Friday morning. December 24, 2004.
Having started the day off with two breakfasts – one on the plane and another at the hotel – they were eager to be active. The morning and afternoon were spent on a tour of the island followed by shopping shamelessly at tourist traps. They all bought colorful shirts and wore them to dinner that evening. Following a luau, they gathered in chairs and on beach towels around a fire pit on the beach. The temperature was in the seventies and the fire was a small one, for ambience rather than heat. A circle of torches around them provided light.
"Where are the marshmallows?" Henry asked.
"Always the sweet tooth," Edmund said, looking fondly at his oldest grandchild.
"Ooo, that would be a good nickname," Angela noted. She looked at Henry. "Is that it? Sweet Tooth?"
"Wrong," said Henry. "Marshmallows?"
"I told you he'd ask for them." Irene reached into a canvas bag, pulling out the treat and prongs for roasting them. "Fortunately the hotel was ready."
"Are we going to tell ghost stories?" asked Rosalind as the first marshmallows turned golden brown over the fire. "Hey!" She slapped her younger sister's hand. "Roast your own. This one's mine."
"As a matter of fact," Noelle said, "I have something like ghost stories in mind."
"Really?" asked Viola. "Is that a Caffrey Christmas tradition?"
"No, but if we like it we could make it a tradition," Noelle told her. "You see, I was born on Christmas Eve, right before midnight, and my twin sister was born in the first minutes of Christmas Day."
Joe's daughters traded a look.
"Yes, the mysterious missing sister," Noelle acknowledged. "She's one of the ghosts we'll raise tonight. Anyway, my parents did their best to let us have a birthday celebration separate from Christmas each year, but as I child I couldn't help resenting their very unfortunate timing."
Rosalind and Viola giggled, as did Angela and Elizabeth.
"And now on this vacation we have my birthday, Christmas, New Year's Eve and then a wedding. It's a lot of holidays and celebrating. I'm taking advantage of the way brides are traditionally indulged, and hope you'll follow my suggestion of a method to get us through it all. Tonight we'll focus on the past. One thing you learn as you get older is that the holidays aren't limited to joyfulness. There's a lot of sadness, as we remember those who can't be with us due to death or other circumstances, and we shouldn't try to ignore that sadness. On the other hand, we shouldn't wallow. It's good to take time to appreciate the happy memories we have of those who aren't here. That's what I'd like to do in place of a birthday celebration tonight. Then tomorrow, on Christmas, we'll focus on the present."
"And presents," Joe added.
"Of course. That takes us to New Year's, which is an excellent time to think about our hopes and plans for the future, and that's a lovely lead-in to a wedding."
"Indeed it is," agreed Betty. "Perhaps reflecting on the past, present and future will become a Burke family tradition."
Noelle reached out and squeezed her future mother-in-law's hand. "I'm looking forward to learning about the existing Burke family traditions, too." Then she looked around at the assembled family and said, "You may think it's odd that my former father and mother-in-law are here. But when I divorced Robert twelve years ago, I knew that Henry still deserved to have both sets of grandparents in his life, and Graham and Julia deserved to be around him." Looking at the Winslows she said, "I grew to love you both very soon after I got married, and I know you wanted to get away from your usual holiday routine this first Christmas after Robert's death. I have very fond memories of holidays at your home and on your boat."
And somehow that led naturally into reminiscing by Graham and Julia. He spoke about his first wife, who had died decades ago, and about the changes Julia wrought in his life and in his company. A British citizen, she'd introduced the concept of Boxing Day to the Winslow family. They shared memories of Robert, too, focusing on his childhood antics.
Henry added some comments about happy memories, including the times his father took him along on his annual trips to play poker in Las Vegas.
Next Edmund and Irene started talking about their oldest child, David. An Air Force pilot, he'd died in Afghanistan in the summer of 2003. They talked about his love of adventure. His widow Paige and daughter Angela also added memories.
Then Luke and Betty spoke up. Neal was surprised to learn that Joe and Peter had another brother. Timothy had been about three years younger than Joe, and had died of SIDS as a baby.
Noelle prompted Rosalind and Viola to talk about their favorite memories with their mother. Joe's ex-wife was still alive, and even though their marriage had ended long ago and Joe got custody of their children, he had worked hard to make sure his daughters maintained a good relationship with their mother. "I want you to be comfortable talking about your mom around me," Noelle said. "She's an important part of your lives."
The girls shared several amusing stories, and as they wound down Viola looked at Noelle. "You said something about a twin sister."
Noelle nodded. "When I first met your father, I told him that we don't talk about Meredith outside the family, but you are family now. We're going to trust you with an important secret, if you think you can keep it. Will you promise not to talk to anyone outside this circle about her?"
With the promises made, Noelle asked Neal to share whatever he felt comfortable confiding about Meredith Caffrey Bennett. He started by explaining that his father, James Bennett, had been a cop who got involved with the Irish mob. Eventually he'd been caught, and his crimes were so serious that his wife and son and his partner on the police force were all sent into WITSEC. Neal told them that he grew up unaware of any of this, instead believing his father had died a hero. "I learned the truth when I turned eighteen, and it was such a shock that I ran away. To make a long story short, Noelle learned I was missing and asked her ex-husband for help finding me since he worked at Win-Win, which is a private investigation and security company. Robert farmed the assignment out to Henry, who tracked me down, and then we embarked on an epic road trip."
As Edmund, Irene and Noelle shared memories of a much younger Meredith, Neal came to appreciate how very much she had changed over the years. In WITSEC Meredith had to give up her career in catering, she had been asked to change her religious affiliation, and she had to hide her gift for music and languages. What did it do to a person to suppress almost everything you are? Meredith had shown up briefly at the end of Henry's birthday party in August, and afterward Noelle had described her sister as empty – as if Meredith had evaporated and a stranger the U.S. Marshals had named Deirdre Brooks occupied her body.
Neal frowned into the campfire. That wasn't what Peter wanted, was it? For Neal to empty himself of his past life and experiences, transforming into the perfect FBI employee?
Henry nudged him. "Cover for me, if they miss me." But Henry slipped away so stealthily that he wasn't missed. A few minutes later he returned, carrying his guitar, which he handed to Edmund Caffrey. "How about you go back another generation? Tell us about some ghosts of Caffreys past."
Edmund had come from a long line of itinerant musicians, and it was nearly impossible to talk about them without being inspired to sing. Soon Edmund was leading the group in singing "Let There Be Peace on Earth," followed by "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" and "Silver Bells." In that song Henry took the lead on a chorus turning the words into, "Baby Bear, Baby Bear, it's Christmastime in Hawaii," and the resulting jeers from Neal and laughter from everyone else brought the musical interlude to an end.
Graham and Julia Winslow reminisced about their own childhood Christmas memories, and Luke and Betty Burke did the same. Joe and Peter joined in, talking about how Luke had coached their hockey teams, and Elizabeth finally spoke up to share some of her memories. She described a time shortly after she married Peter when he took her to a hockey game and she'd started out horrified at how rough the players were. "And then by the end," Peter added with a chuckle, "she was yelling, 'Hit him harder!'"
"I was not," Elizabeth insisted, but there was a mischievous gleam in her eye that triggered a memory.
"When I was a kid..." Neal started, and then trailed off.
"Go on," Noelle said.
"Well, my... my mom decided we should make Christmas cookies when I was seven. It was a shortbread dough we rolled out and then used cookie cutters to make shapes that we baked and decorated with different colors of icing."
"I loved her shortbread cookies," Irene said when Neal paused. "It was my mother's recipe, but Meredith had a knack for making them better than anyone else in the family. And I imagine your decorations were works of art."
"They looked good," Neal acknowledged, "but we ate most of them as soon as we iced them. We barely had a plateful left the next day. What I remember most was when the cookies were baking, and we started to clear out mixing bowls and stuff so we'd have space for them to cool. The flour canister was almost empty, and I was supposed to refill it before putting it away. About half way through I lost my grip on the package, and flour went everywhere. We were both covered in it, dark hair dusted white, and it was in drifts on the floor and countertops. I thought she was going to be mad, and instead she started laughing. She picked up a handful and threw it at me like a snowball, and I remember how she grinned when she did it. Then we drew patterns in the flour on the cabinet doors and somehow even the cleanup seemed like a game. So often it seemed like she was depressed, but that night she was the fun person that everyone describes growing up. Kind of like she was a kid at heart."
Betty reached out to pat his shoulder. "Peter did that, too – spilling flour everywhere during a baking project he was trying to help with. He looked so helpless and bemused I had to laugh."
"Of course that was on winter break when Peter was in college," Joe said. "Didn't exactly have the cute factor of a seven-year-old boy."
Neal leaned back and grinned. "What can I say? I'm adorable."
Henry and Peter both threw sand at him. "Yep, he looks good covered in flour or sand," Henry said with a grin.
"A definite improvement," Peter agreed.
###
It was only 10pm when everyone went back to their rooms. Although that sounded early, it felt much later given that it was 5am on the East coast, where most of them lived.
While Edmund and Irene Caffrey had insisted on paying for the flights, Graham and Julia Winslow's wedding gift was paying for the accommodations. The wedding couple had a private bungalow. Everyone else was distributed among several two-bedroom suites. Neal and Henry shared a room with two queen-sized beds, which opened into a living area. On the opposite side of the suite was a second bedroom for Edmund and Irene.
Henry chuckled as he sat on his bed. "My mom, the psychologist. She managed to turn Christmas Eve into a group therapy session."
"It wasn't like that," Neal protested. "It was a good way to get to know everyone. Mostly it was fun, except when it turned poignant. I didn't know Joe and Peter had a third brother."
"You weren't the only one hearing new stories. No one told me Meredith showed up in D.C. on my birthday."
Neal shrugged. "It was after you left. You went away to deal with your grief and guilt over your father's death and you didn't come back until three months later. Anyway, she was just there for a few minutes. The Marshals knew about the party and stopped by as they were moving her to a new location. The only person she talked to was your mom."
"But you know what they talked about." Henry was clearly pushing for answers. He had a masters in psychology and could be just as nosy as Noelle.
"Yeah. I'll tell you all about it after you tell me your nickname."
"Not happening. I can get Mom to tell me what Meredith said." Henry turned off the lights in the room.
"Little Drummer Boy?" Neal guessed. "My earliest memory of you was in a kitchen, where you'd pulled all the pots out of the cupboards and were using them as a drums."
"Shut up and go to sleep."
"Bossy Pants?"
"Not even close."