A Magical Christmas (12 page)

The Colt struck the ground without its safety on. As the captain molded her into his arms, he heard shots explode once again.

Cries arose.…

He looked into her face.

Her face…

So precious. He touched it. She caught his palm. Kissed it.

Her beautiful face, her warmth, the touch of the dusk falling hard now upon them. Stars beginning to blink out in the heavens.

A winter’s night. Crisp, cool, tender, in her arms.

Snow beneath his feet…

Her face.

Shots began to explode from everywhere. Shouts and cries arose, and he
knew
, oh, God, he
knew
…

Her face…

He raised his head as if seeing what was happening to change things.

All he saw was that it was his son leading the racing Federals toward their home. He saw his boy’s eyes, and the look in them. And if the situation had not been so explosively damning, he would have smiled.

His boy had come to save him. He wished suddenly and fervently that his son had not grown to be such a brave and determined man.

And there…

Oh, God, there, coming, riding toward inevitable tragedy now, his daughter.

Pray God, watch over her!

He looked back into his wife’s eyes. She hadn’t seen. Didn’t know yet, wouldn’t know…

Her beautiful, beautiful face.

Bullets pierced flesh, ripped and tore, broke and mangled. Blood flowed, so warm…

Firing, everywhere.

The Yanks panicked, thinking they were under attack. The townspeople were firing in every direction.

Oh, God.

The pain.

The numbness.

Her eyes.

The blood.

So red against the purity of the snow…

Six o’clock.

Dusk.

Christmas Eve.

1862.

M
iraculously, Julie was able, with the help of a friend who worked for the airlines, to get them tickets on an American flight that left Miami International just after 6:00
P.M.

In the last two days before their family vacation, Julie wondered more and more what they were doing. Not just she and Jon were at odds—though they had actually managed to cease fighting; they simply didn’t bother talking at all—the children couldn’t seem to get along with one another in any way, shape, or form.

Jamie’s car went into the shop, and on what Christie was calling her last crucial days with the man she loved, she wasn’t able to ride to school with Jamie.

She sat in Julie’s car, along with her younger siblings.

“Stop it, brat!” Christie snapped at Ashley, elbowing her in the shoulder.

Naturally, Ashley started to cry.

“Damn it, Christie—”

“She was spitting.”

“I wasn’t spitting!”

“Fine, fine, she was rolling water on her tongue and squeezed it out her lips.”

Jordan, in the front, turned around. “Christie, did you just let out a big one?”

“What?”

“Christie farted, Christie farted, I can’t wait to tell lover boy that Christie farted—”

Christie was halfway out of the backseat, reaching for her brother’s neck. She elbowed Ashley again in her efforts, this time accidentally.

“Christie, get back into your seat belt!” Julie roared. “You’re going to kill us all.”

“Small loss!” Christie muttered.

Julie felt a chill. Not that Christie had said such a thing. Kids talked like that all the time.

What gave her the shivers was the tone of her daughter’s voice. She seemed to mean it.

She found herself driving off the road and onto the embankment two blocks from Christie’s school.

“Stop that, damn you! It’s Christmas! Don’t you see the frigging lights hanging everywhere; can’t you hear the damned music? It’s Christmas. And
we’re going to have a good time and act like human beings. Have you got it?”

They all stared at her blankly for several long moments. Jordan lowered his eyes first, then raised them to her again. “Yeah, sure, Mom, I’ve got it. Do you?”

She wanted to backhand him. Somehow, she managed to refrain.

She jerked back into the traffic.

Christie fought the prospect of leaving until the very last minute. She sobbed to Jamie on the phone. She threatened to have a fit once she was seated on the plane, which would force her parents to take her off it.

Jordan had remained sullen while the rest of them packed.

So sullen that Julie found herself in his room, demanding to know what was going on with him. She looked from the heavy-metal posters around his room to all his little incense-burning pots and she felt a real fear developing within her. Had she been blind?

“Jordan,” she told him. “Drugs kill.”

“There you go accusing me of things when you haven’t the first bit of proof about anything.”

She shook her head. “I don’t run around making accusations, Jordan.”

“Yeah, well, Dad does.”

Julie hesitated. She had heard once that kids lived up to—or down to—their parents’ expectations of them. She’d spent her life trying to make sure that she always believed the best of her children. Jon told her she was like some combination Mary Poppins/Eliza Doolittle and that she needed to wake up and see the world. She did see the world, more so than he realized, and she just wanted her children to know that she’d always side with them against that world when it got rough.

“Dad wants the best for you, Jordan.”

He stared at her, arching a brow. “Well, hallelujah, you just said something kind of nice about him.”

“Jordan, you’re an intelligent young man. Drugs do kill. I’ll leave you with that.” She started out of the room.

“Right. ’Cause living in this household makes the value of life so evident, huh?”

She walked back into his room in a fury. “You ungrateful brat! Whatever our problems are, we’ve done our best to give you everything you need.”

“Yeah, well, you’re missing something.”

She slapped him. Hard.

Then she wanted to die. To crawl under the rug and disappear.

She walked out of his room instead and went quickly into her own.

Jon wasn’t home yet. He was going into work in the morning, but getting out by noon so that they could both collect the children and get to the airport.

She felt the tears streaming down her cheeks. Were her children just spoiled and ungrateful? Had she really ruined their lives? Was this Christmas worth it all, or was she just torturing everyone further by making a futile effort to reach out and grab a last happy memory for a young child?

She got up, walked into her bathroom, and reached for a bottle of P.M. painkillers. She took three instead of the recommended dosage of two. She set the container back and started to cry again.

Hadn’t she just told her son that drugs kill?

Despite the fact that they had all been like a pack of wild dogs snapping at each other’s feet since the trip had been planned, they flew out of Miami International on the night of December twenty-first.

They were only able to get three seats together, and even that was incredible luck, so Ashley, Jordan, and Christie were in those seats.

Jon was toward the front of the plane.

Julie was toward the rear.

And that, Julie determined, was best. There had
already been terrible delays at the airport along with the incredible tension of the spirit of the season—people determined to get where they were going at all costs. It was probably good that she and Jon were separated, because their nerves were frayed and frazzled, and if they were apart, they wouldn’t be able to start arguing again until they hit solid ground.

Their plane had to circle over National for forty-five minutes. Julie found herself more tense, wondering if they would run out of fuel.

Finally, they landed, only to have to wait for their baggage.

Ashley was so tired that she was nearly dead to the world. She wasn’t a particularly small six-year-old, so between passing her around and trying to get the baggage, she, Jon, Jordan, and Christie were all miserable.

It took another hour to get the pathetic little rental car they had managed to reserve.

They checked into their hotel in Crystal City just outside the airport at 3:30
A.M.
At least they wouldn’t have to check out the next day until four, since Jon’s business travel allowed him to belong to the hotel chain’s frequent-stayer program.

And they did sleep. Christie, Ashley, and Julie shared a room, as did Jon and Jordan. When Julie awoke, she found that Ashley was staring into her
eyes, patiently waiting for her to awaken. Ashley offered her a beautiful smile. Julie had to smile in return, and pull her daughter close.

Julie had wanted to bring the kids to the Smithsonian, but there was a threat of snow, and by the time they were all up and had eaten, it was three in the afternoon.

“They should get something educational out of the trip,” Julie offered.

“We’re going to an inn where costumed staff recreate an entire era; that should be educational enough,” Jon argued. “Besides, the museum will be closing by the time we get there, and I’m not comfortable with that car if it snows, Julie.”

She didn’t argue with him. She didn’t like the car herself.

It turned out to be good that they left when they did. Darkness came incredibly quickly on the lonely country roads they followed. They passed no restaurants, but as it grew later, Jon saw a small country store, so they bought microwave hotdogs and chips as a poor excuse for dinner, and moved on again. The driving remained long and monotonous. By seven that evening, they were all at one another’s throats again.

“Julie, you’re not reading that damned map right!” Jon swore in frustration.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Ashley said.

“Mother, I must have something to drink, I am dehydrating here by the second,” Christie complained.

“It must be a hundred degrees in this car, Dad. Can we turn the heat down? Christie, will you get the hell off me?” Jordan snapped.

“I’m not on you!”

“Mommy, I have to pee!”

“Quit wiggling!” Christie cried to her sister.

“Stop, Jon, I’m going to have to let Ashley go in the trees.”

“In the trees?”

Ashley thought that was fun. They pulled off the road and crunched through the snow to reach the trees. Ashley even laughed that her bum froze when she squatted. Christie came running over with a container of wipes—not so that her sister would be comfortably clean, but because Ashley just might touch her with dirty hands.

Jordan had gotten out and gone to another tree. “Mom!” he cried somewhat excitedly.

“What?”

“Pee melts snow!”

She arched a brow. He had said the words with a kid’s excitement. She suddenly found herself smiling. They were Florida kids. Seeing something new. Maybe the trip was going to be all right.

When they returned to the car, Jon was pointing forward, smiling. He was excited as well.

“Look!”

She peered into the darkness ahead of them.

“I’ve found it—see, see the light just ahead? That has to be it.”

She nodded. “Let’s hope.”

Five minutes later, they followed a winding path along a gorgeous drive. The snow shimmered and reflected the moonlight. The house was charming, a two-storied, columned antebellum mansion that was straight out of
Gone With the Wind
.

Jon parked in front. As they exited the car, they could hear the whinny of horses from the nearby stables.

“Horses!” Ashley cried happily.

“Yeah, cool,” Jordan admitted.

“Dumb animals,” Christie muttered.

“It might have been hot in the car, but it’s cold out here,” Jon said. “Let’s get in.”

He opened the trunk. They all struggled to get their bags out; even Ashley was helping. She groaned her way up the steps to the grand porch with Julie warning her to be careful, it might be slippery, all the way.

Julie was the first to reach the door. There was a bell pull, and she tugged it. She heard the bell ringing inside the house.

No one came.

She rang the bell again.

Jon stepped up and rapped firmly on the door.

“No one is answering,” Julie said, shivering. She set down the bag she carried and rubbed her hands together.

“Perhaps we should just open the door and go in—it is a bed-and-breakfast, right?” Jordan said hopefully. “Like, there’s public dining or something, isn’t there?”

“Yes! It’s open to the public, isn’t it?” Christie asked. She was huddled into her coat, shivering.

“Cold, honey?” Jon asked her. It looked as if he wanted to put an arm around her, pull her close.

He didn’t.

“No, I’m not cold!” Christie snapped, staring at her father with exasperation. “I’m merely about to congeal. No, we couldn’t just spend Christmas at home where it’s beach weather! We had to come to the middle of nowhere to turn into icicles!”

“Don’t talk to your dad like that, Christie,” Julie heard herself saying.

To her surprise, Christie didn’t answer her back. She flushed. “Sorry, Dad. Yes, I’m cold!”

The door opened suddenly.

Julie, Jon, Christie, and Jordan stared at one another. It seemed the six-year-old had been the only one with sense. Ashley had listened to her
sister’s suggestion and opened the door—assuming it was a public place.

“Okay, Daddy?” Ashley asked.

“Hey, sweetheart, looks okay to me. Let’s get inside.”

Ashley pushed the door open, and they all stepped in, Jon closing the door tightly behind them.

They stood in a large, graceful foyer with a handsome staircase to their right, a balcony open to the foyer above them, and four doors opening to other rooms arranged symmetrically on either side of them. Ashley instinctively veered toward the door to their left. It was opened wide, and the sounds of a crackling fire could be heard from within.

Like a huddled mass of sheep, they all walked into the room with Ashley.

There was something of a hotellike desk against the wall nearest the door, but otherwise they were in a parlor. A fire was blazing away, its warmth and crackle cheerful and inviting. Handsome, thick area rugs in shades of deep cobalt blue and softer rose lay scattered atop gleaming hardwood floors. Victorian chairs and sofas were gathered about the fire, while a small table and a couple of high-backed brocade-upholstered chairs sat in a charming little window nook toward the front of the house. The ceilings were elegantly corniced; the wallpaper was a pretty rose pattern that picked up on the soft
shades in the area rugs that lay upon the floor. Beautiful oils, portraying hunting scenes and handsome men and beautiful women, lined the walls. All in all the room was perfect—historical, comfortable, and entirely warm and inviting.