The kids pooled their money together to buy us a deluxe edition of Clue.
We made coffee and pancakes and enjoyed the drifts of wrapping paper, settling in for seconds all around when the doorbell rang.
We gave each other the “Are you expecting someone?” look, then I shrugged, set my mug down and waded through the mess of paper to the front hall. When I opened the door, Max Blum was standing on the front stoop, holding a manila envelope in his hand.
I stepped back. “Come on in. Merry Christmas. Coffee?”
“That would be great.”
I led him into the kitchen and poured him the last cup out of the Chemex. He hesitated. “We were just about to make more.”
“Uh, okay. Thanks.” He took a sip, set the cup down on the counter. “That’s Ted Coddington’s suicide note in there,” he said, tilting his head toward the envelope. “I took it a long time ago. I thought I could use it against my dad someday. I liked the idea of owning his Get Out of Jail Free card. I guess I wanted to hurt him and I thought…well, you never know.”
“But you’re here.”
“Everybody deserves a second chance, Chief. Like Sam Trikilis. That was really great—him winning the drawing like that. And my stupid little prank turning out so well. And…I guess…no one getting in trouble over it.”
“The Selectmen wouldn’t have liked that.”
“I guess not. So…everyone gets a second chance. Even you.”
“I’m not sure what—”
“I heard coming to Nantucket was kind of a second chance for you. Getting to start over.”
I nodded. “I think it was.”
“Looks like you made the most of it.”
“I hope so. You do the same. Maybe your dad will, too.”
“He’s off to a pretty good start.”
And speaking of do-overs, Max hadn’t been gone for more than ten minutes before the doorbell rang again.
“Jeez, you’re popular,” Jane said.
“But I’m not.”
I opened the door. Jacqueline Talbot, the vet from the MSPCA was standing there. Bailey was sitting next to her, tail thumping the deck, wearing a big red bow.
I was stunned. “Jackie…”
“Turned out when the mom and the kids adopted the dog…the father didn’t want him. There was a big fight and Dad won. So Bailey came back and I thought, since it was Christmas…”
“Come on in. Let’s get that leash off him.”
As soon as I unclipped it the big wooly dog bounded into the house and I heard Tim shriek “BAILEY!” That was all he had time to say because the dog leapt halfway across the room and knocked him down. By the time I got into the room, they were wrestling on the floor and the big dog was licking Tim’s face in a frenzy of canine infatuation. Needless to say, the feeling was mutual.
“Can we keep him, Dad? Can we?”
“I guess we know whose dog that is,” Jane said.
“I thought he liked me best.”
“Sorry.”
“So we can keep him?”
“I think he’s keeping us.”
Carrie was petting him now, too, and the big dog was rolling on his back, soaking it up. “He’ll be a good friend for Dervish,” she said.
Billy Delavane’s pug was a little huffy around other dogs, but it was worth a try. “Absolutely.”
Driving them out to ’Sconset later, with the big dog lolling between them, his head in Tim’s lap and his tail slapping at Carrie’s leg, I asked them about their mother’s fiancé, Joe Arbogast.
“He’s okay,” Carrie said. “He’s nice to us. He tries a little too hard. But I like that about him.”
Tim piped up: “Mr. Newman, the guidance counselor? He told me I come from a broken home. That’s a horrible thing to say, isn’t it? Besides, it’s not even true. I used to have one home and it was broken, but now I have two and they’re both put back together. He thought I had half and I really have double, so he flunks math, too! Which he supposedly teaches.”
“Did you tell him that?”
“Should I?”
“Probably not.”
They both hugged me as they got out of the car, and Tim whispered in my ear. Driving home with Bailey riding shotgun, his muzzle in the breeze, halfway out the open window, heading back to a lazy afternoon with Jane, eating chocolate Santas, matching wits over a game of Clue and reading our books (Sam’s dad had him for the night), with all the small worlds I was responsible for, improbably but happily in order, I couldn’t help but agree with Tim’s sober and thoughtful assessment.
This was the best Christmas ever.
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Nantucket Red Tickets Page 33