A Magical Christmas (11 page)

Their fathers could come home and lose it and beat the pulp out of them. Or call the cops on their
own kids. Fathers didn’t do that very often, though. Mothers wouldn’t let them.

Still…

He felt himself tensing. Winding up, like a pitcher getting ready for a throw. Any minute now, any minute now… They had come into the house. His door was going to burst open and…

Footsteps, moving through the house. Heavy footsteps. People stamping around. His folks, stomping. His folks, angry to begin with.

Oh, man, if they caught him at something now, they’d shred him. Into little tiny pieces. They’d kill him, just kill him. He’d be in juvenile hall for sure.

Maybe they’d go to Christie’s room first.

Kill her.

The blood lust might abate by the time they got to him.

“Business? Oh, right!” he heard his mother saying. Her footsteps were taking her toward the kitchen.

“Oh, damn it, Julie, yes, what the hell do I need? A note from my boss? Trish Deva is about to sue her ex-husband, and Bentley thinks the case is worth millions. What the hell am I explaining this to you for? This is incredible! You were in the same damned place as I was!”

“Right. I just wasn’t as close as Trish Deva.”

“Damn it, Julie, you’ve got to trust me—”

“Oh, right! I should trust you!”

“Julie, you’re being absurd! One time—and you’d thrown me out of the house!”

“I never threw you out of the house.”

“You asked me to leave.”

“I didn’t ask you to go sleep with my friends.”

“Yeah, and you sure as hell didn’t ask me to sleep with you!”

Jordan heard his mother slam her way into the kitchen. His father followed.

He lay back on his pillow, the dizziness that had seized him receding.

All he felt was a surprisingly deep and bleak misery.

They’d calm down in a minute. They’d grow quiet, both accusing the other of making a show and dragging the kids into their problems.

A few minutes later, his door opened.

“Jordan?” His father’s voice.

“Yeah, Dad?”

“Did I wake you?”

“I’ve been half-asleep.”

“Everything okay?”

“Fine, Dad.”

“Jordan?” His mother’s voice now.

“Yeah?” He made the sound as sleepy as possible.

“Did everything go all right?”

“Yeah, it was great. We all had hamburgers and
fries, and Christie made us eat grapes when we got home.”

“Good,” his mother said, sounding relieved. “And everything’s all right—”

“Everything’s fine, Mom.”

“Good night, son,” his father said.

His mother tiptoed into the room, kissing his forehead. His father followed.

Whatever essence of illegal substance that might have remained in the room was apparently overlooked. They had other things on their minds.

“Night, Jordan, love you,” his mother said, and hurried out. His father tousled his hair, and followed his mother. He heard them entering Christie’s room. He heard his sister innocently murmuring that they had awakened her.

They entered Ashley’s room.

Jordan wished fervently that Ashley had been sleeping. Ashley was a royal pain in the rear end, but he hated to see how hurt she got when their folks went to war with one another. Poor Ashley. She was hanging onto something that just wasn’t there.

Ashley was either really sleeping or pretending to sleep. Her parents very quietly closed her door as they exited her room before moving across the living area of the house to their own bedroom on the other side.

The fight would continue, Jordan thought. It would just do so more quietly now.

They’d stab each other in silence, he thought bitterly.

He leaned back against his pillow. Well, maybe the dopey trip to a dead-end place in Virginia for the holidays would be called off. That would be like a small miracle, one big Christmas present. Maybe they’d start getting their divorce tomorrow—that could actually be kind of cool because then they both might try to outdo one another being nice to their kids. He had friends with divorced parents, and all of them had told him one of the main benefits of divorce was that the parents usually hit some kind of point at first where they tried to outdo each other in the present department.

Jordan closed his eyes.

Tears ran silently down his cheeks. He tried to wipe them away. Pills and pot didn’t mix. It was like a bad trip.

He couldn’t think of any presents he really wanted. He just wanted…

He reached out into the darkness of his room.

He just wanted…

He didn’t know what it was. It couldn’t be touched. But he wanted it.

And whatever it was that he tried to reach for was just about as far away as the moon.

*   *   *

Christie told herself that she should have just been glad that her parents were so busy arguing that they hadn’t noticed anything at all amiss at home.

Not that anything had really been amiss. Ashley had been well taken care of, Jordan—well, Jordan was being Jordan. Nothing new about that. He’d been getting into the drugs for a while now, hanging around with older guys easily because he was so tall and mature-looking when most guys his age—nearly fourteen, trying to go to forty—were squirty little dipsticks with squeaky voices. She and Jordan were ready to strangle one another most of the time, but she never squealed on him about the drugs and he never squealed on her about Jamie. The only problem was… well, she knew what she was doing with Jamie, her folks just hadn’t gotten it yet. Admittedly, she was ready to get into just about anything with Jamie, she was just wildly in love with him, but Jamie was grounded. Jamie had given her a lot. They fooled around, sure, but they were careful and responsible. And Jamie didn’t do drugs and he didn’t drink. He worked hard, because he had to work hard. No one was going to pay for him to go to college, and he was going to go to college—not because he felt he had to be rich or famous or anything, but because he felt that knowledge was the greatest gift in the world. He wanted
to be a teacher. He especially wanted to be an inner-city teacher. He thought that lots of kids had dreams, but that too many of them found that no one ever gave a damn about their dreams or believed in their dreams. If he could be a teacher—sure, he’d get his tires slashed in the school parking lots a few times—he might be able to touch a few kids who just might be teetering on a rope. If those kids were scoffed at, they’d wind up scoring on the streets. But if someone just believed in them… well, then, they could fly.

Jamie didn’t know too much about Jordan and his drugs. The one day he’d found out about Jordan just smoking pot, he’d told her that—whatever Jordan might have to say about the two of them—she had to tell her folks. Christie hadn’t quite gotten to that point yet. For one thing, she was hoping that Jordan would just grow out of the phase he was in. For another, her parents were like kegs of dynamite. She didn’t know what they might do to Jordan. Or to her. Or to one another.

Like last night.

They hadn’t noticed a damned thing.

And when they’d needed Jamie to pick up Ashley for them, well, suddenly Jamie had been all right.

He was driving her to school this morning, and her father had better not say a damned word.

Jordan had his face in his Cheerios when Christie came into the kitchen—dressed and ready to go the minute the doorbell rang. She didn’t see her parents anywhere. She quickly sat across the table from her brother.

“They say anything to you?”

He looked up, shaking his head.

“To you?”

She shook her head.

“They didn’t realize the Latin lover had just run out?”

“They didn’t smell the ‘eau de illegal substance’ in your room?”

Jordan scowled at her. He leaned closer to her.

“No. They were fighting about some woman,” he whispered.

Christie frowned. Funny. She was mad at her dad half the time. He was totally unreasonable. But she’d been around him all her life. Of course. And he wasn’t a flirt.

“She just doesn’t trust him.”

“She’s worn out. He doesn’t pick up much of the slack.”

“You think she’s right?”

Jordan shook his head. “Right? Who the hell can be right or wrong? All I know is that all they do is yell. The only bright spot in it is that we get out of that sick Christmas trip.”

Julie came clipping quickly into the kitchen then on her high heels. She paused, a hand on Jordan’s chin, lifting it so that he faced her. She frowned. “Jordan, you look really tired. Your eyes are all red.”

Jordan pulled away quickly. Too quickly, Christie thought. Her brother didn’t look good. How serious was this getting? Should she say something to her parents?

Their father came into the kitchen then, adjusting his tie in front of the coffeepot. “Julie, did you make flight reservations yet?”

“Flight reservations?” she repeated.

“For Virginia. Or D.C., I suppose. Have you rented a car?”

Christie saw, looking at her face, that her mother had a stricken look in her eyes. She’d forgotten to make the reservations.

“No, not yet,” she said.

“Not yet?” Jon thundered.

Chill, Dad. Chill!
Christie thought unhappily.

“No, damn it, not yet. Did
you
make the flight reservations, did
you
rent a car? After all, this harebrained scheme is your damned idea!”

“We’ll never get reservations now,” Jordan said with a sigh. “Looks as if we’ll just have to forget the whole thing!” he added cheerfully.

“It was a stupid damned idea anyway,” Christie was surprised to hear her father say.

He looked worn. Tired. As if he just didn’t care anymore. Oddly, she felt a sense of panic. The fighting was one thing. This just not caring was another.

“I can cancel the room reservation much more easily than I can get a car rental and airline tickets now, I’m quite sure,” Julie said icily.

“Good. Then it’s all forgotten,” Jon agreed, pouring himself a cup of coffee and staring at his wife.

But that announcement was followed by a sudden howl that drew all their eyes to the kitchen doorway. Ashley stood there, huge tears rolling down her cheeks, her teddy bear held tightly to her slim little chest, her green eyes bright and damp.

Her lower lip trembled.

“You promised we’d go and build a snowman, Daddy. You said there’d be horses.”

Jon, startled, set his coffee cup down. “Sweetheart, I—I can find a horse somewhere, I’m sure.…”

Christie frowned, watching her baby sister. Ashley’s little lip doubled its tremble tempo and her eyes grew bigger as another wave of tears fell down her cheeks.

“Mommy, you said we’d go away. All of us.
We’d have snow. And the people at the old house dress up, you told me that, Daddy, that they’d dress up like old-time people, and that it would be like Christmas more than a hundred years ago.” She inhaled on a remarkably pathetic sob, then let out a shuddering, “You promised!”

Christie watched as her parents’ gazes met. They both started for Ashley at the same time, crashing into one another in their haste to reach their youngest child. “Baby, baby, it’s okay…” Jon tried.

“Maybe I can still book us a flight. And find a car,” Julie said.

“And maybe we can all get packed by tomorrow night to get on the flight,” Jon said slowly.

“Please, please, please!” Ashley cried softly.

“I’ll try, I’ll try, I promise—first thing,” Julie said. “First thing when I get into work.”

“All right, all right,” Jon said. “I’ll drive the kids so that you can get in earlier.”

“Jamie is coming for me,” Christie said.

Jon hesitated, only a fraction of a second. “Yeah, all right. Jordan, Ashley—I’ll be right back.”

“I’ll just grab my purse,” Julie said.

Christie watched as both her parents went running out of the room. She stared at Jordan, and Jordan stared at Ashley.

“Now look what you’ve done!” Jordan exclaimed to her.

Ashley very calmly dried her eyes. Her lip no longer trembled. She stared at her brother with a gaze that was almost frighteningly mature.

“You don’t care,” she accused Jordan, “but I do! And I don’t want Mommy and Daddy to get a divorce!”

Ashley spun around, leaving her older brother and sister in the kitchen.

Jordan and Christie just stared at one another in surprise.

“I wonder what else she knows,” Jordan said glumly.

“Scary, huh?” Christie asked him. The doorbell rang and she leapt up.

She forgot about her parents and her family. Jamie! She couldn’t leave Jamie for the holidays!

Maybe her mother wouldn’t be able to get them a flight after all.

Christmas Eve
1862

T
he captain pushed past Pete and started running down the scaffold stairs just as she leapt from her cavalry mount, firing into the air.

“My God, what’s happening, what’s happening?” Lieutenant Jenkins demanded.

Suddenly, shots were being fired from all over. The half-dozen Union cavalrymen who’d been racing toward Oak River Plantation had leaned into their mounts, galloping wildly now in their hurry to reach what was quickly becoming a melee. More townsfolk were arriving on horseback and on foot, and it seemed that everyone had a gun, and everyone was firing.

She was firing. Oh, God, his wife was still firing, trying to get someone to pay her heed, trying to stop the hanging that had already been stopped!

“Stop this, now. I demand that you stop this now!” she shouted, and she fired another warning shot into the air.

She was a Virginian. Born and bred. She could shoot a squirrel in the tooth a hundred yards away.

Her shot whizzed right through Jenkins’s very proper hat.

The captain shouted out her name.

She saw him.

Saw him racing toward her.

For a moment, she was dead-still. Then her features came alight with joy.

“My love!”

She barely breathed the words. She started running again, running toward him, as quickly as her feet would carry her. She forgot the Colt in her hand, forgot it completely and dropped it as she threw herself into his waiting arms.