’Tis the Season

by Judith Arnold

  But this was the year he had resolved to get on with his life. And part of getting on with it meant creating a normal, cheerful holiday for his children. On Saturday, they would pick out a tall, fragrant tree and set it up in the living room. Maybe he’d buy one of those gingerbread-house kits—he wondered if they could broil gingerbread—and he and the kids would construct a gingerbread house.

  Maybe Filomena would help them.

  He had to stop obsessing about her. Cripes. There he was, caught up in the midday stampede of frenzied shoppers, and suddenly his vision was filled with her. He saw her magnificent hair, her dark eyes, a long skirt swaying around her boots. Filomena, radiating beauty and warmth amid a crowd of frantic, package-toting consumers on Dudley.

  He glanced toward the Santa Claus clanging a bell and collecting charitable donations near the bank, and then looked back to the spot where he thought he’d seen Filomena, expecting that she’d disappeared. But she hadn’t. Not only did he see her again, but she was walking toward him, waving and smiling as if thrilled to see him.

  He was thrilled to see her, too.

  He nudged his way through the crowd until he reached her. Her cheeks and the tip of her nose were pink from the cold, and her eyes danced. “Wow! What a mob scene!”

  “What are you doing here?” he asked. She could shop any time she wanted. Why would she pick the worst hour of the day?

  “I needed some fresh air.” She had a leather knapsack slung over one shoulder; her gloved hands curled around the strap. “What about you? Don’t you have a business to run?”

  He would gladly have abandoned his business for the chance to spend the rest of the day gazing into her eyes. He was going to have to get her a Christmas present, too. Even if she was nothing more than his kids’ baby-sitter, he’d give her a present, just as he gave presents to his business colleagues and sales staff.

  But she wasn’t just a baby-sitter, and he wanted to give her more. He wanted to give her something as beautiful as her eyes, as lovely as her smile. He wanted to give her a kiss.

  Standing beneath an overcast sky on the cold sidewalk, being brushed and poked on both sides by people swarming past, he bowed slightly and touched her lips with his. He didn’t care if anyone noticed. He didn’t care if Filomena was shocked.

  He was definitely obsessed, and kissing her seemed like the sanest, wisest thing he could do.

  It wasn’t a passionate kiss, and she clearly wasn’t overwhelmed by it. Neither was he—but he hadn’t kissed her to overwhelm either of them. He’d kissed her because he was happy to see her, because he was getting on with his life, and getting on with it meant kissing a woman who meant a lot to him.

  In any case, she didn’t seem to mind. When he straightened, he found her smiling quizzically at him. “So,” she said, her voice just a shade deeper than usual. No one else would have noticed the change, but Evan did. “What are you doing here?”

  “I have to buy some clothes for the kids. For Christmas.”

  “You’re giving them clothes for Christmas?” She looked appalled.

  “Along with a lot of shamelessly impractical stuff. Do you have a minute? Maybe you could help me pick out some sweaters for them.”

  “I’d love to help you pick out some sweaters for them,” she said, sliding one hand from her backpack and hooking it around his elbow. As if they were an actual couple, a man and a woman who’d arranged to meet, who’d planned this shopping outing. Partners for whom shopping together was a common occurrence. Lovers for whom sharing this chore was a precious opportunity.

  Yes. This was his new life, and at least for now Filomena seemed willing to be part of it. Smiling with renewed confidence, he steered her into the nearest store, out of the wintry afternoon.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  SHE WAS AROUND a lot now. Not that Billy was complaining—he liked having her around. It was just…well, different. Not just that she was with him and Gracie so much of the time, but that she didn’t exactly feel like a baby-sitter anymore.

  He knew she was a baby-sitter. He knew his dad paid her; he’d seen his dad hand her a check once, which reminded Billy that she was with him and Gracie because it was a job. But still, there was something different about the whole thing.

  She was giving Gracie a bath now. He and Dad were in the kitchen, Dad cleaning the broiling pan while he stacked the dinner plates in the dishwasher. Filomena had had dinner with them. She did that most days now. Sometimes she even fixed the dinner herself—and it wasn’t “broiled something.” Last night she’d made spaghetti and meatballs with real meatballs, not the already-made kind you could buy in the supermarket, but prepared from scratch, and a big salad, and garlic bread with grated cheese on top. “I’ll broil this to melt the cheese,” she’d said, “and then we can say it’s broiled something, okay?”

  It was the way she was around. Like she belonged here. Like she was a part of the family.

  He swung the dishwasher door shut and leaned against the counter, watching as his father rinsed the soapsuds from the pan. They skidded along the wet metal in little clusters, like skaters gliding over smooth ice. He couldn’t wait to go skating, but he’d outgrown his skates and Dad had said he didn’t have enough time to buy him a new pair. Billy guessed that meant he was getting new skates for Christmas.

  “Is Fil gonna have Christmas with us?” he asked.

  Dad shook the excess water from the pan and set it on the drying rack. Then he wiped his hands on a dish towel and turned to Billy. “Would you like that?”

  Billy scowled. He hated it when Dad turned a question around on him—especially when he didn’t have a simple answer.

  He liked Filomena, liked her a lot. But the way she and his dad kept…well, looking at each other and laughing with each other and being so comfortable with each other…It unsettled him. He wasn’t sure why, but it did.

  His dad was waiting for him to say something. He shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess it would be okay.”

  “If you don’t want her to, Billy, you can tell me.”

  Would Dad be mad at him if he said he didn’t want Filomena to share Christmas Day with them? The fact was, he wasn’t sure he didn’t want her to share it with them. “I like her, Dad. She’s really nice.”

  Dad grinned. “But?”

  “But it’s not like she’s our mother or something.”

  “No,” Dad said. “She’s not your mother.”

  Billy felt better. “Next year, can I go out for county-league basketball?” he asked.

  His dad frowned. “Sure. But what does that have to do with Christmas?”

  “I don’t know. I was just thinking about it.” And he was hoping maybe they could get off the subject of Filomena.

  His dad planted a hand on Billy’s shoulder and steered him into the den. He nudged him down onto the couch, then sank into the cushions next to him. “Billy, if something’s bothering you about Fil, you need to tell me.”

  “Nothing’s bothering me about her.”

  “So, what’s going on?”

  Billy didn’t know what to say. He noticed a thread dangling from the side pocket on his cargo pants and twiddled it with his thumb.

  “Has Filomena been mean to you? Or cold?”

  “No. I like her,” Billy said honestly. “She bakes great cookies.”

  “Yes, she does,” Dad agreed. A few days ago, she, Billy and Gracie had baked oatmeal cookies with butterscotch chips in them. And she’d promised to help them bake and assemble the gingerbread-house kit Dad had brought home from the store. They were going to do that this weekend—which just proved that she wasn’t really a baby-sitter, because if she was, she wouldn’t be with them on a weekend when Dad was home.

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “Well, it’s just…” Billy curled the thread around his thumb, but it wasn’t really long enough to go all the way around. It kept slipping off his finger, and he had to pluck at it and get it free so he could try curling it again. “I mean
, if she spends Christmas with us, it’s kind of like saying Mom isn’t here anymore.” He didn’t dare to look at Dad, just in case his observation made Dad angry or upset.

  Dad didn’t say anything right away. He propped his feet up on the coffee table. Billy remembered that his mother never let anyone put their feet up. He’d been remembering more about her lately, and he thought Filomena might have something to do with that. Like, he hadn’t had to think about his mother when no one was around to block her from view, but now that Filomena was, Billy kept feeling the need to peek around her to see if Mom was still hiding back there.

  He didn’t think Gracie had any real memories of their mother, but Billy kept flashing on moments with her: the way she’d look filling his doorway while he got into bed, the light from the hall glowing behind her so he couldn’t see her face, only her outline, with her hip pushed out a little and her arms crossed. Or the way she used to stand by the sliding glass door across the den from where he and Dad were sitting right now, and she’d holler out into the backyard, “Billy Myers, get in here now!” and he knew he was in trouble. Or the way she’d always yell at Dad—and at Billy, too—when they put their feet up on the coffee table.

  It was a sturdy coffee table, though, and neither of them was wearing shoes. Billy propped his feet up next to Dad’s and wondered if that meant he was taking Filomena’s side, if a person could actually take sides in all this.

  “You miss your mother, don’t you,” Dad said.

  Another tough question. His teacher’s math tests were easier than this. “I don’t know,” he answered, shrugging again.

  “It’s okay to miss her.”

  “I think actually I don’t,” Billy said. Hearing himself say it convinced him he didn’t. “It’s just that if Fil stays for Christmas, it’s like giving up or something.”

  “Giving up what?”

  “Giving up that Mom will ever come home.”

  Dad sighed deeply. “She’s not going to come home, Billy. Maybe someday she’ll realize she misses you and Gracie so much she’ll return to Arlington to see you. But she’ll never be living here, not in this house. Not even for Christmas. And that has nothing to do with Fil.”

  “Fil was reading my cards the other day,” Billy said, remembering an evening when Dad had called and said he would be getting home late because the store in town had gotten in a shipment of something—skis, maybe—and the staff was a little thin, so he was going to help unload and shelf the new stock. So Filomena had grabbed an old deck of cards and read Gracie’s and Billy’s fortunes for them. Gracie’s was the usual stuff, about how she was wonderful and creative and a princess and all that, but Billy’s had been different from what he’d expected, which made him believe Filomena was actually reading the cards, instead of just making up a story she thought he might want to hear.

  “What did your cards say?” Dad asked.

  “That I dreamed about things that could never be. But then she said I shouldn’t ever stop dreaming, anyway. She said the cards said I couldn’t stop even if I wanted, so I was just…destined—” that was the word she’d used “—to keep on dreaming, and I was going to have to learn how to figure out which dreams were possible and which were only just dreams.”

  “That sounds pretty serious,” Dad observed.

  “Well, yeah.”

  “Is there something you dream about that’s not going to come true? Something about your mother, maybe?”

  Billy nodded. “I used to dream she’d come home and say she was sorry, like, she did a stupid thing and she wanted us to forgive her.”

  His dad smiled crookedly. “I don’t think that’s a possible dream.”

  “Is that why you want to have Fil spend time with us? And give Gracie her bath? Because Mom’s never coming home?”

  “I want Fil to give Gracie her bath because I think sometimes it’s better if a girl gets a bath from a woman, instead of a man. And I want Fil spend time with us because she’s a smart, funny, generous woman and I enjoy her company.”

  “So you’re gonna invite her to spend Christmas with us, too,” Billy guessed.

  “I think so. If you wouldn’t mind.”

  If Mom wasn’t coming home, what difference did it make? Anyway, when Billy thought about it, he realized that what he minded wasn’t Filomena spending Christmas with them but the idea that his mother wasn’t. They were going to have Christmas in this house, his home, and his mother would never be a part of it again.

  “Are you in love with Fil?” he asked.

  “No,” his father said, then paused. He grinned and raked his hand through Billy’s hair, messing it. “I like her a lot, though. I think she’s a very special woman. I’m glad she’s in our lives.”

  “So am I. She does make great cookies.”

  “She does indeed.”

  “Daddy!” Gracie bellowed from upstairs. “Time to brush my hair!”

  “Her Majesty has summoned me,” Dad whispered to Billy with a wink before hoisting himself off the sofa. Billy remained where he was. Next to his feet on the coffee table was the book Filomena had lent him, about Freddy the Pig. It was a cool book.

  He couldn’t remember if his mother ever gave him a book. She probably had, but he honestly couldn’t remember.

  “I WANT YOU to spend Christmas with us,” Evan said as he walked Filomena to the front hall to get her jacket from the closet.

  He didn’t think the suggestion would shock her, and it didn’t. She stood inches from him, facing him, her hair rippling black over her shoulders and her hand falling away from the closet doorknob as she contemplated his invitation. In the dim light of the front hall, the hollows of her cheeks seemed more defined, her lashes thicker.

  He’d grown used to seeing her face, admiring it, memorizing it. She’d become a constant presence in his family’s life, a healthy, welcome addition. Obviously she’d been around enough that Billy was making certain connections. Are you in love with Fil? he’d asked, and while Evan hadn’t lied in his answer, he’d asked himself that question more than once and answered it more than one way.

  If he did love her, he wasn’t sure what kind of love it was. Except for the occasional light kiss on her cheek, he’d kept his hands to himself and his mind sealed off from erotic thoughts about her, at least while she was with him. He wanted her—hell, he wanted her the way his kids wanted snow, the way they wanted magic, the way they wanted lots of toys on Christmas morning. But he wouldn’t push, couldn’t rush. If he actually went and fell in love with her and then she left—as she was bound to—he’d feel pretty damned lousy. Been there, done that and all.

  So he was taking his time, letting the friendship develop, letting her grow more and more comfortable in his world. She enjoyed giving Gracie baths, so he gratefully allowed her to give Gracie baths. When he’d taken the kids to pick out a tree, he’d invited Filomena to join them, and she had. She’d helped them stand the thing up in the living room and decorate it with tinsel and popcorn and unbreakable ribbon-wrapped balls, and she’d promised to oversee the construction of the gingerbread house. Having her spend Christmas Day with them seemed almost obvious.

  Still, she didn’t say yes. “That’s a special family time,” she murmured.

  “So is Thanksgiving, and we all spent that day together. And you’ve invited me to your New Year’s Eve bash.” She’d even suggested that he invite a few of his friends to it, so he wouldn’t feel like an outsider among her New York City buddies. He’d invited Murphy and his wife, Gail, and Jennifer—who’d immediately said yes and informed him that she would be bringing Tank Moody as her guest. When he’d asked Filomena if she’d mind having a professional football player at her party, she’d laughed and said, “As long as he’s nice, I don’t mind. Some of my friends might even be impressed. They think Arlington is a remote backwoods outpost.”

  She probably thought that, too. But she was here. And he wanted her to be here, in his house, on Christmas Day.

  She remained silen
t.

  “Fil,” he murmured, “what’s the hang-up? What’s so different about Christmas?”

  “Everything,” she said, then smiled pensively. “It’s a day when children miss their mothers. I know I’ll be missing mine. And I bet your children will be missing theirs.”

  He should have known she’d pick up on Billy’s complicated emotional state. She was so attuned to his kids she could read their fortunes in an old deck of poker cards—and he bet she didn’t need the cards at all. Her knowledge of them was intuitive. Ace of spades or deuce of clubs, she could read them.

  “Billy’s working some things through,” Evan conceded, “but that doesn’t mean we can’t all spend the day together.”

  “What happened with their mother?” she asked. “I know it’s not my business, and if you don’t want to talk about it, I’ll understand. But I just can’t believe…” She trailed off.

  “You can’t believe what?”

  “I can’t believe a woman would have walked out on them. And on you,” she added quietly.

  He let out a long breath. No, he didn’t want to talk about it, but whether or not it was her business was irrelevant. He was going to lose her anyway. So why not tell her? It wasn’t as if he had to protect his ego or project himself as some sort of irresistible stud no woman could turn her back on. He might as well tell Filomena the truth.

  “You have a minute?” he asked, smiling wryly. “Or maybe an hour?”

  Her smile looked warmer than his felt. “I’ve got time.”

  He slid his hand around hers and led her into the kitchen. Through the doorway to the den he heard the rumble of the TV. “Bedtime, Billy,” he shouted.

  “Can I just watch the end of this show?”

  He glanced at the wall clock. Three minutes past eight—which meant that the show wouldn’t end until eight-thirty at the earliest. “No,” he insisted. “Bedtime now. I’ll be upstairs to tuck you in in fifteen minutes.”