On the third day when he awoke Jaxsen lay in his bed for a moment listening to the sounds coming from the living room. He smiled. It was the sound of a family. His family. He pictured the scene in his mind. Sebastian and Nizhoni sitting on the sofa, his arm around her. It was a deep seated green cloth sofa with huge, pillow-like arm rests. When you sat down you felt like you were sinking safely into a cloud of comfort. Gramma Rose would be sitting across from them in her favorite armchair, an old, brown leather chair that matched nothing else in the whole house. Sebastian told him it was his father’s favorite armchair and his mother couldn’t get rid of it. He was sure they’d each have coffee cups in various states of full on the coffee table that was centered in the living room.He listened as they laughed in their conversation. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly before climbing

When Jaxsen woke the next morning he found himself nestled still in Sebastian’s arms. He felt safe and warm and loved. He smiled at the feeling. “Daddy, wake up.” Jaxsen gently shook Sebastian awake. When he opened his eyes Sebastian smiled at the blue eyes smiling back at him. “Morning, Daddy. It’s Christmas. Let’s go see what Santa brought,” Jaxsen exclaimed excitedly. While he had admitted his knowledge about Old Saint Nick, Jaxsen had decided, just before succumbing to sleep, that he’d hold on to the magic Santa had to offer.Nizhoni and Rose, both hearing Jaxsen’s excited yelps about Santa, stepped from their rooms smiling. They found Jaxsen in the living room standing in front of the lighted tree, mouth a gape at the sight of the mountain of colorfully wrapped gifts.

He clenched his fists tightly in his hair in an attempt to stave off the manic-like scream building up deep from his bowels. He opened his eyes. His world was silent, his vision blurry at best, and the last thing he saw was Nizhoni’s face hovering worriedly above him. He came to several minutes later, his head pounding with a tenacious audacity that refused to kowtow to logical reason. Said logical reason being that he had to get back to Jaxsen. Sebastian cracked his eyes slightly before slamming them shut again. His forehead furrowed and his mouth twisted into a grimace of pain.His head throbbed with his pulse making his eyeballs feel as if about to burst from their sockets.“What happened?” He kept his hands clasped over his eyes.“You hyperventilated yourself and passed out. Are you alrig

The two women sat cordially side by side on the sofa, feet tucked under their legs to ward off the cold. The lights were dimmed, casting shadows and enveloping the room in easy ambiance. Jaxsen reached for Nizhoni when she got up, meeting them halfway. Nizhoni took him in her arms, kissing his head and automatically gently swinging him back and forth; slow and soothing.“Would you mind taking his temperature and giving him some of this, please? I’m gonna go heat up some soup for him to take with it.”She nodded and made the attempt at a reassuring smile, but knew even before her lips curled up in the faux pas expression, she’d failed. “Of course,” she answered.“Thanks.”“Hey,” she called him back softly. When h

“It’s not your fault, Jaxsen. You don’t know the area, or the boundary lines.” She gently uncurled his fingers and smoothed out his tiny hands. “So that’s why you’re mad at my daddy. You think he wasn’t paying attention, huh?” His tone was soft and just as accusatory as he lowered his eyelids. Rose took a deep breath before counting to ten as she exhaled. Her nerves on the whole matter were rather raw, and she’d made a few, but some personal realizations last night after Sebastian left. Sebastian was the boy’s hero and Rose didn’t want to tarnish that idolism with her own personal issues that are stuck in the past that mercilessly broke the surface the moment Sebastian came back into her life. Before she could say anything Sebastian came through the back door.“Good morning, Dad