December 2014

Copenhagen, Denmark.

As a child, Christmas had never been my favorite holiday. My father was in the military, which was notorious for ignoring the holidays. My mother stayed home when I was young and tried to make the most of the patchy phone calls and spotty TV Christmas specials. Then I got older, my mother died, and my father used it as an excuse to be home for Christmas. At first, he was clueless and butchered the traditions Mom and I had crafted over the years. Then we made our own and things were okay.

Bucky talked about his family sparingly and most often when he wanted me to confirm some tidbit of information. When it came to his conscription into Russian military service, I answered every question he had. But I didn't want to taint whatever memories he had of his family, and I only had very basic knowledge about them anyway.

In the weeks leading up to Christmas I pieced together that his family holidays were far different than mine. His father spent his first two Christmases overseas during the First World War. When he came home he volunteered for Christmas shifts on base. Eventually, he became reacquainted with family life and began celebrating the holidays again. All the while, his mother juggled the meals and the decorating and the presents and added another two children to the mix. But life happened. The Great Depression came, and both parents died within a year of each other. Bucky and Rebecca, 16 and 15-years-old respectively, grew up fast to take care of Helen and Thomas.

"I was working already. I had been since I was thirteen," Bucky said quietly. So many memories had flooded his mind with the onset of Christmas. Instead of taking the time to write down what he remembered and wait for me to read it, he just told me everything while we sat on the couch or in bed. "Paper routes, bagboy at a grocery store, grunt work where I could find it. I did whatever I could before my parents died, and then I found even more afterwards."

"And Rebecca?" I asked. It was close to midnight, Christmas Eve. Our tree was still covered in paper snowflakes and stale popcorn, and the kitchen cabinets were draped in paper chains and more snowflakes. I had filched a peppermint candle from the bakery, lending even more ambience to our humble abode.

"She worked too. Found a rich family with some kids and worked as a nanny. We sent Helen and Tommy to school and asked a neighbor to watch them when we were at whatever job we had found," he explained. "Her work paid pretty good. And more regular than anything I found. Lots of people would hire me on and not pay me what they said they would. Or they wouldn't pay me at all."

"I can't imagine how hard that must have been," I said. I was nodding off quickly. Propped up against the wall at the head of our bed, warmed by decaf coffee and a shot of Irish cream. And Bucky. The walls were thin, and the window wasn't sealed well enough to keep the cold air out. But he was warm, and his right thigh was pressed against my left.

"We did it though. We lasted through that hell and saw the other side. Eventually, I got a steady job at a factory, and Becky was married by the time I enlisted."

"And Helen joined the Army Nurse Corps once she was old enough," I added. It was another recent development.

"I don't know what Tommy did with his life," Buck told me. I had slowly begun to lean against his shoulder, and my fatigue was ever increasing. I could feel him barely turn his head, and his hand moved to rest on my knee. As he relaxed, his hand shifted up my leg. "Do you know what happened to him?"

"He enlisted when he turned eighteen, about a year before the war ended," I began. "Joined the army like his big brother. Went through basic, got trained as a medic, was sent to Europe. He helped liberate concentration camps."

"What about when he came home?"

His voice was so quiet, so timid. My answer was choppy and slurred. I had worked from five a.m. to nine p.m. for nearly two weeks.

"Honorable discharge from the army. He settled down in New York City again and went to medical school. Met a girl named Anne and got married. Had two kids of his own," I summarized. My cheek was now fully resting against his shoulder, and he adjusted himself so I could be more comfortable.

"What were their names?"

I had to rack my brain to remember, but the names finally came through as clear as a bell.

"He and Anne had a daughter first. Catherine. Then a boy a few years later. Christopher James," I answered.

He took a deep breath, then another. I forced myself to sit up and look at him, but he was staring straight ahead. His chin was just barely quivering.

"Did he name him after me?" he finally asked.

"I can't say for sure, but if I had to guess I would say he did," I reassured him. Then he smiled, one corner of his mouth drawing up ever so slightly.

"Thank you, for telling me all that," he said.

"There's no way for you to know any of that, but you should know about them. They're your family," I reasoned. I laid back against the wall and our pillows, and Bucky scooted lower in bed. "I'm sure I can think of more if you give me time."

"You're practically sleep-talking, Gail. Go to sleep," he ordered gently.

"But it's so close to Christmas," I argued, sounding like a child and smiling at the fact.

"I won't let you sleep the day away. Go on and sleep. I'll wake you up at a decent hour," he promised. I hunkered down under the sleeping bags, inadvertently ending up even closer to Bucky. "Sweet dreams."

I laid my arm across his abdomen and pressed my cheek into his chest. The sights and peppermint smells of our Christmassy little apartment disappeared, and I felt Bucky kiss the top of my head.