happy birthday, dear Stephanie...

December 16, 2083 - Stephanie Day is 24, Willow is 16 months. (Justin Kim is 23, Lily is 10 months, Corbin Gray is 32.)

Stephanie turns twenty-four today. Her parents have spent the majority of the week packing and unpacking, making the 20-minute drive from here to the LCU campus several times. Her mother got the School Board President job, and she starts immediately following the holiday break. But she did make some time to take Stephanie out for a new haircut and a pedicure, to brighten her spirits, and then they met her dad for lunch.

Her mother also arranged for some help around the house. "You'll have a housekeeper once a week," she said to Stephanie. "And call your uncle over if you need snow shoveled. The mortgage is paid, and you have Jeremiah's stipend for groceries. Your father will bring over more, if you need it. So all you have to do is take care of Willow. You can handle that, can't you?"

Stephanie handles Willow just fine, and Justin's daughter Lily sometimes too. So she isn't sure what sticks more, the emphasis on "all," or that it's even a question?

Tonight she plans a quiet night, which starts with two handsome men knocking on her door, one of them holding something she hopes is strong. And this picture might even sound ideal if she didn't have a husband, somewhere out there, and there weren't two babies crawling around on the floor behind them. Corbin is holding a bottle of sake. Stephanie's never had it before, and she doesn't know anyone who has.

Justin says, "I told him to get you wine."

"It is wine," Corbin says. "Kind of."

"How are you supposed to drink that?" He didn't bring the glasses with him, and she sure as hell doesn't have sake glasses. She goes to the cupboards and only finds some champagne flutes instead. It'll have to do.

They sit at the kitchen table while the girls play in the living room. Corbin remains mostly sober as Stephanie and Justin splash back their sake like it was spiked dorm punch. Maybe that's not how you're supposed to drink it. Stephanie has been old enough to drink now for five years, but that doesn't mean she knows how. She only drinks wine because it makes her feel more grown up than she really is. Or maybe she really is grown up. She's older, at least. Each year she gets older, but she never feels grown up. She keeps waiting for that day it'll just kick in, maturity, wisdom, inner peace? Is there such a thing?

Justin turns his head slowly. "You don't have a Christmas tree."

"You don't have one either," she says.

"Yeah, but I'm never there," he says. "We're always here, we should put up a tree. Even Corbin has a tree!"

She points at Corbin then. She didn't mean to, it just happened. "You have a tree?"

Corbin is hesitant to answer, but he does. "It's a small one, on my kitchen counter."

They might mock, but the house does feel like it's lacking something this time of year. Christmas cheer. Actual evidence of life. "There's one in the attic, I think," she says. "It's fake, but it's a tree."

They were quick, for being only half sober, each of them taking an end of the heavy bag it was wrapped in, laughing and banging into the walls and they maneuvered it down the stairs. She hurried to clear a space for them.

She sits with the girls while they assemble the thing, adding bulbs and tinsel. None of them are particularly artistic, but they strive for basic symmetry and balance. "That spot," she says from the floor. "Justin, there's a gap by your head."

He turns on the lights.

The girls bounce and coo, whipping their arms up and pointing at the tree. "Yey-yo," Willow says, no regard to which color is actually blinking. "Yey-yo, yey-yo!"

Lily only watches her daddy, babbling an automated, "da-da-da-da-da."

Justin turns off the lamp, letting the room fall to darkness.

He and Corbin each take an empty space on the carpet beside her. They're entertained by the lights for longer than the babies are. Outside there's a sharp wind in the trees, it vibrates the windowpanes. They sit there for a time, in near silence, softened by the dark, tranquilized by the colored lights.

She's thinking, and she wonders if they are too. She doesn't know how she ended up here. Here - not as in her parents living room, which is now her own living room on lease, her own living room by default - but here, as in life. She wonders if any of them know how they ended up where they are, if they ever thought it would happen?

Justin always knew what he'd do with his life. Even as a boy, when the ideas were just vague and far off. He knew, he'd go to college, he'd be a business man, he'd have a wife and some kids. Maybe some people just know. Stephanie never knew. Even by the time she got to college she still didn't know. Even when she married Jeremiah on spring break, she didn't know. They made a life of not knowing, for a little while.

It's bedtime. Or bedtime for the girls anyway. They'll put them both in Willow's crib, and drink a little more, play some hacky-sack in the living room. Fascinating, she thinks, all the things Corbin has done, and he never played hacky sack until he played it with them. So they'll play hacky sack until they get tired, and then play video games until they get too tired for that. Eventually Corbin will leave quietly, but not without saying goodbye, and stumble back up the hill to the train station. Then Justin will have the best intentions of taking Lily back home, but he hates that big, expensive, empty house. He hates it to death. So he'll pass out on the couch instead of waking her, and Stephanie will bring him a pillow and blanket in the night.

But first, they'll sit here, each of them taking an empty space on her floor. They could be anywhere, but tonight, they're here, with her. It might not sound like much, but it's actually a lot. It's more than she can even describe.

"We should get the girls to bed," Stephanie says.

Justin laughs. "Hey, you wanna see something funny? Make Corbin put the girls to bed. He holds Lily like a sack of potatoes."

"I absolutely do not," Corbin says. "I can hold a baby."

Stephanie smiles, with something like actual pride. "But, can you hold two?"

She and Justin just look at him, at each other, and back at him. Corbin realizes they're serious.

He stands, takes Willow, the larger child under one arm, slipping down his hip while Lily reaches behind his neck to pull his ponytail. He pauses, as if he moved an inch he might lose one. But then he grins. "There. See? Two."

Corbin takes the girls upstairs.

There's a little crying. Stephanie says, "Is that one yours or mine? Maybe I should go help him out?"

"Nah, it's your night off," Justin says. "He's actually okay at it. He recites his philosophy lectures, the deep voice, the boredom, puts Lily right to sleep."

Justin is right, and soon the babies quiet. She listens for sound from the upstairs, but hears nothing, maybe a subtle muted droning philosophy lecture. Or maybe it's just the wind. When she looks at Justin again, he's looking at her—has been looking at her for who knows how long—and kneads the back of his neck. He never does that. "What?"

"You look different," he says.

"Haircut, duh."

"Or maybe you haven't smiled in so long I forgot you had teeth," he says.

She smiles bigger. She reaches out her foot to poke him with her toe. "Shut up."

"Happy Birthday, Steph."

*******

Other December Birthdays!

December 1: Aurora Harris is 38
December 3: Toby Harris is 44
December 6: Jeremy Nova is 69
December 6: Abigail Collins is 69
December 11: Elijah Roberts is 18
December 14: Joel Harris is 42
December 18: Beau Jackson is 20
December 18: Tyler Jackson is 20
December 21: Ashlee Deppiesse is 44
December 27: Devon Shaw is 8
December 28: Aurora Miguel is 51
December 29: Tad Harris is 74

*******

(footnotes: Stephanie, Justin, and Corbin)

notes: and there we have our first real birthday post. Hope it makes sense. It's something we'll all get used to, I'm sure ;)

"yey-yo" = yellow, by the way. It was the first color my son learned to say, lol!

Oh, and this can count as one of the "holiday parties" for the poll, if you feel so inclined. There are two more holiday parties this season as well.