Christmas in Cambria

by Linda Seed

  “Yes. Yes. It’s okay. You can go.” And she practically pushed him out the door.

  Quinn’s sudden appearance had thrown things off, but Delilah composed herself and went into the living room to talk to her ex.

  “Okay.” She patted her thighs once, primly, with her hands. “You were about to tell me why you’re here.”

  “That’s the guy you’re seeing? That guy?”

  “That was Quinn, yes.”

  Mitch looked stricken, and Delilah tried to replicate his thought processes. The way Quinn looked—like some chiseled bust of a Roman god—probably was a threat to Mitch’s manhood.

  Mitch started to say something, stopped, then started again.

  “That guy?”

  “Can we move on, please? You came here to say something, and I have an appointment, so I don’t have a lot of time. Please tell me what you wanted to talk about.”

  She knew this man’s face as well as her own. As well as the sweet faces of her boys. So she knew he’d made a snap decision, a sudden change of course. She knew that whatever he was about to say wasn’t what he’d planned to say.

  “Delilah, I came here to ask you to take me back. Please. We can work things out, I know we can.”

  Whatever she’d planned to hear, it wasn’t that. She stared at him as though he’d suddenly grown a third eye.

  “Mitch, stop it.”

  “Stop what? Why? We’re a family, you and me and the boys. We belong together.” He’d softened his voice, and now he reached for her hand and held it in both of his. “Look, I know I put you through a lot. I know that. And I apologize for Celine, and … you know. For everything. But marriages go through rough spots. It happens.”

  “It happens? It happens?” Delilah yanked her hand away from him and stood up so she was looming over him. “Cheating on your wife doesn’t just happen. Leaving me penniless until the settlement didn’t just happen. You did those things. You did them intentionally and with no regard for your sons and how it made them feel. We were a family, yes, but you gave that up. You did that. You can’t just come here and undo it now because … because Quinn made you feel insecure.”

  Now I’ve done it, Delilah thought. Now he’s going to go on the defensive, and he’s going to lash out. And I’m screwed.

  Instead, he was silent, looking miserable. He raked his hands through his hair and looked at the carpet between his feet.

  Feeling a sudden rush of sympathy, Delilah sat down again and spoke to him softly. “That isn’t what you came to say, Mitch. What’s really going on?”

  He rubbed at his face with his hands, then shrugged, looking tired and defeated. “Hell. I don’t know. I just … Jesse and Gavin. The way they talk about that guy on the phone … it’s like he hung the goddamned moon. I’m losing them, Dee. The thing about custody … I panicked. I just don’t want to lose them.”

  From the sound of his voice, the way he held his body, she knew that after all of the posturing, all of the strategizing, she was finally hearing the truth.

  She reached out and laid her hand on his arm. “They love you.”

  “They love him. That guy. Quinn.”

  “They needed a man in their lives and he was here. You weren’t.”

  “That’s why we should try again. That’s why—”

  “Mitch. Stop it.” It was the same tone she might have used with one of her boys—the one that said the matter was decided and was not open for review.

  “I fucked up. With them.” He nodded toward the back of the house, where the boys were.

  “Yes. You did.”

  “I missed Christmas with them. You know? I just … I missed it. And for what? So I could go to a cocktail party with Celine’s friends?” He shook his head, his face a mask of disgust.

  “We can’t get back together, Mitch. It’s over. You made sure of that. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be a father to your sons.”

  “But, the custody agreement—”

  “I’m not talking about the custody agreement. I’m talking about you and me and the boys. I never wanted to keep them from you. I want them to be happy, and seeing you more often will make them happy. But I can’t make you do it if you’re too busy running around Paris doing God knows what.”

  He nodded and looked at the floor again, his eyes red and wet. “Do you think it’s too late?”

  “You saw how they ran to you when you came to the door. You saw how happy they were to see you. How can it be too late?”

  Chapter 36

  Quinn sat in the car feeling so tense he thought the steering wheel might break under his grasp. Part of him wanted to barge in there and tell the asshole to get the hell out of Delilah’s house. But he knew that would be the equivalent of peeing on his territory, and he urged himself to be better than that. Delilah wasn’t his territory, and if she wasn’t allowed to work this out herself—if he didn’t give her the space she needed to take charge of her own life—there wouldn’t be much point in them pursuing their relationship, anyway.

  After a while, the asshole came out of the house with Jesse and Gavin, got into his car, and drove away.

  The thing that struck Quinn about that—the thing that would stick with him—was how happy the boys looked in the company of their father. Yes, Gavin was sucking his thumb again—that stress-induced habit was back—but they both looked excited. Joyous, really. It occurred to Quinn that he would do just about anything, no matter how difficult, no matter how distasteful, to make them feel that way again.

  He was still making his way up the front walk when the Realtor arrived, and that was lousy timing. He needed to talk to Delilah. He needed to assess the situation, find out what happened.

  “Oh, hello, Quinn!” The Realtor waved at him with enthusiasm. “Are you ready to see some houses?”

  “You bet!” He flashed a thumbs-up and opened the front door for her like a gentleman.

  The tension was thick as they rode in the Realtor’s car toward the first house Delilah would be seeing.

  Delilah, sitting next to him in the back seat, flashed him a look of apology and squeezed his hand as the Realtor chattered about housing prices, kitchen layouts, and bedroom counts.

  “I feel like a chauffeur up here. Ha, ha!” She threw a look over her shoulder toward her passengers.

  “We need to talk,” Quinn said quietly.

  “I know. We will.”

  Delilah looked stressed and tense, but she didn’t look distraught, the way she would have if Mitch had told her he was filing for custody. So, that was something.

  They got the chance to talk while they were viewing the first house. The place wasn’t right for Delilah—only two bedrooms and the back yard was too small—but she told Sue, their Realtor, that she and Quinn needed some time alone in the house to discuss it.

  “Of course. Of course! I’ll just be out on the back patio. You two take your time!” She clacked over to the sliding glass door on her high heels and went outside.

  When they were alone, Delilah took Quinn by the hand and led him into the master bedroom.

  There, in the privacy of the room filled with someone else’s bed and lamps and shoes, she told Quinn what had happened.

  “He asked you to come back to him?” Quinn tried not to raise his voice, but it was hard.

  “He did. But I don’t think he meant it. I think he’s got a lot of things on his mind. For one thing, I don’t think things are going well between him and Celine since I told him what I found out about her. For another, he misses the boys. Christmas hit him hard. Spending it without them. I didn’t think he cared, but he does. Missing the holiday with them made him see what he’s thrown away. And then, hearing the way the boys gushed about you—it scared him. He thinks he’s losing them.”

  Quinn put his hands on his hips and let out a rough breath. “Well, he is going to lose them if he doesn’t move his ass back from Paris and spend some damned time with them.”

  “That’s what I told him.”

&
nbsp; Quinn rubbed the stubble on his chin and considered what she’d said. “And the thing he said about wanting to get back together with you?”

  She wrapped her arms around his waist, went up on tiptoes, and pressed a kiss to his lips. “Not in a million years.”

  He grinned, feeling a release of more tension than he’d realized he was holding. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  Sue called from the front room, “So, how’s it coming in here?”

  They looked at three more houses: one in Marine Terrace, one in Pine Knolls, and another on Lodge Hill.

  While they toured kitchens and bathrooms, spare rooms and garage space, Quinn began to form a plan.

  It wasn’t going to work if both Delilah and the asshole weren’t on board, but if they were, it could be kind of great.

  The plan might have seemed ridiculous or over the top to someone watching from the outside of the situation, but it actually made sense for a number of reasons: One, it might put the asshole at ease. If he decided Quinn wasn’t a threat to him, he’d be more likely to back off and forget the idea of suing for custody. Two, it would position Quinn as the bigger man, which was convenient, because he really did want to be that bigger man. He wanted to rise above. Three, it would make the boys ridiculously happy.

  In the end, reason three was the only one that mattered.

  Quinn’s father had left when Quinn was barely older than Jesse was now. Yeah, the guy had been a dick, but that didn’t make Quinn love him or want him any less.

  What would it have meant to Quinn if someone had done just what he was planning? How big a moment would that have been in his life?

  He’d have never forgotten it, that was for sure.

  He was in the position to give that to Jesse and Gavin.

  How could he not?

  He ran the idea past Delilah that night while they were sitting on the sofa after the boys were in bed. He laid out the idea, how they would accomplish it, and his reasons for doing it.

  At first, she simply looked astonished, like she must have misheard him.

  “You’d do that for Mitch?” she said.

  “For him? Oh, hell no. But I’d do it for the boys.”

  She grinned and leaned over to kiss him. The kiss was long and leisurely and enthusiastic.

  “I’m thinking that’s a yes?” he asked.

  “Have I mentioned to you yet that I love you?” she asked.

  “You haven’t. But no time like the present.”

  “I love you, Quinn.”

  He wrapped his arms around her and held her tight. “That’s convenient for me, because I love you, too.”

  The next morning, Delilah called Mitch on his cell phone and told him the plan. He would be staying in town a couple of days to spend time with the boys, so there was no reason it shouldn’t work out.

  “Really?” he said.

  “Yes, really. If you want to do it.”

  “That’s unbelievably nice of you, Delilah. Given … you know. Everything.”

  “It was Quinn’s idea.”

  “Jesus. Was it?”

  “Yes. I hope you’ll remember that before you treat him like crap again.”

  “Okay. Yeah, I get it.”

  Delilah felt a glimmer of excitement even as she fought the urge to hang up on him. “Six a.m. sharp. I swear to God, if you’re late, or if you don’t show up—”

  “I’ll be there. Hey, is there a toy store in town, or …?”

  She sighed. “There’s a toy store on Main Street, there’s a Target in San Luis Obispo, and there’s a Walmart in Paso Robles. You’ll figure it out.” And then she did hang up on him.

  The whole thing took some preparation on Quinn and Delilah’s part. They had most of what they needed, and what they didn’t have, Quinn borrowed from Mrs. Foster.

  They got up at four a.m. to put everything in place. Delilah had considered doing it the night before, after the boys were asleep, but she didn’t want to risk somebody getting out of bed for a glass of water and spoiling the surprise.

  Instead, they hauled themselves out of bed at an absurd hour and worked as silently as possible in the hours before dawn, like the Tooth Fairy.

  Or like elves.

  Chapter 37

  When Jesse woke up the next morning, groggy from sleep and afflicted with bedhead, he froze, wide-eyed, in the hallway, staring at the display in the living room.

  He looked as though he couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing.

  Christmas had come and gone weeks ago, but before him was a fully decorated tree, complete with wrapped gifts beneath it. And there was his father, wearing a Santa hat and smiling at him.

  “Merry Christmas, big guy,” Mitch said.

  “But …” Jesse blinked a few times and rubbed his eyes. “We already had Christmas.”

  “Well, I wasn’t here for it, so we’re having it again.”

  Jesse’s mouth hung open as he worked to recover from his shock. “Again?”

  “Yeah, why not?” Delilah said. She smiled at Jesse, feeling his contagious excitement.

  Mrs. Foster’s artificial tree stood next to the fireplace, bearing the lights and ornaments Quinn and Delilah had bought for their first go-around with the holiday. Stockings for Jesse and Gavin, stuffed with small gifts, hung on the mantel. Artificial pine boughs—bought in the clearance section at Target—decorated the staircase banister. And Christmas carols—from a CD picked up in the same clearance section—played on the stereo.

  “You want to go wake up Gavin?” Quinn suggested.

  That, finally, snapped Jesse out of his shock. He ran back down the hallway, yelling for his brother.

  The rest of the morning was a flurry of gifts, wrapping paper, hot cocoa, and pancakes in a scene remarkably similar to the Christmas celebration they’d enjoyed just weeks before.

  The difference was, the boys now had all three of their favorite adults there to share it with them.

  “Two Christmases. This is so great,” Jesse said, looking drunk on gifts and cocoa. He was still wearing his pajamas, and his hands were sticky with the remnants of a clearance-section candy cane.

  Gavin was sitting on Mitch’s lap, his thumb nowhere near his mouth. “Are you going to live in Cambria now?” he asked his father.

  “No, but I wanted to talk to you guys about that.” Mitch patted the sofa next to him and gestured for Jesse to sit next to him. When they were all assembled, Mitch looked at first one boy, then the other. “You know how I moved to Paris for my job, right?”

  That was the lie they’d settled on—that he’d moved for his job.

  The boys nodded.

  “Well, it didn’t work out so well. So I thought maybe I’d come back to live in the United States again. New York. My law firm’s there, and it’s closer to you guys. If you come back to Connecticut—”

  “We’re not,” Delilah said, keeping her voice neutral. “We’re going to live here now, in Cambria. Permanently.”

  For just a moment, just a flash, Mitch looked as though he wanted to argue with her. Then he arranged his expression in a way that said pleasant, rational adult.

  “Ah. Are you? Okay.” He nodded. “Well, still. I can fly here to see you a lot more often. And when you guys come to the East Coast to see your grandparents and Aunt Roxanne, I can see you then. If that’s okay with your mom.”

  “It is,” Delilah said.

  “The point is, guys, I’m going to do better. I promise.”

  Delilah had her doubts about whether he actually would. Mitch often made promises and had good intentions, and so often those promises led to nothing.

  But maybe this time would be different.

  Whether it was or it wasn’t, she’d know she did her best to give her kids access to their father. She’d know she’d taken the high road, and she’d know she’d given her boys a memory to hold close even if their father was far away.

  It wasn’t everything, but it wasn’t nothing, either.

&
nbsp; Quinn was there for the second Christmas celebration—he hadn’t wanted to miss it after he’d put all that work into it—but he’d held back, letting Mitch be the man of the hour.

  He was standing in the kitchen, drinking a mug of coffee and trying to stay out of the way, when Mitch came to find him.

  “Delilah says all this was your idea.”

  “It was, yeah.” Quinn rubbed at the stubble on his chin.

  “I guess I owe you a thank you, then.” But he looked like it might actually kill him to offer it.

  “Well … don’t strain yourself, man.”

  Mitch smiled ruefully. “Look. I was kind of a dick to you before.”

  “Yep. You were. And I don’t expect us to hold hands and sing folk songs together now.”

  “I guess not,” Mitch shrugged. “All I’m saying is that the kids seem happy. Delilah seems happy. And if you’re part of that …”

  “I hope I am.”

  “Well … I won’t stand in your way, that’s all.”

  “Big of you. But you couldn’t stand in my way if you tried.”

  They glared at each other, sizing each other up. The option of pissing on the baseboards to establish dominance was still on the table.

  “I guess we understand each other,” Mitch said.

  “I guess we do.”

  Mitch nodded a few times, his head bobbing. “If you hurt her, or them, I’ll come after you.”

  “Same goes.” Quinn stood with his arms crossed over his chest, trying his best to look imposing.

  Mitch turned toward where the boys were sitting on the sofa, clapped his hands, and put on his best smile. “So, who needs more pancakes?”

  That night, Quinn and Delilah put the boys to bed, then went to bed early themselves, but not to sleep.

  They lay nude beneath the covers, facing each other, both of them wrapped up in the glow of the holiday spirit.