Family is Forever (Sequel to Running on Insulin)

Chapter 27

Christmas morning dawned grey and snowy. I was up at 5:30 because I am a child at heart and I couldn't wait for Samantha to see her gifts. The tree was literally overflowing with gifts and bags. Brendon and Sarah had wrapped and added presents all week and weekend.

"You're making me feel like a terrible father," I said to him one evening when Sam was upstairs in her room. She was spending more time on her own and not needing to be in our vicinity. I knew she was working on something but I didn't know what. 

"Tyler," my wife moaned. "It's still dark out. Go back to sleep."

"I can't!" I said. "I'm too excited."

"Good god," she moaned. "If we ever have a baby, I'm in deep trouble between you and an infant."

I grinned at her.

"I'm going downstairs. First I'm going to see if Samantha is awake."

"Do not wake her up if she isn't!" Jenna warned.

"Yeah, yeah." I said.

I brushed my teeth and pulled on sweat pants and a t shirt.

Unsurprisingly, I ran into Brendon who was making coffee in my kitchen.

"Couldn't sleep either, huh?" He asked.

"Nope. Why are you up so early?" I asked.

"I'm excited for Samantha to open her gifts," he said. "I thought I'd sleep through this Christmas. I didn't see any point in celebrating this year. Not after Jess.  But, you guys gave us a reason to celebrate. And we couldn't be happier."

I gave him a hug, because I knew how much he was hurting.

"Well, Sam's still asleep and Jenna told me I can't wake her up. So, it's you and me until my wife tells me it's an appropriate time to wake our child up."

"And me," Josh said coming into the kitchen.  "Don't we have this backwards?  Shouldn't the kid be waking us up and we be telling her it's too early?"

We laughed.

The three of us sat talking and drinking coffee. I got a start on some of the Christmas stuff Jenna had planned for dinner.  She wanted a turkey and all the trimmings, so I turned up the oven. The turkey had been thawed and we'd put it on low overnight and now it was time to turn it up so we could have a nice Christmas dinner. Most of the other parts were done and needed to be warmed up later.

Jenna came down about an hour later and poured herself some coffee. She didn't say a word to anyone. Once she'd considered herself sufficiently caffeinated, she looked over at the three of us.

"You lot got this whole Christmas thing backward," she said.

"We discussed that," Josh said.

Sarah followed about a half an hour later and poured herself some coffee.

"Why are we awake if the only actual child in this house is still asleep?" She asked.

"Sweetheart, you're married to an actual child," Jenna joked.

"Touché," Sarah said. 

By eight am I'd had enough waiting.

"I'm going to wake her up," I said. "It's late enough.

"Do not come to me if you wind up regretting this decision," Jenna said, putting some cinnamon buns in the oven.

I went into Samantha's room and saw she was sprawled out on her bed, her hair a mess and a tiny string of drool coming out of the corner of her mouth. She was snoring ever so slightly. It was kind of cute.

I sat down on the side of her bed and rubbed her arm.

"Merry Christmas my girl," I whispered. Her eyes fluttered open and she looked around. Then she looked at me and rolled her eyes and rolled over and curled up.

"Awwww," I whined. "Come on. It's Christmas!  Come downstairs!!!  Santa left you I think the entire mall!"

She rolled over and looked at me with those piercing blue eyes. She yawned and stretched and shook her head at me as she sat up. That was definite sass. She was saying 'I'm getting up because if I don't you will not leave me alone you crazy man'.

She went into her bathroom, brushed her teeth and took her meds. She was in there a minute longer and I heard a 'click'. She came back out with her glucose monitor.

"Fifty two?  We'd better get some sugar in you," I said.

She was a bit shaky so I got out the glucose tablets we kept in the bathroom and gave her four.

She looked at them skeptically so I showed her the bottle.  She nodded and chewed on them. She made a funny face while eating them.

"Are they gross?" I asked. "They're grape flavour. I thought those would taste the best."

She shook her head and went into her bathroom. I heard the water running and peeked in. After chewing and swallowing the rest of the tablets, she downed a glass of water.

"They're dry?" I asked. She nodded and smiled.

The two of us went downstairs.

"You okay?" Jenna asked. "Did Tyler wake you up?"

She nodded and shrugged as if to say 'yeah, but it's okay'. 

"Good thing I did, too. Her blood sugar was fifty two," I said.

"Did you treat it?" Jenna asked. Samantha nodded.

"We'll test again in fifteen minutes and see where you're at and then figure out breakfast," Jenna said.

"That means we have time for presents!" Brendon said.

"After breakfast!" Jenna said.

"Awwwww," I whined. "Sam, what do you think?"

She shrugged.

"Okay, okay, we'll do presents and then have breakfast," Jenna said.

We went into the living room and Samantha sat on the couch looking at the pile of presents.

I sat on the floor, as did Brendon. Sarah and Jenna flanked Sam on the couch with their arms around her.

"Okay, this first one is for... Sam!" Brendon said.

Sam looked surprised and pointed at herself.

"Of course! Is there another Sam in the house we don't know about?"

She rolled her eyes again.

Samantha opened the bag and saw it was a Panic t-shirt and hoodie from Brendon's last tour.

"I had Zack courier them out," he said.

Samantha smiled and hugged the clothes to her.

What Samantha didn't know was all of the presents under the tree were for her. From us, and Brendon and Sarah and Josh.

She seemed completely overwhelmed, but happy, as present after present was given to her.

Finally, all the presents were open, Samantha was staring wide eyed at everything as if she couldn't believe it was all hers.

"I think that's it," I said.

"Ty?" Jenna said. "What's that envelope on the branch by your family ornament?"

I looked up and saw a hand written envelope with 'To Tyler and Jenna' written on it. It was Samantha's handwriting.