Before
Nothing glowed more brilliantly in the landscape of Kestrel’s wishful imagination than Christmas. She yearned for Christmas the way it was in stories—full of thrill and possibilities and belonging. And pie. And from Hank’s descriptions, the Kern family Christmas was pastoral, pie-filled perfection.
On her first Christmas with Hank, nearly one full year since their first kiss, Kestrel was the newest EMT in the squad and had to be on call the entire week. She insisted Hank still go home to Wisconsin, absolutely refusing to let him miss out on his ideal Christmas for her. He called every day.
“Last night, the kids put on the Christmas Eve pageant, wearing the same costumes Mom sewed when we were kids, though she’s had to triple the number of angels and shepherds since.”
“And you played the piano?” she guessed.
“Ever since I was eight, I’ve supplied the nativity mood music. It was the best way to get out of wearing a costume.”
Kestrel laughed. “I bet it was hard to get the kids to bed.”
“Oh yeah, but even on Christmas Eve, we stay up late for the sibling jam sesh.”
Hank’s siblings each played an instrument, adding fiddle, mandolin, and two guitars to his piano. Kestrel could imagine the music—some country, some folk, some Guns N’ Roses.
“This morning we milked the cows like always,” Hank continued. “Cows don’t take Christmas off. But with everybody helping, it goes fast, and we sing carols as we work.”
His normally soft and low tone was practically vibrating with happiness. How she loved this man! And how she yearned to see him at home, in the place he loved so much she could feel it through the phone.
“Do the cows like music?” She was sitting on a curb of a quiet suburban street, having just finished a call, cupping her phone to her ear with gloved hands.
“Yeah, they stare at us with those dark eyes, drinking it all in. Then we gathered in the big house and watched the kids freak out over what Santa brought. Six-year-old Nyah got a pet bunny, and she was literally sobbing with joy.”
“Oh!” said Kestrel. She’d never been present for little kids discovering Santa gifts, and now it was all she wanted. “And breakfast?”
“Cheesy-egg casseroles, home fries, blueberry waffles. I feel too stuffed to move, but hopefully I’ll digest it during church so I’m ready for our Christmas Day football match.”
“All that fresh snow makes a soft landing for tackles.”
“You bet. Fred, Rob, Dad, and I have won three years in a row, so we’ve got a reputation to uphold.”
“I wish I was there to help you bring home the snow trophy,” said Kestrel.
“Me too,” said Hank. “The only thing better than Christmas at home would be if you were here too.”
“Next year,” Kestrel promised.
Starting with New Year’s Eve, Kestrel volunteered to work doubles every holiday, including the boozy and accident-prone St. Patrick’s Day, Cinco de Mayo, and Fourth of July.
By December, she’d earned the week off and gleefully joined Hank in his Dodge pickup, the bed loaded with sandbags to keep it from sliding on icy roads.
“Quiz me again,” said Kestrel as Hank drove past Chicago.
“Kes, you don’t have to.”
“But I want to.”
“Okay, my brother Fred’s wife is—”
“Jennifer, and they have three children—Astrid, Noah, and Claire.”
There were twenty-two Kerns, and Kestrel was determined to memorize their names, ages, and preferred nachos condiments.
So far, she had only met his sister Anika in person, so this trip wasn’t only a chance to delight in winter’s merriest holiday but for Kestrel to prove to Hank’s family that she could be one of them.
Once they entered rural Wisconsin, they sang along to the local Christmas radio station, only stopping whenever they passed a car stuck in a ditch. It was a semi-regular occurrence on snowy Wisconsin roads. Kestrel checked on the passengers, and Hank used his truck’s winch to pull them out.
When Hank finally turned toward the “Kern Family Farm” sign, Kestrel’s first thought was: I’m finally home.
Over the past two years since meeting Hank, the Kern homestead had become a mythological dreamworld: apple orchards and alfalfa fields, covered wooden bridges and ponds nestled inside flowering copses.
And like the spoke in the wheel of the family, the big white house where Hank had grown up.
His parents still lived there, and his four siblings and their families lived in their own houses within walking distance.
They all worked the dairy farm, where the large-eyed, slow-moving cows knew their own names.
And now, at last, she was here. Snow lay like thick vanilla frosting, worked by the wind into smears and folds, garnished with bare-limbed trees gesturing emphatically at the slate-gray sky. When they pulled up to the farmhouse, a dozen people gathered outside to greet Kestrel.
Hank’s sister Anika gave her a big hug, and then she was passed between brothers and sisters-in-law, as if she’d fallen out of the car into a love bomb.
In the center like the sun they all orbited were Ma and Pa Kern, as Kestrel called them in her head.
They were a sturdy couple wrinkled by the sun, gray hair growing untouched, both outfitted in warm work clothes.
“Did you take the ferry across Lake Michigan?” asked Pa Kern. “Or was that too spendy?”
“Yeah, we had to drive through Chicago instead,” said Kestrel.
Pa Kern shook his head at the invocation of that city, and Kestrel wished she could smile and say, “Oh, Pops, you and Chicago!” as if it were an old family joke that she was in on.
“We’re just about to start the afternoon milking,” said Ma Kern, “then we’ll come in and get dinner on.”
“Can I help with the milking?” asked Kestrel.
Ma Kern smiled at her with approval, and Kestrel loved her immediately and absolutely and began to yearn for the time when she might call her Mom.
As Hank showed Kestrel around the milking parlor, he seemed to glow.
She imagined the edges of him melting away till he became part of the farm and the family.
Kestrel walked a cow on a lead and whispered into her wide ear, “I didn’t know I could love anybody as much as I love him, you know?
It scares me a little, how perfect everything is. ”
The cow nuzzled her hard, broad head under Kestrel’s hand, asking for a pet.
Dinner-making was gender segregated, Ma Kern serving as head cook and the other women dancing around the kitchen, each knowing her part. Kestrel got to chop carrots and then awaited further orders, smiling at the conversations and jokes she believed she’d soon understand.
“Someone hand me the garlic press,” shouted Ma Kern, and Kestrel wished she knew where it was and could be the first to fetch it.
After dinner, the Kern siblings took to their instruments and jammed festively. Kestrel sat beside Hank on the piano bench and, after a time, lent her voice to the music, harmonizing with oohs and aaahs. She hadn’t felt so connected to everything around her since the good parts of Farm Home.
She watched Hank as he played the piano and bantered with his siblings, expecting to finally see the whole of his authentic self.
Instead, she felt him pull more in, withdraw his energy slightly.
Surely this place was where Hank was his most Hankiest, so why did it seem like he didn’t quite fit? She doubted herself.
That night, Hank slept in his old room, but Ma Kern set up Kestrel in a different bedroom.
This struck her as an odd requirement for a couple who had been living together for more than a year, but she could respect their boundaries.
She kissed him good night in the hall, and he hugged her like he’d never let her go.
“You knocked their socks off,” he whispered. “My brothers can’t believe you’ve never worked with cows before. They think you’re amazing.”
“And your mom?” she asked.
“I’m sure she likes you,” he said. “She takes a while to warm up.”
“So, you don’t take after your mom, then,” Kestrel said impishly.
“Nope. You warm me up with a glance.” He lifted her up so he could hug her to him completely and spoke softly into her neck. “Having you here, in my favorite place, Kes . . . I feel like I’ll come apart with joy.”
Kestrel went to her own little room, lay face down on the twin bed, and without understanding why, sobbed so hard, she worried she might come apart too.
Everything was even better than she’d imagined.
It was as if she’d caught a genie and made a wish for her perfect life.
And yet she couldn’t shake the fear that something was off.
This was Hank’s place! These were his people!
How could she believe that he was more Hank at home with her than here?
But if she sensed wrongness, surely it must be coming from her. If only she could fit in here perfectly, then Hank could be perfectly at ease. Her craving to belong in Hank’s family burned through her, scraping her skin like a fever, sending earthquakes through her bones.
The next morning after milking, all the siblings and their spouses hopped on snowmobiles for the annual Christmas tree hunt.
Kestrel rode behind Hank, hugging his middle as they swooshed around the property, taking jumps over snowbanks till Fred’s vehicle toppled and wouldn’t restart.
As Fred did repairs, the men gathered around, calling out advice both helpful and less so.
“Jeez, Freddy, you gonna fix that machine?” asked Gerry. “Or you gonna ask her to the prom?”
Anika and the wives stood beside Kestrel to watch from a distance, as seemed to be the Kern women’s role.
“This always happens,” said Anika with a smile. “Sometimes I think they break them on purpose so they can have the fun of fixing them.”
Gerry’s wife, Stacey, laughed. “Oh, I know they do.”
Hank glanced back to check on Kestrel. Their eyes met, and she told him with her smile how much she adored him. His smile nearly melted her clothing off.
“Where is that little thing?” Fred muttered, rooting around in the engine.
Kestrel hollered, “Is that what Jennifer said on your wedding night?”
“OOOOH,” said the men, laughing, and the women looked at Kestrel with admiration. Or maybe it was shock.
The men cut down a shapely nine-foot fir and dragged it behind a snowmobile back to the house, where the kids were busy around the big table sculpting cinnamon dough ornaments and stringing popcorn.
They all cheered at first sight of the tree.
The air was full of balsam and spices, and beneath it, the cozy farm aroma of manure and hay.
Kestrel took a deep breath to ground herself, because everything was so exquisitely Christmassy, she thought she might float away.
“We need more popcorn,” said Ma Kern.
“I’ll make it!” said Kestrel, hopping up.
The past few weeks at home, she’d actually practiced popping corn on the stove just so if anyone asked her to make some for stringing she wouldn’t be limited to sticking a bag in the microwave.
She never confessed that to Hank, wanting him to see her slide into his family and fit just right. Like the missing piece.
But when Kestrel got to the kitchen, Fred’s wife, Jennifer, was already pouring kernels into a pot.
“You’re the guest,” said Jennifer. “You relax!”
And when it was time to make dinner again, Kestrel asked what she could do, but Ma Kern said, “I think we’ve got this covered.”
Were they being kind? Or had Kestrel messed up chopping the carrots so badly that she was being exiled?
Hank was off doing farmwork with his brothers, and Kestrel was anxious to stay active, so she brought a bunch of the kids outside to sculpt snowpeople. They’d rolled several huge balls of snow when Anika popped out.
“Oh no, not here,” she said anxiously. “This spot is outside Mom’s study window, and she likes to look out at clean, undisturbed snow.”
“I’m so sorry,” Kestrel said with a sinking feeling. “Maybe we could put the snow back? And . . . fluff it up?”
“Never mind, it’s too late.” Anika gave her a kind smile, as if to say, “I know you didn’t mean to mess up.”
“Thanks, Anika.” Kestrel moved to a confidential nearness. “Do you have any . . . I don’t know, feedback for me? I really want this to go well.”
Anika took Kestrel’s gloved hands and gave them a squeeze. “Just be yourself. I’m sure everyone likes you. I know I do.”
A sister, thought Kestrel with a sparkle of excitement.
A sister was a precious thing she’d never dared to wish for.
A hopeful future here shimmered in her mind, beautiful and almost visible but not quite in reach.
If only Kestrel could find the slot where she fit, the empty space where her energy could slide in.
“And maybe . . .” Anika hesitated. “Maybe don’t touch and kiss Hank so much in public? And tonight when we play, don’t sing. That felt a little show-off-ish.”