That's how they make love tonight. Sort of rough and very quick, Danicka facedown on the pillows and gasping so she won't moan aloud, Lukas kissing her and biting her shoulder so he won't be heard. And moving from that bed afterward is hard on their limbs, exhausting suddenly, just to wash up and slip into some semblance of pajamas: boxer-briefs for him, a pair of sleep shorts and a t-shirt for her. They do this without even talking about it, even though usually when they're together they sleep naked or nearly-naked, entwined in their own sweat even if they've just made love. They both think of the kids who are downstairs, who may or may not wake up, who may or may not knock before entering.
Danicka is asleep moments after she settles into her pillow. Lukas wraps around her as she comes to him, holding her to his chest, and she would grin but even her face feels so tired, and they are both unconscious within seconds.
There is a rule in the Musil household that Emanek is not allowed to get out of bed until 7. He has a clock by his bed to tell him when 7 is so that if he wakes up early he can get a book, but that is all. There are no toys allowed in bed or on the nightstand.
Except: there's no clock in the family room he's sleeping in with his brother. He wakes up early and the sun is up, streaming through the blinds, but Milos is still asleep and everything is quiet and he can feel how cold it is so he stays under the warm covers and dozes off again. Then awhile later it's brighter, and his body can't stay asleep anymore, and he can hear an unfamiliar house around him. He flips and flops around, wondering what time it is and if the rule is different and it feels like he's in bed forever but in reality it's only a few minutes before he climbs out and shivers in his pajamas, checking to see if he's waking up his brother.
He finds some socks in his bag and stretches them onto his feet, then goes thump-tiptoeing out of the curtained room into the living room. He listens up the stairs but there's no voices, no nothing. He thinks long and hard about how to play this, then goes into the kitchen to see about making cereal.
It's the noise in the kitchen that wakes Irena up, and Irena starts whispering to Renata, asking if she can get up now, and Renata just grumbles at her, rolling over. Irena scowls and drags herself out of bed, wrapping a blanket around herself, and she goes in and peeks at Emanek, who is eating a big bowl of cereal at the card table and sitting on his knees and telling his sister that it's really cold. "Duhhh," she says, and with her pioneering spirit, tromps up the stairs to do the obvious: ask Lukas and Danicka if they can turn the heater up, cuz it's cold.
It's Irena's feet that are up the stairs and down the little hall and to their door, Irena who thumps her fist quietly on the door and says their names in a loud whisper.
Danicka stirs, ever-vigilant, even now, and twists to look at the door, wondering if she heard what she thinks she heard. The knocking comes again, Lukas grumbling and pulling her back and saying he's not ready for kids. She gives him a droll look and reaches down, taking his hand and moving it off of her, telling Irena it's okay. The girl pushes open the door a couple of inches and peeks in, focused on her task:
"It's cold. Can we turn the heater up?"
Danicka huffs a laugh. "Just to sixty-six. Once everyone is up and moving it won't be so cold. Who else is up?" she asks, her voice a little rough from sleep.
"Emanek and me," Irena loud-whispers again.
"Are you hungry?"
Irena nods. "Emanek has cereal."
Danicka gives her a nod. "That's good for now. We might go out to breakfast with the family, so don't eat too much. Don't let him, either. We'll be down soon."
Irena smiles, and closes the door again, thump-tiptoeing back down the hall and down the stairs and across the living room and over to the thermostat. Upstairs, Danicka rolls on her side to face her mate and scritches his hair, rubbing her fingertips to his scalp. "See, older ones are easy," she whispers. "They can feed themselves. It's when they're babies that it's really tough." She leans over, kissing his brow, and starts to climb out of bed, breathing in deeply. "Let's get going before Milos and Renata wake up and need the shower. I'm going to go make some coffee and call our folks."
LukasWhen he first met her, Danicka would wake up at five every morning with or without an alarm. Then for a while that wore off, and she'd sleep as late as he would sometimes. These days she's in school and getting up at six or seven again to beat the morning rush, and once again he's the late sleeper. There are mornings when she's out of bed before he's even awake, out of the apartment before he's even completely lucid. And some days she comes back from school to find him still crashed out in their bed.
The point is: this is officially too early for Lukas. She'd warned him the night before that the kids would be up early, but somehow early sounds different from the way it feels. She's moving around, talking to Irena. Lukas is horizontal, eyes closed. She kisses his brow and scritches his hair, and he opens one eye. She starts to get out of bed and he
tugs her back again, glomping her.
"Too early."
Of course, Danicka isn't having any of this. She swats his hands off, or simply wiggles out of his grasp. He lets her go, mumbling about five more minutes, and some time later while Danicka is brushing her teeth she hears her mate yawn loudly, stretch loudly, thump his feet loudly on the ground as he clambers out of bed.
He shambles over, hair awry, tugging his boxerbriefs up with one hand. Scratches aimlessly at his chest. Leans over and kisses her temple, then squints at his reflection in the mirror. While she's hopping in the shower he's pawing his hair into some semblance of order, putting toothpaste on his brush, getting his teeth clean. When he joins her in the shower she's almost clean, and he tries to glomp her again so he can doze against her but she says she needs to make coffee and call their parents, so
he lets her go.
Downstairs, the younger kids are both up. The teenagers are still in bed, though Milos is awake. Emanek has performed his good deed of the day and prepared cereal for his older siblings. Irena is gulping down the last of her milk. As the scent of brewing coffee begins to fill the kitchen, she wants to know if she can have some too. Lukas, buttoning his shirt as he comes down the stairs, quirks his eyebrow.
"Have you ever had coffee before? I find it hard to believe that your mother would deliberately make you more hyper than you are."
DanickaUsed to earlier mornings -- or at least somewhat so -- Danicka has the ability to rouse herself for the day just like Lukas can be instantly ready for battle even from a dead sleep. But this isn't battle. So he drags, and she's already clearing the cobwebs from her mind, brushing her teeth, showering, gently moving him aside and saying, "Baby..." in a mild but urging voice when he tries to doze off in the shower again. This will not be one of their lazy mornings. Nor will tomorrow be. Or the next day, really.
She hugs him before she gets out, though, nuzzling his chest and letting him finish the shower. "Don't take all the hot water," she tells him, laying a kiss over his heart and climbing out to dry off, to tousle some product through her hair and let it air-dry, to moisturize her face and put on her deoderant and go, rather briskly and quickly, through the paces of her morning routine. She works herself into bra and panties and jeans and a top that has some cute embellishment along the collar and chest that she'll pair with a cardigan later but for now she just hops downstairs while Lukas finishes showering and shaving.
When he gets downstairs, Milos and Renata do have bowls of cereal set out... but they're getting very soggy. Irena is sitting at the card table with her brother, drinking milk. She asks Lukas, not Danicka, if she can have coffee, and he quirks that brow at her.
Irena is careful about how she answers: "It smells good."
Danicka looks over at Lukas, eyebrows up gently, and after a moment of silent communcation that, pours a few tablespoons of black coffee into a mug and hands it to him for Irena. To her credit, when she sniffs it and then drinks it, she does not spit it out. She does make a face that is best fitted to a sticker one would put on bottles of toxic cleaning chemicals to warn children that it is Yucky and Bad and Poison, then -- interestingly enough -- finishes what she was given anyway, exhaling afterward like she's just finished a great battle.
"It's not as good as it smells," she says, which is about as polite as she gets. Danicka stirs some creamer into her own, not giving Irena this particular hint.
"Emanek, would you go tell Renata the shower is free if she wants to get up? Everyone else is on their way over here so we can go get a real breakfast and go ice-skating in the city," Danicka says.
"What about Milos?" Emanek asks.
"He can go after her if he wants," Danicka responds mildly, going to sit at the card table by Irena and sipping her coffee. Emanek hops down and thumps down the hallway to wake up his big sister, which he does -- loudly.
Lukas"It's an acquired taste," Lukas informs Irena as she gives her verdict on the coffee. "When you learn to love it, as well as beer and celery and asparagus, you'll officially be an adult."
And on that note he pours himself a mug, smiling, leaning against the kitchen counter to sip. They'll be going out to breakfast. He'll wait for that, and for Real Meat. In the meantime, he grabs an apple out of the fruit basket they keep on the counter, polishing it against his shirt.
Soon enough Renata is up, yawning, texting quickly on her phone before she drops into a chair at the table. She has cereal. It's beyond soggy at this point. It can't possibly be appetizing, but she eats it anyway, musses Emanek's hair as she gets up from the table. There's a resemblance between her and Danicka, and between Danicka and Irena. It's in her long, slender frame, her fair hair, and something about the way she smiles at her littlest brother.
Up she goes. The shower runs. They're very likely to run out of hot water by the time Milos gets his turn, but then Lukas remembers taking his fair share of ice-cold showers as a cub. The plumbing in the cub cabins weren't very reliable. He suspects Milos will prefer even the lukewarm water here to that, and anyway - he's still slurping down his cereal.
"I was thinking," Lukas says to Danicka as Milos is clearing the table, "our parents might not want to skate for very long. So if they get bored, they can go to the Field Museum. Or maybe the aquarium. And we can take the kids and meet them there later."
Car doors are shutting out front. From the brisk thumps and the loud voices, it's Anezka and Daniel.
Danicka"I hate asparagus and Lukas won't eat vegetables," Danicka says blandly, staring ahead and sipping her coffee, allowing herself a few spare moments of tuning things out a bit while her brain stops faking it and actually wakes up. Lukas, as though to spite her, eats an apple.
Irena shrugs and does nothing, asking aimless questions til Danicka shoos her to go get her clothes on and brush her teeth before her mother gets here and thinks they're running a zoo. Emanek tromps back in and gets the exact same speech before being shooed off. Renata does text as soon as she wakes up, but she does not bring the phone to the table. She eats a few bites at least, to please Emanek, since he was trying to be helpful and she doesn't want to teach him to be wasteful. As soon as he's out of the room she leaves to go shower, giving her aunt a kiss on her head and -- with an eye to actual habits -- cleans up her bowl as well as Milos's untouched one. They're going to breakfast. The kids eat twice their body weight every day, it seems, but her appetite is no more ravenous than Danicka's.
Milos, when he does come out of the bedroom, has his hair sticking up every which way, and mostly he just sits in a sleepy daze at the table while the two little ones brush their teeth and while his sister showers and while Danicka drinks her coffee and while Lukas eats his apple. He blinks slowly several times, sniffs, and looks around. Kandovany comes over to inspect him, the little orange cat who was hiding somewhere til now. She washes his fingertips with her tongue. Milos watches her, bemused.
It isn't long before the water shuts off and he stirs himself to go upstairs for his turn, and Lukas talks to Danicka about ideas for the older folks. She nods, still a little early-morning-hazed. "I think that's a good idea. Tatinek won't be skating at all, I think, but he'll like to watch for awhile. Your parents... " she can't find words for what they do. She doesn't want to say they take care of her father. She doesn't want to say simply that they are good friends. "They're being wonderful," she finishes, and knows he understands, knows he can also sense the ache down deep. It's her father. "We should get some of those ...passes. You know the ones, you spend X amount and can visit all the different museums and the aquarium and the Adler and so on? I think they last for forty-eight hours. It'd save on some of the entrance fees."
Always thinking. She glances up at the sound of doors as Emanek comes down the hall and back into the kitchen. His hair is partially combed but not quite, he's dressed in jeans and a Transformers t-shirt and the same socks he yanked on with his pajamas, and he is announcing that Lukas's sister and her boyfriend are here. Danicka smiles and sets her coffee down, grabbing the boy in both her arms and squishing enormous kisses onto his cheek. He yells and squirms and downstairs someone knocks bangbangbangbang and Irena dashes through the living room, her hair in a ponytail, her shirt long-sleeved and striped with green, her corduroys purple, her feet bare. "I'LL GET IT."
LukasHis parents are being wonderful.
And what she means, what she really wants to acknowledge, and be grateful for, is how his parents are helping Miloslav. Being his friend, and taking care of him, a little. Neither of them - no one, in fact - has said outright what is happening to Miloslav. But they all know it; even the kids. Maybe even the littlest ones, who might not have the word for it,
Alzheimer's,
but still know that Grandpa isn't quite the same as he was. He forgets things. Sometimes he gets lost in conversations. Sometimes he can't quite seem to follow what they're talking about, so he talks about something that's tangentially related instead. He's starting to mix people up a little, once in a while. A few weeks ago, he called Renata by her mother's name.
They don't talk about it now either, though. Lukas doesn't because he doesn't want Danicka to hurt. He is glad, fiercely so, that Vladik has relented enough that Danicka can be in touch with her father again. He is glad Miloslav is here,and that he is included, in touch, connected in some small way with his brood.
"City passes," is what he talks about instead. "I know what you mean. I'll go online -- "
there's a knock at the door, and Emanek is yelling he'll get it, so Lukas raises his voice a little to finish his sentence,
" -- and look it up. We can probably buy and just print them out."
Then Anezka and Daniel are piling in, and quite frankly they look sleep-depped, they look like they've been up all hours last night, and probably drinking. Anezka goes straight for the coffee, waving hi at everyone on her way. Daniel looks delighted when he finds out they're going skating.
"I skated competitively when I was younger," he says. "Up until I was seventeen and tore my ACL, actually."
"Really?" Lukas asks, interest piqued. "Speed skating?"
"No, figure, actually." Daniel is quite matter-of-fact. "Singles and pairs."
Lukas blinks. He's clearly groping for something polite to say. The truth is, Lukas enjoys watching figure skating during the Olympics. He's just never actually met any skaters; thinks of them rather the way he thinks of ballet dancers and gymnasts: slightly cuckoo, slightly froufrou, part of an entirely different subset of humanity. He's saved from commentary by another knock on the door. "I'll get it," he says, and flees the scene, and soon there's the sound of greetings and come-ins at the bottom of the half-flight of stairs.
Lukas[Irena! not Emanek!]
DanickaNo doctor, yet, has been able to treat Miloslav, or even diagnose it for what it is. He is stubborn, and his fear makes him moreso. His son is in denial. Money is an issue. Danicka worries over it. When they do talk about it, there is little Lukas can do for her pain and her stress than hold her and try to promise her it will be okay, try to come up with solutions. Sarka is the lynchpin, here. She is, even if only by a few moments, Miloslav's firstborn. She is the one he has almost lost. She reminds him powerfully of his first mate, his old life, and she has even more internal strength than her half-sister. She will get him to see a doctor, she promises. Danicka needs to be patient. He won't do what the doctors tell him to if he feels pushed. In the long run, patience now will pay off later.
Danicka worries. Danicka aches. She waffles between suggesting he move out here, live with her, and realizing she can't be there for him when she's in school and that yanking him out of his home and his community is only going to make things worse.
Irena is uncomfortable around her grandfather, sensing something wrong but unable to tell what it is or what she isn't being told, wary when he looks at her like he doesn't know which of the little blonde girls in his family she is. Emanek does not care much as long as his grandfather plays with him and is a nearby adult male, but even he can tell something's up and it frustrates him to have to repeat himself, and then he gets in trouble.
It is good, very good, that Miloslav has Marjeta and Jaroslav. They understand. They set aside their own fear of what age can bring and give the man friendship. No one mentions it. They would probably not want to be thanked.
"That's it," Danicka says, to 'City passes'. She nods, and Irena tears out to go let Anezka and Daniel in, while Emanek is swooshed out of the kitchen yet again to go finish combing his hair. ("I did!" he claims. "Do it again," his aunt simply responds.)
Anezka goes for the coffee and Danicka smiles, sly. "How was Ontourage?" she asks, as the shower upstairs clicks off. A hair dryer starts going in the downstairs bathroom. Irena asks if she can watch t.v. -- she can, until the grandparents get here with her mother. Something on PBS flares to life in the other room, the only kid-oriented thing Irena could find on their few channels.
Lukas is a little caught off guard to hear that Daniel was not a speed skater but a figure skater, and Danicka just perks. "Oh, that's awesome!" She laughs as her husband runs off to let the Real adults in. "Renata's going to love that. We were just talking --" and she fills him and Anezka in on the plan, the grandparents going off on their own while they let the kids skate for an hour or so, meeting up later to tour til everyone's ready for lunch, maybe hitting another attraction or the planetarium afterward, dinner at the pub next to the hotel they're staying at, etcetera.
But then the adults are coming up and Danicka is rinsing out her coffee mug, the hair dryer is off and Milos has come downstairs with sopping wet hair and in jeans and a plain white tee and Danicka is informing them that they'd better be ready to go out the door in five minutes or less, they have an IHOP to get to. She's as brisk as a general, turning from the announcement to hugging her father and sister and the Kvasnickas. Sarka is, of course, asking Lukas:
"Were they good? You can call me anytime if they're misbehaving. I have the other bed if it's too much --"
Lukas
"They were fine," Lukas interrupts gently, laughingly. "They were great, actually. And we love having them."
Which is true. Lukas loves having the kids in the house. He loves having family in the den, period, even though for such a long time this place was sacrosanct and inviolate, and he wanted so much to keep it apart from anything else that might tarnish or taint it. It's different now. It's different with these people, who he has learned, and feels by instinct, he can trust. They are family. They are his family-pack, and he keeps them close.
So they're coming up into the living room, but they're not really here to stay for long. His parents don't even take their coats off. His sister runs to the bathroom, then comes back, and they're ready to go. Lukas piles everyone into the van again. There's less luggage this time, which makes for more legroom. The kids sit way in the back where it's bumpy, and every time they go over one of Chicago's numerous potholes the littlest ones yell in delight
and Anezka goes what the hell!
and Lukas explains that in some parts of the country there's actually weather, and this leads to freezing, and freezing leads to expansion and...
They get to IHOP eventually. They get out and troop in, and it's quite unmistakable that they are a family. It's also quite possible the waitress assumes the kids belong to Danicka and Lukas, or Anezka and Daniel, or both; quite possible that no one actually assumes the kids are Sarka's until they notice the two older ones are far, far too old to have been borne by the younger couples.
There are so many of them they don't fit in a single booth or table. They push a couple tables together and sit all around it, and menus are passed out. Lukas slings his forearm over the back of Danicka's chair as he studies his menu. He can't decide between the breakfast sampler or one of the crepes, and after a while he starts looking over at what Danicka's doing.
"Wanna get the Swedish crepes?" he asks her. "And then I can get the breakfast sampler, and we can share."
-- which really means: I want the crepes and the breakfast sampler. And I want to share with you.
DanickaThey were fine, and great, and very much loved. Sarka looks wary though; they were also worn out. She loves her children, adores them, knows they're good, but Lukas is so... not... a parent yet. As much experience as Danicka has with children, neither is she, and Sarka is waiting to see how they handle the kids' dark sides. This is in part because she is genuinely curious as to how it will play off of the two. Lukas might not know it, but Danicka has in fact spoken to Sarka and mentioned that she wants Lukas to be around kids more before he actually has some. Just so he knows a little of what to expect...and to see how the kids fare.
Danicka mobilizes the kids, Anezka shoos them out of the bathroom to use it, and coats are wriggled into and shoes put on and hats stuffed on top of children's heads and Danicka slings her purse over her shoulder and decides to let Kando stay out for the day, since she has everything she needs and is safe here, and
off they go, reversing the van out of the driveway to go to get some pancakes.
They are the biggest group in the IHOP today, but not the only large group of family. A few days before Christmas, people in this area are clumped together. Danicka is, while Lukas is trying to figure out what to decide between, looking at the part of the menu with little healthy options, while Emanek tries to convince his mother that the cinna-stack pancakes are not just giant chocolate chip cookies with frosting. She isn't buying it. Nor is Danicka buying Lukas's attempt to be clever. She smiles at him and nods, closing her menu. "All right, baby," she says, and if he were in another form his tail might wag, his ears perked with pleasure. It worked!
Sarka does not negotiate much on breakfast. She vetoes the heaviest, sugariest items and things made primarily of chocolate and says that they both had cereal, so they can eat something decent or wait til lunch. Renata eats what Danicka was thinking of -- something lighter, fruit on the side instead of hash browns -- and Milos ends up ordering what will amount to a plateful of meat with some eggs and toast. Miloslav is frustrated a little -- he knows there is something he always gets at diners and he can't find it, because 'they changed the menu', but he grumbles a little and Irena offers to share her breakfast with him if he wants, which makes him laugh and pat her face.
While waiting, they pitch the ideas over the breakfast table about the day's plans and the City passes. Milos is very much the teenager this morning, and 'sure, whatever' seems about the extent of his interest, at least as far as it's expressed. Renata actually is gleeful to find out that Daniel was a figure skater and asks if he'll teach her anything. Emanek and Irena are arguing about who is going to go faster, and Danicka claims that she and Anezka will race them and totally win.
"We'll have to get you guys out here in summer sometime," Danicka says, mostly to the kids. "Then we can go to the Lincoln Park Zoo and water taxi and all that."
Lukas"We could still go to the zoo," Lukas says. "It's a bit cold but that just means there'll be less people crowding around." And when Anezka wavers, "Oh come on, you don't mind skidding around on ice crashing into people, but you don't want to go see the animals? Besides, it's warm in the lion house."
- which makes Irena perk right now, demanding to know what a lion house was, did it have furniture, what sort of furniture could a lion need, anyway? They were almost as cool as wolves.
"They don't have furniture," Lukas explains, all patient, "and the lion house is just this big building where the lions and other big cats can come inside when it gets too cold. And there's a big hall in the middle where we can walk in and see them up close. It's pretty cool."
Which of course prompts Emanek to ask, furrow-browed and concerned, if the wolves have a house too. And Lukas pauses for a moment, then shakes his head.
"You know, I don't know. I've never visited the wolves there." A brief pause as he plays with his silverware; then he smiles. "But there's a primate house. And the gorillas sometimes come over and say hi."
The waitress shows up then. And they go around the table and order, with Danicka putting in the order for the breakfast sampler and the crepes, with Lukas piping up and asking for extra whipped cream on the crepes. Please.
"Oh my god," Anezka bursts out, "if you want the crepes, just get the crepes and let Danicka pick something else out for herself."
"But I want the breakfast sampler too!" Lukas protests,
and then Jaroslav clears his throat and places his order, and around and around it goes. Later, waiting for their food, Lukas randomly bumps his chair a little closer to Danicka's, his arm coming off the back of her seat and simply wrapping around her shoulders instead. "Anyway," he says, resuming the previous thread of conversation, "Let's go skating first. And then we can look at museums or zoos or whatever."
Danicka"It's freezing," Danicka counters, and then he mentions the lion house and Irena starts asking about furniture and beds and Lukas answers so seriously, so patiently, while Danicka and Irena are trying very hard not to burst out laughing and, it seems, there's a joke there that Lukas doesn't get until he realizes that the ten year old is, well
totally screwing with him. "I know!" she cackles, incredibly pleased with herself at getting him so good, snickering behind her hands and bouncing a little in her chair. Emanek is curious about the wolves. He lives in a house and he is just gullible enough that if Lukas had answered that yes, the lion house even had a fireplace and a hearth rug, he would have been wary but wouldn't have taken much convincing. Better the joke be on Lukas than on him.
"On the side, please," Danicka says, after Lukas orders extra whipped cream. She shakes her head at him, baffled, about to tell him he can be so gross, and Anezka just can't hold it anymore. "Oh, I don't mind," Danicka laughs. "As long as he doesn't sit here trying to force-feed me three pounds of meat like usual, I'm going to be grateful."
Lukas keeps getting closer and closer to Danicka, like a wolf who has it in his head that his mate is both fertile and pregnant and if he stays VERY VERY CLOSE everything will be okay and if he has her eat LOTS AND LOTS OF FOOD everything will be even better. She doesn't mind leaning against him, letting him hold her, and asks Anezka how work is going, and so the conversation goes, little mini-chats going on here and there. Miloslav taps Lukas for his attention and comments on the changes to the house, mentions that he noticed the oak in the back yard and asks if they planted it because of the one in his yard -- the affirmative pleases him, and he begins telling some story about Lukas and Anezka as children.
It involves a little girl being provoked to climbing a tree, and the way Miloslav tells it, this story is hilarious. "You ran into the doorframe when you came in, yelling at the top of your lungs like the world was ending, do you remember that? You bounced off of it. It only seemed to make you more urgent. You may not remember; you didn't even act like you'd noticed. Nevermind the lump on your head."
LukasThat, of course, makes everyone at the table burst into laughter. "Well," Lukas answers wry-seriously, "it was a very big emergency. My friend had just fallen out of a tree."
"And it was your fault," Jaroslav comments, pouring a little cream into the coffee a waitress sets down for him.
"It was indeed my fault," Lukas confirms, "for calling her a wimp and daring her to climb. It wasn't my fault that I was right, though."
"You're such an ass. You deserved to get spanked," Anezka adds. "You were always getting spanked as a kid, and you always deserved it."
"I don't even remember most of it," Lukas says, laughing. "I don't even remember running into the door. For that matter, I barely remembered it was Danicka that fell out of the tree."
"Well, remember that time..."
and then there's some story about pouring Worchestershire sauce into coffee, and some other story about skidding down the stairs because he heard the ice cream truck and KERSMACK, tripped and fell on his face and they had to go to the ER because he had a gash on his forehead, and later on when it was stitched shut he went to school and told everyone he was a cyclops, he'd grown a third eye and they had to stitch it shut and Mikey R. believed it.
Food arrives. Lukas looks at the things he ordered with great and obvious glee. Danicka may have spoken too soon; the breakfast sampler, ostensibly Lukas's plate, is full of meat. He pushes it toward her, clearly wanting her to partake. Meanwhile, he shamelessly cuts half of the crepe and drags it over onto his plate.
"Mmm, IHOP," he says, and digs in.
DanickaDanicka is rolling her eyes at the 'emergency'. "It was not his fault," Danicka interjects during all this. "He did not call me a wimp, he just implied that I couldn't. And I was perfectly willing to ignore him until Anezka --" and here she pins her sister-in-law with a level stare, "started telling him not to tease me, be nice. I felt patronized," she says archly, "and did it to prove her wrong."
She gently pats Lukas's leg. "I could not have cared less what you thought then, sweetie," which is a silly lie.
Anezka breezes that he's an ass and he deserved to get spanked. Emanek actually looks at her with a bright blink and she realizes she just said ass in front of a bunch of kids. Danicka just frowns for a moment, uncomfortable with the whole you-deserved-it thing, even if Anezka's malice is only in sibling jest. She likes his sister now, more than she did when overwhelmed by a giddy, tipsy Anezka at the door last year, but sometimes she still finds her abrasive. She's self-aware enough to realize that some of her defensiveness is simply because it's Lukas, and so it's not funny to her, but that doesn't make her any more staunch in her disagreement that Lukas deserved to get spanked that day. She might even say so... if Jaroslav weren't sitting right there.
Stories start coming out then, of the Perils of Lukas as a child and the various scrapes, cuts, bruises, near-breaks, pratfalls, and so on he encountered. He begins shooting back with his own remembrances of Anezka getting caught in a fib, Anezka being snooty and that's why Danicka wouldn't share her crayons and Marjeta being appalled, back and forth between the two Kvasnicka siblings and so on until Sarka, who merely chuckles quietly, breaks in with a level:
"Now now, children..."
Which has the adults, at least, cracking up. Emanek claims he is going to starve about three seconds before the food gets there, and begins scarfing as soon as it does. Danicka shakes her head at the amount of food Lukas ordered for them and moves some of it to the clean plate brought with their shared meal. Lukas looks crestfallen for a moment that she isn't sharing his plate, and she doesn't laugh and draw attention to it, but she does steal a few bites from his plate throughout the meal.
When the check comes, there's a bit of a tug of war between some of the adults: the ones who want to insist on taking the whole thing and the ones who insist on that being not-okay. Sarka is vocally against someone else at the table picking up the check for the five mouths she brought to the table, and Danicka says that if she doesn't want someone else to pay then they can just split it, and someone else brings up the but-we're-all-family card, and it's Anezka who says they should just take turns, for crying out loud, since they're mostly going to be eating all together when they go out anyway, geez.
This settles it. And Lukas gleefully tries to take his turn first --
only to be preempted by Daniel, who says that since it was Anezka's idea, they're paying first.
LukasWell, fine then. Daniel and Anezka get to pay first at breakfast, Lukas declares, but he and Danicka will cover skate rentals for everyone. And that makes Sarka protest again, at least until Lukas assures her it's not that bad, really, it's $10 for a pair of skates for as long as you want to wear them.
So they head down to Millennium Park. And it's a bit of a drive into the city, but it goes by quick when the van's full of people. They take the 55 in, which winds along the industrial south fork of the Chicago river, flanked on either side by impressively tall light posts, which Anezka comments are the coolest freeway lights she's ever seen. When the skyscrapers of Chicago first come into sight, there's sort of this collective thrill of excitement. Everyone in this car actually comes from a city bigger than Chicago - the only two American cities bigger than Chicago - but the truth is Chicago is taller than either, more photogenic than either: a cascade of towers right at the edge of the lake.
They park under Millennium Park. The garages are expensive, but it's worth it, Danicka assures them, it really is. They come up and the air is crisp and chill, the sky dazzlingly clear, the lake blue as an ocean and only beginning to freeze at the edges. They walk by the Jellybean and take pictures. They walk over DuPont bridge and take pictures. They get to the skating rink, and they rent their skates, and it turns out Daniel really can skate, he really is pretty good, and he's patient and nice and holds the hands of the less experienced ones, skating backwards until they get their footing.
Pretty soon the kids are whizzing around. Daniel and Renata are at the center of the rink, where he's showing her a few basics and she's discovering it's a lot harder to soar gracefully on one foot than it looks, that it takes balance and dexterity and a surprising amount of strength; that skating really is a sport. Anezka is towing the two younger kids behind her, a miniature choochoo train whizzing around the edges. Milos:
well, Milos is by himself, except there's a girl who looks about fourteen or fifteen that's by herself, too, her pretty red hair streaming out from under her wool cap. And they keep just happening to end up skating side by side as they go around the turns. And then there's Sarka, who's helping Marjeta go around in very slow circles, and Jaroslav who stands resolutely off the ice and hangs out with Miloslav,
and Danicka and Lukas, who mostly cruise around the edges, except when they get in a race with Anezka and the kids, which ends with most of them careening into the walls.
They have lunch right there in the Park, in the restaurants and shops under the Bean. And after lunch they go get those city passes Lukas and Danicka had discussed that morning. It's decided they'll go to the zoo another day. Everyone has cell phones and all but the youngest are old enough to take care of themselves, so they group splits up and heads to different museums, keeping in touch by text and voice, occasionally running into each other in the wings of the Shedd, the Adler, the Field. By dinnertime everyone's a little worn out, so they bid the city goodnight and head back out to the burbs, have dinner at that charmingly mountain-cottage-y Polish place where once upon a time Lukas and Danicka got really really smashed and pawed each other unembarrassedly over pierogis and hunter stew.
After dinner they hang out a little while at the den before everyone goes their separate ways. They lay vague plans for tomorrow, and then the parents and the siblings go back to Oak Park, the kids bed down, and then Lukas and Danicka are lying in their own bed, all the lights off except one, and as she moves close and lays her head on his chest he wraps his arm around her
and they talk a little while, happy and quiet, before she reaches over and turns the light off.
Danicka
The rest of the day is spent in what will, later on, be remembered as relative relaxation by comparison with the rest of the week. They finish breakfast and drive through Chicago, filling the New Yorkers and Los Angelesians with oohs and ahhs. The kids are peering out the window, not a one of them concerned with looking touristy, and as they park, the adults start to vocalize less about the cost of everything, simply because: yeah, it's all going to be expensive. It's going to be a very expensive family trip. And it's going to be worth it. The less they grouse about money, the better it will be for everyone.
Emanek and Irena have no patience with being taught anything, and as a matter of fact, the kids all know at least some rudimentary skating. A rink, however, is new to them: they used to skate on lakes. There is stumbling and sweeping to the ground and the park is full of people who can skate and people who can't, couples and familie and teenagers on vacation. Daniel takes Renata out, and Anezka takes the two little ones to crack the whip and create a train. Milos flirts with a girl named Gretchen, skates slowly along with her and helps her up when she falls.
Danicka, as it turns out, sucks at skating. She flails a bit but refuses to let Lukas help her, batting at his hands when he keeps trying ...and trying... until she even has a slight edge to her voice saying stop,, baby, I want to do it. It wounds a little, but he stays close, and later on when she has her footing she holds his hand, and they skate together, and her nose turns red, so he kisses it. They end up getting sandwiches nearby and cups of soup for lunch, and there is much discussion over what to do first before they decide to split up here and there. Who has which kids is affirmed and confirmed repeatedly. Danicka goes to the Shedd with her father, which bores Anezka and Emanek quickly, so they end up meeting up with Renata and Sarka and Marjeta and Irena and Daniel at the Field Museum. Jaroslav and Lukas talk at the Adler with Milos trailing along quietly with them.
When gently teased -- or asked -- about the redhaired girl at the park, Milos just colors briefly and says no, he didn't get her number. It wouldn't be fair, he says, more accepting, more easily, than most teenage boys his age would have with thoughts like that.
The groups end up switching around a lot, and spend time outside simply... looking at the city, pointing out buildings to each other. Miloslav is the first one to get visibly tired, and when Lukas and some of the others meet up with Danicka and her father, they're just sitting on a bench inside the lobby of the Field Museum, chatting while the various family groups reconvene to go back to Millenium Park, go underground again, and pile into the van to drive out to the A-frame Polish restaurant. Danicka keeps glancing at Lukas over the table, smiling. On the way home there are discussions about what to do tomorrow, the day before Christmas Eve. Danicka informs them that the girls are going shopping and the boys can do whatever they want.
Irena makes a grumpy face but it's not til later, when the grandparents and Sarka and Dan and Anezka have gone to their hotel and Renata has curled up in a blanket with tea and her cellphone and Milos has been introduced to World of Warcraft and Emanek and Irena are playing Lava Monsters with Lukas around the living room -- the carpet is lava, see, and the furniture are safe spots, and he's a lava monster, and if he grabs them into the lava then they turn into lava monsters but if they can tickle Renata they get to be human again but only if they get back onto furniture within ten seconds (it's all very complicated) --
that Irena ends up galumphing into her aunt's lap and twisting around before she asks: "Do I have to go shopping tomorrow?" in a vaguely miserable voice, like she thinks there is no hope, all is despair, Danicka is surely going to say yes.
Danicka just strokes her hair back, holding her along her body as though Irena is much smaller and much younger, the sort of embrace that never happens outside of family, that rarely happens after a certain age. She shakes her head. "Nah. Not if you won't have any fun."
"So I can stay with the boys?"
"Of course. Though for all I know they're going to spend all day scratching themselves and talking in grunts --"
Irena looks over at Lukas and raises both eyebrows so high on her forehead it makes her look like a cartoon. She looks back at Danicka, then back at Lukas, who has flipped Emanek upside down and is drumming on his stomach with his palm, beatboxing at the same time, and looks back at Danicka. "Not really, right?"
It's Renata, actually, who cracks up first at that. Danicka ends up grinning: "No. You guys have to go get a tree for us to decorate tomorrow. That's your job tomorrow."
Lying in bed later, Danicka reminds Lukas to get a stand, and that the lights they bought earlier are on the third shelf in the basement to the right of the laundry and that the rest of the decorations are in the closet inside Renata and Irena's room, and eventually he just starts holding her closer, shushing her, laughing softly at her brain, which never, ever seems to stop going a million miles a minute.
The next day is a little slower. Emanek, more settled, sleeps a little bit longer. He does end up waking up Milos, though, because he doesn't want cereal again and he doesn't know if it's okay if he makes toast here, can Milos help? So the two boys are up first, quietly making toast and scrambled eggs and bacon in the kitchen until Lukas wakes to the scent and discovers that his mate is still asleep. He leaves bed as silently as he can and goes down to help with breakfast. Then it's Irena, shuffling down the hall and asking if they have applesauce, which they do not, which is a shame because she likes it on her toast, so Lukas says they can go get some today. The four of them end up in front of the television watching cartoons before Renata and Danicka wake up. After that, family comes slowly toward the house, first Sarka and Miloslav, then a little while later, Jaroslav and Marjeta and Daniel and Anezka.
This morning goes much slower. The people who 'live' in the den right now shower and get ready while people sip coffee or tea and talk. The cartoons turn into morning talk shows that end up ignored. Emanek and Irena curl up with their mom on the couch for awhile, and Miloslav tells Daniel that Sarka's grandfather, her mother's father, was named Daniel. He tells him that Danicka is named for that man, that she is really Daniela, but it's good that she doesn't go by that. "That would be confusing," he says, shaking his head. "Especially because you are both blond."
It takes people a beat to realize he is making a joke. That he can still make jokes. That his wit may not be as keen, but it's still there.
Eventually, 'the girls', minus one, are ready to go into Chicago to do some serious shopping along the Mile. Miloslav and Jaroslav are relieved to be exempt from this particular outing, as much as Irena is. Renata is thrilled, and they decide to take the two cars to a park-and-ride station and use the trains. There are many kisses on cheeks and foreheads as they're leaving, and admonishments to be good, and then they're off, heading into the city, leaving the two grandfathers and the two young men to deal with the teenager and the two little ones, leaving them to go pick out and set up a Christmas tree, leaving them to decorate the house so that tonight the family can trim the tree together.
They come back several hours later, well after dark -- though it gets dark so early now -- and laden with shopping bags. Some, no one is allowed to look in. Renata can't stop talking for perhaps the first time in the whole trip, even discussing their lunch in detail, which was at this place called Spring, and it was so this, so that. Irena actually is quite curious about the things they bought, even if most of them are gifts. She and Emanek both are all but circling the toy store bags.
This isn't the first gift-shopping trip anyone has taken, but Danicka tells Lukas later that she couldn't help it. She just kept seeing things they needed to get. He ends up with his arms around her, kissing her cheek, rubbing his face on hers, smiling. She murmurs, standing with him in there, that the solstice was on the day the family all arrived. Did he know that? It's the first solstice they haven't spent out in the world, out with the Garou, or at a bonfire. And yet, it still feels sacred. She holds him around her, and for a moment -- just a moment, while Renata teases Irena that she got her girl clothes in the city -- they're alone in the kitchen, listening to their noisy, warm family.
"We're gonna need a second couch if we keep doing this," Danicka muses, and they laugh, and go back to preparing dinner -- at home this time, all together. Later on, most of the 'decorating' of the tree is done by the kids, who lace hooks through the loops in ornaments and find places for them on the tree, which Lukas strung lights on during the afternoon. The adults watch as the night gets darker and later, turning off all the lights but the ones on the tree, everyone just... watches it for awhile. Watches it twinkle.
"Needs presents," Emanek says after a long quiet, and everyone laughs.
Danicka[she not say 'tomorrow' twice in that once sentence! that not make sense.]
LukasLukas, of course, thinks Lava Monsters is the best game ever. It's very complicated, and the rules seem to keep changing, and pretty soon the furniture is safe and the carpet is lava but if they jump up and down very fast and chant lava lava lava don't burn! then they get to run across the lava for five seconds before they turn into lava monsters, and this makes it so much easier to tickle Renata, even if she's not supposed to be tickled unless you're already a lava monster, and
the game ends because they almost knock the lamp over, and Lukas gets up off of all fours where he's been pouncing around being a lava monster, and this is when Irena galumphs into her aunt's lap and asks if she has to go shopping tomorrow.
And it turns out, she doesn't. Which Lukas thinks is awesome, because privately he thinks shopping is pretty dumb, even though Lukas, himself, has been known to be a little bit metro sometimes. Just look at his wardrobe, with its nice shirts and designer jeans and well-cut coats. Just look at the pink shirts he'll wear sometimes.
Still: shopping is dumb, and it's awesome that his future pupil and awesome niece does not want to go. Danicka comments on scratching and grunts, and Lukas stops drumming on Emanek for a second to scratch under his arm and grunt, then leans over and blows a raspberry on Emanek's stomach before flipping him right side up and sending him running again.
"We'll get the best tree ever," he promises the kids. And Danicka.
Later that night, she talks about decorations and lights and laundry and basement and ... Lukas laughs softly, and holds her closer, and whispers to her,
shh. I know. We sleep. Shhh, mate.
The next day starts slower, which is nice. They meander together, and they fill the little house, and before they all set out there's a bit of time when they're all just... there, in each other's company, and someone's always doing something, but a lot of people are just chilling in front of the TV too - ignoring the TV, conversing with each other. When the 'girls' finally get ready to go, the 'boys' (plus one) decide maybe they should too, and Lukas,
in fact,
puts on this rather nice shirt, metallic gray, that he's obviously ironed before hanging up in the closet. And he wears this over charcoal-grey jeans, and puts on a dark wool coat over this. As Danicka is herding her group out the door, he trails her there, kisses her goodbye, promises again to get an awesome tree.
The boys get back first. It doesn't take that long to get a tree, even if they have to walk all around. Well; Lukas and Daniel and the kids walk all around, look at all the trees, but Jaroslav and Miloslav stop off for some free hot chocolate at the tree farm's little cashier's-cabin. About thirty, forty minutes later, the younger contingent returns, excited, bringing the parents out to vet the tree they've found. And it's pronounced a Very Good Tree, and so they buy it, and then Lukas is very proud of himself for getting a van again because now they can lash the tree on top easily and drive it back to Stickney.
They get a stand too. And a tree skirt. And Lukas and Daniel carry the tree in together, with Milos helping and Emanek and Irena mostly bouncing around in delight. They set it up and to be honest the tree very nearly scrapes the ceiling, but Jaroslav eyes it and says they can just cut a bit of the tip off to fit a star up there. Then there's the business of getting the lights out and untangling them; getting the boxes of ornaments out,
including the ones Danicka got Lukas for his birthday-christmas, what seems like a long time ago,
and when the girls get back with Renata chattering ceaselessly about how so it was the boys are just getting around to unboxing the ornaments. The kids decorate the tree, but Daniel has to help them get the star on the very top, and later Marjeta quietly goes to redistribute some of the ornaments from the lower branches to the upper. Dinner is a simple affair tonight, just pot roast and potatoes and some sort of soup.
When it's ready, and before they go eat, they turn on the tree. And all the lights are off except for the glistening little lights on the tree, and everyone's quiet for a moment, watching it, watching the refracted multicolored lights on the walls and one another's faces.
Needs presents, Emanek says. And he's right, even though everyone laughs. So Lukas gives him a hug, and shoos him to the table, and says after dinner.
Which is what they do. They go to dinner, and then they put presents up. It turns out half or more of the bags Danicka brought home were, in fact, presents. Lukas's parents contribute a few small items, tucking them neatly under the boughs. Lukas adds a few presents too, and then
then,
Anezka pops open those three big suitcases she left here, and it turns out they are completely full of wrapped presents, which she quite gleefully places under the tree until they don't fit anymore. By the time Sarka and Miloslav and the kids add to the pile, there's a rather huge pile of loot under that tree and all around it, sprawling across a good six feet or so of living room space.
DanickaThe 'girls' are gone so long with transit and shopping that when they get back and discover that the tree and lights are only just up, Danicka is laughing at them, asking if they looked at every tree in the county. "Close!" Lukas says brightly, and then there's unpacking and dinner-making and talking to do, there's pot roast and decorating, covering the tree in ornate balls and at least two moon signs.
Irena touches the full moon and knows, even before she turns it and sees the rough-scratched engraving of her uncle's name: "It's you!" she says to Lukas. Which it is. Which makes Danicka grin at her, kiss the top of her head, squeeze her suddenly.
They eat together like the other night, the adults and teenagers at one table, the kids at another. This time the only liquor are some beers around the table, and not many of those. Danicka goes upstairs to get the presents she bought before anyone came down, and gets Milos to help her carry them, and Anezka finally unpacks those suitcases that have been sitting against the stairwell the last two nights, and the pile just grows, even though they know that there are more in hotel rooms in Oak Park, more in the bags that need to be wrapped and addressed. Emanek and Irena are itching, gleeful, and in fact the kids and adults are a bit excited as well, but no shaking is allowed, no holding things up to the light, nothing.
There is some discussion about when to open gifts. Lukas's family went hardcore American when they came to the States, but Danicka's family went by Czech tradition: Christmas Eve was really the day for gifts and family time, and Christmas Day the day to visit friends. Sarka says that they've been doing that since they came, and in the end, Daniel suggests the compromise: on Christmas Eve they can go visit Lukas's pack, because Kate is about to have an aneurysm if she doesn't get a chance to play hostess to her Alpha's clan, and because Sinclair is coming all the way from Kansas for a few hours. On Christmas Eve the Musil kids can make their presents for everyone, the new gifts can all be wrapped and placed under the tree, the kids can play in the snow and watch Christmas specials, and then before bed everyone can open one gift.
Anezka smiles at him for that. That's his family's tradition.
Then Christmas morning, the haul of loot, the whole deal. "It'll just be like Czech Christmas," Danicka tells Emanek, who is frowning in bewilderment. "Only switched, sort of, so we do Christmas Day stuff the day before. It's fun like this. I promise." She kisses his cheek.
He's wary. "Who brings the stuff in stockings, though?" he wants to know. "Is it Baby Jesus or Santa or spirits."
"Spirits," Milos says immediately, quick as a shot. "Some very tiny, very good spirits come into the house and fill up all the grown-up's hearts."
"They're possessed?" Emanek says, his eyes wide.
Milos is fighting a grin. "Yeah. But they're good spirits. They're spirits of things like love and family and giving. It's fine, Eman. You will get candy in your stocking no matter what."
This soothes the boy. Irena just scoffs. "There's no Santa or Baby Jesus anyway," she says, very firm and very arch, very know-it-all. "That's just dumb human stuff."
Spirits, however, she can get behind. And who are any of them to say it might not, in fact, be true?
There is yawning after that, and not long after that. The kids, really. They get washed up and tucked in -- by Sarka, no less, because the adults are still talking in the living room -- around nine. Marjeta and Jaroslav leave a little while after that, driving Miloslav back to the hotel. Sarka, Lukas's sister, and Daniel all stay awhile with Lukas and Danicka and the teenagers, just... talking. They talk about the little wedding that wasn't, and somehow, somehow, Lukas ends up talking about things he rarely shares aside from speaking to Danicka, issues of war, the trip back in time, though he doesn't go deeply into that. They learn more about Daniel, about his family, about, even, his lineage. Sarka speaks of her sister Sabina, about memories of growing up.
Danicka and Sarka talk, a little, about Miloslav and what is happening to him. They do so carefully, because Renata and Milos are still there, but they are like so many kinfolk, particularly kin of Thunder, and they are older than their years suggest. Milos tells them about Stark Falls, and Lukas is keenly interested in both what has changed and what has not. After awhile, they say goodnight to the pair from Los Angeles and Sarka, but even then, Danicka and Lukas and Renata and Milos stay up awhile, talking about more mundane things, simpler things, the axis of being in the Nation and living in the world, being teenagers. At one point it comes out:
"We worry about you all the time," says the sister, in the middle of something else.
Milos blinks. "You do?"
Renata just stares at him. "Of course. You idiot."
And Lukas laughs behind his hand, and Danicka is suddenly struck by everything he told her about the way his family treated him after he Changed, the way it was for him when he'd come back from Stark Falls. When the two teens end up going to bed, and the husband and wife go upstairs, she wraps her arms around him and lifts herself up onto him, her legs around him as well. If she were more urgent or more breathy it would be lustful but right now she just holds him like this, and he holds her against his body, until
they do, in fact
begin to kiss, slow and warm. They undress slowly tonight, bare their skins to each other entirely, and get under the covers before they make love, as silent as possible, moving slowly and firmly until completion, until they can breathe again. This time they don't bother going to wash up. They hide under the blankets, wrapped around each other, and fall into a deep, drained sleep, facing each other, entwined in each other.
