When we drove up to my parents' house, after having been gone for the longest 200 days of my life, I wept openly and unashamedly. After that, I decided there would be no more tears unless they were perfectly happy tears.

And the happy tears commenced as soon as we walked in the front door and were met with my sisters, my brother Oliver, my brother-in-law Charlie, my soon-to-be brother-in-law Damien, and of course my mother. I was surprised that Oliver seemed so emotional to see me but I had to think about how horrible it must have been for all of them to learn that I was held captive and almost killed twice.

I tugged Harry's hand and led him through the foyer into the dining room where an enormous banner was hung, saying Welcome Home, Jules! And around my name were Harry's, Anne's, and Clive's. I made the introductions and everyone hugged Harry just as tightly as they did to me, knowing everything we had lived through.

When Helena greeted Harry, she quipped, "I remember you," and he smiled that bashful smile.

"Nice to see you again," he murmured shyly. "You're taller in person."

She burst out laughing at that and said, "Yeah, Jules is the shorty around here." It was true. Helena and Katherina were 5'9" and 5'8", Oliver was 5'11", and my dad was 5'10". My mother was the only other person in my family to share the "shorty" status, although she was still two inches taller than me at 5'5".

Harry laughed with her and squeezed me to his side, placing a kiss to the top of my head, seemingly overwhelmed by all the love.

After the introductions were made, Dad, Oliver and the brothers-in-law brought all of our luggage to various rooms. Harry and I were staying in my bedroom, after I'd had a heated discussion with my dad about where he should sleep. I didn't see the need to bring up the fact that we were sleeping together again, but they knew we would eventually get married. He finally relented on the basis of not having enough room for him to sleep elsewhere. Anne was given Katherina's old room and Clive was put in the guest bedroom. My parents had always been hospitable so it was a blessing that we had a sizable house to accommodate that.

Harry and I took a seat at the island in the kitchen and my mom came over to hug him for the second or third time. "I'm just so happy you could be here," she kept saying. She was preparing dinner for the whole clan, even though we were still a few days away from Christmas. Everyone wanted to be here; that was the norm for McGill family Christmases but this year, everyone was celebrating the added fact that Harry and I had lived through something traumatic, and the fact that we were soon to be married.

The smell of Mom's homemade spaghetti sauce bubbling on the stove made my eyes tear up and I wiped them away, thinking I was going to get bags under my eyes from being so emotional all the time. It was just that, my mind had been consumed for so long with either getting free from Theodore or putting him away in prison, that now I was overjoyed to be doing those things that I thought I would never do again when he put that gun to my head.

As it had been every other year of my life, our house was loud and full of activity. But the noise and chaos were multiplied by the excitement everyone had to help give Harry his first real experience of Christmas. After dinner, we decorated cookies while A Christmas Story played on the TV in the background. Harry had started his second cup of eggnog before I noticed he was drinking it.

"You know that has alcohol in it, right?" I asked.

"Really?" His eyes widened and his jaw dropped open in an exaggerated fashion.

"You're already feeling it, aren't you, you little goofball?"

"Maybe," he shrugged.

I sure didn't want to act like his babysitter but I warned him a few times to go easy on the eggnog since he'd never drank alcohol before, with the exception of practically spitting it into our bathwater back at the hotel.

By the time we went to my room for the night, he was acting too silly for his own good. It was a good thing I found it delightful, watching him enjoy himself without a care in the world. He tripped over his clothes about three times before he got into bed. I was having a hard time not laughing at him as he snuggled up to me and made kissing noises. "You are so going to feel this in the morning," I giggled.

"But I want to feel this right now," he shot back and grabbed my breast.

"Oh my gosh, you're a dirty drunk," I whispered but laughed even louder.

"Why? Because I want to have sex with the prettiest nanny in the world?" He said and then barked a totally child-like laugh at his own joke.

"Well, you're not going to, remember? We said we weren't going to do anything while we're at home for Christmas."

"We suck," he pouted and threw the covers over himself. My body was still shuddering with giggles as I wrapped myself around him from the back, spooning him while he fell asleep in record time.

The next day, December 23, was a frenzy of activity as we wrapped presents, baked more goodies, and ran some last minute errands. Surprisingly, Harry only had a touch of a headache which was remedied by some Tylenol and a cup of coffee.

Mom asked Oliver to run to Target to grab a few things, so he invited Harry to come along, eager to bond with the only person close to his age besides his sisters. While they were there, Oliver sent me various pictures of Harry, including one of him wearing a red jacket and a Santa hat, and one of him in a shopping cart. I didn't even ask.

They took and exceptionally long time getting home so I texted them, wondering what was going on. Oliver texted back, saying Harry wanted to do some other shopping before they came home. When they finally arrived, I discovered that Harry had apparently bought the Santa hat and the red jacket, and he carried in a few bulging shopping bags from places in the mall, in addition to the red plastic Target bags. He delivered the necessary items to my mother and then waved to Oliver who followed him towards the stairs.

He stopped to kiss me and said, "Stay away from your room. I'm going to wrap your presents." Apparently, he had roped Oliver into helping him. Or Oliver just offered. Either way, they made a hilarious pair, going off to do the wrapping while acting like they had some top-secret business to attend to.

When they were finished, they were just coming down the stairs when the doorbell rang. Harry hurried to my side and tugged on my hand to get me to face him so he could kiss me again. He looked unbelievably happy, which was what I had hoped for this holiday. I couldn't have imagined trying to celebrate Christmas in that hotel room with nothing but reminders of the upcoming trial. Luckily, just visiting the US wasn't nearly as much of a hassle as trying to get married to an American citizen, and Harry, Anne and Clive were all able to spend the holidays with no problem.

Oliver answered the door and greeted a pretty girl with thick, dark waves of hair spilling out from under her hat. "That's his girlfriend," Harry whispered in my ear and my mouth dropped.

"I didn't know he had a girlfriend!" I whispered back.

Oliver took the girl's coat and hung it up and then he turned to us and said, "Jules, Harry, this is Addison."

"Hello, Addison," I said, extending my hand to her.

Instead, much to my surprise, she practically yanked me into a hug and said, "Oh my gosh, it's so nice to finally meet you. I'm so glad you're safe." And then she let go of me and did the same to Harry, saying, "So many people have been praying for you two!" She must have been with Oliver long enough to know about our whole ordeal.

I chanced a look at Harry and he was beaming, having someone gush over him like that. I looked back at Addison and said, "Thank you so much. That means a lot to me. To us."

Harry agreed and said, "Thank you."

While we bustled around getting the finishing touches ready on dinner, I asked Harry, "Remember when we talked about making new friends? You wanted to meet everyone we saw in Calgary." He chuckled, looking a little bashful about the actions of his more childlike self. "How did it go with my brother?" I wondered.

"Perfect, actually," Harry grinned. "I like him a lot." Then, in a moment of fuller clarity, he gasped, "Oliver is my friend!"

Harry had probably never even had a male friend before. I hoped that maybe he would want to move here with me after the trial was over. Funny, we were talking about getting married and we didn't even know where we wanted to live yet. We just wanted to be together.

The day of Christmas Eve was another one of hustle and bustle, making the last minute preparations for the biggest holiday of the year. Harry and I had a few quiet moments by the fireplace in the family room and we snuggled together under the blanket. "I hate to bring up that bastard, but do you know what I thought about when Theodore had that gun pointed at my head?" I asked.

"What?"

"This," I answered, pondering the flickering fire. "They say that when you die, or think you're going to die, your whole life flashes before your eyes. Well that really happened to me, I think. I felt like I was standing in the center of all my best moments, from childhood Christmases to birthdays, from learning to ride a bike to going to the prom. It was like a flash of gratitude for everything my life had been. And it was weird because I was scared, but seeing all those moments of my life somehow made me peaceful."

"That's kind of awesome," Harry said.

"I wish you had those kinds of memories," I said. "But the one thing he can never take away from us now is the ability to make new memories. Now, and in the future. With our families. And some day with our own family." I looked at him and his cheeks turned a happy blush at the idea of being a father. "And I'm so glad your mom is here. And Clive. Honestly, I can't imagine a time when I've ever felt happier."

"Me, too," he said, nuzzling his nose against my hair and kissing my temple.

"Do you think...?" I had a thought and I felt a little embarrassed to say it at first. "Do you think God somehow...helped us that day?"

"When Theodore found us at the hotel?" Harry asked and I nodded in confirmation. He didn't say anything for a while and then finally answered. "It's strange because I never knew much about God but I didn't really even think much about why he didn't help me when I was growing up? It's like, I didn't realize what I was missing until you came along. But I...I don't know...maybe you're right. I think God did help us."

I snuggled closer into his side and we dozed until we heard my mom saying we were going to leave for church in about an hour. We had planned to go to the Christmas Eve service and then spend Christmas Day tucked away at home with all those we loved.

To be honest, I was almost as excited about Christmas morning as I had been when I was a kid, but this time, it wasn't because the gifts were for me. At least half of the gifts under the tree were for Harry. Everyone knew that he hadn't ever had a real Christmas for almost his whole life, and they all wanted to make it extra special for him.

We awoke with the sun sending just enough light into my room to make everything appear in muted grays and blacks. "Merry Christmas, Harry," I whispered and kissed him deeply.

"This is the best Christmas ever," he said, wrapping his long arms around me and pulling me extra tight.

"Because you have a family now," I hummed.

"Because I have you," he said.

When everyone was awake with full mugs of coffee, tea or cocoa and the coffee cakes and donuts were spread on every available surface, we started opening our gifts. The tradition in our family was for one person at a time to open one present, and then we'd move around the room until everyone got a chance to open one. Then we would start on the second round, and so on and so forth. When we were little, my parents made sure the kids had an equal number of presents so no one was left out. But this year, it was obvious that Harry had the biggest haul and he continued tearing open the wrappings on his gifts long after the rest of us had finished.

At one point, he became a bit overwhelmed and teared up, knowing we all loved him so much and thought about what he would really like.

"Are you okay?" I asked as my mom handed him a tissue.

He nodded, a smile beaming across his damp face. "I'm great," he said. "I'm just...I can't believe you all did so much for me. It's too much."

"It's not too much," I answered and everyone else chimed in. "You deserve to be loved and spoiled a little bit. So no more tears. Just keep ripping that wrapping paper!"

Between the lot of us, we gave Harry all sorts of presents. He received grown-up gifts like a watch and a beard trimmer, which was apparently a joke between Oliver and Harry since Harry was still so baby faced, he hardly even needed to shave. My parents bought him a pair of tan suede boots that he fell in love with at first sight. Clive gave him a bottle of Tom Ford Tobacco Vanille. Damn, I never realized that Clive had such good taste!

Harry's mum showered him with all sorts of gifts as well, from jeans and sweaters to scarves and gloves. At my suggestion, she also bought him the entire set of Eric Carle books, like the ones I had gotten for him at the Kids' Market. And between the two of us, we gave him two Lego sets: the Tower of London and the Eiffel Tower, both of which he had lost in the fire. I think Anne appreciated being able to give him some kid-friendly gifts since she had missed all those years with him.

When I was thinking of gifts for him, I had tried hard to think of things he would really enjoy, so the first thing I had bought, back in Vancouver, was an iPod, and I loaded it with 80's music. He absolutely loved it. I also bought him a new telescope and some grown up paint, both watercolor and acrylic, along with some canvases and a sketch book. One final thing I gave him, which was small but reminiscent of our early days together, was some of the gourmet chocolate that we had sampled together so long ago.

I think Harry stopped counting after he had opened twenty presents but he ended up feeling very much loved and thankful for the material things that, to him, only symbolized the building of his new life.

* * * * *

Okay, I'm gonna jump on the pulpit for a minute here, fyi:

I'm a Christian and sometimes I have "soft" Christian themes in my writing. I try to be realistic and not too preachy. But I think having a gun pointed to your head would make most people consider things like God and eternity, to some extent.

But here, I'm going to get a little preachy, so you can totally skip it if you want to. :)

When I posted the original story, this chapter was written in November 2017. So when I wrote that bit about God helping Jules and Harry when Theodore had the gun pointed at them, it was around the same time as the Sutherland Church shooting in Texas. It was such a tragic loss, as are all mass shootings. But I think it's very important to understand something here. For those of us who pray, of course, we pray for God's protection. I pray for God's protection over everyone, not just "His people". But the bottom line is clear. God doesn't spare "His people" (i.e. Christians, church-goers, etc.) from tragedy. I mean, I'm absolutely convinced that sometimes He does work miracles and he spares people from death! But then other times, he lets his people suffer and die. My husband miraculously survived an inoperable, life-threatening brain tumor when he was 6, only to have a massive stroke in that same place in his brain 30 years later. Why? I don't think we'll have any truly satisfying answers this side of heaven. What does God truly want from us? He wants us to know He loves us and He's with us in the pain and heartache and tragedy. And He wants us to be with him forever in heaven one day - because He loves us, He wants us to spend eternity with him! So my prayer for the people of that Texas community and for anyone who suffers through tragedies like these, is that they would come to know Jesus Christ because even if we go through trial and hardship in this life, he promises us a perfect, happy, glorious existence with him in heaven. *steps down from pulpit*

thanks xoxo