’Tis the Season

by Judith Arnold

  “What are you gonna do with the sandpaper?”

  “Just smooth it down a little more. That’ll help the paint to go on nice and even.”

  “How do you know this stuff?” Billy asked, running his scraper along the board and discovering it was actually fun. A lot more fun than baking would have been.

  “I know everything,” Dad said, but Billy could tell from the way he made his voice sound all deep and serious that he was joking.

  The back door opened and Filomena peered out. “Are chocolate-chip cookies acceptable to everyone?” she asked through the screen.

  “Sounds good to me. What do you think, Billy?”

  “Sounds good to me, too,” he said.

  “That’s two votes for chocolate chip,” Dad reported to Filomena. Billy glanced up to see them gazing at each other that way again, sharing one of those smiles that seemed to shut out Billy and the porch and the entire universe. It was as if everything stopped when they smiled at each other, the crows shutting up, the breeze dying down, Billy’s own breath snagging in his throat, unable to escape. Then Filomena closed the door and his father sighed.

  Billy resumed scraping the boards. His father picked up a square of sandpaper, extended it past the end of the porch and pulled down on it, tearing off a neat strip. Then he crossed the porch to where Billy was working, got on his knees and began sanding the part where Billy had scraped off the big stuff. The sandpaper made a hissing sound.

  Something was going on between Dad and Filomena, something more than her baby-sitting for Gracie and him. Billy had sort of sensed it during the two dinners she’d had at their house, the way Dad let him and Gracie leave the table and watch TV even though they were grounded, the way Dad’s voice changed when he talked to Filomena—soft and tender, without any anger or laughter in it. It was the voice Dad used when he was having important discussions with Billy, when he was telling Billy he loved him.

  “Do you ever miss Mom?” Billy asked. The question just sort of popped out. Billy hadn’t even realized he was thinking of his mother. He’d thought he was just thinking of Dad and Filomena.

  Dad didn’t answer right away. He didn’t even look at Billy. He just rubbed the sandpaper along the boards. “No,” he finally said, then thought some more and added, “I miss having someone to share the work with—the chores, the responsibilities, the shopping. And I miss having someone to share the good things with, too. When you score a soccer goal, or you get everything right on a spelling test, or when Gracie does something special.”

  “Gracie never does anything special,” Billy muttered. That got his dad to look at him. He grinned to show he was just kidding.

  Dad smiled but didn’t play along. He rubbed the sandpaper hard on the boards, in a constant shh-shh rhythm. “Sometimes I’m just so proud of you and Gracie, and I want to share my pride with someone. If your mother were still around, I’d be able to share it with her. But other than that, no. I don’t miss her.” He sanded for a minute. “Do you?”

  “No,” Billy said. One of his gloves had gotten kind of bunched up, and he had to use his teeth to adjust it, because with the gloves so much longer than his fingers, his hands were too clumsy for anything except using the scraper. When he resumed scraping, he tried to picture his mother. She’d left over two years ago, and he remembered her, but not too clearly. Sometimes it felt like she’d never been in his life at all.

  “How come she left?” he asked.

  His dad gave him a sharp look, and Billy wondered whether he was going to ask why he was even talking about her. Billy himself wondered about that. All he knew was that something in the way his dad and Filomena kept looking at each other had gotten his mind stuck on the subject.

  After a moment, his dad glanced away. “She left because she thought she found something better.”

  “Better than us?”

  “She was mistaken, Billy. There is nothing in the world better than raising you and Gracie. Nothing.”

  Billy glanced at him. He was rubbing the sandpaper on the porch so hard he was beginning to sweat, even though the air was cold. After a moment he pulled off his jacket, tossed it onto the railing and then went back to sanding.

  Billy was glad his father thought there was nothing better than raising Gracie and him. He was really, really glad his father loved him, even if his father worked too hard sometimes and seemed too tired and got mad at him when he wanted to stay up late and grounded him when he did something bad. If a kid was going to be stuck with only one parent, his dad was a good one to have.

  It was still probably a lot better to have two parents, though. “If Mom came back, would you forgive her?” he asked.

  Evan stopped sanding, leaned back and thought for a minute. “Yeah, I’d forgive her. Forgiveness is important. It heals the heart.”

  “So, you’d let her come home and be our mommy?”

  “She’ll always be your mommy, Billy. But if you’re asking me if I’d take her back as my wife, no.”

  “I thought you just said you’d forgive her.”

  Dad gave him a funny smile. “I think I’ve already forgiven her, Billy. You can’t live your whole life being bitter and hurt. It’s much better to let go of all that. But no, I wouldn’t want her to be my wife again. I guess you could say I found something better, too.”

  “What?” Billy asked, not sure if he was ready to hear his father’s answer.

  “I’ve found that it’s better not to be married than to be married to someone who would make the choices your mother made. Marriage is a great thing, Billy—but it can be a terrible thing if the people are wrong for each other, or if they haven’t grown up enough to know what they want.” He pulled off a glove and ran his hand through Billy’s hair. “I’m sorry you and Gracie had to learn these things so young. I’m sorry your mom left us. But I’m not sorry I’m here and I’ve got you kids and we’re a family. You and Gracie are the best things in my life. Better than your mom ever was.”

  Dad’s words made Billy feel warm inside, not the way Filomena’s smile had made him feel warm, but a deeper heat in his gut and along his spine, in his toes and his fingers, which were sweating inside the gloves. “I guess this would be a good time to ask for a raise in my allowance,” Billy said.

  His father threw back his head and laughed. Then he shoved his glove onto his hand again and checked out the area Billy had finished scraping. “You want a raise, you’d better work a little harder,” he advised. “I’m doing the hard part here and I’ve practically caught up to you.”

  Laughing along with his father, Billy moved down the porch and started scraping a new section. For a kid who was grounded, who couldn’t get together with his friend Scott today the way he would have liked, or hop on his bike for a spin through the neighborhood, or talk Dad into taking him and some friends to the high-school football game, but who, instead, was stuck scraping paint off his new baby-sitter’s porch, he was feeling really good. He was feeling even better because Dad hadn’t asked him why he’d wanted to talk about his mother.

  It was a good thing he hadn’t asked, because if he had, Billy wouldn’t have known what to say.

  THE COOKIES were delicious—warm and soft, the chips still gooey from the oven’s heat. After the kids had eaten a few, Filomena gave them a deck of cards and told them to play in a small sitting room off the living room. Evan had the distinct impression she’d sent them away so she could be alone with him, just the way he’d sent them off to watch television so he could linger over dinner with her.

  “I hate to say this,” she murmured, staring through the back door while Evan filched another cookie from the plate, “but the porch looks worse than when you started.”

  “It’s fine. It just needs to be swept, and then I’ll slap down the first coat of paint.”

  “How many coats will it need?”

  “Two ought to do it. The weather is supposed to hold, so the second coat can go on tomorrow.”

  “I’ll paint that coat. You’v
e already done so much….”

  “Yeah,” he said with a laugh. “I made it look worse.” He wanted to wrap her braid around his hand and give it a tug. He wanted to wrap his arms around her, to see how much of what he saw was bulky clothing and how much was her. He wanted…

  He wanted things he shouldn’t want. He wanted things that couldn’t be. Yet what he wanted must be pretty damned obvious if a perceptive eight-year-old boy could figure it out. Billy’s questions hadn’t just materialized out of the autumn air. They’d come from something specific, something he sensed. Something that kept springing to life between Evan and Filomena, pushing up like new green grass out of the cold November ground. The timing was all wrong, but those tender spears wouldn’t stop growing.

  He’d known he wanted her when he’d offered to paint her porch. He’d known it when he’d found her in his home after work. He knew it whenever she left his house and it suddenly seemed a little darker, a little emptier. He’d probably known it the very first time he’d seen her standing in his backyard at night, with Gracie in her arms. He hadn’t recognized the feeling for what it was right away, but he knew it now.

  He wanted Filomena Albright the way he hadn’t wanted a woman in a long, long time.

  She turned from the door and her smile faded as she scrutinized Evan’s face. He’d rolled up the sleeves of his wool flannel shirt when he’d come into the warm kitchen and shoved up the sleeves of his thermal shirt. But when she looked at him, her eyes so large and dark, he felt overheated.

  “I was wondering,” he said, then cleared his throat because his voice sounded scratchier than the sandpaper.

  “Yes?”

  “Whether you had plans for Thanksgiving.” Because she was all alone in Arlington—that was why he was asking her. Because his parents were in Washington, D.C., and he wasn’t going to be able to spend the holiday with them, and because three people seemed at least one too few for a Thanksgiving dinner. Because there was a faint smudge of flour on her chin, and for some reason it made him want her even more.

  “Actually, I—No,” she said, almost but not quite smiling.

  “I’m not planning anything fancy. I was figuring I’d just broil a turkey—”

  That made her laugh. “Turkeys aren’t broiled, Evan.”

  “They’re not?” He scowled. “Uh-oh.”

  She laughed harder. “You just want me to cook for you.”

  “Well, after eating these cookies and the stuffed peppers you made the other night…” He smiled and shook his head. “I don’t want you to cook for me. I want…” to touch you. To rub my thumb over your chin and wipe away flour, and feel how smooth your skin is. “Your company,” he concluded.

  “Evan.” She crossed to the table and brushed some invisible crumbs from its surface into her cupped palm. “It’s a very sweet invitation, but…” She fell silent.

  “But?”

  “Daddy?” Billy barged into the room, all spiky energy. “Gracie fell asleep on the couch and I’m bored. Can I go play in the woods?”

  “She fell asleep?” He glanced at his watch. Two o’clock. She still needed her nap most days.

  “So can I go play in the woods?”

  Evan turned to stare out the windows. The afternoon sun was bright. “Are you wearing your watch?” he asked Billy. Billy nodded vigorously. “Okay. Be back here by three.”

  “Okay!” He bolted out the back door as if he expected Evan to change his mind. The screen door clapped against the door frame, and Filomena gave it an extra tug to close it all the way.

  Silence circled them, silence and the rich aroma of the cookies. Evan gazed at Filomena, trying to remember where they’d been before Billy had interrupted them. He’d been contemplating the flour on her chin. He’d been admiring the glittering darkness of her eyes.

  She’d been telling him she didn’t want to have Thanksgiving dinner with him. And she was probably right. He shouldn’t push it. He should defer to her superior wisdom and accept her decision gracefully.

  “So how come you don’t want to eat broiled turkey with us?” he asked, forcing a smile to mute the disappointment in his voice.

  “I didn’t say I didn’t want to spend Thanksgiving with you, Evan. It’s just that…” She sighed. “I don’t want to become dependent on you.”

  Dependent on him? Hell, he was the one dependent on her. She’d brought his children back to him the night they’d climbed out Billy’s window, and she’d provided him with the perfect solution to his child-care dilemma, and she’d made the past couple of evenings at his house more pleasant than any workday evenings in recent memory.

  What on earth could she become dependent on him about? Surely the money he was paying her wasn’t going to make a huge difference in her life, given that she owned this gorgeous minimansion and was working on a Ph.D. She was a classy lady. She earned the salary he was paying her, and she deserved every penny of it, but she wasn’t going to become dependent on him over it.

  “You mean, because I’m painting your porch? That’s nothing, Fil. That’s what neighbors do for each other.”

  She shook her head. Having already cleaned the nonexistent crumbs off the table, she concentrated on sponging nonexistent drops of water from the counter by the sink. “I’m all alone,” she said, her voice so low he had to strain to hear her. “Both my parents are gone, I’ve got no sisters or brothers…But you and Billy and Gracie have made me feel like I’m not alone.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing. It’s just…” She set down the sponge and spun around to face him. Her eyes were dry, her mouth curved in one of those smiles he couldn’t read. “I’m leaving in January.”

  “I know.”

  “I mean, maybe I’m assuming things I shouldn’t, but…”

  “No, you’re not.” He was assuming the very same things. An electric thrill sparked his nerve endings at the thought that she was assuming what he was assuming.

  “So nothing is really going on here.”

  Like hell. “Just friendship,” he lied.

  “And a job.”

  “And a job,” he agreed.

  They stared at each other for a long minute. Then he took a step toward her, and another, until he standing next to the sink, facing her. She smelled of baking scents and something more, something subtle and feminine. Her eyes were wide, almost defiant, as she gazed up at him.

  He reached out and rubbed his thumb over her chin. Her skin was like velvet, downy and warm. “You’ve got flour on your face,” he explained. “It’s been driving me crazy.”

  “Oh.” She didn’t laugh. Didn’t back away. Didn’t flinch as he stroked his thumb over her chin again, tracing the line of her jaw, the indentation under her lower lip. “Just friendship and a job,” she reminded him in a near whisper.

  “Right,” he murmured, then lowered his mouth to hers.

  It was foolish, he knew. Risky and brainless. She was leaving in January, and she was the kids’ baby-sitter, and he was a guy who’d failed spectacularly at marriage, and there was really no room for an involvement here, no room at all. But her mouth was so soft beneath his, soft and welcoming, and if he hadn’t kissed her, he would have gone nuts. So all right, sue him for being irresponsible and selfish and wanting just one kiss from a woman who’d been haunting him since the first time he’d seen her with her hair flowing wild and a silver-moon pendant resting between her breasts. Charge him with gross stupidity. Call him dimwitted, hormone-driven, bewitched. Definitely bewitched.

  Her lips moved, glided against his, pressed lightly. Energy zapped through his body, tensing his muscles, coiling in his groin. He slid his hand under her braid, under the ribbed turtleneck collar of her sweater to the warm skin at her nape. She drew a shaky breath and lifted her hands to his shoulders, sending another shock through his body.

  He brought his other hand to her waist, wanting to draw her tight against him—except, for God’s sake, it would be embarrassing for her to realize how m
uch one kiss could arouse him. He could explain to her that it wasn’t just the kiss that turned him on—it was her, her smile, her eyes, her dependability, her affection for his children. Or else it was magic. Because they hadn’t even done more than brush mouths, and he was already imagining making love to her, more than imagining it. More than wanting it. Craving it.

  Her hands tightened on his shoulders and he realized, through a blur of brain-numbing lust, that she was pushing him away. He jerked his head back, furious with himself for having done what she clearly didn’t want him to do. If she quit baby-sitting for the kids, it would be his fault. Yeah, he needed Daddy School classes. He was the worst father in the world, jeopardizing a magnificent child-care arrangement just because he’d been unable to resist kissing Filomena.

  “I’m sorry,” he muttered, staring at the deep porcelain sink to avoid looking at her.

  She cupped her hand under his chin and steered his face back to hers. “No,” she said, shaking her head for emphasis. “You’re not sorry. Neither am I.”

  Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes slightly glassy, her lips damp. All from that one little kiss? Had it staggered her as much as it had him?

  “It can’t happen again,” she added, sounding rueful.

  “Okay.” Not okay, but what choice did he have?

  She took a step backward and sighed. “Do you think…do you think we can still manage Thanksgiving together?”

  “Sure.” A hell of a lot better than he could manage it alone, given that she seemed to know a great deal more about how to cook a turkey than he did. They’d have the kids between them for Thanksgiving, though, so the temptation to kiss would be thwarted. And now that he’d kissed her once, maybe he would build up an immunity to her, the way a person built up an immunity to certain diseases by being exposed to them. For all he knew, his blood might already be bubbling with Filomena antibodies. She would never be able to enchant him again.

  Sure.

  “I’m going to go paint your porch,” he said, because at the moment it seemed like the only way to avoid her spell. A dose of biting November air, the sharp chemical smell of the paint, some muscle-flexing labor—he’d stick with that until the antibodies kicked in and the fever broke.