He hunched his shoulders against the cold. What must it be like to have Carrie for a mother, someone who could decide one day she was tired of raising a kid and just ship you off like damaged goods to a father you didn’t even know? Yeah, the kid had obviously had a rough time of it. And now she was getting stuck with him for a father.
He flashed on his parents and his older sister. When it came to a good start in life, he’d been handed everything the world had to offer. And yet look how he’d turned out. A liar. A selfish bastard who for ten years had lived his life like he didn’t even have a kid.
Tomorrow he would have to face his family and his girlfriend. But even worse, tonight he had to face his daughter.
ANNA was dragging her feet. Zipping up her coat. Fiddling with her hair and her knit cap. Pulling on her mittens, then removing them so she could unzip her backpack to make sure the gift from Nana Rose hadn’t been crushed. Then putting her mittens on again, only to remove them to make sure Miss Eva’s beret was pulled down nice and snug.
“Do you have your muffler?” Anna asked when she could think of no other delaying tactics. “I don’t see it.”
“Around my neck. See?” Miss Eva pulled the collar of her coat down to show her.
“Oh.” Anna unwound her own muffler and with great care rewound it, folding the ends over and smoothing the fringe across her chest.
“Hurry, child. Karl will be anxious to see me.”
“So he knows you’re coming. Right?” Anna added hopefully.
But Miss Eva turned without answering and started down the aisle. “Kommen Sie,” she said, then abruptly halted and began to cough. When she finally straightened up she looked more exhausted than ever. “No more trains for me.”
For a long moment Anna couldn’t move. She couldn’t make her legs work to follow Miss Eva. Her father might be out there. Or he might not. And she didn’t know which possibility she feared more.
What if she just stayed on the train and kept going? Would they kick her off when they discovered she didn’t have a ticket and leave her stranded in some strange town? Her mouth turned down in a frown. That wouldn’t be any different from right now. She was getting off this train in a strange town to meet some strange man.
But at least here she had Miss Eva. That was something.
Clenching her teeth to stop her chin from trembling, she started forward. “Wait, Miss Eva. Wait for me!”
By the time Anna reached the exit, the conductor had already helped Miss Eva down. “Merry Christmas,” the woman said as Anna leaped down the steps to the platform.
“Merry Christmas,” Anna automatically replied. “Miss Eva. Wait up!”
But Miss Eva wasn’t listening to her. As Anna watched in amazement, the woman let out a gasp, a cry almost, and then hobbled forward, nearly running toward a tall man bundled up against the biting cold.
“Karl?” she heard Miss Eva say as she lurched to a halt before the fellow. Then, “Karl!” and the old woman collapsed in his arms and began to sob.
Thank goodness the man caught her. For a moment they stood there holding on to each other while Miss Eva cried as Anna had never heard anyone cry before. Deep, choking sobs, and yet they were not sorrowful, for they were fueled by utter joy.
Anna clasped her hands to her chest as tears stung her eyes, too. Miss Eva had found her brother! She wasn’t confused about him at all! It was so sweet, such a happy, happy reunion. This was the right Ennis, and after all these years brother and sister were finally united.
But her brother, Karl, wasn’t crying for joy. He wasn’t even smiling. Anna wiped her mittened hands across her eyes. He didn’t look happy at all. Instead . . . instead he looked shocked. And confused. He glanced around nervously, like he was looking for help.
“Ma’am? Ma’am?” He grasped Miss Eva’s shoulders, then gently pushed her away from his chest. “Ma’am? I’m sorry, but I’m not this Karl—”
He broke off when his searching gaze landed on Anna. That’s when all Anna’s happiness for Miss Eva drained right out of her body, like a plug had been yanked out of the bottom of her heart and all the joy and rightness of that moment of reunion leached away. This man, she realized, was way too young to be Miss Eva’s brother.
Then a frisson of terror—real-life terror like your life was going to end right this minute, that kind of terror—ripped through Anna, freezing her where she stood while the man stared at her so long and hard that she took a clumsy step backward.
“Anna?”
He said her name. She didn’t hear it, but she saw his mouth shape the word. Only one person in this town could possibly know her name.
Her father.
She didn’t realize she had taken another step backward until she bumped into someone. The people edged around her, but all the while her eyes remained fixed on him. On her father. But . . . but Karl . . .
“Anna?”
She heard him this time, but again she stepped backward. This was so mixed up. Miss Eva was crying, trying to hold on to the man, while he was trying to keep her at arm’s length, and all the time his eyes stayed locked with Anna’s.
“Anna. It’s me. Your . . . your father.”
TOM half guided, half propelled the old woman into the train station. After her emotional outburst she had seemed to shrink, as if she’d expelled the last dregs of her energy and in the aftermath had shriveled up. It didn’t help that she’d started coughing and couldn’t seem to stop. In between her coughing fits she continued to call him Karl, beaming up at him, patting his cheek, and leaning against him. It was as if he’d been thrust into a scene from a movie, only he didn’t know his role. Who was this woman? And who was Karl?
Still, none of that mattered as much as dealing with Anna.
He stared over his shoulder at the little girl trailing hesitantly behind them. She hadn’t said a word so far. Hadn’t admitted she was the child he’d never even seen a picture of. She just stared at him as if she were scared to death. This was his child, ten years old and lost in the perverse gyrations of the adults around her. The so-called adults.
“Sit here,” he told the old woman, lowering her gently into a chair. He could feel her trembling where his hand gripped her elbow, and where her hand clutched the front of his coat.
“Karl. Oh, Karl. I never think I find you. But you are good and strong, like always.”
He disentangled her hand, then turned to Anna. She stood just beyond the old woman.
“You’re Anna, right?”
She gave a sharp nod. “Anna Spano. Me and Miss Eva, we came here together.” She took the seat next to the old woman. “She came here to meet her brother, Karl.”
They were traveling together? So that was the “they” the stationmaster had referred to. But Carrie hadn’t said anything about an old woman. Angry at Carrie, and put off by the girl’s obvious reluctance, he rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m a little young to be mistaken for her brother.”
Anna scowled up at him. “She’s kinda confused, that’s all.”
“I’ll say.” He pulled off his knit cap and stuck it in his coat pocket. “Does Karl—the real Karl—know she’s coming?”
Anna just shrugged.
“Well, okay. We have to go.”
That little chin of hers jutted out a little farther. “Not until Karl gets here.”
Tom thrust a hand through his hair, then looked around the depot. “Maybe that guy—” He broke off when the gray-haired gent in a corduroy overcoat greeted a young couple who looked like college kids.
He turned back to Anna. She and this Miss Eva were both watching him, but their expressions were polar opposites. The old woman smiled raptly up at him, tears still glistening in her pale lashes and faded blue eyes, while Anna studied him like he was a snake she needed to keep a safe distance from.
“Okay, what’s this brother’s name? K
arl what?”
Again, Anna only shrugged. The kid clearly had no intention of making this easy for him.
“Fine,” he muttered, then squatted in front of Miss Eva. “Tell me your brother’s name.”
The old woman laughed. “Karl, Karl. You are the same. He teases me,” she said, smiling at Anna. “Always the teasing, the joking.”
Anna gave him a smug little smile. She was enjoying this, the little imp. She turned a guileless face up to the old woman. “What was—I mean, what is—your and Karl’s last name?”
“Eva Hess and Karl Hess. He is older than me, but I always had better marks in school. Is so, Karl?”
As he struggled with an appropriate reaction to Eva’s obvious confusion, he saw Anna’s smile fade. Even she knew Eva’s behavior was abnormal.
“Your mother sent you here with Miss Eva as a chaperone?” he asked Anna. Was Carrie crazy?
Anna’s face was stony. “The train people don’t let kids my age travel by themselves.”
“Okay. So she got Miss Eva to travel with you?”
“Miss Eva was already coming here. To see Karl,” Anna added. The ghost of that smugness flitted back across her face. “My mother saw her and asked her to watch out for me. And she did.”
Tom shook his head. More likely Anna had watched out for Miss Eva, if the woman’s current confusion was any indication. He stood and scanned the depot, searching for someone in authority that he could turn the poor old lady over to. “We have to get going, Anna. It’s late, I’m tired, and you have to be tired, too.”
“We can’t leave Miss Eva, not until Karl gets here.”
“She’s not our responsibility,” he muttered.
Anna’s eyes went huge with outrage, and she stiffened in her seat. “Oh, yeah, I forgot. Nobody’s your responsibility except for your own selfish self. Well, I’m not leaving her all alone.” She hooked her arm through Eva’s and scowled at him. “And you can’t make me.”
Score one for the little people.
Tom squatted down in front of her. “Look, I get why you’re mad at me, Anna. And . . . I don’t blame you. Be as mad as you want. But I’m still your father, and what I say goes.”
For a moment he saw her falter. She shot her gaze over to the old woman. Miss Eva wasn’t coughing anymore, but was folding and refolding the handkerchief she’d dried her eyes with. But when Anna looked back at Tom her face was back to stony. “Who says you’re really my father?”
Letting out a heavy sigh, he pushed to his feet. “I’m your father, Anna. You know it and so do I.”
“Prove it.”
They glared at each other. Then her mouth lifted in a gloating smile. “What if I say you’re not my father? That I never saw you in my whole life. It’s the truth, you know.”
“Very funny,” Tom muttered. “You forget that I can call your mother to verify who I am.”
She hesitated, but only for a moment. “But will she answer your call? I bet she won’t. She’s glad to be rid of me. She’ll probably never answer your phone calls again. She might even change her number.”
Tom scowled down at his devious little imp of a daughter. She thought she had him over a barrel. If it became necessary, though, he would eventually be able to prove he was her father. But it wasn’t Anna’s belligerence or even his own growing aggravation that gave Tom pause. It was how easily Anna had pegged her mother’s reaction. She’s glad to be rid of me. Bad enough that it was the truth. His two contentious conversations with Carrie had convinced him of that. Worse, though, was the sad fact that Anna knew.
Tom didn’t like feeling guilty. He’d never liked being the bad guy. Not at work, and not with relationships that didn’t pan out. Even as a kid he’d been the good one, at least compared to his fun-loving, risk-taking sister. But he couldn’t avoid the ugly truth about his relationship with this little girl. He’d been a bad father from day one; no two ways about it. A few cashed checks didn’t begin to make up for that. Now, face-to-face with her, he couldn’t stomach making her think he didn’t want her any more than her mother did.
He blew a harsh breath out and tried to avoid the panic clamoring at the back of his head. “What do you want, Anna?” He shoved his hands into his coat pockets.
For a long moment Anna couldn’t respond to her father. His sudden caving in had taken her by surprise. What did she want?
She didn’t know.
“I want my old life back,” she finally whispered, hating how shaky her voice sounded. Like a baby’s. She knew what she was asking for was impossible, but still, it was the only thing she really wanted. The only thing she would ever want: her life back the way it used to be before Nana Rose had gotten sick.
When he winced in the face of her grief, she realized he had a weak spot. He didn’t want her to be sad. That was something at least.
“Never mind,” she said, shifting and sitting up more primly. “What I want right now is . . . is for Miss Eva to come home with us. Wait—” she ordered when he opened his mouth to speak. “Just while we try to find her brother.” She said that part in a whisper so Miss Eva wouldn’t hear. “Or her son.”
“She has a son? Does this guy know where his mother is? And how confused she is?”
Anna shook her head. “He’s a soldier. At least that’s what Miss Eva told me.”
“An American soldier?”
“Yeah. So if we can’t find Karl, maybe we can find her son. Okay? Now, can we just go wherever it is you’re taking us?”
HE drove them home in a bright red Mustang, all jazzy with a fastback, a spoiler, and a really cool stereo system. It only had two doors, so he had to tilt his seat forward so Anna could climb into the backseat while Miss Eva sat up front. Even though Anna had the whole backseat to herself, there still wasn’t much legroom.
Miss Eva didn’t talk much during the drive. She just sank down in the seat, like she was too tired even to cough. Anna wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. Miss Eva stared out the window the whole time he drove, her eyes blinking at the fancifully lit downtown.
“It looks so different,” she murmured, more to herself than to them. “Sehr different. But the lights, they are pretty.”
“The whole town decorates for Christmas,” Anna’s father said. “It’s the Festival of Lights, and every business and most of the houses try to outdo each other.”
Anna perked up at that. Miss Eva had told her about the Festival of Lights. Maybe this was the right Ennis. “Do you decorate your house?” she asked. She hoped so, because she loved Christmas lights.
He glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “The apartment manager strings a few lights up.”
Anna turned to stare at a lawn display of a giant Santa Claus in his sleigh with all his reindeer pulling it. Even Rudolph. The reindeer rocked back and forth as if they were really moving along, flying from house to house with toys for all the good girls and boys.
She stared blankly as Santa fell by the wayside and a blowup Frosty the Snowman came into view. Would Santa think she was a good girl this year? Not that she believed in Santa Claus anymore. Still, she’d rather be considered a good girl than a bad one. Nana Rose would expect her to behave herself, to use good manners and be nice. Even to her father.
A house decorated with blue lights and a manger scene slid past next. Mary and Joseph, and the kings and the shepherds were all in place. Even an angel hovered over the little stable set up in the snowy front yard. But the baby Jesus wasn’t in the manger. Not yet. Just like at church last week. She’d ducked into Nana Rose’s church on her way home from school. She hadn’t been there since Nana Rose had gone to the hospital. Her mother wasn’t big on churches or praying or even on Christmas. But just like last year, the manger scene had been all set up, except for baby Jesus. He wouldn’t be there until Christmas Eve at midnight mass.
Her eyes focused on the back of he
r father’s head. Her father. How odd to actually have a father.
“Are we going to midnight mass?”
She knew the answer before he said it, the way his eyes locked with hers in the dim reflection of the mirror. He didn’t go to church.
“Never mind,” she said, and looked away. “I can go with Miss Eva.” Or by myself if Miss Eva leaves with Karl. Except that she wasn’t so sure if Karl was even alive. Eventually, though, Miss Eva’s son, Paulie, would come and get her.
Anna swallowed the big lump of sadness stuck in her throat. She could act all brave and everything, like coming here to live with some guy who just happened to be her father was no big deal. But if Miss Eva left she didn’t know what she would do.
“We can go to church,” came his belated reply. “We’ll go together. Midnight mass or in the morning, whatever you want.” When she didn’t respond and just kept staring into the snowy darkness at the sparkling lights in this town full of strangers, he asked. “So I guess you’re Catholic?”
She shrugged. “Methodist mostly. But sometimes Catholic.” Catholic when Nana Rose wasn’t mad at the bishop or the pope. Methodist when she was. She looked up at the mirror. “What religion are you?”
He grinned. Even though she could only see his eyes, she could tell by the way they crinkled up at the corners. “I was raised Catholic. So we have that in common.”
And our eyes. Anna hadn’t expected that, their eyes being exactly the same color blue. Somehow the similarity rattled her. Her mother’s eyes were dark brown, like Nana Rose’s. She turned her head to the window, breaking the hold of his gaze. He was where she got her blond hair and her blue eyes from. She’d always wondered. And now they were both sort-of Catholics. That was two things—no three things they shared. Plus they both knew her mother. That made four.
As they drove on, the car warmed up. Miss Eva’s head slid a little to the side, and Anna heard the same soft snores she’d heard on the train. If she wasn’t so nervous about where they were going and what it would be like, she could have fallen asleep, too. Then a song startled her. No, not a song. It was his cell phone.
The Christmas Train Page 7
