A Gift for All Seasons

by Karen Templeton

  “’Kay.” The little girl grabbed the string, dangling it way over her head so that insanely kissable pot belly pooched out from underneath her red sweater. “I really, really like Christmas,” she said on a languid sigh, making Patrick send up a little prayer of gratitude. Maybe they’d get through this holiday, after all, even if Natalie still wouldn’t commit to seeing her own kid at Christmas.

  “I bet you do.”

  “Do you?”

  “Sure,” he said, because this wasn’t about him. Not that he had anything against holidays, but he sure wouldn’t be scratching the hell out of himself stringing lights on this blasted tree if it weren’t for his kid. And God knows he wouldn’t have nearly frozen his butt nailing evergreen swags across way too many feet of porch overhang at the inn if it hadn’t been for April. Who was apparently every bit as wide-eyed about Christmas as his preschooler.

  He tugged at the string, making Lili drop it. With another sigh, she bent over and picked up the next length, her forehead puckered again as one blue light apparently sucked her in.

  “Will Santa bring me presents?”

  “I’m sure he will.”

  She was quiet for a long time, then asked, “Would he bring me Mama if I asked?”

  Patrick’s stomach fell. It was like hearing those first, faint thunder rumbles that signaled a storm was about to hit.

  “I think that’s between Santa and Mama, baby,” he said carefully.

  “Could you ask her to come?”

  “I could,” he said, even more carefully. “But I can’t make her come.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because people can’t make other people do things. Just the way it works.”

  “You make me brush my teeth. An’ go to bed when I don’t wanna.”

  Hell. That string done, Patrick grabbed the second one off the floor to plug it into the first. “That’s different, baby,” he said, handing Lili the end. “That’s taking care of you, not ordering you around.”

  Her nose wrinkled. “You sure?”

  “Yeah. I’m sure.”

  She started swinging the string like a jump rope, making the little lights bang against Patrick’s leg. “The colors are all swirly,” she said, giggling, and Patrick whooshed out a breath, that maybe they’d gotten over that hurdle. Until she said, “How come I never go to Mama’s house?” and he realized, Nope.

  “You’d have to ask Mama that.”

  “I did. On the phone. She wouldn’t t-tell me.” At the catch in Lili’s voice, he looked over to see a tear dribble down her soft cheek. She crouched, stretching the string across her knees. “Why did she go away, anyway?” she said softly. “Did I do something bad?”

  The lights clattered when Patrick dropped them to squat in front of his little girl, hardly even reacting when she reached up to run her fingers over the ruched skin on his cheek, something he’d finally realized some months ago she did to soothe herself.

  “No, baby, of course you didn’t do anything bad.”

  “Then why does she hardly ever come? Or let me go to her house?”

  Holy hell—where was all this coming from? She’d never asked questions like this before. Was it because she didn’t have the words before now? Or because April being around was stirring them up?

  And once again, was it right letting Lili get close to somebody else before she had any of this about her mother sorted out in her head?

  He released a breath. “Honey, I don’t know why your mama does half the things she does. Maybe she doesn’t want you to see her house because, I don’t know, it’s messy or something. Because she’s been too busy to clean it.”

  Lili looked around the cluttered living room, then back at him, frowning. “But I like messy houses.”

  And wouldn’t his mother croak if she heard that? “I’m sorry, baby, I wish I could answer for Mama, tell you what she’s thinking. But I can’t. I know she loves you, though.”

  His chest cramped when tears flooded Lili’s dark brown eyes. “Then why doesn’t she want to see me? Why d-does she only stay for a m-minute an’ then go away again?”

  He pulled Lili into his arms, his own eyes stinging as he whispered, “I don’t know, baby, I don’t know.”

  He heard April return from the kitchen, his old beat-up serving tray softly thunking onto the battle-scarred coffee table when she set it down. Wordlessly, she picked up the abandoned light string and started tucking it into the tree, and the weird thing was Patrick couldn’t decide if he was glad she was there or wished she wasn’t. And between that and not having a clue what to say to his daughter, he could see the panic attack lurking right outside his vision, snarling and snapping and pacing, trying to find a way in. His eyes shut, he held on to his little girl, breathing deeply and steadily like the therapist had taught him, until the damn thing slunk away.

  For now. But for those couple moments when it felt like he was going to lose control...

  Not an option. Especially not now. And whatever he had to do to relieve the pressure, he would.

  “Lights are done,” April said softly, and Patrick felt sick inside. “Lili, you want to pick the first ornament to hang on the tree?”

  She nodded against his chest, then pulled away, wiping her nose on her sleeve. Chuckling, April handed her a tissue, holding it to her nose to help her blow. Acting like everything was fine when it was perfectly obvious it wasn’t. She wasn’t stupid, she had to know.

  The crazy Santa hung, Lili announced she had to pee and ran down the short hall to the bathroom.

  And Patrick collapsed into the armchair next to the tree, leaning forward with his head in his hands.

  Some hero, he thought.

  Some freaking hero.

  * * *

  “Here,” April said, holding a cup of hot chocolate in front of Patrick, even as hope shriveled inside her. Because in the ten minutes it had taken to make the cocoa, the tension had not only pulled taut, it had completely snapped. “Cocoa cures everything. I promise.”

  After a moment he lifted his head, one side of his mouth slightly pulled up. “Thanks.” He took the mug, licking the whipped cream off his upper lip after his first sip. “How much did you hear?”

  “Enough.”

  Enough for it to finally penetrate that parades and trimming trees and hot chocolate weren’t going to magically fix things. That April wasn’t going to magically fix things. And that as much as Lili had already wrapped her curly headed self around her heart, April couldn’t be the one thing the little girl most wanted: her own mother. At least at the moment. True, maybe with enough love and patience, things could work out in the future. But if Lili and Patrick—especially Patrick—were clearly too firmly rooted in the present to trust that, to trust her...well.

  None of Patrick’s other objections, she now realized, meant squat. Not his questioning her motives about why she’d picked him, not her sexual inexperience, not his leftover hurt about his ex-wife’s abandonment. Or even what she suspected were lingering self-confidence issues stemming from his appearance, although she would have thought those, especially, had been shoved way behind them. What was going on with his daughter, though, was bigger than all the rest combined. Far bigger.

  And completely outside her control.

  April sat on the sturdy old coffee table, her hands gripping the edge on either side of her hips, feeling her pulse throb in her temples. She’d—they’d—had such lovely plans for tonight, including her staying over, testing the waters of what life might be like in the future. Patrick’s suggestion, she thought as her throat clogged.

  His eyes fixed straight ahead, he took another swallow of his drink, then sagged back into the chair, the mug propped on one worn arm as he scrubbed the heel of his hand into his eye, his obvious exhaustion breaking her heart.

  “Part of me thinks,” he said as his hand banged down on the other chair arm, “if I could get through to Nat what she was doing to Lili, maybe we could fix this. Only then I think, what good would it do?
Because Lili doesn’t want explanations, she wants her mother. And that’s the one thing I can’t give her. God—I hate feeling so damn useless.”

  A frustration only the strong experienced, April suspected. She frowned anyway. “You really think that? At least you’re here for her. I imagine a lot of men in your...in your situation would have handed the kid off to a relative and said, Forget this. But you didn’t.”

  “No,” he said after a moment, then lifted harrowed eyes to hers. “Doesn’t mean I haven’t thought about it from time to time. If it wouldn’t be better for her if I gave custody to one of my brothers or sisters. You know, somebody who knew what they were doing?”

  Unable to bear his pained expression, April twisted around to get her own mug of cocoa, lifting it to her lips with a smile. “I take it that leaves Luke out of the running, then?”

  That actually got a little laugh. “True.”

  After a moment’s thought, she set down her mug and crossed to the chair, questions flickering across his features a second before she leaned over, took his face in her hands and kissed him. None too gently, either. “And do you have any idea,” she said when she was done, a breath away from his mouth, “how much courage it takes to admit that?”

  He covered her hand with his, his fingers bumping over her knuckles and a gentle smile curving his lips, even as apology swam in his eyes. “This habit you have of always seeing the good in people? Really annoying.”

  She forced herself to smile back. “So I’ve been told,” she said, straightening when she heard the bathroom door bang open, followed by Lili charging down the hall.

  “Did you wash your hands?” Patrick asked.

  “Uh-huh. See?” She held them out. Presumably to show they were still wet. Then they resumed trimming the tree, as though everything was hunky-dory when everyone in the room knew it wasn’t. April could only guess what was going through Patrick’s head, although his seeming reluctance to look at her for more than a second or two—when before he’d had no problem telegraphing exactly what he was thinking—told her everything she needed to know.

  At last the tree was done, a bright spot of magic in the cramped little room, and, after a few minutes of well-earned tree worship, Patrick whisked away a protesting Lili to put her to bed. Her chest tight, April washed the mugs and set them in the drainer, then returned to the living room to straighten up the empty ornament boxes, collect a dozen scattered toys and return them to the wicker basket on the bookshelf beside the TV. A nice room, she thought, the mishmash of cast-offs and hand-me-downs somehow coalescing into something warm and appealing, despite the generic off-white walls and plain beige carpet remnant covering most of the worn wood floors.

  And Lili was everywhere, from the plastic art easel set up in one corner to dozens of paintings and drawings tacked up on one wall, to a bright red beanbag dog taking up most of another corner, to the slew of Dr. Seuss hardbacks scattered across the coffee table, all of it shouting, This is my life.

  First and foremost, this is who I am.

  Her hands like ice, April stacked the books, gathered her coat and purse, then sat on the edge of the same chair Patrick had been in earlier. The tree’s colored lights looked like melted gumdrops through her flooded eyes as she waited for him, fighting the urge to run.

  But that would be rude. And very un-her. So she stayed, feeling her stomach turn inside out when she heard his footsteps coming down the hall. Seeing her with her purse and jacket, his brows crashed.

  “You’re leaving?”

  As she stood, a light snow began to tick against the windows. Heaven knew she’d given this thing her all. As had Patrick, more than either of them had probably thought possible a month ago. And the idea of giving up, of giving up on him, made her ill. Then again, she could still change her mind, couldn’t she? What was preventing her from dropping her things, taking his hand and leading him to his bedroom?

  Then she felt it, like a hand on her shoulder, heard a voice whisper, “Let go.”

  She’d only wanted to bring him joy, not more stress. And she’d like to think she had, even if only for a while. But if the timing wasn’t right, it wasn’t right, and all the wishing in the world wasn’t going to change that. “I never meant to make things worse, Patrick. For either of you.”

  “Damn, April—”

  “So I think it’s best. That I leave.”

  After a moment, he closed the space between them to pull her tight against his chest, rubbing his cheek in her hair. When she felt him swallow, she shut her eyes, still wishing...hoping....

  “I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “So, so sorry. But please...” He took her face in his hands, ducking to meet her gaze, his own so tortured it tore her in two. “It’s not your fault.”

  He’d never said he loved her. In fact he’d gone out of his way not to lead her on or fuel her dreams. Yet her hands fisted against the breath-stealing pain—no less excruciating because she’d known the blow was coming. How her heart was even still beating, she did not know. Or maybe it wasn’t, it was hard to tell, what with feeling like all the air had been crushed right out of her.

  “I’m sorry, too,” she said, and he kissed her, killing her a little more before she pulled away, gathered her things and left. Miraculously she held it together while she drove, so she wouldn’t start bawling and drive off the road and get herself killed, no matter how much she didn’t much care right then if she lived or not.

  And yes, she thought when she got back to the inn, sneaking in through her private entrance so she wouldn’t run into anybody, she was acting like a melodramatic fifteen-year-old. Since she’d never had a reason or the opportunity to act like a melodramatic fifteen-year-old when she was fifteen, she figured she was overdue. As long as nobody saw her, what difference did it make?

  The light knock on the door to her den made her jump.

  “April?” Mel said. “Come on, I know you’re home, I saw you pull in as I was walking out to my car.”

  And of course she hadn’t kept walking.

  “I thought you were spending the night at Patrick’s? Is everything okay?”

  April opened her mouth to say Of course it is, why wouldn’t it be? except nothing came out except this hideous sound, like a wounded moose.

  “That’s it, I’m coming in...”

  Two seconds later she was wrapped in her cousin’s arms, blubbering for all she was worth.

  Chapter Eleven

  As the late December night swallowed up the dusk, Patrick stood at the end of the marina, Lili’s hand firmly grasped in his as dozens of brightly lit boats chugged past in the nautical parade, another St. Mary’s tradition going back twenty years or so and drawing more of a crowd every year.

  Three days before Christmas. A week since April walked out of his apartment.

  A week since he’d let her walk out, telling himself it was for the best, he should have never dragged her into this mess he called a life, anyway. That there simply wasn’t enough of him to go around.

  And yet, when he’d spotted her and Mel at their booth in the town square earlier, heard her laugh long before he saw her, he’d felt sliced in two. When Nat had left them, there’d been pain, sure—of failure, of rejection. But to be honest there’d also been relief, that he’d no longer have to see the disappointment on her face, or feel the frustration that came from trying to revive something long dead. With April, though, there was just pain.

  Like being ripped apart from the inside.

  “Wondered where you’re gotten to,” his mother said as she squeezed in beside him to link her arm through his. He’d said little to his family other than it hadn’t worked out between him and April, and amazingly enough, they’d all kept their traps shut. Except for Luke, who’d suggested they go get wasted—apparently he was having woman troubles, as well—and Neil and Frannie had doled out nearly identical “You’re an idiot” looks that had almost made him laugh.

  But other than giving him a hug, his mother had remained silen
t. Until now, he suspected. He also figured that, as with some of the more gruesome remedies she’d inflicted on them when they were kids, the sooner he let her do what she was gonna do, the sooner it would be over and he could go back to suffering in peace.

  “Right here, Mrs. Claus,” he said, and she chuckled. His father had been playing town Santa for as long as Patrick could remember. Even had a special pair of wire-rimmed glasses so the kids wouldn’t recognize him. Made a damn good one, too, perched on his gold-and-velvet throne in a heated, over-decorated tent in the square. He’d even tricked Lili tonight, Patrick thought, his gut knotting as he remembered that shared glance with his father when Lili really did ask him to bring her mother back.

  “Saw April earlier,” Ma said, softly enough that Lili wouldn’t hear. “She looks more miserable that you do.”

  And here it comes. “I saw her, too. She looked fine to me.”

  “Then I’m guessing you didn’t see her up close.”

  He pulled in a breath. It didn’t help. “She broke it off, Ma—”

  “Hey, Lili!” They turned to see his sister Frannie, practically swallowed up in a wooly hat and long scarf. “One of Uncle Neil’s buddies said we could go out on his boat to see the lights better! Wanna come?”

  Lili spun around to Patrick, eyes huge, an irresistible grin lighting up her whole face. “Can I?”

  For tonight, she’d been happy, perhaps because she’d finally been able to put in her request to Santa. If she missed April, she hadn’t said. And no way was Patrick going to bring up the subject.

  “Oh, I suppose,” he said with an exaggerated sigh guaranteed to make her giggle. “But make sure she’s wearing a life jacket!” he yelled to his sister as the kid bolted away like a rabbit with a coyote on her tail. Laughing, Frannie grabbed Lili’s hand, yelling back they’d take her home with them when they were done, to pick her up later.

  Patrick turned back to the water, leaning his forearms against the railing bordering the end of the dock. “And I smell a setup.”