Kids by Christmas

by Janice Kay Johnson

  “I was a lot older than he is, and I was scared to go to bed by myself after my sister died.” Now, where had that come from? Tom wondered. He hadn’t thought about that in twenty years.

  “Really? Did you two share a bedroom?”

  “Yeah, we were in base housing,” he explained. “The place only had two bedrooms. When she got really sick, my parents had me sleep on the couch in the living room. Then, suddenly, she was gone, and I was supposed to go back into that bedroom and be by myself in the dark.”

  “How did your parents handle it?” she asked, stopping with the dish towel in her hands and her head tilted to one side.

  As matter-of-factly as he could, Tom said, “My father said he’d use his belt if I came out of that bedroom before morning.” That goddamn bedroom, was what his father had really said.

  “Oh, Tom!” She laid her hand on his bare forearm and then snatched it back quickly, as if embarrassed. “How awful.”

  Not many days after his father’s ultimatum, Tom had puked in bed and been afraid to open the door to ask for his mother. He’d lain rigid in bed until morning, when he’d lied and said he must have been asleep when he’d thrown up.

  “Not much help to you, I’m afraid. I don’t recommend his technique.”

  “No wonder you’re not close.”

  “He’s a hard man. In fairness,” he said, although he didn’t like to be fair where his father was concerned, “I think he was raised that way himself.”

  “Was he nicer to your sister?”

  Tom thought back as he set another pan in the drainer. “She was a girl. She didn’t have to be toughened up.”

  She looked directly at him. “How on earth did you manage to turn into such a kind man?”

  He grinned, if crookedly. “I rebelled.”

  She opened her mouth, probably to chide him for making light of something so grim to judge from her indignant expression, but Sophia wandered into the kitchen just then, requesting Christmas cookies.

  “Me and Jack are hungry.”

  “How on earth could you be?” Suzanne shook her head, but poured two glasses of milk and allowed the girl to take two cookies apiece out to the living room.

  When Sophia was gone, Tom said, “You want my advice? I think you’re doing the right thing with Jack. He’ll get used to having his own room. And don’t make too much of the bed-wetting. He’s had a hard time.”

  “I know he has. Oh, phooey!” she exclaimed. “I shouldn’t let him have milk this close to bedtime.”

  “Does keeping him from drinking during the evening make any difference?”

  Suzanne made a face. “Not so far as I can tell. Honestly, I don’t know if anything does. He saw a doctor in November, who couldn’t find a thing wrong with him and felt it was not unusual for the circumstances.”

  “Then don’t worry about it.” He turned off the water after rinsing the last pan and took a look around to realize the kitchen was clean. They were done. His excuse was used up.

  He let the soapy water out of the sink, dried his hands and stretched in his turn, almost touching the ceiling.

  “I should be getting on home.”

  She hung up the dish towel. “And I should be getting them to bed. You know they’re going to be up at the crack of dawn.”

  “Santa?”

  “Despite the lack of chimney.” She lowered her voice. “Santa is bringing him a B-I-K-E.”

  “He can probably spell that word.”

  “I suppose he can. I haven’t seen him read yet. Melissa said he’s good in math but struggling with his reading. I read stories to him at bedtime last night, but I’ll wait until he starts school and I can talk to his teacher to see what I can do to help.”

  Tom nodded. “Makes sense. So, what’s the plan for tomorrow?”

  “I thought we’d leave about noon.”

  “Works for me. Suzanne, thank you for including me tonight.” Let me stay. Let this be real.

  “It was a much nicer Christmas with you here.” She flashed him a grin. “I’d still be scrubbing pans if you hadn’t been here to do it.”

  “I can be a handy fellow,” he agreed, half joking and half not. He could be indispensable if only she’d keep him around for good.

  “It felt right having you here tonight. And your presents for the kids…and me—” she touched her necklace “—were wonderful.”

  “I’m glad you liked them.” He never felt he was great with words, but he tried. “That afghan you made for me is special. One of the nicest presents anyone has ever given me.”

  “I’m glad,” she said, too, her voice soft. “Isn’t it funny…”

  “Isn’t what funny?” he asked when she didn’t finish.

  “Oh, I was just thinking how far we’ve come in only a few weeks. How is it we managed to live next to each other for so long without getting to know each other?”

  He told the truth. “You always looked scared of me.”

  “Oh, dear.” She pressed her hands to her cheeks. “It was that obvious?”

  “Afraid so,” he said with gentle amusement. “I saw you scooting into the house at the sight of my truck turning the corner enough times.”

  She lowered her hands, leaving her cheeks pink. “You know I wasn’t scared, don’t you? Just embarrassed.”

  “I wish I had known and could have told you there wasn’t any reason for you to be.”

  “The kids are a blessing in more ways than one.”

  He saw it that way, too. “I’ll just go say good night to them….”

  He collected his gifts from the couch and said his good nights. Suzanne went to the door with him. When he turned back to thank her one more time, she stunned him anew by rising on tiptoe and kissing his cheek.

  “Merry Christmas.”

  Tom managed to say a gruff, “Merry Christmas,” and headed home, hearing the door shut behind him.

  Thank God he hadn’t seen that coming, he thought, stumbling across the dark lawn. Because if he had, he didn’t know if he could have resisted the temptation to turn his head and meet her lips with his.

  CHAPTER TEN

  SUZANNE DIDN’T HEAR THE KIDS get up the next morning, but Jack’s whoop of joy jarred her out of sleep and to a sitting position. What…? And then she remembered. Christmas morning. The bike with a huge red bow tied to the handles.

  Smiling, she got up, put her bathrobe on and went out to the living room. Jack stood astride his bike, pretending he was steering it.

  And he had on the same pajamas he’d gone to bed in, and they were dry.

  “I never had a bike before,” he said when he saw her.

  Sophia was quiet, watching him. Suzanne worried that she was hurt that nothing so grand was under the tree for her. She’d been a lot harder to shop for. She probably still enjoyed playing with Barbie dolls, but had to be starting to notice boys. Her interest in toys was bound to be short-lived, but teenage stuff was probably premature. And when Suzanne had floated the idea of a bike, she hadn’t seemed interested.

  “Let’s see what else Santa brought,” Suzanne suggested.

  Jack ripped paper and flung it in heaps, apparently delighted with the superhero figure he’d put on his Christmas list, an addition to his LEGO set and a soccer ball.

  Sophia opened her presents more slowly, head bent. Suzanne, having realized it would be the perfect size, had given her a sweater she’d knit for one of the patterns she’d sold. Sophia had said she liked to draw and paint, so her big present was a drawing set with charcoal and colored pencils and a fat book of blank, creamy paper.

  She unlatched the wooden case and touched all the pencils, thumbed through the paper, then closed it up again. “Thank you.”

  This was a child who was usually volatile, not withdrawn. What was bothering her?

  All Suzanne could do was smile and say, “You’re welcome.”

  Sophia offered to frost the cookies left undecorated yesterday, and Suzanne left her to it while she showered and got dresse
d.

  She asked Jack if he’d like to go try his bike, but he was engrossed in his LEGO and a movie and said, “Maybe later.”

  When mid-morning came and she sent them off to get dressed, she wished belatedly that she’d bought them some new clothes so they would look their best today. Chances were nobody in the family would get really dressed up, but she didn’t know for sure. And even relaxed on a holiday didn’t mean grungy jeans and sweatshirts.

  To think, the last Christmas she and her brother and sister had spent together, she’d been five, Gary two and Carrie a baby, fascinated by the bright lights on the tree. Now, finally, they would all be together again today.

  When she saw Jack, she didn’t say anything about his choices because his wardrobe had no better alternatives.

  Sophia emerged from her room wearing her new sweater over jeans and shoes even more tattered than Jack’s.

  “Do you like the sweater?” Suzanne asked. “It looks really cute.”

  She shrugged. “Yeah, it’s cool.”

  Hiding her disappointment at the lack of enthusiasm, Suzanne said brightly, “Let’s go see if Tom is ready.”

  He was, and offered to drive. His pickup was an extended cab, and the kids were enthusiastic.

  “I wish we could ride in back,” Jack said wistfully.

  His sister curled her lip. “That’s dumb. We’d freeze.”

  “I’m afraid it’s not safe,” Suzanne said. “Sophia, we don’t have to call each other’s ideas ‘dumb.’”

  “Well, it is,” she muttered, and climbed in.

  Sophia sighed and met Tom’s sympathetic gaze.

  The drive passed quickly, thanks in large part to Tom, who made pleasant conversation, answered Jack’s incessant questions and got Sophia to talk about her art after she told him about the drawing set.

  “A teacher last year sent this picture of mine to a contest, and I won a ribbon.”

  “Really?” Suzanne turned in her seat. “That’s wonderful!”

  “Your teacher must have really thought she saw talent,” Tom said. “Do you enjoy drawing?”

  “Yeah, I do it a lot. Sometimes when I’m supposed to be doing other things.”

  Tom laughed. “Tempting, isn’t it? After all, you’ve got a pencil in your hand, paper in front of you…”

  “That teacher was nice about it. The one I had while we lived with Mrs. Burton wasn’t.”

  “I’ll tell you what,” Suzanne said. “When we go into the school, I’ll ask whether there’s a fifth-grade teacher that has a particular interest in art whose class you could be in.”

  “I wish we didn’t have to go back to school,” she mumbled. “You could homeschool us.”

  “Not and run a business. Besides—” Suzanne cast her a sympathetic smile over her shoulder “—I think it’s healthier for us if I’m not having to be the bad guy about schoolwork. And you need to make friends besides.”

  She hunched her shoulders. “Nobody’ll like me. They never do.”

  “I like you,” her brother piped up.

  “Big deal.” She shrugged.

  Suzanne wanted to talk to her about being nicer to her brother, but she wasn’t sure yet how much of what she observed was normal sibling interaction and how much was Sophia’s way of taking out her feelings of being scared and angry on the only target she knew was safe: the brother who adored her. And Suzanne had to balance the occasional grumpiness with Sophia’s generous willingness, despite Jack’s bed-wetting, to sleep with him so he felt safe.

  “Take the Forty-fifth Street exit,” she instructed Tom, and gave directions to the narrow, tree-lined street in the Wallingford district of Seattle where Carrie and Mark owned a 1920s-era brick home.

  They were fortunate enough to find parking barely a block from their destination. Carrying cookies, pies and a box of wrapped presents, they walked to Carrie’s.

  It was a charming house that Suzanne thought of as Hansel and Gretel’s cottage, with a peaked roof, old multipaned windows, a wrought-iron railing along the street and a doorway that led only to the garden in back. The kids gaped and hung back when she rang the bell.

  The door swung open and warmth and noise spilled out. Carrie hugged Suzanne, then smiled at Tom and the kids. “Welcome. I’m Suzanne’s sister, Carrie. In case you couldn’t tell.”

  Anyone could tell because the women looked a great deal alike. So much so that they’d agreed that, if they had met by chance before they’d been reunited, they would have recognized each other instantly. Carrie was a tiny bit shorter, and her dark hair had curls Suzanne envied, her face a hint of the pixie while Suzanne’s was more placid.

  “I’ll be Aunt Carrie to you,” she said to Jack and Sophia. “And you have a cousin now. Michael could hardly wait until you got here.”

  Her husband appeared behind her and pulled her back. “Maybe we should let them in,” he suggested good-naturedly.

  “Oh, pooh. They could have pushed me out of the way. Here,” she said, reaching for a covered dish, “let me take the pies to the kitchen while you put those under the tree and say hi to everyone else. How many pies did you make?”

  “Only two. The rest are cookies the kids and Tom made.”

  “Ohh. Christmas cookies. Michael, they’re here,” she called.

  “He’s right behind me,” her good-looking, dark-haired husband said.

  In the entry, shedding their coats, Suzanne introduced the two men and Sophia and Jack to Michael, who was being inexplicably shy. The two boys hardly looked at each other, just mumbled, “Hello.”

  Suzanne was glad to see that her kids’ clothes weren’t too great a contrast to Michael’s stiff new jeans, sneakers and T-shirt.

  Suzanne’s brother came out of the kitchen then. “Did I hear the doorbell? Suzanne! Hey.” He submitted to a hug with better grace than he had the first time she’d met him as an adult, when he’d seemed like a wild creature unused to human touch. Rebecca rushed from the back of the house at the sound of voices, and more embraces ensued.

  “Mom says she’s met you at your shop. Although she didn’t know then that you were going to be my matchmaker. Hi,” she said, holding out a hand to Tom, “I didn’t catch your name?”

  As it turned out, Suzanne remembered Mrs. Wilson. They chatted briefly about knitting and the classes she offered. Then Carrie’s parents arrived and introductions had to start all over again.

  Suzanne watched Gary closely, wondering how hard this was for him. He knew that Carrie’s adoptive parents had had the opportunity to adopt both Carrie and him and had chosen not to take him. They’d also told Carrie they’d regretted the decision ever since. Carrie’s mom had cried, explaining how lacking in confidence she’d been, how frightened she’d been that she would fail with the angry little boy who was so traumatized by his parents’ death and foster care that he’d taken to biting. But Gary had reason to feel bitter, and this was the first time he’d met the couple who could have saved him from a miserable adoptive placement.

  To his credit, he was polite if rather expressionless, and Carrie anxiously filled silences. Within moments they were all past the first awkwardness, and people began to break into groups. Suzanne pretended not to notice that Carrie’s mother had to blink hard when she turned away.

  Carrie and her mom went off to peel potatoes. Mark’s father, an older man who looked remarkably like him—no, probably it was the other way around—collected coats and took them to a back bedroom, and Gary raised his eyebrows at the sight of Tom.

  “We’ve met,” he said, holding out his hand.

  “That’s right. Tom Stefanec.” They shook.

  “Didn’t realize you two were friends.”

  Suzanne cringed at the memory of the things she’d said to her brother about her obsessively neat next-door neighbor. For the first time, it occurred to her that everyone would assume she and Tom were a couple. They’d be, well, assessing him, and judging her taste.

  “Tom’s been my salvation recently,” she sai
d hastily. “Wait’ll you see the beautiful job he’s done refinishing furniture for the kids’ rooms. Speaking of…” She turned. “Have you met Sophia and Jack yet?”

  He said his hellos. “Michael called me Uncle Gary. Shook me up,” he said humorously. “Marriage, okay. But I’m already an uncle?”

  Mark returned. “Michael, why don’t you show Jack your room? Sophia, too, if she’d like.”

  “Um, sure,” she agreed, obviously choosing the lesser of two evils.

  Both followed Suzanne’s nephew up the stairs.

  “I hope Jack and Michael hit it off,” Suzanne worried.

  “Why wouldn’t they?” Mark asked, surprised. “Boys aren’t shy for long.”

  Tom did look shy, or perhaps just overwhelmed by the sheer number of strangers. But before long the men were talking about the Seattle Seahawks’ amazing season and their chances in the play-offs, and he’d accepted a glass of wine. Suzanne was able to relax and seek out her sister and Rebecca in the kitchen.

  The women all ended up congregating there, most of the talk concerning the upcoming wedding. Rebecca kept saying, “I can’t believe how fast this has happened!” but she laughed and blushed when she said it, so everyone knew she wasn’t suffering from cold feet.

  Suzanne excused herself after fifteen or twenty minutes and went upstairs to see whether the kids needed rescuing. Not halfway down the hall, she could already hear Sophia’s voice ordering the two younger boys around. Smiling, she stopped in the doorway.

  “Get some great new stuff for Christmas, Michael?”

  He looked up from where he was kneeling by a miniature pirate ship that was crewed by tiny pirates with eye patches and wicked swords at their sides. “Yeah!” he said. “I’m showing Soph and Jack what I got. Look. These are Playmobils. I got the island, too. We’re gonna have a battle.”

  Jack barely glanced up, so engrossed was he in setting the crimson sails on the ship.

  Only boys, Suzanne thought in amusement. Or maybe not. Sophia, sitting cross-legged and holding a miniature cannon, had a bloodthirsty look in her eyes.