My Secret Santa's Secret Baby

That hurtle crossed, I was ready to give it a whirl and hope for the best.

No one warned me about the cold. Portland wasn’t exactly tropical, but it was nothing like the winter wonderland that I was finding out New York could become after November. I’d dressed in a way that I thought of as warm, not counting on the windchill, a term I had honestly never heard before until I got into my little rental house in Williamsburg.

I hopped onto the B62 bus route over to the island. I knew the subway was faster, but my claustrophobia kept it from being a viable option. There was something about being underground in particular that freaked me out.

I was the kind of girl who needed to be able to see the sky. According to family legend, ‘sky’ had been my first word, which was how I got my name. Traditional types, my folks refused to name either myself or my older sister until we were at least a year old, just in case they changed their mind along thew ay.

They also fancied things up by throwing an ‘e’ on the end to make the spelling of my name look like the island in the Hebrides. My dad, William Stewart, claimed lineage to the legendary Stewart clan of kings. Though with no actual documentation to back up such a claim, it was largely hearsay.

No matter how many letters he wrote to the governments of both England and Scotland, and in one infamous example Queen Elizabeth her royal self, demanding his land and title, we never received any solid proof.

There were certain advantages to living in New York that I’d never considered before moving here. For one, not driving was not seen as odd. The fact that I’d been strictly forbidden from learning to drive for reasons far too sexist to even contemplate didn’t need to come up in conversation as it so often had back home.

I was soon no longer even tempted to learn just to spite my folks, like my sister had a couple of years before. Almost as soon as she was off to college she was on the road. But I didn’t really want to drive if I didn’t have to— it seemed scary to me, with the threat of an accident always looming over my head, especially with all the different streets and alleys of a city as large as New York.

I’d seen pictures and oh so many examples, of course. Even so, there was nothing like actually going over one of the bridges in person to really appreciate its structural beauty.

I guessed the people who were born and raised here stopped noticing after a while, like how astronauts probably got used to seeing space up close on their umpteenth launch. But I still had a sense of novelty about the whole thing, despite my best attempts to try and not look like a tourist.

I lived here now and might as well do my best to fit in. I just hoped I could get this job, as my money was running out and I needed to replenish my bank account if I hoped to be able to stay here instead of having to return home to Portland with my tail between my legs.Chapter Two - SimonThe thump of my feet matched the pounding of my heart. I was running aimlessly with no particular goal in the mind other than fighting the middle-aged spread before it could start.

Both my dad and grandad had been spry and sprightly until they finally keeled over, the sand in their hourglass just running out. And how big that hourglasses must have been. Grandad was almost 100 when he joined the choir invisible and my dad lasted until age 95 but his fact-paced lifestyle eventually took a toll on his heart, strong as it was.

I wasn’t there at the time, Dad always flying off somewhere beautiful to do something crazy. But according to eye-witness reports, backed up by that of the coroner, the old fella had been hit with a massive heart-attack while mid-glide, minutes after B.AS.E. jumping from the highest cliff he could find, Mt. Everest being off season and not able to get a permit for Kilimanjaro.

The blast beats thundered, the melodic guitars driving me on like a hyperactive sled dog as I ran as quickly as I could, despite not actually going anywhere at all. Then the alarm I had set to notify me of the end of my work out went up like an air raid siren, heralding the coming of the cool down period.

The treadmill eased down from a panicked bolt to a Sunday stroll, my heart rate following suit. It might well quicken up again when I got into the shower.

Icy water like a melted glacier cascaded down onto my prone skin, easing the ache my muscles felt from the hard work out and putting all my nerves on high alert as they started rebounding from the beating I’d just given them. Some in my position used cocaine to perk up. But I preferred endorphins, which in addition to being free, were also a lot less dangerous. Rarely had I heard of anyone over-dosing on exercise.