The Spirit of Christmas

by Liz Talley

  “I let Robbie Theriot get to second base last night,” Mitzi said.

  She eyed her friend. “But you don’t have a second base.”

  Mitzi giggled. “I know, so I let him get to third.”

  She looked so pleased with herself, the sparkle of the pre-cancer Mitzi evident in her face, that Mary Paige joined in.

  “You always know how to make me laugh. So are you going out with him again?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Why is it so hard to be out there?” Mary Paige muttered. “Dating sucks.”

  “Yeah. It does suck.”

  At that, they both lay there silent, contemplating life, love and…the water stain.

  “You need to get something and cover that up.” Mitzi pointed to the yellowed amoeba-shaped mark.

  “Yeah.”

  “And you need to find Brennan and make this all right.”

  “No.”

  Mitzi rose to her elbow. “Why won’t you go after him?”

  “Why won’t he come after me? He was the one who chose to believe that moron’s lies. He’s the one who has to overcome the hurt of the past to see I wasn’t repeating it. Brennan has the problem. Not me. I was ready to talk about our future…and he shut the door. No, he slammed the door right in my face.”

  “But the situation looked bad. You said so yourself.”

  Mary Paige sat up and crossed her arms. “I’m not being stubborn. I’m no longer sitting on my high horse looking down my nose at him and his narrow-minded tendencies. All I’m doing is saying I’m not chasing after that man when he’s jumped to hurtful conclusions about me, when he may have been using me all along. I never gave him any reason to doubt the way I feel about him or to suspect I’d jump into the sack with another man—especially not after leaving his sack the night before. I refuse to chase after a man who has that low opinion of me.”

  Mitzi sighed. “But he’s damaged.”

  “And he’ll have to fix himself. I wasn’t put on this earth to save Brennan Henry from a joyless, petty life.”

  Mitzi looped an arm around her shoulders. “You’re right. No woman should have to convince a man to love her. Good reminder.”

  Mary Paige tapped her friend’s thigh. “I know you already got the tremendous gift of remission but I have a little something else for you.”

  Mitzi clapped her hands. “Oh, goody! A present!”

  “Come on.” Mary Paige tugged Mitzi toward the small living room, where the tree blinked in tune to the carols spilling out of the stereo. Okay, so Mary Paige hadn’t synchronized the music to the blink, but it still looked as if they were in perfect harmony.

  She reached under the tree and pulled out a small box and handed it to Mitzi. “For you.”

  “I have something for you at my house. I can go get it.”

  “I’ll get it when I bring the cat over and give your mother her gift.”

  “Okay.” Mitzi tore through the gold wrapping paper with little care for saving the bow. Pulling off the lid of the box, she gasped. “Ooh, Mary, it’s so…sweet.”

  Lying on a square of cotton was a silver bangle bracelet with a pink cancer-survivor ribbon charm.

  “You like it? I got it in October because I knew you were going to beat this.”

  Tears shimmered in Mitzi’s eyes as she unhooked the bracelet and slid it onto her wrist. “What if I hadn’t?”

  Mary Paige smiled. “Eh, it would have kept until you did.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Oh, and I also got this for you.” Mary Paige had finally put the money in the bank, realizing that ignoring it wasn’t making it go away. And it was high time she figured out what to do with it. One of the things she planned to do was spoil the people she loved. “Here.” Mary Paige passed an envelope toward Mitzi.

  “What’s this?”

  “Open it.”

  Mitzi lifted the flap and pulled out a brochure. Her eyes skimmed the first page before opening to the middle. “This is a brochure for breast reconstruction…oh, Mary Paige.”

  Tears spilled down Mitzi’s face right before her expression crumpled.

  “Don’t cry, Mitzi. You’ll make me cry, too.”

  “How did you— I can’t let you do this. It’s too much.”

  “No, it’s not. It will make me so happy to see you happy again. To see you confident, wearing those skimpy halter tops you always wore before your diagnosis.”

  Mitzi laughed through the tears. “I can’t believe you bought me a boob job. Do know how bizarre that is?”

  “Well, it’s a little—”

  Her words were cut off by Mitzi’s full-out sobs. And that made Mary Paige cry, too. Mostly because it felt so good to do something for her friend, something she knew Mitzi could never afford. She also cried because her heart had been broken into a billion itty-bitty pieces when Brennan closed that office door, ending their relationship as if it had meant nothing to him. Happy mixed with sad.

  Hope mixed with despair.

  Love mixed with loss.

  “You’re the best person I know.”

  “Sure.” Mary Paige sniffed. “Don’t you know I’m the Spirit of Christmas?”

  Then it was Mary Paige’s turn to sob into the arms of her friend. The love of a friend was a joy, but no substitute for the love of the man she wanted.

  No doubt about it—Brennan Henry, the big, fat Scrooge, had broken her heart.

  * * *

  BRENNAN HENRY STARED out at the cold December night, feeling nothing but emptiness at spending Christmas Eve with Asher, who was drunk and intent on getting drunker if the bottle of scotch he’d pulled from the hotel minibar was any indicator.

  “Appreciate you driving me,” Asher slurred with an ironic smile. “Had a bit too much at dinner.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Brennan said, looking out at the city he loved. The moon hung over the Hibernia Bank building, where columns glowed with red and green lights. The city was festive and bright, as it should be on the night before Christmas Day. Even the horns honking in the streets below sounded cheerful.

  Asher knocked something over on his way toward the bed. “Have a drink. It’s Christmas.”

  Brennan turned, hands in pockets, and contemplated his cousin in the weak light of the hotel suite. Asher had slipped his loafers off, loosened his tie and was now propped against the headboard, full glass of amber liquor in hand. Part of Brennan wanted to ask Asher about Mary Paige and the kiss, the other part of him wanted to ignore what had occurred, as if ignoring it could mean it had never happened. “I should be going. I’m taking care of grandfather’s dog and I don’t want a puddle on my pine floors.”

  “Come on, it’s Christmas. Not like you have anything better to do.”

  Wasn’t that the truth?

  “Maybe one drink before I go. Not looking forward to walking her for blocks to find grass anyhow.” He walked to the bar, grabbed a small bottle of merlot and poured the wine.

  Brennan sank into one of the club chairs across from the bed and crossed one leg over his knee. “When will you leave?”

  Asher blinked. “Leave where?”

  “New Orleans. I assumed you and Elsa will head to Bern before the New Year.”

  “Oh, that. Well, I’m not going back to Bern,” Asher said with a twist of his lips.

  “Oh?”

  “Elsa is, but not me. She and I are over, and she’s moved on to another man. Ironic, huh? I stole her from you and he stole her from me. She’s such a whore.”

  Brennan leaned against the back of the chair as his cousin’s admission sunk in, stunning him, angering him. I stole her from you. “So it was intentional? You always said you two fell in love.”

  “Fall in love with a whore? No way. They’re all whores. Soon as you lose your money and your looks, they wrap their legs around the nearest Italian millionaire. Whores.”

  “And Mary Paige?”

  “Who? That Spirit chick?”

  “Never mind,” Brennan said as the depth
of Asher’s bitterness washed over him, waking him up to what this man he’d admired truly was—not worthy. Brennan’s anger turned to pity, the disbelief to bitter acceptance of how wrong he’d been about Asher. “You’re drunk and need to sleep it off. Things will look better in the morning.”

  “Will they?” Asher’s laugh sounded like a choke. “I doubt it. What you’re looking at is a man returning home with his tail between his legs. I don’t have anything left, Brennan. Nothing. The business, the houses, the Lear, everything is gone. G-O-N-E.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do I have to spell it out? You have to make me repeat it, you bastard?” Asher’s voice rose angrily in the room. “You win, Brennan. My house of cards has tumbled down. I’m broke. As in, I’m not even sure I can afford this hotel bill. Got it now? The great Asher Henry, continent-hopping businessman, husband to the hottest swimsuit model in the world is finished. Done. Over.”

  Brennan didn’t have words. He stared at the man who had once been the person he most wanted to pattern his life after. What had happened to change the man before him? Or maybe life hadn’t changed Asher? Maybe it had changed Brennan.

  Asher took a gulp of the scotch, spilling some down his shirt. “How you like me now?”

  “Guess I don’t.”

  “No? Well, get in line.”

  For a moment the room was as quiet as the pall before daybreak. Nothing but the clink of ice in Asher’s glass and the sounds of the street below.

  What does a person say to his cousin when he admits losing everything that made him who he was? To the man who admitted to stealing his girlfriend? To the man who had likely used Mary Paige to prove a point to Brennan? Asher was a playground bully and a selfish bastard.

  Asher set the empty glass on the bedside table and pointed at Brennan. “I always thought you had it easy. Fancy boarding school, living in your grandfather’s house, learning at his knee. And what did I have? I lived with my father, who was a drunk and hit my mother when he got angry. Did you know that? Did you know he hit her?”

  “No. I was young. I barely remember your father’s funeral.”

  “Too bad,” Asher said, his face crumpling briefly before he caught hold of his emotions. “Because you won’t remember how I didn’t cry. I was happy. Glad he wouldn’t live with us anymore. But then my mother married that dick from Philly and, well, let’s just say Mom’s attracted to a certain kind of cruelty.”

  “I’m sorry, Asher. I never realized, but that’s no reason—”

  “Why would you? And who cares. It made me who I was. Ambitious, hard and sometimes cruel. You know what I’m talking about because you’re the same way. It’s why you never squealed like a little bitch when Elsa ended up in my bed. All part of the game. All part of being a pawn to life. I’m just checkmated right now, huh?” Asher closed his eyes and shook his head. The action caused him to fall to the side. “Whoa, I’m a little drunk.”

  Brennan rose and walked to the window. Was he like Asher? He didn’t want to think so, but here he stood on Christmas Eve—a cold, hard man shutting the world out, refusing to hold on to the one soft thing that made him want to be more. The one woman who made him a better man. “I’m not like you.”

  “Huh?”

  “Me. I’m not like you.”

  “Of course you are. Look at you. Look at me. We’re alone. Alone.”

  Those awful words smacked Brennan harder than if Asher had punched him in the chest. He’d always been alone on Christmas—it was what he preferred.

  Is it really?

  Brennan shook his head, willing that little voice to go away.

  You push everyone away.

  You used the excuse of Mary Paige cheating to sideline your romance. So you wouldn’t get hurt. So you wouldn’t have to feel anything.

  “Come raise a glass with me, cousin.” Asher slurred even more, sounded sleepy in fact.

  “I’ve had enough,” Brennan murmured, wondering whether he meant the alcohol or the life he clung to…which was no life at all. Not without love.

  “I’m still thirsty,” Asher protested, his eyes closing as his head sagged against the upholstered headboard. “Wanna make it go away…”

  Brennan stood there, a solitary sober figure in the lonely hotel room, and felt nothing but regret.

  Regret for the man his cousin had become. Regret for the youth he had been and the admiration he’d once had for Asher. And regret that he, Brennan Henry, would ignore love in favor of…

  He didn’t even have an answer to why he held his heart so tightfisted. A person couldn’t use his past as a reason to grow into a robot with nothing more than switches, gears and whatever else made robots function. At some point, if a man wanted to live, he had to know love.

  He had to show love.

  A random Bible verse filtered into his mind—and the greatest of these is charity.

  Charity.

  Love for his fellow man.

  Brennan had experienced it these past few weeks, and now his soul craved a better purpose.

  And his heart craved Mary Paige.

  Asher started snoring, forcing Brennan’s attention to the man who had unintentionally proven what a future was when one lived for oneself, not bothering to open the door for anything other than self-serving opportunities.

  Brennan didn’t want to be like Asher.

  Didn’t want to end up drunk and alone on Christmas Eve with no one to love but himself. He wouldn’t let the ignorance and want in his soul win.

  He walked to his cousin, who had virtually passed out, pulled the folded coverlet at the foot of the bed over him and turned off the bedside lamp. Brennan felt nothing but sorrow…and a smidgen of rage at the man who had hoodwinked him, who had seen Elsa as a game to be won, who had no doubt played the same game with Mary Paige. And Brennan was the bigger fool because he’d fallen for it, believing the degenerate over the woman he loved.

  “Merry Christmas, Asher. You miserable bastard.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  MARY PAIGE FAKED a happy smile as Caleb sped into the living room of their old farmhouse like a NASCAR driver. She really wanted to be happy. Really wanted to enjoy Christmas, but her heart ached too badly.

  “Caleb! You almost knocked down the Christmas tree,” her mother shrieked, grabbing hold of the wheelchair arm and punching something.

  The chair ground to a halt and Caleb grunted his displeasure.

  “Well, I don’t care. I don’t want broken ornaments on the floor. I picked glass out of my foot last Christmas.”

  Caleb gave Mary Paige a look that said, You see what I deal with? and signed something to her.

  Mary Paige laughed. “Caleb said to take a leap.”

  “Stop siding with him,” her mother said, blowing her bangs out of her eyes but tempering her fussing with a smile. It was Christmas morning, which meant even a broken ornament wouldn’t earn her anger.

  “Can’t help it,” Mary Paige said, pulling her legs up onto the old velour sofa and looping her arms around her knees. She wore her traditional Christmas nightgown, sewn by Granny Wyatt right before the woman passed when Mary Paige was twelve. It was red flannel with white snowflakes and covered her from throat to ankle. Her wool socks with the fuzzy reindeer stuck out from the hem. “It’s what brothers and sisters do.”

  Caleb grinned and slapped his hands together with jerky imprecision common in most kids with cerebral palsy. He’d just turned fourteen and was going to flip for the modified PlayStation 3 she’d bought him. The dude loved art, video games and playing practical jokes…which was hard for someone as challenged as Caleb. But he made out fine.

  “Mary Paige, will you grab my coffee and then we’ll open presents before Caleb destroys the house,” Freda said, plunking down on the braided rug and sorting through the presents stacked beside the tree. This year she and Caleb had strung popcorn and cranberries as decorations. Tango, the small mixed terrier that was her mother’s constant companion, gnawed some of the p
opcorn off one end of the tree. “Stop it, Tango.”

  Smiling, Mary Paige shuffled toward the kitchen, temporarily comforted by the sounds of a typical morning on an atypical day. The coffeepot was full and smelled like a toffee-flavored brew. Yum, her favorite. She grabbed a mug that said Welcome to Kansas from the faded cabinet beside the porcelain sink and filled a cup to the brim. She added a splash of creamer then searched for the mug her mother had already used. Before she located it, the doorbell rang.

  “Coming!” she heard her mother shout.

  Mary Paige found the mug beside the bread box right as the sound of a two dogs fighting reached her ears.

  “What in the devil?” she said, grabbing both mugs as her mother started shouting.

  She heard a man hollering “Sit!” at the top of his lungs, and nearly spilled the coffee all over herself when she rounded the corner and saw who was chasing two dogs around the Christmas tree, tangling the lead in Caleb’s wheelchair.

  “Brennan!”

  He didn’t stop, just kept grasping at the leash, which had obviously jerked from his hand when Izzy launched herself at Tango.

  “Tango! Stop!” Her mother tried to catch the scrappy terrier, who ran like mad from the barking dachshund.

  Caleb flailed his arms and legs, and Mary Paige couldn’t tell if he was excited or upset.

  Mary Paige set the cups on top of the bookcase and lunged forward as Tango headed her way. She scooped up the terrier and snapped, “Sit, Izzy!”

  Izzy barked at her…or more likely at Tango, who panted and shook in her arms.

  “I said, sit!” Mary Paige pointed at Izzy, who gave one yip and sat, looking up at her with her tongue lolled out to the side. Mary Paige lifted her gaze as Brennan brushed against the tree, causing several ornaments to fall and shatter on the hard floor.

  “Well, hell,” her mother said, looking up at Brennan, who made the strangest face Mary Paige had ever seen him make. It looked like he was half constipated and half embarrassed. Not to mention he wore that ridiculous elf hat they’d been given on the streetcar. In fact, Izzy wore hers, too, but it was riding low on the dog’s neck.