Categories > Cartoons > Daria > Silent Cynic
The Silent Cynic
By Dr. T
Chapter 8 – It’s Christmas
Amy arrived two days before Christmas. She had hoped to leave the day before, but her hometown had just caught the bottom edge of a snowstorm that Sunday, and the roads had still been a bit of mess the day before. She hoped the forecasts were right and the weather would hold long enough for them to get to Manhattan Friday night.
Amy was glad to see that, as Helen had reported over the previous ten months, Quinn had finally recovered most of her old bounce, if not all of it, after a long period of basic recovery. Only the incident with Sandi had seen her backslide a bit. Helen had also been glad to report that Daria was coming out of her shell. For the first time, she had friends, a close friend in Jane and a range of others. The development of a likely boyfriend had been unexpected, but Amy welcomed it a bit more than Helen, or at least with less worry.
Helen was already worried when Amy arrived, because Jake had persuaded her to allow Daria to accompany Jane to the Zon to see Trent’s band that night. Neither liked the idea of either daughter being out walking far from home at night, but most of Quinn’s evening dates drove. Trent had agreed to drive Daria home after the first set. Jane would be staying on through the morning of the twenty-sixth. Trent had been invited to join them for Christmas, but since Jane was taken care of, he and the band had taken an out-of-town replacement gig for Christmas Eve and night.
Helen wondered if Jane would have been otherwise left at home. In reality, Trent would not have done that, but Helen would not have thought much of his alternative of taking Jane along as a roadie.
After introducing Jane and Amy, Amy asked, “So, how was this ‘Zon’ and the band?”
‘The band was loud, raucous, and raw, the place was filthy, and the crowd was all the above.’
“So, you had a good time?”
Daria smiled. ‘I did.’
Helen saw that Daria was happy (at least for her), and nothing else, which relieved her a bit. She had picked up on Daria’s crush on Trent after they had first met, and that had worried her a little. Daria’s dating Troy, which came with its own set of concerns for her, at least alleviated her worries about Trent. She had met Trent several times by now, and knew he was basically safe, but remembering how she had thrown herself at the stunt car driver, she did not want Daria overcoming her shyness with Trent. Troy seemed a bit safer.
*
On the morning of Christmas Eve, Quinn, Daria, and Jane went down to decorate the basement for the party. The ground floor of the Morgendorffer home was an odd shape, with a large open living room/sitting area on one side and the garage in front of the kitchen and a dining room on the other, with the garage extending a bit further towards the street. The second floor of course covered the entire first floor, garage and all. The cellar, however, was only under the combined living area, not under the kitchen or dining room, let alone the garage. The back end of the cellar was the laundry area along with a freezer, and the hot water heater and furnace were there as well. Miscellaneous junk and odds-and-ends (empty suitcases, boxes for Christmas decorations, camping equipment, etc.) had already been moved from around the cellar towards the back end. The trio spent the morning sweeping the floor and moving the tables and chairs downstairs, before breaking for lunch.
After lunch, Quinn and Jane strung some rope and then hung a few cheap holiday shower curtains, blocking off the back fifth of the basement from view. They then simply strung garland and strands of plastic holly and ivy across the cinderblock walls. They set up three tables for refreshments, brought down Quinn’s boom box, and set out the various straight and folding chairs. After some disagreement, they decided to set up the ice chests later, filling them with ice upstairs for sodas an hour before the party started (set for 5:00). They would be heavy, but it should be less messy than bringing the bags of ice down the stairs. That left them with two hours to get themselves ready, which Quinn thought was the minimum needed.
While Jane and Quinn were doing that, Amy and Daria were out picking up the food – it was clear that the students were to bring their appetites and nothing else – this was mostly a ‘meet & greet & eat’ holiday/buffet party. The pair’s first stop was to the nearest store for multiple cases of soft drinks and bags of ice. Amy noted that most of the sodas were diet, at Quinn’s insistence. These were taken back and left in the garage, which was above freezing but well under 40 degrees F. They had also picked up numerous bags of nacho and potato chips, dips, salsa, etc. The next stop was the florist, to pick up a small centerpiece for the cellar and a larger one for Christmas dinner.
The next trip was to Pizza Prince to check that the order for the proper number (and types) of pizzas would arrive around five-thirty. From there, the pair went to a bakery to get some pre-ordered cookies and brownies, and then to a deli, to pick up the pre-ordered finger sandwiches and veggie platters. When they returned, it was in the high 30s outside, and the garage was now in the low-40s. The finger sandwiches and veggie platters joined the sodas in the garage. This left Daria well over an hour to get ready before Troy arrived, which she judged more than enough time.
As previously arranged, Troy came at 4:15, bearing a huge platter of various cookies: various types of Christmas-decorated sugar cookies; chocolate chip cookies; dark chocolate cookies dusted with powdered sugar; what his mother called butterball cookies (although Quinn insisted they were Russian tea cakes); brownies; and circular peanut butter cookies with a Hershey’s kiss on top. However, after he had helped Jane haul the ice chests and sodas to the basement, Helen captured Troy and herded him into the dining room to meet Amy.
“Hi, Amy! I wondered if Daria meant you.”
“I, on the other hand, knew it was you,” Amy responded.
“You know each other?” Helen asked, shocked. Just on the opposite side of the doorway, Daria lightly slapped her own forehead with the heel of her palm. She should have realized.
“Helen, don’t you remember what I did my thesis on?” Dr. Amy Barksdale, PhD and professor of sociology inquired.
Helen frowned, a bit confused. “Something about comparing the various sub-cultures within….” She flushed slightly. “Within the international chess community.” Amy had always played, first with their father and later in college. When she had been researching, she had gone to many a chess tournament, not only in North America but in Latin America and Europe. She had also published a few follow-up studies over the previous decade.
“Amy interviewed me for that book chapter she did three years ago on child chess masters,” Troy told Helen.
“The fact that I beat you that morning will be a treasured chess memory,” Amy teased. Like Troy, Amy was ranked as a National Master. Unlike him, however, she had long reached her highest level, while he was still progressing.
“Somehow, I seem to remember the other four games we’ve played since better,” Troy teased back. He turned to Helen. “Was there something else? That you needed done or wanted to know?”
Helen was still too flustered to say anything. Amy therefore spoke up, “While neither Helen nor I have the genealogical bug anything like to the degree of our oldest sister, never mind our mother, it has been somewhat ingrained into us.” Helen’s embarrassment deepened, but she could hardly deny her curiosity. “If Mother hasn’t asked yet, she will,” Amy remarked, mostly to Helen.
“I take it you can trace at least some of your ancestors some ways back,” Troy remarked.
“All of them,” Amy answered frankly. “Our Mother’s maternal ancestors all go back to Georgia between the 1750s to 1808, and were some of the first to move on to Alabama. Most of her paternal ones are the same, or are even older families from South Carolina. All of Father’s are FFVs, err….”
“‘First Families of Virginia.’ All of them?”
“Well, a few actually ‘entered society’ a bit later than the Revolution, but all were here before 1776,” Amy amended. “Mother therefore considers them FFVs as well.”
Troy almost smirked. He correctly guessed that it was Helen who was really curious about him, even if he was not certain how important his ancestry would be to her. He also knew that Amy had a rough idea of his answers, as his family background was touched on in his interview. However, he had no hesitancy in answering. “I guess three quarters of my ancestors are somewhat similar to yours. My father’s direct paternal ancestor was a Baptist refugee to Rhode Island in the late 1650s. The rest of his paternal ancestors were various WASPs who immigrated to various parts of New England between the 1640s and 1760s, plus a Scotswoman who came in the 1830s. The first two generations of his mother’s family in this country were Huguenots who immigrated to Connecticut between the 1690s and 1710s. The rest were again various WASPs who all came between 1712 and the 1820s. They all ended up on the Southern Tier of upstate New York.”
Troy now did have a slight smile. “Now my mother’s maternal ancestors go back to the first Puritan settlers, most of them between the late 1620s and 1640. As they migrated westward into upper New York State by the 1820s, a few other pre-Revolutionary families married in. Of course, the reality was they were all subsistence farmers from the 1630s through the 1950s – I have cousins who basically still are, although the dairy farm is doing well – and as some areas developed, they kept moving until the 1820s. The same is true of my Dad’s ancestors.” After all, most families, no matter how long they had been in America, did not become well off, ever mind rich. “Still, Mom, her sister and mother, my other grandmother and Dad’s two sisters, not to mention my sister, are all in the DAR, since members of all the lines served in the ranks.”
“Myself, Mother, and Rita are as well,” Helen put in. “I’ve been meaning to contact the local chapter.”
“I joined two years ago,” Amy admitted. “I needed the local social contacts.” Amy sneered a bit when she added, “Of course Mother and Rita are also members of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.”
Troy decided to ignore that. “Now my mother’s father’s family is the odd one out. I think that’s why she went so deep into her mother’s family. Essentially, about half show up out of nowhere in the mid-to-late 1860s in what were then called ‘the Indian Territories.’
“Now Oklahoma,” Amy reminded Helen.
“There was a group of them, all probably Confederates trying to start over after losing everything in the Civil War,” Troy said. “Since they all seem to have changed their names, I rather suspect they were part of some guerilla band at the end of the War. They married various tribal women, and then their families intermarried with each other. When the Indian Territories were transforming into Oklahoma, some of the families moved on to New Mexico and traded with the Navajo. Grandad was wounded in Europe during World War II, and instead of sending him to recover in New Mexico like they were supposed to, somehow he wound up in upstate New York, where my grandmother was clerking in the hospital as a WAC.”
He shrugged. “After Dad got back from Vietnam, he worked in a factory, but was offered a bonus to transfer to their plant here.” Troy smiled. “I don’t know if you should mention to your mother that I had three direct ancestors who served the Union during the Civil War, and about a dozen indirect ones. Two of the direct ancestors were even at the Battle of Gettysburg, although in different units.”
At that, the doorbell rang. “I’d better go help Daria and Quinn greet their guests.”
After Troy left the dining room, Helen turned to Amy. “Mother might disapprove on class grounds, but I don’t think she could on many others.”
Amy could only grimace as she asked, “I take it she had already been making inquiries?”
“Oh, yes!” Her mother had taken little notice of Daria before the ‘incident,’ always favoring Quinn those few times she had paid attention to Helen’s family rather than Rita’s. Jake’s mother had also preferred Quinn. While both still preferred Quinn, they both now tried to show more at least a token interest in Daria, which was more than they had before.
Amy gave her sister a slightly sad smile. “And when have either of us really cared about Mother’s social approval?”
“True,” Helen had to agree. “That’s probably one reason that, even if we don’t always get along, we’ve gotten along better than either of us has with Rita.”
Amy glanced at the clock. “At least forty-five minutes before the pizza comes. Shall we draft the start of a letter to her?”
*
The party had been scheduled to last from 5:00-7:30 (to allow those who had evening family obligations to attend). In actuality, the party would otherwise have lasted a bit longer, as everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Quinn, aided by Tori, Brittany, Jane, and Jodie, had kept the social interactions going. Troy and Paul were the last to leave, at 7:45. Daria and Jane had donned jackets so they could walk their boyfriends to the end of the block. When they returned over five minutes later, their faces were flushed from more than the cold. While Quinn giggled at them, no one made any further remarks. Daria and Jane merely accepted mugs of hot cocoa, and each took one of the leftover bakery cookies. (All of the ones Troy had brought had gone fast. His mother was very good in the kitchen.)
*
Jane woke up the next morning, snuggled into Daria to stay warm. Jane frowned; she was not a morning person, and she knew her friend was spooning her from behind.
The first few nights she had stayed over that autumn, Jane had slept in a sleeping bag and a pad on the floor of Daria’s room. She had not slept well. After that, she usually slept in the spare room, which Amy now had. Last night, tired, she had just skipped the sleeping bag and slipped into bed with Daria when her friend had held the covers open. Knowing the two sisters sometimes shared a bed, Jane had just gone along.
The shoulder shake came again, and this time Jane realized someone was saying, “Jane, wake up.” Jane frowned again; it could not be Daria, as Daria was behind her, holding her, while the voice was above her – and of course, Daria did not talk. “Jane!”
“Comfy….” Jane muttered, snuggling into her pillow.
“If you don’t start getting up, Daria will tickle you,” Quinn warned, seeing Daria was now awake. She was not surprised to see the two like this; after all, that was how the sisters often woke up on those nights they shared a bed.
“Muhhhh….” Jane was drifting back, barely noticing Daria’s hand move from her stomach to her side.
Then Daria’s fingers flexed slightly. Jane’s eyes shot open, as she realized what might happen next. “No tickling!” she stated. Daria released her and the two stretched.
“Come on! It’s Christmas!” Quinn stated emphatically. ‘No,’ Quinn responded to Daria’s frown and signing back, ‘it is NOT six o’clock, or even earlier. It’s after seven thirty, and I want my waffles.’ Then she added, “Get up!”
Jane managed to slide out of bed, in part because Daria was pushing her slightly.
Grumbling, Jane stood up, slipped her feet into a pair of old slippers and dragged her robe behind her as she headed towards the bathroom. “We don’t get dressed until after we open presents!” Quinn called. She turned to Daria. “Expanding your sleeping arrangements?”
‘She liked the party, but she was missing her family.’
“So you didn’t believe her either when she said she’d just as soon be alone with a microwave turkey dinner?”
Daria shook her head.
Quinn looked at Daria’s door, where Jane had just left, and then back at her sister. “I think she might be a while; you probably should use Mom and Dad’s bathroom.”
Daria nodded and repeated Jane’s earlier actions, although Daria was at least able to put her robe on before she was out the door.
Quinn frowned as she followed her sister into the hallway. Christmas was the one day a year she didn’t care what she ate. She wanted the family’s traditional waffles, eggs, and sausage, but decided she should wait to go down to the kitchen until at least one of the two older teens made it out of a bathroom.
*
Stuffed with four thick waffles drenched in butter and maple syrup, five sausage patties, and a nice helping of scrambled eggs, Jane was mellow as she approached the Christmas tree and fireplace, refilled coffee mug in hand. She stopped in shock, but managed to hold on to her coffee when she saw that there were three large bulging ‘stockings’ hanging from the mantle – two older ones that matched, QUINN and DARIA, while a new one said JANE.
Daria took hers and Jane’s, holding out Jane’s – although it took Jane several seconds to grab hold. This was not a Lane tradition, at least not one she could really remember. She had a vague memory of a photo of her three oldest siblings with similar stockings when Penny had been a preschooler and the older two barely in elementary school, but that was all. Jane managed to sit on the footstool without spilling her coffee or dropping the stocking. Seeing Daria and Quinn on the floor waiting for her, Jane placed her mug on the coffee table and joined them. Following their lead, she simply emptied the stocking on the carpet. The only thing each had in common was, rather than an orange or satsuma, a candy chocolate orange at the bottom of the stocking.
Jane also found: three pairs of earrings; a necklace with a charm that matched one pair of the earrings; a disposable camera for the New York trip; a gift certificate from Pizza Prince for a large carnivore pizza (Daria also had these last two); two different brands of lipstick in her favorite shade; a bottle of matching nail polish; and two small bags of her favorite gummi bears. Besides the chocolate orange, Quinn was happy with makeup and a few more inexpensive pieces of jewelry than Jane. Daria had added, as a slight joke, some make-up remover. In addition to what was duplicated in Jane’s, Daria had received a small magnetic travel chess set, two cd’s of computer games, and, as Quinn’s slight joke, a set of pastel-colored pens for her white board and a bottle of cleaner for it.
Refilling their mugs with either coffee (Jake, Helen, Jane, Amy) or tea (Quinn and Daria), the group sat down to open the presents.
Jane had only been expected a few art supplies from Trent; that had been all he could afford for the last few years, and all she had gotten, other than the occasional souvenir t-shirt from her father. Trent had indeed given her the usual, but so had Quinn. Her parents (tracked down, Jane suspected, by Helen) had given her a nice Apple computer, loaded with graphics programs, and a decent printer. The Morgendorffers (or at least Helen) bought her a few new tops, having noticed that Jane had nearly outgrown the ones she usually wore. Daria had given her an air brush set.
Jane was stunned; it couldn’t get any nicer, even if it made her miss Trent and wonder about the rest of her family.
*
In the end, other than missing Trent, Jane decided the rest did not matter. It was the best Christmas Jane could fully remember, and that was before two more wonderful meals (a traditional, if deli-bought, turkey dinner followed by a late-evening meal of egg-drop soup made by Quinn and Daria along with some leftovers), a very ruthless game of Monopoly after the dinner (won in the end by Amy over Daria), and ending almost two hours after the supper with everyone back in their night clothes and robes, drinking hot chocolate in front of the fireplace, soft instrumental holiday music playing in the background.
Twenty minutes later, Jane looked around; Jake and Helen were snuggled together on the sofa, with Quinn already asleep, mostly curled up on the other end of the sofa but with her head on her mother’s lap. Jane was seated on the footstool in front of the end table between the sofa and the large recliner. Amy was laying back in the recliner with Daria. Daria had started off half on/half off the arm of the chair, then half on the arm and half on Amy’s lap. Then Daria was sitting on Amy’s lap, her arm around her aunt’s shoulders. Now both were fully reclined, with Daria sprawled over Amy, gently snoring, while Amy was either asleep or close to it. Jane smiled as she looked around several times, memorizing the scene.
“What is it, Jane-o?” Jake asked softly.
“They look like little kids,” she answered, nodding at Quinn and then Daria.
“My little girls are almost grown,” Jake acknowledged. “I’m glad they could have at least one last day as kids.” He had had just enough brandy over the afternoon and evening (and enough Christmas sentiment) that he was not even tempted to rant about his own ruined childhood; he was so happy he had helped his girls have the best he could manage, despite his long-term problems. Jake smiled at Jane. “That means you, too.” Helen nodded to her as she stroked Quinn’s hair.
Jane smiled and her eyes watered slightly, but she did not cry.
By Dr. T
Chapter 8 – It’s Christmas
Amy arrived two days before Christmas. She had hoped to leave the day before, but her hometown had just caught the bottom edge of a snowstorm that Sunday, and the roads had still been a bit of mess the day before. She hoped the forecasts were right and the weather would hold long enough for them to get to Manhattan Friday night.
Amy was glad to see that, as Helen had reported over the previous ten months, Quinn had finally recovered most of her old bounce, if not all of it, after a long period of basic recovery. Only the incident with Sandi had seen her backslide a bit. Helen had also been glad to report that Daria was coming out of her shell. For the first time, she had friends, a close friend in Jane and a range of others. The development of a likely boyfriend had been unexpected, but Amy welcomed it a bit more than Helen, or at least with less worry.
Helen was already worried when Amy arrived, because Jake had persuaded her to allow Daria to accompany Jane to the Zon to see Trent’s band that night. Neither liked the idea of either daughter being out walking far from home at night, but most of Quinn’s evening dates drove. Trent had agreed to drive Daria home after the first set. Jane would be staying on through the morning of the twenty-sixth. Trent had been invited to join them for Christmas, but since Jane was taken care of, he and the band had taken an out-of-town replacement gig for Christmas Eve and night.
Helen wondered if Jane would have been otherwise left at home. In reality, Trent would not have done that, but Helen would not have thought much of his alternative of taking Jane along as a roadie.
After introducing Jane and Amy, Amy asked, “So, how was this ‘Zon’ and the band?”
‘The band was loud, raucous, and raw, the place was filthy, and the crowd was all the above.’
“So, you had a good time?”
Daria smiled. ‘I did.’
Helen saw that Daria was happy (at least for her), and nothing else, which relieved her a bit. She had picked up on Daria’s crush on Trent after they had first met, and that had worried her a little. Daria’s dating Troy, which came with its own set of concerns for her, at least alleviated her worries about Trent. She had met Trent several times by now, and knew he was basically safe, but remembering how she had thrown herself at the stunt car driver, she did not want Daria overcoming her shyness with Trent. Troy seemed a bit safer.
*
On the morning of Christmas Eve, Quinn, Daria, and Jane went down to decorate the basement for the party. The ground floor of the Morgendorffer home was an odd shape, with a large open living room/sitting area on one side and the garage in front of the kitchen and a dining room on the other, with the garage extending a bit further towards the street. The second floor of course covered the entire first floor, garage and all. The cellar, however, was only under the combined living area, not under the kitchen or dining room, let alone the garage. The back end of the cellar was the laundry area along with a freezer, and the hot water heater and furnace were there as well. Miscellaneous junk and odds-and-ends (empty suitcases, boxes for Christmas decorations, camping equipment, etc.) had already been moved from around the cellar towards the back end. The trio spent the morning sweeping the floor and moving the tables and chairs downstairs, before breaking for lunch.
After lunch, Quinn and Jane strung some rope and then hung a few cheap holiday shower curtains, blocking off the back fifth of the basement from view. They then simply strung garland and strands of plastic holly and ivy across the cinderblock walls. They set up three tables for refreshments, brought down Quinn’s boom box, and set out the various straight and folding chairs. After some disagreement, they decided to set up the ice chests later, filling them with ice upstairs for sodas an hour before the party started (set for 5:00). They would be heavy, but it should be less messy than bringing the bags of ice down the stairs. That left them with two hours to get themselves ready, which Quinn thought was the minimum needed.
While Jane and Quinn were doing that, Amy and Daria were out picking up the food – it was clear that the students were to bring their appetites and nothing else – this was mostly a ‘meet & greet & eat’ holiday/buffet party. The pair’s first stop was to the nearest store for multiple cases of soft drinks and bags of ice. Amy noted that most of the sodas were diet, at Quinn’s insistence. These were taken back and left in the garage, which was above freezing but well under 40 degrees F. They had also picked up numerous bags of nacho and potato chips, dips, salsa, etc. The next stop was the florist, to pick up a small centerpiece for the cellar and a larger one for Christmas dinner.
The next trip was to Pizza Prince to check that the order for the proper number (and types) of pizzas would arrive around five-thirty. From there, the pair went to a bakery to get some pre-ordered cookies and brownies, and then to a deli, to pick up the pre-ordered finger sandwiches and veggie platters. When they returned, it was in the high 30s outside, and the garage was now in the low-40s. The finger sandwiches and veggie platters joined the sodas in the garage. This left Daria well over an hour to get ready before Troy arrived, which she judged more than enough time.
As previously arranged, Troy came at 4:15, bearing a huge platter of various cookies: various types of Christmas-decorated sugar cookies; chocolate chip cookies; dark chocolate cookies dusted with powdered sugar; what his mother called butterball cookies (although Quinn insisted they were Russian tea cakes); brownies; and circular peanut butter cookies with a Hershey’s kiss on top. However, after he had helped Jane haul the ice chests and sodas to the basement, Helen captured Troy and herded him into the dining room to meet Amy.
“Hi, Amy! I wondered if Daria meant you.”
“I, on the other hand, knew it was you,” Amy responded.
“You know each other?” Helen asked, shocked. Just on the opposite side of the doorway, Daria lightly slapped her own forehead with the heel of her palm. She should have realized.
“Helen, don’t you remember what I did my thesis on?” Dr. Amy Barksdale, PhD and professor of sociology inquired.
Helen frowned, a bit confused. “Something about comparing the various sub-cultures within….” She flushed slightly. “Within the international chess community.” Amy had always played, first with their father and later in college. When she had been researching, she had gone to many a chess tournament, not only in North America but in Latin America and Europe. She had also published a few follow-up studies over the previous decade.
“Amy interviewed me for that book chapter she did three years ago on child chess masters,” Troy told Helen.
“The fact that I beat you that morning will be a treasured chess memory,” Amy teased. Like Troy, Amy was ranked as a National Master. Unlike him, however, she had long reached her highest level, while he was still progressing.
“Somehow, I seem to remember the other four games we’ve played since better,” Troy teased back. He turned to Helen. “Was there something else? That you needed done or wanted to know?”
Helen was still too flustered to say anything. Amy therefore spoke up, “While neither Helen nor I have the genealogical bug anything like to the degree of our oldest sister, never mind our mother, it has been somewhat ingrained into us.” Helen’s embarrassment deepened, but she could hardly deny her curiosity. “If Mother hasn’t asked yet, she will,” Amy remarked, mostly to Helen.
“I take it you can trace at least some of your ancestors some ways back,” Troy remarked.
“All of them,” Amy answered frankly. “Our Mother’s maternal ancestors all go back to Georgia between the 1750s to 1808, and were some of the first to move on to Alabama. Most of her paternal ones are the same, or are even older families from South Carolina. All of Father’s are FFVs, err….”
“‘First Families of Virginia.’ All of them?”
“Well, a few actually ‘entered society’ a bit later than the Revolution, but all were here before 1776,” Amy amended. “Mother therefore considers them FFVs as well.”
Troy almost smirked. He correctly guessed that it was Helen who was really curious about him, even if he was not certain how important his ancestry would be to her. He also knew that Amy had a rough idea of his answers, as his family background was touched on in his interview. However, he had no hesitancy in answering. “I guess three quarters of my ancestors are somewhat similar to yours. My father’s direct paternal ancestor was a Baptist refugee to Rhode Island in the late 1650s. The rest of his paternal ancestors were various WASPs who immigrated to various parts of New England between the 1640s and 1760s, plus a Scotswoman who came in the 1830s. The first two generations of his mother’s family in this country were Huguenots who immigrated to Connecticut between the 1690s and 1710s. The rest were again various WASPs who all came between 1712 and the 1820s. They all ended up on the Southern Tier of upstate New York.”
Troy now did have a slight smile. “Now my mother’s maternal ancestors go back to the first Puritan settlers, most of them between the late 1620s and 1640. As they migrated westward into upper New York State by the 1820s, a few other pre-Revolutionary families married in. Of course, the reality was they were all subsistence farmers from the 1630s through the 1950s – I have cousins who basically still are, although the dairy farm is doing well – and as some areas developed, they kept moving until the 1820s. The same is true of my Dad’s ancestors.” After all, most families, no matter how long they had been in America, did not become well off, ever mind rich. “Still, Mom, her sister and mother, my other grandmother and Dad’s two sisters, not to mention my sister, are all in the DAR, since members of all the lines served in the ranks.”
“Myself, Mother, and Rita are as well,” Helen put in. “I’ve been meaning to contact the local chapter.”
“I joined two years ago,” Amy admitted. “I needed the local social contacts.” Amy sneered a bit when she added, “Of course Mother and Rita are also members of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.”
Troy decided to ignore that. “Now my mother’s father’s family is the odd one out. I think that’s why she went so deep into her mother’s family. Essentially, about half show up out of nowhere in the mid-to-late 1860s in what were then called ‘the Indian Territories.’
“Now Oklahoma,” Amy reminded Helen.
“There was a group of them, all probably Confederates trying to start over after losing everything in the Civil War,” Troy said. “Since they all seem to have changed their names, I rather suspect they were part of some guerilla band at the end of the War. They married various tribal women, and then their families intermarried with each other. When the Indian Territories were transforming into Oklahoma, some of the families moved on to New Mexico and traded with the Navajo. Grandad was wounded in Europe during World War II, and instead of sending him to recover in New Mexico like they were supposed to, somehow he wound up in upstate New York, where my grandmother was clerking in the hospital as a WAC.”
He shrugged. “After Dad got back from Vietnam, he worked in a factory, but was offered a bonus to transfer to their plant here.” Troy smiled. “I don’t know if you should mention to your mother that I had three direct ancestors who served the Union during the Civil War, and about a dozen indirect ones. Two of the direct ancestors were even at the Battle of Gettysburg, although in different units.”
At that, the doorbell rang. “I’d better go help Daria and Quinn greet their guests.”
After Troy left the dining room, Helen turned to Amy. “Mother might disapprove on class grounds, but I don’t think she could on many others.”
Amy could only grimace as she asked, “I take it she had already been making inquiries?”
“Oh, yes!” Her mother had taken little notice of Daria before the ‘incident,’ always favoring Quinn those few times she had paid attention to Helen’s family rather than Rita’s. Jake’s mother had also preferred Quinn. While both still preferred Quinn, they both now tried to show more at least a token interest in Daria, which was more than they had before.
Amy gave her sister a slightly sad smile. “And when have either of us really cared about Mother’s social approval?”
“True,” Helen had to agree. “That’s probably one reason that, even if we don’t always get along, we’ve gotten along better than either of us has with Rita.”
Amy glanced at the clock. “At least forty-five minutes before the pizza comes. Shall we draft the start of a letter to her?”
*
The party had been scheduled to last from 5:00-7:30 (to allow those who had evening family obligations to attend). In actuality, the party would otherwise have lasted a bit longer, as everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Quinn, aided by Tori, Brittany, Jane, and Jodie, had kept the social interactions going. Troy and Paul were the last to leave, at 7:45. Daria and Jane had donned jackets so they could walk their boyfriends to the end of the block. When they returned over five minutes later, their faces were flushed from more than the cold. While Quinn giggled at them, no one made any further remarks. Daria and Jane merely accepted mugs of hot cocoa, and each took one of the leftover bakery cookies. (All of the ones Troy had brought had gone fast. His mother was very good in the kitchen.)
*
Jane woke up the next morning, snuggled into Daria to stay warm. Jane frowned; she was not a morning person, and she knew her friend was spooning her from behind.
The first few nights she had stayed over that autumn, Jane had slept in a sleeping bag and a pad on the floor of Daria’s room. She had not slept well. After that, she usually slept in the spare room, which Amy now had. Last night, tired, she had just skipped the sleeping bag and slipped into bed with Daria when her friend had held the covers open. Knowing the two sisters sometimes shared a bed, Jane had just gone along.
The shoulder shake came again, and this time Jane realized someone was saying, “Jane, wake up.” Jane frowned again; it could not be Daria, as Daria was behind her, holding her, while the voice was above her – and of course, Daria did not talk. “Jane!”
“Comfy….” Jane muttered, snuggling into her pillow.
“If you don’t start getting up, Daria will tickle you,” Quinn warned, seeing Daria was now awake. She was not surprised to see the two like this; after all, that was how the sisters often woke up on those nights they shared a bed.
“Muhhhh….” Jane was drifting back, barely noticing Daria’s hand move from her stomach to her side.
Then Daria’s fingers flexed slightly. Jane’s eyes shot open, as she realized what might happen next. “No tickling!” she stated. Daria released her and the two stretched.
“Come on! It’s Christmas!” Quinn stated emphatically. ‘No,’ Quinn responded to Daria’s frown and signing back, ‘it is NOT six o’clock, or even earlier. It’s after seven thirty, and I want my waffles.’ Then she added, “Get up!”
Jane managed to slide out of bed, in part because Daria was pushing her slightly.
Grumbling, Jane stood up, slipped her feet into a pair of old slippers and dragged her robe behind her as she headed towards the bathroom. “We don’t get dressed until after we open presents!” Quinn called. She turned to Daria. “Expanding your sleeping arrangements?”
‘She liked the party, but she was missing her family.’
“So you didn’t believe her either when she said she’d just as soon be alone with a microwave turkey dinner?”
Daria shook her head.
Quinn looked at Daria’s door, where Jane had just left, and then back at her sister. “I think she might be a while; you probably should use Mom and Dad’s bathroom.”
Daria nodded and repeated Jane’s earlier actions, although Daria was at least able to put her robe on before she was out the door.
Quinn frowned as she followed her sister into the hallway. Christmas was the one day a year she didn’t care what she ate. She wanted the family’s traditional waffles, eggs, and sausage, but decided she should wait to go down to the kitchen until at least one of the two older teens made it out of a bathroom.
*
Stuffed with four thick waffles drenched in butter and maple syrup, five sausage patties, and a nice helping of scrambled eggs, Jane was mellow as she approached the Christmas tree and fireplace, refilled coffee mug in hand. She stopped in shock, but managed to hold on to her coffee when she saw that there were three large bulging ‘stockings’ hanging from the mantle – two older ones that matched, QUINN and DARIA, while a new one said JANE.
Daria took hers and Jane’s, holding out Jane’s – although it took Jane several seconds to grab hold. This was not a Lane tradition, at least not one she could really remember. She had a vague memory of a photo of her three oldest siblings with similar stockings when Penny had been a preschooler and the older two barely in elementary school, but that was all. Jane managed to sit on the footstool without spilling her coffee or dropping the stocking. Seeing Daria and Quinn on the floor waiting for her, Jane placed her mug on the coffee table and joined them. Following their lead, she simply emptied the stocking on the carpet. The only thing each had in common was, rather than an orange or satsuma, a candy chocolate orange at the bottom of the stocking.
Jane also found: three pairs of earrings; a necklace with a charm that matched one pair of the earrings; a disposable camera for the New York trip; a gift certificate from Pizza Prince for a large carnivore pizza (Daria also had these last two); two different brands of lipstick in her favorite shade; a bottle of matching nail polish; and two small bags of her favorite gummi bears. Besides the chocolate orange, Quinn was happy with makeup and a few more inexpensive pieces of jewelry than Jane. Daria had added, as a slight joke, some make-up remover. In addition to what was duplicated in Jane’s, Daria had received a small magnetic travel chess set, two cd’s of computer games, and, as Quinn’s slight joke, a set of pastel-colored pens for her white board and a bottle of cleaner for it.
Refilling their mugs with either coffee (Jake, Helen, Jane, Amy) or tea (Quinn and Daria), the group sat down to open the presents.
Jane had only been expected a few art supplies from Trent; that had been all he could afford for the last few years, and all she had gotten, other than the occasional souvenir t-shirt from her father. Trent had indeed given her the usual, but so had Quinn. Her parents (tracked down, Jane suspected, by Helen) had given her a nice Apple computer, loaded with graphics programs, and a decent printer. The Morgendorffers (or at least Helen) bought her a few new tops, having noticed that Jane had nearly outgrown the ones she usually wore. Daria had given her an air brush set.
Jane was stunned; it couldn’t get any nicer, even if it made her miss Trent and wonder about the rest of her family.
*
In the end, other than missing Trent, Jane decided the rest did not matter. It was the best Christmas Jane could fully remember, and that was before two more wonderful meals (a traditional, if deli-bought, turkey dinner followed by a late-evening meal of egg-drop soup made by Quinn and Daria along with some leftovers), a very ruthless game of Monopoly after the dinner (won in the end by Amy over Daria), and ending almost two hours after the supper with everyone back in their night clothes and robes, drinking hot chocolate in front of the fireplace, soft instrumental holiday music playing in the background.
Twenty minutes later, Jane looked around; Jake and Helen were snuggled together on the sofa, with Quinn already asleep, mostly curled up on the other end of the sofa but with her head on her mother’s lap. Jane was seated on the footstool in front of the end table between the sofa and the large recliner. Amy was laying back in the recliner with Daria. Daria had started off half on/half off the arm of the chair, then half on the arm and half on Amy’s lap. Then Daria was sitting on Amy’s lap, her arm around her aunt’s shoulders. Now both were fully reclined, with Daria sprawled over Amy, gently snoring, while Amy was either asleep or close to it. Jane smiled as she looked around several times, memorizing the scene.
“What is it, Jane-o?” Jake asked softly.
“They look like little kids,” she answered, nodding at Quinn and then Daria.
“My little girls are almost grown,” Jake acknowledged. “I’m glad they could have at least one last day as kids.” He had had just enough brandy over the afternoon and evening (and enough Christmas sentiment) that he was not even tempted to rant about his own ruined childhood; he was so happy he had helped his girls have the best he could manage, despite his long-term problems. Jake smiled at Jane. “That means you, too.” Helen nodded to her as she stroked Quinn’s hair.
Jane smiled and her eyes watered slightly, but she did not cry.
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