What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?

~Dec. 30~

The distance from his home atop Mt. Crumpit to the Whos' home on Whistling Who Lane was a good hour to hour and a half walk for The Grinch, but he had made the trek so often in the last few days that it didn't bother him half as much as coming into town used to. He pondered as he walked about how much of it was his new outlook on life and how much of it was his new daily destination.

It wasn't only his wanting to repay the family's kindness, or even as a way of starting to pay back the town for stealing (and then returning) Christmas. The town mostly seemed to forgive him, and what was more important to him, Cindy Lou's family forgave him. No, it wasn't those things entirely that kept him coming back to the small house full of chaos and warmth. In just the last few days he had begun to feel needed, like he was a part of something. He didn't want to start assuming things, but just the feeling that he might be filling a void for the family had begun to fill a void of his own. One he'd only recently begun to admit to himself that he had.

Cindy Lou was as bright and inventive as she was kind. She had jumped at the chance to help him with some of the gadgets he'd installed in the Who's home. It had been her idea to fix up their old refrigerator to dispense drinks and her extra touch to make their surprise snowmobile for her mother pink.

Her twin brothers Buster and Bean could even be clever at times, when one wasn't trying to eat the other's hair or pick the other's nose. He didn't have much experience with babies but he had to admit they were endearing (and manageable with Cindy Lou's help).

Then there was their mother, Ms. Who---or Donna. It wasn't that difficult to remember to use her first name in his head, for ever since the previous night when he'd revealed his latest creation to help ease their lives and she had not only hugged him, but actually invited him out with her, her name hadn't been far from his mind.

But saying her name out loud was where things might get harder. There was something about the informality of it that carried much more weight to him than was probably warranted. There was just something in her face, in the warmth of her smile that made him over-think nearly every move he made in her presence.

As he approached the house, he heard the distinct cry of Buster – or was it Bean? - even from the front yard as the toddler was evidently being forced to do something he really didn't want to do.

Just as he was knocking on the door, it swung open to reveal Cindy Lou, a huge grin on her face and wearing her puffiest snow jacket.

"Hi Mr. Grinch," she greeted him, leaving the door for him to close as she went back to the task she had apparently been up to before he had arrived.

"Quit squirming, Bean," she said to her little brother as Bean cried, unable to lower his arms from all the winter weather gear his sister had put on him. Buster was not fairing much better, but he was at least pacified for the moment as he had wrenched off his earmuffs and was chewing on them.

"I've got them all ready," she told Grinch as he looked down at the three of them questioningly. "Mom wanted to make sure they were nice and snug when we go out."

"I said nice and snug, not to smother them in a cocoon of coats," he heard her voice from the stairs, and turned to see Donna putting on her coat over her scrubs and smiling slightly amused at her daughter.

"Just being a concerned big sister, Mom," Cindy Lou said as Donna walked past Grinch to give her a kiss on the head, and two more for the boys.

"And I appreciate it," Donna answered, and then turned to Grinch. As she had passed him he had caught the scent of something flowery, and as she smiled in his direction he couldn't help but notice there was something a bit different about her today. It may have just been his imagination, but she seemed brighter somehow. As if there was more color to her. He didn't comment on it, but it really wasn't a bad thing. It looked the exact opposite of bad, in fact.