Left-Handed Engineers From MARZ
Christmas - Brit's spider

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After the churchgoers had left, Marsh made himself useful washing dishes. He supposed it wasn't the best way to salvage his reputation, but everyone who cared would be gone for the next hour or two. And Portia really needed the help. He didn't know how she could remain so upbeat while surrounded by such chaos and mess, especially if she was as much of aneatnik as she claimed.

Zephyr had cajoled Reginald downstairs in an attempt to give him supper. They sat together at the semi-cleared kitchen table, Zephyr with Portia's youngest child on his lap. Portia ladled out a bowl of stew for Reg, but he didn't seem too inclined to eat it.

"I hope it's okay," Portia fretted as she dropped another pot in the sink for Marsh to scrub. "I sort of just threw it together in a hurry after making all that shit for tomorrow."

Zephyr glanced at her. "I'm sure it's great. Taste isn't usually a factor in determining his appetite. The big factor is stress. I need to get him to eat before the gang returns." Zephyr turned back to Reg. "Come on, man, have some. I don't know when you'll have another chance."

Tammy ran shrieking into the kitchen, causing Marsh to jump. "MAAAAAAAH! Brit's scaring me with the spider!" Brit, entering right behind her, held the spider Reg had just completed in one hand and waved it threateningly at her little sister.

"She's cute!" Brit protested. "It ain't my fault Tammy's scared of it."

"Brittany, stop tormenting your sister."

"I wasn't!" But Brit withdrew the toy.

Tammy pouted. "I wasn't ascared of it anyways. How come Brit gets a spider and I don't get nothin'?"

"Because I helped Reg make it," Brit informed her.

"I want Reg to make me sumpthing too!" Tammy wailed.

"Reg is eating," Zephyr said.

Portia peered at her second child over the stack of mixing bowls and serving spoons in her arms. "Reg will make another toy later, I'm sure, and in the meantime Brit will let you take a turn with the spider in ten minutes." She ignored Brit's protesting howl. "But why are you two silly gooses fighting over one toy on Christmas Eve? Tomorrow morning you're going to wake up and find all sorts of toys. Piles and piles of toys! More toys than both of you could play with in a week! More toys than your Uncle Zephyr and I ever had in our entire lives!"

"Really?" Tammy asked, wide-eyed. Portia's third child, the three-year-old boy, scampered in and squealed as Brit waved the spider at him. Marsh decided he'd come to a good stopping point. He wiped his hands and sat at the table across from Reg.

"Yeah, really," Portia said. "You kids are living like princesses, getting buried in toys every year. I don't think we ever had more than 20 toys between us." She glanced at Zephyr for confirmation.

Zephyr shrugged. "I don't remember. All I remember having is a bunch of dinosaurs and one toy truck, and you had some Barbie dolls."

"I got Barbie dolls," Tammy said.

"Oh, and the Trouble board game, with the pop-dice thing!" Zephyr grinned as he let the baby tug at his ponytail.

"Pop-O-Matic!" Portia laughed. "I remember that. We lost most of the pieces, so you made more out of plastic caps."

Zephyr grinned and nodded. "And I stole markers from school to color them. I was always doing stuff like that. Hey, if you count all the toys I made for us, we might have had 40 or 50."

"Maybe. You know what you probably needed was an Erector set or something."

"Yeah!" Zephyr agreed. "I always wanted an Erector set! I would have killed for one!"

"Erector set," Reg said as he poked at his stew.

"See?" Zephyr exclaimed, "Even Reg had an Erector set! Not me, though. I had to make do with broken screwdrivers and things I found in the swamp behind the house."

Portia scooped child number three into her arms and balanced him on her hip. "Geez," she said, "I never knew you wanted one that bad. How come you never asked for one?" With her free hand, she poured some baby cereal into a bowl and stirred in hot water from the tea kettle.

Zephyr adjusted child number four on his lap. "Are you kidding? I never asked for anything. Mom used to slap me around if I even asked for a glass of water."

"You're exaggerating, Zeph."

"No I'm not. You used to hit her back, but I never did."

The bare beginning of an uncomfortable silence was broken abruptly when Brit spoke up. "Mom, is Grandma drunk?"

Portia looked sharply at her oldest. "You mean today?" she asked.

"Yeah. When she was going, she kissed me and her breath smelt all yicky."

Portia slid the toddler she was holding down to the floor and let him dash off into the living room. "Go watch your brother," she instructed Tammy. She placed the bowl of cereal and a tiny spoon on the table in front of Zephyr and turned back to Brit, who was fingering the spider nervously. "What sort of yicky?" Portia asked the little girl.

Brit met her mother's round brown eyes with similar wide eyes. "I dunno. Sweet yicky."

Portia opened the fridge and peered deep into the bottom shelf. "All the beer is accounted for," she announced. "I only bought one six-pack, and that's all I have in the house." Shutting the door, she faced Marsh and Zephyr with sparks in her eyes. "I dunno what she drank, but it wasn't anything she got here."

Brit appeared only a little bit fazed. "Is grandma drunk?" she asked again.

"No, sweetie. She might have been a little tipsy, but she was probably more drunk offa guilt."

Zephyr, who had been fumbling with the little spoon, put it down and looked down at the baby. "Well," he said.

Marsh had the urge to get up and give Portia a hug. Zephyr looked as if he needed one more urgently, but... in any case, he didn't move.

"Go change the CD for me, will you? Love ya, Beautiful." Portia kissed Brit on the forehead and sent her into the living room. The volume of children's voices from there increased sharply. Marsh guessed she'd been waylaid by her siblings.

Portia stood in the middle of the room, a miniature matriarch with her bushy black hair tied up and her round almond eyes squeezed into a stern expression. Suddenly she burst into a grin. "Did you see that? She is such a DeCastle. I swear, there's hardly a drop of Mueller blood in her. My sweet baby Brittany. Oh, speaking of babies, Bryce needs to be fed. Hand him over, Zeph."

Marsh abandoned his chair, and she smiled warmly at him as she took it. He leaned against the windowsill instead.

"I was going to... oh well." Zephyr, looking rather discouraged, passed the baby to his sister and then slid the bowl and spoon across the table. They exchanged a look that Marsh couldn't decipher. He figured it was none of his business.

"MAAAAAAH!!!" For the second time in half an hour the high-pitched wail came accompanied by a very distraught Tammy. "Mah! Danny broke the leg offa Reg's spider an' I only had him for ONE MINUTE!" She threw herself against Portia's left arm (the one with Bryce balanced against it, but not the one holding the spoon).

"Ten minutes," Brit corrected from the doorway.

"One!" Tammy insisted. "Maaah..."

"For Christ's sake," Portia grumbled. "Put the pieces in the guest room and Reg will fix it later. Now you may play with your old toys until Santa comes, and quit 'Mah'ing me!"

"There's no such thing as Santa," Brit said.

Tammy shot her a dirty look. "Shhh! Don't say that in fronna the kids!" Marsh blinked at them and smirked to himself. Portia's children were nothing like his own... his oldest wouldn't have said half of what he'd heard tonight until she reached adolescence. Now, however, she seemed to be making up for lost time.

However, Brit and Tammy had bigger surprises in store. "Hey Mom, do we have mistletoe this year?" Brit asked, causing Tammy's face to light up in barely contained anticipation.

"I think your dad hid it," Portia informed them.

"Awwww!"

"In the back of my closet, behind the stack of boxes."

With cheers and squeals, the girls hopped up and stampeded up the stairs. Within a minute they stampeded back down, Brit proudly presenting a beat-up plastic sprig. Tammy opened a kitchen drawer and rummaged around in it until she located a thumb tack.

"Zephyr?" she asked sweetly. "Will you put this up?" She pointed to the middle of the top doorframe to the living room.

Zephyr followed her finger with his eyes. "Yeesh. All the way up there? Maybe we can get Reg to do it." He stood up and took Reg, who had finished half of his stew, by the arm amidst a chorus of squeaky cheers. He guided Reg directly below the ascribed spot. "Okay, ladies, give him the mistletoe. Careful not to stick him with the thumbtack."

They did so, and Reg reached up and pounded the sprig into place with Zephyr watching at his side.

"Look who's standing under the mistletoe!" Brit shouted.

Zephyr glanced at Portia. "You know the rules, Zeph," Portia said with a smile. "May as well get it out of their systems now, while nobody's here."

Reg looked at Zephyr, and Zephyr looked at Reg, and children numbers one, two, and four whooped and giggled and shrieked, and child number three gawked, and Portia cheered, and Marsh discovered what was so fascinating about that cheese log.

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