it was still in the cards, so it’s taking me a moment to really sit with the idea and see it becoming a reality, but I want this, Banks. I want this, and I want a life with you. I want us to be a real family.”
His eyes fill with tears, something Sunday has never seen. He reaches up and wraps his hand around her fingers gently, pulling her hand to his lips and kissing it. “Thank you,” he says. “This is the best Christmas gift anyone has ever given me.”
He’s genuinely choked up, and Sunday wants him to just sit with the feeling that she knows is blooming inside of him. The excitement, the joy of thinking about a child who you haven’t even met. Someone who is out there, just waiting for you to find them so that you can complete one another’s lives. Now that her girls are grown, Sunday can’t even begin to imagine what her life would be like without them. Someone else may have birthed them, but those girls are hers. And she hopes that whoever adopted the little boy she gave up over thirty years ago as a young, single woman feels exactly the same way.
“As soon as the holidays are over, I’ll start putting out feelers and get things going,” Sunday promises. “I should have enough connections from the National Council for Adoption to ensure that we get on the fast track.” Sunday bites her lip as she watches Banks. “Are you still totally set on a boy?”
His eyes flick to her face. “I think a little boy might be nice,” he says shyly.
Warmth spreads through Sunday’s body. She’s been thinking the same thing. Raising daughters was a wonder and a joy, but now that she’s held her grandson, she’s thought a lot more about the baby boy she’d given up. Maybe this could be her way of experiencing that, of paying homage to him. She nods excitedly. “A boy would be incredible,” she says.
“And not necessarily a baby,” Banks says, still holding her hand to his cheek. “Like we discussed, maybe a preschooler? I’m thinking of our ages as well. If we adopt a four-year-old, I’ll be in my mid-sixties when he graduates from high school.”
“I’ll be almost seventy,” Sunday says wistfully. That’s the only part that gets her: that something age-related could happen to her before the child is grown, or that she might not be able to give him the active, fun mom that he deserves to have.
“But look at us, Sun,” Banks says. He’s still holding her hand and he puts it in his lap. “We’re healthy and fit, and we have the love to give. That’s the important part, isn’t it?”
She nods as her eyes mist over slightly. It is the important part; he’s not wrong. “We could have a back-up plan,” she says. “I could make sure my girls are totally on board, and if anything happened to us, maybe they could step in and help with…their brother.” Even saying it makes Sunday want to cry happy tears. Her girls could have a brother! “But, Banks, you need to understand that a little boy who has been in the system could have some issues—behavior or otherwise. What are we willing and able to handle?”
Banks shrugs as he looks at the tree, considering this. “I think given our remoteness here on Shipwreck Key—where, for the record, I’m happy to stay—probably a serious medical condition is out. We just don’t have the doctors for it.”
“And I’m willing to love a child until he grows to trust us and love us back,” Sunday says, “but major behavior issues are out for me. God love every child who needs a home, but I know my own limits, and at fifty-five I don’t think I have the energy to put into a boy who has severe anger problems or something of that sort.”
“Are we open to disabilities?”
“I am,” Sunday says readily. “Again, nothing that will require weekly doctor’s visits simply because we live where we do, but I’m open to exploring our options.”
Banks looks at her again, his eyes filled with joy, anticipation, excitement, and a little fear. It’s a big step, becoming a parent. No one goes into it lightly, no matter how it happens for them.
“We’re doing this,” he says, putting a hand over his mouth as he looks at the woman he loves.
They stare wide-eyed at one another. “We are.” Sunday is nodding her head yes and feeling the overwhelming sensation of love, possibility, and the vast unknown. “We’re really doing this.”
Banks pulls her close, wrapping an arm around the woman he loves as she curls into his side. They sit there on the couch on Christmas Eve morning, both lost in their own happy thoughts as they watch the lights of the tree in silent wonder.