Walking on Air

by Catherine Anderson

  Gabe thought she’d made it pretty damned clear. He was just startled by her sudden assertiveness. This wasn’t his Nan. Only how could he say that for certain? He hadn’t exactly been domineering in this relationship thus far, so maybe he’d just never pushed her to a point that she’d revealed this stubborn, stiff-spined side of herself. “I never meant to imply—”

  “Champion. I shall ignore your poor choice of words and pretend they were never spoken.” She gathered her skirts to resume the ascent. “Come along. We’ve a family to collect, an old man to fetch, a turkey in the oven, and when we return, we must finish fixing our holiday supper.”

  • • •

  Tyke Baden lived two streets over from Main on Second Street. Nan led the way, cutting behind Lizzy’s Café to shorten the distance. When Jasper saw the lean-to, he let out a mournful whine.

  “Don’t be sad,” Laney said, reaching out to pat the dog’s head. “You shall never again live there. You’re a proper fellow now and have a home!”

  “He don’t understand a word you say,” Christopher observed.

  Laney popped back, “You talk to him, too. Under your breath, mostly, but I’ve heard you. So don’t make jest of me for doing the same.”

  Nan, two steps ahead of Gabriel, stopped so suddenly to whirl around that he nearly barreled right over the top of her. The light was fading suddenly. Snow clouds, blocking the sun, Gabe guessed, and in the gloaming, Nan’s eyes sparkled with perturbed impatience. “Shush, the both of you! I will not have you bickering. It is to be a holy night for only love, laughter, and kindly exchanges. If you don’t curb your tongues, I shall rap each of you on the noggin with one of my wooden spoons the moment we get home.”

  Gabe fleetingly wondered how kindly exchanges and head knocking went hand in hand, but he wasn’t about to voice the question aloud. His spouse wasn’t very tall, and she’d have a hell of a time reaching his high end with a stirring stick, but he wouldn’t put it past Nan to climb on a chair to get the job done. And Gabe knew, deep down, that he’d just stand there and take the thumping.

  The children stared at his wife with wide eyes. Nan turned to resume her pace. Gabe winked at the kids and fell in behind their leader again. He felt like a duckling in a queue.

  In the gathering twilight, the sprawling Baden home didn’t look too bad from a distance, but as they neared the dooryard, Gabe saw that the two-level residence was in horrible disrepair. The picket fence no longer sported a chip of paint, and lay on the ground in sections. Loose shingles had worked their way down the pitched roof to dangle over the edge of the eaves. The porch overhang sagged. The stoop itself had broken boards and steps that looked too rotten to bear weight. All in all, the structure reminded Gabe of a house of cards that would collapse if you breathed too hard on it.

  “Nan, wait.” Gabe caught his wife’s arm to hold her back. “I’ll go up first. If those planks are as decayed as they appear to be, you could fall through and break a leg.”

  “What of you?”

  He gave her a significant look and moved ahead of his fine-feathered flock to try the first step. It groaned but didn’t break when he put his weight on it. Flashing a palm at Nan and the kids to hold them back, he gained the porch deck and stepped gingerly this way and that to test the planks.

  “All right,” he said. “You can come on up. It’s safe enough.”

  Gabe turned to the front door, which had a glass pane in the upper half. No knocker. He put his fist to the wood, rapping loudly several times, and then cocked his head to listen as Nan, the kids, and Jasper formed a half circle behind him. “All I hear in there is what the little boy shot at.”

  “What did the little boy shoot at?” Laney asked in a loud whisper.

  Christopher harrumphed. “Nothin’. That’s what he shot at. Don’t you know anything normal?”

  Gabe couldn’t help but grin. Nan would have her hands full with that pair. Oh, how Gabe wished he’d be around to help her rap heads.

  “I see a faint light,” Nan said, pointing at the curtained door window. “No one would leave the house with a lamp burning.”

  Gabe agreed. That held particularly true for an old fellow who lived with trash piled high all around him. Talk about a tinderbox; this place was it. “Maybe he’s deaf. I couldn’t tell when I saw him through the clouds.”

  “What clouds?” Christopher asked.

  “None of your beeswax,” Laney retorted.

  Gabe knocked again, but no one stirred within the house. “I think I’ll just try the door.”

  It didn’t surprise Gabe when the knob turned. Unlocked. He’d wager a big bet that half the people in Random left their homes open to intruders. As he pushed the door inward, the hinges whined in protest. Gabe was thinking that they needed some oil when Jasper tried to squeeze between him and the doorframe. “No way, fella. You probably smell garbage and hope to go foraging.” Oddly, the stench Gabe had associated with Tyke Baden’s home didn’t drift to his nostrils. “Laney, you hold him,” Gabe said, pushing the canine toward the girl. “Christopher, you stay here with Laney and Jasper while Nan and I go in. We don’t want to frighten the poor old fellow.”

  Nan inched over the threshold behind Gabe, which felt odd, because he normally always stepped aside while she went first. Though cast in shadow, the space he entered appeared to be a dingy foyer, flanked on the left side by a staircase. One door held center position on the opposite wall, but Gabe’s attention was riveted to another portal at the end of the hallway. A thin wedge of light shone beneath it. Nan clutched Gabe’s sleeve.

  “If he’s deaf and didn’t hear us knocking, we mustn’t scare him. What if his heart stops?”

  Gabe rotated his shoulders and tipped his head from side to side, trying to work the tension from his muscles. “I think you should wait here, Nan. For all we know, he may have a shotgun at the ready.”

  Her grasp tightened convulsively. “But what if he shoots you?”

  Gabe bent to kiss her forehead. “I don’t think my angels will allow anyone or anything to interfere with my appointment tomorrow.” He gently pried Nan’s slender fingers from his sleeve. “Stay here. All right? I’ll holler when I think it’s safe.”

  She nodded. Gabe glanced back to see both kids and the dog bunched together on the threshold. He raised a hand to signal that they should wait. Then he stepped around Nan to advance on the room ahead of them. Picturing it in his mind, Gabe knew that it was a small, informal sitting room just off the kitchen and dining area. It made sense that Baden would utilize only a portion of the large home. What point was there in going upstairs to sleep every night when all the bedchambers on the second floor held only poignant memories of his lost loved ones? Sadness pinched Gabe’s heart. He’d only just gotten a taste of how grand it was to have a family. He couldn’t imagine loving a woman and helping her raise seven children almost to adulthood, only to lose every last one of them, including his wife, to illness. The pain of it must have been inestimable, enough to take even a strong-willed man to his knees.

  The hinges of this door didn’t creak, which was a relief. Gabe expected to see the same room that he’d viewed through the clouds—a tiny alcove with one chair in front of the fireplace and piles of garbage along the walls. Instead a fairly tidy room greeted his searching gaze. And the nostril-searing stench he anticipated was absent.

  As before, a fire burned in the brick hearth, and, ensconced in a worn green velvet parlor chair, an old man sat staring off into space. A lighted lantern perched atop a tome-laden shelf behind him, casting his face into partial shadow. Gabe froze in his tracks, for this was not the same fellow that the angels had shown him. This individual had a clean-shaven face. His thin gray hair, parted at one side from crown to temple, had been carefully arranged in a thin layer of strands over his bald pate and held fast with pomade. He wore a dated but clean ditto suit, a dark gray sack coat with black vel
vet lapels over a matching waistcoat and contrasting black trousers. At his throat, his red necktie had been double-looped and affixed to his dingy white shirt with a silver stickpin. The strong but not unpleasant scent of men’s cologne filled the room.

  Gabe, whose presence still hadn’t been noted by the man, started to back carefully away, hoping to vanish without ever being seen. Nan had brought them to the wrong house, and if that wasn’t a hell of a note, Gabe didn’t know what was. How would he explain his reasons for entering this home without an invitation?

  Only, just as Gabe had retreated as far as the half-opened door, he noticed a shiny streak on the old man’s cheek, the still-wet path of a recently shed tear. Gabe froze. Couldn’t make his feet move. And just then something caught the old man’s attention. With no apparent surprise at having an unexpected caller, the fellow turned his head to study Gabe with a bright blue gaze.

  “So,” he said shakily, “you came after all. It took you long enough. I finally decided you were waiting for today. It’s a time for good deeds, I reckon, but I’d about given up on you.”

  What? Gabe thought the question, but he couldn’t make his voice work. How could the old man have been expecting him? At a touch on his sleeve, Gabe nearly parted company with his boots. Nan. She’d disregarded his order to hang back and had joined him in the sitting area.

  “Happy Christmas Eve, Mr. Baden!” she said with merry good cheer. “We knocked at your door, but you mustn’t have heard us.”

  Baden’s gaze warmed slightly as he studied Nan. “I heard; I just never answer. I figured a gunslinger would come in whether I went to the door or not, and just in case it wasn’t him, I had no desire to endure another visit from those addlepated church ladies.” He huffed under his breath. “Not a one of them can cook worth a lick, and they pester a poor man to death with casseroles. The widows are the worst, fluttering and primping, as if I’d ever look twice.” He shook his head vehemently, and a smile touched his crinkled mouth. “Don’t hold a candle to my Miriam, God rest her dear soul.”

  Apparently Nan had gauged the situation to be safe, for she moved toward the old man. In a loud voice, she said, “We’ve come to invite you to spend Christmas with us in our home!”

  “No need to shout. I’m not deef!”

  “Oh!” Nan flapped a hand. “My apologies, Mr. Baden. I didn’t mean to—”

  Just then, Jasper shot past Gabe’s leg. No, Gabe thought. But before he could move, the dog leaped up to plant both gigantic front paws on Baden’s bony lap.

  “Jasper!” Laney cried, darting past Gabe nearly as quickly as the canine had. “No, no!”

  Gabe figured Christopher would appear next, and sure enough he did, only he at least had the good sense to press his back against the wall and remain guarded until he knew it was safe. Gabe had heaps of work to do if he meant to have a family that heeded his orders—and he had little time left to effect that change.

  “Jasper!” Gabe whisper-shouted. “Get the hell down!”

  “Language,” Christopher said from behind him.

  “Not now!” Gabe told the boy. He hurried over, fully intending to drag the dog off poor Baden.

  Laney futilely attempted to pull Jasper from the old man’s lap. The dog, which seemed bent on making friends with every new individual he happened upon, was busily cleaning Tyke’s left ear. Baden sputtered and pushed, but Jasper was a big fellow and wasn’t easily discouraged.

  “No, Jasper!” the girl cried. “Mind your manners!”

  Nan saved the day, and the wonder of it was, she never had to so much as touch the canine. In her I-mean-business voice, which Gabe had heard her use with the kids, she said, “Jasper, off!”

  The dog whined in protest but obeyed, dropping to all fours beside Baden’s chair. Tyke Baden looked beyond Nan to skewer Gabe with an accusing blue gaze. “Your dog needs a firm hand, sir. With manners like that, he’ll be knocking old ladies on their behinds and sending toddlers off the boardwalk. Large animals cannot be allowed to behave like ruffians.”

  “We’ve only had him since yesterday,” Laney said. “He’ll be a fine gentleman with more training. Just you wait, and you shall see! You shouldn’t be so quick to judge.”

  “Laney!” Nan scolded.

  Tyke focused on the girl for the first time. After studying her face, which had gone pink at the cheeks with indignation, he reached for his cane, which he’d propped against the brick hearth. “Well said, lass. And if you’ve only had him since yesterday, I’d say he’s coming along at a fast clip.” Using his free hand, Tyke fondled Jasper’s ears and smiled. “He’s a beauty, isn’t he? Where’d you get him?”

  A bit of the starch slipped from Laney’s spine. “He was starving to death out behind Lizzy’s Café.”

  “Ah, yes, Random’s miserly restaurateur, Lizzy. She’s stingy to a fault. Got it from her mother, I reckon. She ran the place first, and rumor had it that she scraped food from one customer’s plate and fed it to the next poor sap who was stupid enough to eat there. Nasty business, that.” He sighed. “Back to the dog. I take it you’ve adopted him.”

  “Yes, sir,” Laney answered. “We’ve been feeding him for a while, and yesterday Christopher and I brought him home to see if Mama wouldn’t allow us to keep him.”

  Baden leaned out to peer around the girl. “Christopher.” He nailed the boy with a piercing gaze. “Come away from the wall, son, and introduce yourself properly.”

  Christopher moved forward to stand beside Gabe. “Merry Christmas, sir. My name is Christopher Broderick.”

  The old man shifted his cane into his left hand and extended his right. “I’m Tyke Baden.” After a brief shake, Baden said, “It’s good to meet you, Christopher. Can’t recall any Brodericks around these parts, but it’s a nice solid name to add to the mix.”

  Just then Gabe noticed a rather large satchel on the floor beside Baden’s chair. He got Nan’s attention and darted his eyes back and forth toward the bag. When she finally noticed it, her expression of bewilderment reflected his sentiments exactly. “Mr. Baden, how did you know we were coming?” Gabe couldn’t resist asking.

  “Miriam told me,” the old man replied. “Long story, that, and I won’t feel inclined to share it until I know all of you better.”

  Miriam? “Pardon me,” Gabe said, “but did you say Miriam, meaning, um, your wife?”

  “Do you have a hearing problem, son?” Baden struggled up from the chair, a dilapidated thing that had clearly seen its last good day a dozen or more years ago. When the old man gained his feet, Gabe saw that he had indeed been a big man at one time, for even now, as stooped and frail as he was, he exceeded six feet in height, meeting Gabe eye-to-eye. “You heard me right. I’ve been waiting for you all day. I was starting to think you weren’t going to come and that I was all dressed up with nowhere to go.” He smiled sadly. “Isn’t right to be alone on Christmas. I’ve spent too many years by myself, and now I’m ready for good company!” He got a firm grip on the tortoiseshell handle of his cane and bent to pick up the satchel. “I’m ready as I’ll ever be.” He flicked his fingers to indicate that everyone should get moving. Leveling a stern gaze on Christopher, he said. “Turn the lamp off, son. No point in the place going up in flames.”

  Gabe sent Nan a befuddled glance. She merely shrugged and gave a slight lift of her hands. Tyke Baden had nearly reached the door that led to the entry hall. Christopher cut a wide berth around the old man to douse the lantern that sat on a dusty bookcase.

  “Look, Laney!” the boy cried. “There must be a hundred books!”

  “Help yourself, if you’ve a mind,” Baden said. “I can’t read anymore. My eyes are failing. Books!” He harrumphed. “Aside from my whiskey jug, they were all I had to keep me company for years, and now I can’t even count on them to be my friends.” He hobbled past Nan, brushing against her pretty rose skirt. “You can have ’em al
l as far as I’m concerned, boy. Unless you’ll read aloud to me, I’ve got no further use for them.”

  “Wow!” Christopher cried to Laney as he dusted off a cover. “Look, Laney, Uncle Tom’s Cabin!”

  Gabe’s eyebrows rose in surprise that Christopher could apparently read.

  Laney dropped to her knees before the shelf. “And Wide, Wide World and The Scarlet Letter!”

  “Come along, children,” Nan said. “You can come back later to have a look at the books. Right now, it’s Christmas Eve, and we must hurry home to celebrate!”

  “No hurry,” Baden warned as he traversed the length of the foyer. “My old legs don’t go fast, and I get out of breath if I try to push them.”

  Gabe collected the kids, who each cradled a book in their arms. Pink tongue lolling, Jasper trotted happily between them, his canine expression conveying that he was as happy as a worm in a compost heap. He’d started out with only a girl to love; then a boy had come along, and now he had five people to scratch him behind his ears. Gabe guessed that would be almost any dog’s idea of paradise.

  The twilight had deepened when they left the ramshackle house. With foreknowledge of the approaching weather, Gabe knew that a snowstorm was rolling in. He relieved Tyke of the satchel, which weighed enough to hold every stitch of clothing the old fellow owned. Even without a load to carry, Baden set a slow pace, and Gabe knew Nan was worried about their turkey.

  “Sweetheart, why don’t you and the kids hurry on ahead?” he said. “That’ll give me and Mr. Baden a chance to get acquainted.”

  “Are you certain?” Nan sent him a concerned look. Gabe guessed she was as bewildered by Tyke’s words as he was. “I probably should check on our supper.”

  “Go,” Gabe assured her. To Christopher, he added, “Keep our ladies safe. And don’t let Jasper lift his leg on the boardwalk.”

  Christopher turned to walk backward. “Soon as we get home, I’ll take him for a run.”

  Gabe nodded his approval and watched his family disappear into the gloom. He set his pace to match Tyke’s. After a moment, he said, “Okay, Tyke, out with it. I’m flat flummoxed, and I don’t like that a bit. How’d you know we were coming to fetch you?”