A Nantucket Christmas Read Free Page A

They couldn’t even lift their heads.
    It was a puzzle.
    He’d suggested many times that instead the family could get a dog. With all his heart, Maddox wanted a dog. He could throw a stick for a dog and play ball with a dog and cuddle in bed with a dog … although maybe not. Mommy said they would bring dirt and germs into the house.
    Nicole had given Maddox had a stuffed goat and even though Mommy said Nicole was a hag, he loved the animal, which sang—until Mommy removed the battery. Maddox named him Yodel and held him when he went to bed at night, rubbing Yodel’s silky tongue between his thumb and finger. It helped him fall asleep.
    He knew, of course, that a real goat wouldn’t have a satin tongue, and he wouldn’t be able to rub the tongue, anyway, that would get drool all over the bed. Anyway, he didn’t want a real goat, which was too big. He wanted a small dog, so he could put his arm around it and feel its furry warmth against his body. He would like that.
    When he was little, his mommy had held him in her arms a lot. Now that she was all stuffed with the baby, holding Maddox was too hard for her. She didn’t have a lap to sit on anymore, and Maddox was always, she said, poking him with his elbows or knees. He tried to be careful, but now Mommy said she was getting breathless since the baby’s bum was pushing against her lungs.
    “I love you, Maddox, but you’re
too much
for Mommy.” That’s what she said yesterday. He was
too much
when he made a
zoom zoom
noise with his cars. He was
too much
when he wouldn’t eat asparagus.
    Ugh, asparagus was so gaggy, like a long package of strings that caught in his throat. Maddox shuddered, remembering.
    He hoped when they went to Granddad and Nicole’s house for Christmas he would get to eat other stuff. Maybe cake or pie. Nicole was nice to Maddox, even if she wasn’t a real grandmother. She had sent Maddox his very own Christmas card, and it had a cute puppy on it, sticking out of a Christmas stocking.
    “That woman is just trying to make trouble,” Maddox’s mommy said with a frown when she saw Nicole’s card. Maddox didn’t understand how a card could cause trouble. He hid it under his mattress so his mommy wouldn’t throw it away.

3
    As they drove home from the firm’s Christmas party, Kennedy didn’t speak but allowed her frustration to steam out of her body as if she were an overheated pressure cooker, which she was.
    “Kennedy,” her husband James pleaded. “Talk to me. Did you honestly have such a bad time?”
    “I had a
terrible
time. I’m fat, my face is covered with blotches, I can’t breathe, and all the secretaries oozed around you with their four-inch heels and cute skimpy dresses, smirking and flaunting their cleavage.”
    James sighed loudly. “Kennedy, hon. You’re almost eight months pregnant. Your hormones are making you crazy. No one flirted with me. Plus, I saw several secretaries and quite a few lawyers stop by to talk to you.”
    James was right, but that didn’t make Kennedy feel any better. “I feel so ugly,” she wailed.
    “You know you’re beautiful,” James assured her in a bored tone. He’d been having to say this a lot recently.
    Kennedy closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the seat. Why couldn’t she be like her mother, who was always perfect?
    The last time they had visited her mother, Katya had taken out her photograph albums to show Kennedy what she had looked like during her pregnancy, and of course Katya was glorious and glowing, seeming energetic and fit enough for another set of tennis.
    Kennedy looked like Shrek.
    Her obstetrician assured Kennedy the expected baby boy was of normal size, but she felt as if she were carrying a full-grown linebacker rigged with shoulderpads and helmet.
    “You’ll feel better when we’re on Nantucket,” James said soothingly. “Your father and Nicole will pamper you.”
    “But I don’t like that woman,” Kennedy protested.
    “You scarcely know