Eight Christmas Eves

by Curtis, Rachel

“Not at you. Besides, I came all the way here. I wasn’t about to turn around and head back on Christmas Eve.”

  “Oh.” She thought about this for a minute. Then nodded, deciding it made sense. “What do you have behind your back?”

  He pulled a worn gray sweatshirt out from behind his back. “I stopped by the car place and managed to salvage this for you.”

  Helen clasped her hands at the sight of her father’s sweatshirt.

  Then she scrambled to her feet and ran over to snatch it out of Cyrus’s hand, hugging it to her chest. It smelled like a garage, but she didn’t care. She could wash it.

  “Thank you!” she gasped, looking up at Cyrus after she’d greeted the sweatshirt appropriately. “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “It wasn’t any trouble. What movie were you looking for? If we don’t have it already, I’m sure we could get it for you.”

  Helen looked down at the floor, feeling kind of embarrassed for some reason. “On Christmas Eve,” she explained, “Mr. Mac always watched White Christmas, so I watched it with him. I was just seeing if you had it.”

  “The old Bing Crosby musical? We should have that somewhere. You like that movie?”

  She nodded. “It’s okay. We always watched it and had hot cider and sugar cookies. Mr. Mac would spike his cider for extra fortification.”

  She added the last bit of information since she thought it sounded impressive.

  Cyrus’s mouth turned up again, but his voice was serious when he said, “Well, you can watch that movie tonight too.”

  Helen just nodded. It wouldn’t be as fun watching it by herself. It would be nice if Cyrus would watch it with her. She’d learned not to ask for things like that, though, since so often they wouldn’t happen.

  “I can watch it with you, if you don’t mind company. I won’t have anything else to do.”

  Beaming up at him, Helen said, “I don’t mind. You can watch with me. But won’t you do something with your dad?”

  He shook his head. “We never do anything after dinner. Sometimes I even drive back to the city in the evening.”

  “What do you do if you drive back?”

  He looked a little uncomfortable, but Helen didn’t know why that might be. “Just hang out with friends. But I’m not going to drive back this evening, so I can watch the movie with you.”

  “I guess you probably don’t have hot cider and cookies.”

  “We might be able to dig something up along those lines.”

  Helen grinned at him again. “Will you spike yours?”

  “After dinner with my father, it’s entirely possible I'll need some extra fortification.”

  For some reason, his tone of voice made her want to giggle. So she did.

  * * *

  Dinner wasn’t too bad.

  Both Cyrus and Mr. Owen were dressed nice, so Helen was glad that her luggage arrived before dinner. She changed out of her dirty jeans and red sweater and put on a green turtleneck dress with snowflake tights. The food was okay. She liked the rolls and the beef and the fizzy grape juice, but the vegetables had a weird taste, and there wasn’t enough dressing on her salad. The soup was cold. Evidently, it was supposed to be cold, but she didn’t like it.

  Mr. Owen asked her a lot of questions—not like he was trying to get to know her but like he was just curious about her. She wasn’t afraid of him. He seemed like he would probably work all the time like Mr. Mac, and that was just fine with her. At least, he wouldn’t try to boss her around.

  But she was glad when dinner was over. It took a long time to get through all the different courses, and she was getting bored and tired by the end of it.

  As they were leaving the dining room, a couple of men came in the main door, carrying a lot of boxes. All the boxes were wrapped in beautiful Christmas paper and bows.

  “You can take them into the library and put them near the tree,” Cyrus told one of the men.

  Mr. Owen raised one of his eyebrows and gave Cyrus a funny look, but he didn’t say anything. Just walked away.

  “Are all those presents for your dad?” Helen asked, her eyes widening at how many there were and how pretty they were wrapped. Mr. Mac would always just give her one present.

  Cyrus laughed softly. “My dad would have a heart attack if I gave him so many presents. They’re for you.”

  “For me!” She stared at the men carrying the beautiful presents down the hall.

  “Of course. It would be a pretty bad Christmas morning if you didn’t have anything to unwrap.”

  “I have a Renaissance dagger from your dad.”

  “Did he give it to you already?”

  “No,” Helen said without thinking. “But he said—“ She broke off when she realized she wasn’t supposed to know that.

  “Done a little eavesdropping, have you?”

  She thought for a minute Cyrus might get mad, but he just shook his head and continued, “Can’t really blame you—stuck in this big house by yourself. I know how it feels.”

  She didn’t really know what he was talking about, and he seemed to almost be talking to himself. She thought it was okay if she didn’t answer.

  “Can we go watch the movie now?”

  “Yeah. Sounds like a plan. I’ll go tell someone to bring us cider and sugar cookies.”

  Helen ran to the TV room, found the movie out on a cabinet and played with the machine until she’d figured out how to turn it on. Then she grabbed a soft blanket and curled up with it in a big chair.

  She waited a few minutes but, when Cyrus didn’t appear, she got up and went to find him.

  She heard him talking before she saw him, so she paused in the hallway. It sounded like he was just around a corner.

  He was saying, “I know I said I might be back, but I’m not going to make it after all.”

  There was a pause, which meant he must be talking on the phone. Then he continued, “I’m sorry if you’re upset. But she’s just a kid, and she’s all alone. I feel bad for her. She’s got no one else.”

  Helen froze as she realized who he was talking about. Her.

  “I never claimed to be good with kids,” he said after another pause, now sounding a little annoyed. “But she seems to like me all right, and it’s not a flimsy excuse. We’ll go out when I get back—tomorrow or the next day. You can give me the present then.”

  Helen understood what the conversation was about. He must have a girlfriend, and she was upset because he was staying here instead of going back to the city.

  And he was feeling sorry for her.

  She was more upset than the situation warranted, and she ran back to the TV room and curled up under the blanket again. She felt kind of like she might cry, but she wasn’t going to do it.

  She never cried if she could help it.

  Cyrus didn’t have to stay with her. She’d always been fine on her own. She didn’t need anyone to feel sorry for her.

  He came into the room a few minutes later and looked at her for a minute in silence. She just stared at the blank TV.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” she lied. “I decided I want to watch the movie by myself.”

  “What?” He sounded really surprised, and it upset Helen even more. “What are you talking about?”

  “I can watch the movie by myself,” she said, breathing a little heavily to keep from crying. “You can go back.”

  “I don’t want to go back. I wanted to watch the movie with you. The cider and cookies are coming. What’s wrong? What happened?”

  “Nothing happened,” Helen said, wishing he would just shut up. “I do fine on my own. I’ve always done fine on my own.”

  She wasn’t looking at him, but she felt something change in his expression. He walked over and sat down on the couch near her chair and leaned forward, clasping his hands together. “I can tell you do fine on your own, Helen, but can you put up with me for one evening?”

  A tear slipped out of her eye and streamed down her cheek. S
he brushed it away impatiently. “You don’t have to feel sorry for me, is all I mean.”

  “I see,” he murmured. She could feel his eyes on her face. “You’ve been eavesdropping again.”

  “Not on purpose. You were talking in the middle of the hallway!”

  “I was.” There was suddenly a smile in his voice. She turned to look, but he wasn’t smiling with anything but his eyes. “I wasn’t really looking forward to the date anyway. I can go out with her later. This is the only Christmas Eve I have this year, and I’d rather spend it here.”

  She peered at him, suddenly hopeful. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Okay,” she said, brushing away another tear and feeling a lot better. If he wanted to watch the movie, then that was all right. She'd be happy to have him watch with her.

  “So I can stay?”

  “Yes,” she said, giving him a definitive nod and grinning up at him. “You can stay.”

  So they watched White Christmas, and they had hot cider and sugar cookies. And Helen made Cyrus laugh because she knew all the words to the Sisters song. And there were lots of presents waiting for her to open in the morning. They were probably just dolls and stuffed animals, but they'd be fun to open anyway.

  So it was a pretty good Christmas Eve after all.

  Second Christmas Eve

  nine years ago

  Large, wet flakes of snow blew against the windshield, so hard and thick that Cyrus could barely see the road.

  If he hadn’t known the route so well, he never would have made it these last few miles. The steady snow that had been falling when he’d left D.C. had gradually turned into blizzard conditions.

  He never should have driven out to Clarksburg this afternoon. He’d decided against it after looking at the forecast and seeing the snow already coming down earlier in the day. Although obligation ensured he made the trip to see his father every Christmas, it wasn’t a trip he relished, and he’d been relieved to have a legitimate excuse to cancel it.

  There was a new club opening downtown that he’d wanted to visit tonight, and last week he’d started seeing a stunning brunette. She was wild, exotic, and so sexy it took his breath away. Christmas Eve at a club with her sounded a lot more appealing than an uncomfortable dinner with his father and a precocious twelve-year-old girl.

  He’d called to tell them he couldn't make it out because of the snowstorm, and Helen had said it was fine. Her voice had been small and wobbly, however, so he’d known she’d been crushed. She’d tried to act nonchalant, but he suspected she’d been crying before she hung up the phone.

  So he decided to make the trip after all. Irrational guilt and pity pushed him into it.

  He’d always liked Helen. She was a smart, amusing girl who’d somehow managed to keep her vibrant spirit despite how little love and human connection she had in her life. He’d never spent much time with her because he was at college in the city, but it wasn’t like hanging out with her was ever unpleasant.

  But watching an old movie with a twelve-year-old just couldn’t compare to spending the evening with gorgeous, dark-haired Arlette who had legs that stretched for miles and knew how to use them.

  He couldn’t resent Helen for missing out on a night with Arlette, though, and he couldn’t resent her for the blizzard he was trying to inch through on the last stretch of road to the house.

  It had been his choice to come, and he wasn’t convinced he wouldn’t have made the same decision again, when faced with Helen on the phone sounding so defeated.

  Cyrus was the only son of a very wealthy, influential businessman. He was used to getting a certain kind of attention, merely because of that fact. In a way, it was nice that someone wanted his company so much—without the draw of his money, reputation, or resources.

  It was just his luck that the someone happened to be a twelve-year-old girl.

  He was focused so intently on keeping the car on the slippery road that he almost missed the turn into the drive that led up to the house. Fortunately, a grounds worker must have plowed the drive sometime recently, since there were only a couple of inches of snow covering the pavement.

  He steered the car down the long driveway and then into the garage, letting out a sigh of relief when he finally shifted into park. He’d never been a nervous driver, but for a while there he was convinced he might end up in a ditch on the side of the road.

  He was here now, though, and it was just four o’clock in the afternoon. At least Helen would be excited to see him.

  The butler greeted him politely when he emerged from the garage into the house, but otherwise his welcome was nonexistent. The house was almost eerily silent.

  Last year, when he’d arrived on Christmas Eve, Helen had come bounding down the stairs with an excited squeal and practically tackled him with a hug. This year she wasn’t expecting him to come at all, though, since he’d never phoned to tell her he’d changed his mind.

  He carried his overnight bag and the bag of presents he’d brought into his room. Then he stopped by Helen’s room, but it was empty.

  The room looked different than it had when he’d last been out that summer. The walls were still painted an elegant cream-color, with one accent wall covered in expensive cream and gold damask wallpaper.

  But the dolls and stuffed animals, which had gradually thinned out over the last two years, were now completely gone, and a new bookcase had been brought in to join the other two—all three overflowing with books. One wall was covered with posters, pictures, maps, and magazine photos of different places in the world she evidently liked or wanted to visit. Some were obvious or predictable—London, Paris, Vienna, Moscow, Edinburgh, Athens, Fiji, Hong Kong. But there were also several images of ancient sites like Machu Picchu, Tikal, Petra, Delphi, and Leptis Magna.

  Cyrus was distracted by scanning and identifying the pictures for a minute before he turned to look at the messy computer desk, on which was placed the laptop he’d given her the previous Christmas.

  He was about to turn away when he noticed that the worn gray sweatshirt that had been her father’s was draped over the upholstered chair in the corner. For some reason, the sight struck him as poignant, and it took a moment to shake off the feeling.

  Eventually, he left the room. He checked the rest of the house but still couldn’t find any sign of her.

  Finally, he gave up and tapped on the door to his father’s study.

  Drake Owen arched his eyebrows as he saw his son. “So you braved the snow after all?”

  “Yes,” Cyrus replied, biting back a justification or excuse. He knew from long experience that such explanations only left him at a disadvantage. “Where’s Helen?”

  “She’s around somewhere. Is she in her room?”

  “No. And she’s not in the library or the media room.”

  “I’m sure she’ll turn up eventually. Maybe she went outside.”

  Cyrus’s mouth dropped open. “Outside? There’s a blizzard outside!”

  “Maybe not. I believe she likes to investigate the artifacts in the basement. Maybe she’s there. She’s an independent little thing and doesn’t like me interfering with her activities.”

  Cyrus scowled but bit back his instinctive sharp response. He’d had many conversations with his father over his treatment of Helen, and none of them made the slightest difference. Drake Owen spent most of his time in D.C., while Helen stayed at the Clarkburg house with her nanny and the domestic staff. In some ways, it might be better that his father mostly acted like she didn’t exist.

  At least she was spared the pressure, the biting sarcasm, and the coldness that Cyrus himself had always received from his father.

  Cyrus left the study and went down to the basement. Helen had been at work down there too. Instead of rows of boxes and trunks holding memoirs of past years and Owen travels around the world, she had pulled out and rearranged most of the treasures. In one corner she’d draped all of the exotic fabrics, tapestries, and antique rugs and th
en hung lines of lanterns, chimes, and crystals until it looked like a Persian bazaar. In another corner she’d collected all of the statues, sculptures, and totem poles.

  He couldn’t help but smile at all of her work. He couldn’t imagine how long it had taken her to arrange all of the items so carefully and intentionally.

  He walked past several towers of antique side tables and saw that one whole section of the basement was filled with dozens of neatly laid out table settings of the various sets of china the Owens had collected. A family of carved Mayan gods were eating from 18th century Bavarian china. A collection of Russian dolls were set up around Japanese dishes and tea cups. And a battalion of wooden soldiers were grabbing a quick bite off blue and white Grecian plates.

  Cyrus laughed as he examined the place settings. She’d even found centerpieces for each arrangement.

  Finally he shook himself back into focus and realized that he still needed to find Helen, since she obviously wasn’t down in the basement.

  He went back upstairs and headed to the kitchen, where the housekeeper told him she’d seen Helen heading outside an hour or so ago. “It wasn’t snowing so hard then.”

  Cyrus felt a flare of panic when he glanced outside. The snow was blowing so wildly that it was impossible to see beyond an arm’s length. What the hell was wrong with everyone in this house, letting a girl go out by herself in a blizzard?

  As he put his coat, hat, and gloves back on, he made himself think through what he knew of Helen’s habits. Although he only saw her a few times a year, she’d taken to emailing him several times a week. He tried to respond at least once a week so she wouldn’t think he was ignoring her, but he just didn’t have the time or energy to be a pen pal to a little girl, and he didn’t always read her rambling messages very carefully.

  He did remember, however, that several times she’d mentioned converting an outbuilding that used to be a tool shed into what she called a “writer’s retreat.” Evidently, she liked to go there to write or to be alone when she was upset.

  He knew where the outbuilding was, so he started through the snow in that direction. It wasn’t unbearably cold—probably not much lower than freezing—but the wind was so strong and the snow so thick that it beat at his face and nearly blinded him.