"James!" Paul yelled across Walmart. "James! Hey!" The five-year-old just continued to knock over racks in the bra section, which Paul found terribly humiliating. If he knocked over one more rack, Paul was going to walk off and pretend he wasn't related to him.
"James McCartney!" Paul yelled again, causing people to stare at him in a strange way. He tried to ignore them, but failed miserably.
"Heather," he said, trying to regain his composure. He looked over at his twenty-year-old daughter and saw that she had her nose in her phone. "Heather!"
"What?" she said, jumping.
"Your brother is knocking over brassieres," Paul said calmly. "Please go get him."
"Oh," Heather said, sliding her phone into her pocket and jogging off to get her little brother.
Paul sighed and started checking things off his shopping list. He needed potatoes, but didn't know where they were. He looked around. Where was Linda? Nearby, Mary and Stella were cooing over baby Beatrice. She had been born almost two months ago, and the girls hadn't left her side since then. He supposed they were both at that age when girls adored babies and loved dolls.
Sighing, Paul pulled his smartphone out of his pocket and tried to unlock it. He messed up his passcode at least four times before finally getting it right.
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Paul looked over and saw the potatoes. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, grabbing a bag. If he made it through the holidays without murdering someone it would be a Christmas miracle.
"Ew!" Mary and Stella exclaimed, slightly recoiling from the baby.
"What? What is it?" Paul said frantically.
"She just barfed!" Stella cried, backing slowly away from Mary and the baby.
Paul unzipped his fanny pack and grabbed a pile of napkins. He wiped Beatrice's face clean and looked around for a trash can, but couldn't find one. Typical. He just threw the dirtied napkin in the cart and looked at his list again.
Heather had returned and was now holding onto James's arm tightly. They needed to keep that kid under control. Paul clicked his pen and wrote down on his list, "Leash." What else did he need? He already had everyone's gifts and Linda had wrapped them this morning, so now he only needed food and a leash for James.
"Excuse me, miss," Paul said to a passing employee. "Do you know where I can get a sort of . . . child leash?"
The employee's eyes scanned his five children with a look of mild amusement before directing him to where they were.
* * *
Stella watched with amusement as her dad and sister Heather tried to get James fitted to a leash. She wanted to start laughing outright, but decided not to because that would make her dad angry.
She made her way toward the end of the aisle and started texting Lee Starkey.
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"Stella, what are you doing?" Mary asked, nearing her.
"Nothing," Stella said, exiting out of her and Lee's texts.
Mary smirked. "Are you looking at shirtless guys again?"
"No!" Stella cried, stealing a quick glance at their dad to make sure he hadn't heard. He was too busy trying to wrangle James into the leash, so he wasn't paying any attention to them. "And hush about that!"
Mary gave her a mischievous grin and opened her mouth to say something, but never got it out because their mum came rushing into the aisle, carrying a box of shoes.
"Hey!" Mary said. "Why do you get new shoes and we don't?"
"I'll get you some," Linda promised before hurrying over to Paul and Heather. "What is going on here?"
"Our son is a mess and I needed to keep him under control," Paul said, finally managing to buckle James in. He then extended the leash and studied it. "This will do just fine. We don't need him running rampant around in George's house because it'd take us two weeks to find him!"
"That house is big," Linda agreed, taking baby Beatrice from Heather.
Stella and Mary started giggling together. "That would give us an excuse to play princesses for two weeks in Uncle George's castle!" Stella said giddily.
"No one's staying in Uncle George's "castle" for two weeks," Linda said, patting Beatrice's back and she rocked her back and forth.
"Aw," Mary whined. "But why not? Then we could play dress up with Dhani!"
"I hate to tell you, girls, but Dhani doesn't like that," Linda said.
"This isn't any fun, then!" Mary huffed.
Paul studied James for a few more moments before jabbing his index finger in the air and saying, "I'll take it!"
