Late Christmas Afternoon
>Blue Light<
The kitchen at the house in Whitefish seemed darker than he remembered when he appeared. Wyatt flicked on a light switch. The room had shrunk back to its original size. Everything had disappeared, the stainless-steel counters, the hanging pots and pans, the dining table that seated thirty, sometimes forty, …fifty. Even the pantry that held hundreds of bottles of wines and other assorted liquors. But much more than that, it looked barren of the little everyday things, and it smelled cold, musty…empty. Wyatt peeked into the laundry room. On the far wall he saw a streak of paint, and he remembered how he had tripped when he painted a baseboard thirteen years earlier in an attempt to keep himself busy. He remembered Jake calling out Mag-R and he grinned. And Dieter telling him to get busy on his fussball team. Wyatt smiled when he thought about how Helen, Anna, and Sara came a little quicker than Dieter had expected…and with wings.
Walking down the hallway to the spare bedroom he looked inside. He could almost feel Julie riding him when he slipped up after she had arrived. In the next room, Julie, Heidi, Claire, and his older self, were trying on wet suits to Claire’s delight. In the study/spare bedroom, he watched himself severely contemplating his Glock.
Wyatt opened the door into the bathroom. “Funny,” he whispered, “I don’t remember it ever looking that bad.” Wyatt sighed and returned to the shrunken living room. Sitting on the couch he closed his eyes.
“Why did I come here?” he asked himself. “And on Christmas Day?”
Wyatt rubbed his forehead and a tear flowed from his eye. The house seemed so empty and unloved.
>Blue Light<
A pair of loving arms wrapped themselves around him.
Wyatt opened his tear-filled eyes to see Julie sitting beside him, smiling. “I was sent to retrieve you,” she soothed as she kissed him everywhere.
“Was I that transparent?” asked Wyatt.
She nodded. “Just because you are half something else now, doesn’t mean the human side of you isn’t vulnerable.”
Wyatt sighed.
“Everyone wondered how long it was going to take you,” said Julie, snuggling against him. Wyatt stretched his arms around Julie and squeezed her to him.
“I guess there comes a point when you wonder what you’ve left behind,” said Wyatt, staring out into space. “Whether you did any real good.”
Is his mind flashed gunshots, then blood…and finally a feeling of emptiness.
Wyatt looked at Julie. “I wonder if anyone here even misses me.” he asked. “Do they even remember I was here?”
Julie kissed Wyatt. Then she stood and took his hand.
“Come with me,” said Julie.
She led him through the living room and kitchen and out the mudroom door. Julie opened the back door and turned on the outside light.
Wyatt looked out the door. In the snow bundles of frozen flowers were stacked everywhere, and hundreds of Christmas cards were tacked to the back wall of the house.
“I think they miss you plenty,” said Julie as Wyatt embraced her. “Merry Christmas.”