Episode 955: Once Upon A Time

“Trade one princess for your coat,” her husband, Ryley, offered.

Addie looked down, surprised to note she did still have on her red peacoat with the light dusting of snow on its shoulders. “I am so exhausted that I forgot I had this on even.”

She removed her coat and handed it to Ryley in exchange for their girl. Her sweet little head snoozed against Adria’s shoulder, still sporting the floral Christmas beanie the costume designer handcrafted for her.

Adria shook her head. “Here I am complaining about how tired I am when my little girl is wiped out.” She frowned. “I shouldn’t have brought her tonight, it was irresponsible. A good mom would-”

“We both decided to bring her and we’re both good parents. She loves your theater, Ad. She was so excited the whole time by the colorful sets and humming the songs. We made a good decision to bring her. We are good parents.” Ryley kissed Adria’s cheek and snuggled close to his wife and daughter on the sofa. “You were the right person to take over the theater. Everyone loved the benefit tonight, rugrat and I are so proud of you.”

Adria smiled at his flattery but the work was far from done, a one-time Christmas benefit performance of Babes In Toyland had required a lot of effort, but there was even more involved in putting on a daily production, never mind the marketing, fundraising, and continued restoration work to return the theater to its old glory.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” Adria confessed.

“Yeah, you can, absolutely.” Ryley didn’t hesitate. “Tonight really was awesome, I promise.”

“Maybe. But at what price? Look around.” She gestured around the room. “Not a single decoration this late into the season. I don’t want to let her down. I don’t want to be so busy with my stuff that I forget the stuff that’s important to a kid. I don’t want her to have my childhood.”

“We haven’t forgotten. We’ll do the decorations with her tomorrow and she’ll love it. It’s not that late in the season, it only seems that way because people have lost their minds and start decorating the day after Halloween. We’ve done well so far juggling everything, right? We do things at our pace, in our way, she’ll be happy, we’ll be the parents we want to be and your theater will be the hottest ticket in town, you’ll see. Consider it my Christmas promise to you.”

Episode 956: Carol Of The Bells