Julie and Zander were wearing the Irish fisherman’s-knit sweaters I’d bought for them in hopes they would decide to stay in DC. Nick had three new neckties wrapped around his neck, each one more outrageous than the next. Patra sported a red feather boa from EG and was excitedly stuffing a real Birkin bag from me and Nick. I was wearing a rather dashing black leather jacket with almost as many hidden pockets as my army jacket—Nick understood me well. Tudor and EG were already embattled in a new video game.
For the obvious reason, I’d made them all save their Magda gifts for last. Once we had all our packages to each other opened, EG passed around Magda’s. Cries of excitement soon settled into silence as each of us studied the gift of our pasts. Patra swiped at her eyes as she showed me a photo of her handsome investigative reporter dad bouncing her on his knee. Like Magda, Patrick Llewellyn had spent most of his time in war zones, and Patra had known very little of him before he was killed.
Julie came over and hugged me, as if I’d had anything to do with Magda’s gift: pictures of her father dancing with our mother in some gorgeous ballroom. Awkwardly, I hugged her back.
“Maryam is safe at home,” she murmured. “She sent me texts. Says she met someone interesting at the airport.”
“It’s best that she learned what she wanted while she’s young,” I said in sympathy. “Perhaps you can visit her someday.”
She smiled brighter and settled back in her chair with her picture book.
Tudor shrugged at the photos in his album—his father was still alive and visited once a year. The next time I looked at him, he was smothering a grin that I knew meant trouble. I leaned over his chair and discovered him holding a slender, oddly-shaped pen. It took me a moment before I recognized it from one I’d seen in the hands of one of Magda’s many military contacts.
She’d given Tudor a tactical pen—one that wrote but could substitute as a bone-breaking weapon when used correctly. Tudor innocently flashed the light that also made it useful as a flashlight—until he used it to break someone’s jaw. Shades of James Bond!
He slid the pen back into the compartment hidden by the leather hinge of the album. It would most likely even pass airport security. I shuddered.
EG was already digging around in the hinge of her album. Did I really want to know what was stored there? I could hope for a unicorn-shaped thumb drive.
I explored my album and uncovered a folding finger spike baton, much more lethal than the roll of quarters I’d used in the past. I could take out eyes with the thing. I carefully re-folded it and slid it back into its hiding place. I couldn’t imagine using such a weapon—or carrying a photo album around with me—but one never knew.
I’d check on EG’s secret gift from Magda later, but I preferred not to know what other surprises Magda had hidden. There was still a stack of gifts left unopened, because Graham and Mallard had declined to join us, as usual. I had a plan for that.
A gift labeled for all of us with no donor’s name on it still waited. I’d saved it in hopes of ending our gift exchange on a happy note.
Since EG was searching through the debris, looking for more loot to add to her stack, I gestured for her to open the rather flat package that looked as if it might be a book. I was hoping it wasn’t another photo album to make us cry.
While the others were showing each other photos, EG happily tore apart the elegant gold-embossed wrapping paper. No recycling here. I hid my sigh of regret. Once upon a time, I could have had lots of fun with that paper.
The slender box held a fancy file folder which looked suspiciously as if it had come from a law office. Nick was closer and took it from her. His eyebrows practically hit the sky as he studied the documents inside. Then he offered it to Patra instead of to me.
I waited in frustration, wanting to thrash them all for bypassing me as they handed it back and forth. Zander finally looked at it in puzzlement and handed it over. My siblings waited so expectantly, that I swallowed hard and braced myself.
I skimmed the legal verbiage. Not entirely believing what I was reading, I flipped through the pages until I found the signatures and a notary’s seal. I gulped, and returned to reading again from the start.
“Well?” Patra said impatiently. “Is this enough? Will you settle for partial ownership or do we still keep fighting him?”
Graham had deeded half of our grandfather’s mansion to our family trust, with his half going to the trust upon his death.
Finally, and at long last, I had it all, almost. I got to keep Graham and my house. I looked up to my expectant family and nodded. “Graham was as much Max’s family as we are, maybe more so. This makes good sense.”
Six months ago, I wouldn’t have agreed. Now, I almost cried again at Graham’s generosity.
With that settled, Zander pointed at the remaining Magda photo-album packages under the tree. “Who are these for?”
Patra, naturally, had already studied them. “One’s for Sean, the other is for Graham. We ought to open them.”
Her newspaper reporter instinct was kicking in, sniffing for more insight into the mysterious past that Magda had shared with their fathers. I waited for a lamp to interrupt, but Graham apparently wasn’t paying attention. I could fix that.
I gestured at Tudor, who had been waiting for this moment. He pulled a collapsible pile of plastic from behind the sofa, shook it about a bit, and produced a blinking battery-operated Christmas tree. Then I gestured at the stack of eccentrically wrapped packages left under the tree.
“If the Grinch won’t come to Christmas, we’ll take Christmas to the Grinch,” I announced.
Gleefully, everyone grabbed a few packages, and we trudged up two flights of stairs to Graham’s attic lair. I was praying he’d still be there and hadn’t fled to Outer Mongolia at the first hint of my intentions.
Mallard was at the top of the stairs, behind a linen-covered table adorned with a crystal punch bowl and matching crystal cups. Crystal! Honestly, the man had gone completely mad.
EG completed a polite curtsy I didn’t know she knew how to perform. She handed over her gift to Mallard, then snatched a cookie from the lovely buffet.
My siblings stacked gifts before him, and I could swear the old soldier was starting to mist up as we all grabbed plates of goodies and cups of punch. I was betting Magda had given him his photo album in private, because he was looking all smiley sentimental and had a suspiciously square bulge in his immaculately fitted jacket.
He even opened the door to Graham’s office for us so Tudor could lead the parade with his blinking tree.
Only Tudor had ever been invited to Graham’s inner sanctum. I’d stormed it. EG had sneaked around it. Nick had seen it after Graham had stripped and hidden everything last month. As far as I knew, Patra, Zander, and Julie had never been up here. So mostly, everyone gawked as we entered bearing gifts.
Graham was wearing a fake-fur-trimmed Santa hat pulled down over his hair and scar. But this hat was black, like his long-sleeved shirt and trousers. I was pretty sure that was a green Grinch embroidered on the front. He regarded us solemnly as Tudor set the tree down on his polished mahogany console. For once, his monitors weren’t showing scenes of mayhem. Instead, he’d tuned into cameras on the Ellipse displaying the Christmas tree and crowds. There were images of skating rinks and churches too. He’d prepared for us.
I wanted to hug him, but I didn’t think either of us was ready for public displays of affection. I handed him a cup of punch instead. “Merry Christmas from your extended family.”
I waited for him to wince, but he was a practiced politician when he wanted to be. “Thank you, I think,” was all he said.
But by the time he’d opened his gifts and was wearing a Cat-in-the-Hat scarf, while Tudor produced plastic stars on the 3-D printer and Mallard tuned in a choir singing the Messiah, Graham was actually smiling.
We couldn’t give him anything as generous as half a mansion, but we could give him the family he’d never had. Both gifts came with passels of problems, but I figured we were up to the challenge.
Graham intelligently didn’t open Magda’s gift while we were present. I’d get to the bottom of the mystery of my father’s relationship with him in the new year.
For now, I’d simply rejoice that I had everyone I loved under one roof.