Caffrey Aloha

Chapter 4

Saturday morning. December 25, 2004.

After a brunch buffet in one of the hotel restaurants, everyone gathered in the suite Angela and her mother shared with Joe's daughters. Since they had all packed for a two-week stay, carrying lots of packages would have been a hassle. It was agreed that everyone would have one present to unwrap in Hawaii, and Angela put herself in charge of coordinating with gift givers to make sure each person had a small present. She taped a large poster of a Christmas tree on the wall and had everyone gather around while she doled out gifts in what she deemed to be the correct order.

"Is she like this every Christmas?" Neal asked Henry.

"Yeah, she likes organizing us. And you called me Bossy Pants. You have no idea."

Angela started by handing boxes to the Caffrey and Winslow grandparents. Irene got bear slippers in honor of having picked the nickname Baby Bear for Neal, and Edmund got bunny slippers for calling Angela a Funny Bunny. Graham's slippers were tigers, in honor of his nickname for Henry, and Julia's slippers had a nautical theme to represent the love of sailing she shared with her husband. The final gift to that generation was an envelope of hockey tickets for Luke and Betty; they would be going to a New York Rangers game with their sons.

Peter and Elizabeth had officially received their gift from Neal in New York, but he had brought a digital photo of it rolled up like a scroll so they could show everyone. It was a painting by Neal depicting the three of them around a campfire on a starry night at the Burke family cabin. "This scene is from a night of stargazing on Halloween," Peter said, "when we were kicked out of the cabin because Joe had just proposed to Noelle. El thought we should give them some privacy. Which they would have had, if Joe had actually called to reserve the cabin instead of just showing up, assuming that no one else would be there."

"Hey, no one goes up there on Halloween," Joe protested.

"Didn't you tell me going to the cabin for stargazing on Halloween was an old tradition of yours?" Neal asked.

"What's the next gift?" asked a blushing Elizabeth.

Angela gave her mother – an aeronautic engineer – an airplane Christmas ornament, explaining that they collected a new airplane ornament every year. The gift to Noelle was a photo Neal had procured in Las Vegas over the summer. It was of Henry in a gondolier costume at the Venetian resort. Henry and Neal had been trying for years to get the manager of the gondoliers to hire one of them, and over the summer Henry had finally won that competition. Noelle laughed. "This reminds me of when you were all babies. Meredith liked dressing you up in costumes." She leaned over and kissed Henry on the forehead. "Don't be jealous of Neal, sweetheart. You're adorable, too."

"Oh, wait! Is it Sweet Heart?" Angela asked.

"No it can't be," Neal protested. "She calls everyone sweetheart or sweetie."

Henry smiled smugly. "You're never going to guess. You might as well give up."

"Never!" Neal and Angela insisted. Neal was glad to see Rosalind and Viola nodding, getting caught up in the interactions with their new family members.

The next gift was for Joe and his daughters. Peter handed them an envelope containing tickets. "I heard you became big Urban Legend fans. They aren't touring anymore, but because they have a hit song right now they were asked to perform on New Year's Eve. The concert will be on the beach here in Waikiki."

"Of course, we're just doing a couple of songs. The big draw is Local Devastation," Henry said nonchalantly, although he grinned when Rosalind and Viola squealed. "Oh, yeah, and it's going to be televised. It seems there's this big deal about a ball dropping in Times Square and performances by lots of groups while they wait for midnight." The squealing grew louder, with the girls grabbing their father's arms and insisting they needed to buy new clothes before they attended a televised concert.

Joe laughed and hugged them both, settling them down so that Angela could continue. "Next we come to my gift," she said. "At Henry's birthday we met some of those itinerant musicians and artisans on the Caffrey side of the family, and I fell in love with the dulcimers."

Edmund added, "I'd been a bit harsh about Angela's wish to study music in graduate school, afraid she'd return to the hardscrabble life I'd fought my way out of. I wanted to let her know I'll support her dreams, so I commissioned a dulcimer from one of my nephews. We gave it to Angela when it arrived a couple of weeks ago."

"And I love it," Angela said. "But I didn't want it bumping around in the plane, so nothing for me to open today."

"Hmm," said Irene. "I'm sure I saw something with your name on it."

"What?" While Angela sat in shocked silence, Henry reached behind the sofa to hand something to his cousin.

"Edmund isn't the only one who commissioned something from his relatives," Irene said as Angela unwrapped a leather carrying case for her dulcimer. "One of his nieces designs these."

"Oh, my. It's beautiful!" And Neal saw that Henry was right. Angela did bounce when she was excited. Soon she composed herself and said, "I think my favorite gift is the one going to Neal." She slid a box in his direction.

He opened the box to find a photo album. It was filled with pictures of his family, from Irene and Edmund's wedding photos down through the generations with pictures of Henry, Neal and Angela as children. At first he paged through it in silence. When they went into WITSEC they hadn't been allowed to take any pictures with them. He'd never had a photo album. Then he turned a page and looked up at Peter in surprise. "This is you."

"The Burkes are your family now, too," Peter said. "The album was El's idea, but it became a group project to collect all the photos."

"This is amazing," Neal said. He turned to Elizabeth. "Thanks. I never would have thought to ask for this, but it's perfect."

They passed the album around and people exclaimed and laughed at some of the pictures. As it came back to Neal, Angela said, "But what about Henry? No one told me what his gift would be."

Neal met Noelle's eyes. "Did you tell Joe?"

She nodded. "He's going to be my husband, so I thought he should know. But I haven't told anyone else." She handed Neal a file folder.

Neal looked around the room. His grandparents and Peter and Elizabeth already knew, and of course Noelle and Joe did, too. Graham and Julia knew part of it. His aunt Paige, Henry, Angela, Joe's daughters and Peter's parents were in the dark, but they'd been trusted last night with the knowledge that he'd grown up in WITSEC. "This falls under the promise you all made yesterday. If you don't want another secret to keep, just head outside for a few minutes."

No one left.

Taking a deep breath, Neal said, "Henry's always been like a big brother to me. He's looked after me, annoyed me, even impersonated me on occasion. Not so easy now though," he added, running a hand through his hair. During the Masterson con Henry had grown his hair longer to resemble Neal more, but now it was cut much shorter, and Neal's comment garnered a few chuckles. "Anyway, this is probably as much a gift to me as it is to you. I found out a couple of days after your birthday. Dressa suggested I tell you for Christmas, but I probably couldn't have kept it a secret this long if you hadn't been out of the country." He handed the file folder to Henry.

Henry opened the file folder to see Neal's birth certificate, and his eyes widened in shock to see Noelle listed as Neal's mother.

"You really are half-brothers," Irene said, reaching out to rub Henry's back. "You were only two and a half when Neal was born, too young to remember."

"How..." Henry seemed at a loss for words.

Irene explained how her daughter Noelle had acted as a surrogate when Meredith had been unable to carry a child to term, and how one of Noelle's eggs had been used. "We didn't know that last part," Irene explained. "We told the doctors we didn't want to know whose egg was selected, but they wrote it down in case we changed our minds. When Meredith stopped in D.C. for a few minutes, she gave that old note to Noelle."

Henry stared at them, still speechless.

Neal said, "Merry Christmas, brother," and then Henry finally reacted, pulling his younger brother into a hug.

"Best Christmas present ever," Henry said in a hoarse voice, as everyone around them cheered.