“I’ll rent a car. Let me give you my cell phone number and e-mail.”
She, in turn, gave him all the numbers and addresses he needed to stay in touch. After an awkward goodbye, he hung up the phone and sat without moving for several minutes.
Finally, he gave himself a mental shake and backed out of his dog search. It only took him a few minutes to book a flight and arrange for a rental car, then he clicked off the Internet. On his screen, Caleb’s grinning face made him pause. In the far background of the shot, a couple stood, arms around each other. The robust, dark-haired man with shoulders developed from years of drumming and lifting weights was hugging a petite blonde in a sexy swimsuit that showed off her voluptuous curves.
Happy, relaxed vacationers celebrating their son’s birthday at the beach. Just four months earlier.
Shoving the keyboard out of his way, Jake lowered his head to the desk. And wept.
Allison managed to fall asleep for a couple of hours after talking to Jake. Pure exhaustion, she figured. Which might account for why Caleb was still in bed at...she craned her neck to get a clear look at the clock above the stove...noon? She hadn’t realized it was so late.
She’d had a busy morning fielding calls from friends of the Rydells and members of Cordelia’s bridge club. Allison’s mother and sisters had called, too. Each sympathetic and full of advice, but each, for various reasons, unable to make the trip west.
She wasn’t surprised. Or disappointed. She loved her sisters, but their way of dealing with painful situations was radically different from how she dealt with crises. They cooked and prayed. Allison’s culinary skills were dubious at best, and her relationship with God was strained. She could have used her mother’s help, but her dad was scheduled for a new test, which required him to be admitted to the hospital overnight, next week.
“I should be there for you, honey. I know how close you and Pam were. But I can’t be two places at once,” Janet Jeffries had repeated this morning.
“I know, Mom. Don’t worry. Kenny’s best friend, Jake Westin, is coming from Florida. He’ll be a big help. He and Caleb are really close. Much more than Caleb and I are.”
And whose fault is that, she asked herself, knowing her mother wouldn’t. Mine. I’m the one who kept my distance. Kids pick up on things. And Caleb was a smart little twerp. He read her like an ABC book.
Allison refreshed her cup of coffee and returned to the window where she’d been standing. The view from the window was glorious—winter’s dormancy in the fields and forest around the house, but up close, Pam had planted flats of marigolds and mums. The backyard was awash in color.
Everywhere she looked were reminders of the husband and wife who’d made this house such an attractive and well-lived-in home. A garden statue of a little boy, who looked so much like Caleb. It reminded her of the day Pam had towed Allison across traffic in San Francisco to buy it. “It’ll be perfect in the garden,” Pam had cried in triumph. “You should get one, too.”
Pam was always prompting Allison to spend money. Unfortunately, Ally’s budget didn’t come close to Pam’s—a disparity Pam conveniently forgot. Not surprising, Allison figured, since Pam was a princess— who’d taken a lost and miserable commoner under her wing.
When they’d met in college, Allison had been sure the two had nothing in common. Pam dressed better than Allison, had a limitless allowance from her parents and moved in a social circle that included pledging for a sorority. But Pam was more than her fancy trappings and background suggested. Once she made up her mind to be your friend, that was it. Friends for life. Sisters linked by something stronger than blood—secrets.
Allison knew Pam’s secrets—the craziness of life on the road with a rock band, and Pam was privy to the intimate details of Allison’s most harrowing episode in life—her cancer and the abortion. Wandering aimlessly, she paused in front of the refrigerator. A dozen or so photographs made up a collage held in place by an assortment of magnets ranging from a wedge of pizza with Mountain Pizza’s number in red to a tiger-shaped sculpture from the San Diego Zoo.
A goofy shot of Pam in bunny ears caught her eye. Rydell Motors hosted a canned food drive for the needy in December and an Easter egg hunt for underprivileged children every spring, both of which Allison was happy to help with.
In the photo, Pam was holding two toddlers with big chocolate grins while in the background Kenny tried to round up a flock of baby ducklings that he’d bought for the occasion. Was Allison the only one who knew Pam was afraid of fowl? The result of a traumatic encounter with an aggressive gander at a petting zoo.
Later, Allison and Pam had laughed themselves silly recalling Kenny’s helpless efforts, and Pam’s frantic attempts to evade the baby ducks.
Allison blinked away the tears that threatened. She was afraid to give in to the grief that followed her around like a stalker. She had to be strong. There was so much to do.
As if on cue, the phone rang. She walked to the small desk area near the door that led to the garage and sat down. “Hello?”
“Ally? It’s Ernesto. ¿Cómo estás?”
How am I? I wish I knew. “Fine,” she told her assistant manager. “At least, I will be when you tell me you completed the Zirandervon job.”
“All done. No problema. But this is such a tragedy. Everyone at the shop wants to help. Tell us what to do.”
Allison didn’t even know where to begin. Despite the few hours of sleep that came after talking to Jake Westin, she felt like a zombie. At the moment, she had two priorities: Caleb and her cats. Caleb was still asleep or she’d have driven into town to feed her pets.
“Could somebody check on my cats?” Allison asked.
“Of course. I have a key. I’ll run over there right away. What else?”
Keep my business from disintegrating. “You know which work orders need parts. Get them ordered and check on the technicians. We can’t afford to lose a single client.” That was an understatement. Her company’s future depended on how well they did this quarter. Without her to keep her technicians fired up and overseeing the job orders, Jeffries Computing was likely to wind up in bankruptcy.
“I’m sorry to put this extra work on you at this time of year, Ernesto, but I think I’m going to be tied up here for a while.”
“Don’t worry. We will handle everything the best we can.”
Allison believed him. A five-year citizen of the United States, Ernesto Flores gave a hundred-and-ten-percent effort to every job. His drive and attention to detail had proven itself within weeks of starting at Jeffries Computing. He was her right-hand man, but he was still learning the computer business and lacked confidence in his language skills.
Each of her six employees needed the job her company provided. Ally just prayed they’d survive this crisis and make it through to the next year.
They talked for a few minutes, and then Allison hung up. Instead of rising, she looked at the odds and ends on the desk. A few Rydell Motors pens stuck in a coffee mug that was missing its handle. Pam’s day-planner sat open—her full, rich life waiting for her to step back into it.
Allison thumbed through a couple of pages. Next week alone, Pam had four appointments scheduled: two doctors—hers and Caleb’s, the dentist and a pedicure. Two sticky notes in Pam’s handwriting forewarned of a Christmas party at Caleb’s preschool on the seventeenth and the upcoming canned food drive at Rydell Motors.
A postcard fell to the desk. Allison turned it over and read a notice reminding Pam that it was time to have the oil changed in her car.
The word car triggered a question. I wonder where the Jeep is at. Do I need to do something about it?
When she first closed her eyes last night, all she could see were images of the boxy black vehicle squashed between two other cars. She cursed her imagination and pleaded with her subconscious to leave her alone. Oddly, her escape came from rehashing her conversation with Jake. He was an enigma that she both welcomed and worried about.
Ally pus
hed herself to her feet. The house was too quiet—oppressively so, but she was afraid to turn on the stereo. Afraid the six compact discs in the changer would remind her too much of Pam.
With a sigh, she dumped the dregs of her coffee into the sink. After she’d washed and dried the cup, she walked around the counter and sat down on a stool, drawing the yellow legal pad she’d found in Kenny’s desk closer. A venerable list-maker, Allison always felt more in control of a situation when she could consult a written hierarchy of steps. Last night, before calling Jake, she’d tried to organize her thoughts. She studied the two columns entitled: Now and Soon.
According to her mother, the first thing Allison needed to do was notify family and close friends.
“Done,” Allison said, drawing a line through the words Call Jake.
Second, she needed to find out what was happening at Rydell Motors. Would they close the doors or keep the place open? Third, the lawyer. Who did Kenny use? What provisions had been made for Caleb ? Who was executor of the estate?
Allison's pen hovered above the Rydell Motors entry. At seven-fifty-five this morning, she’d reached Richard Marques—Kenny’s cousin, who was second in command at the car dealership. Richard, though shocked by her news, rose to the challenge. “I’ll call a company meeting right away. We'll figure out how to proceed,” he’d told her. Not half an hour later, Richard informed her that every Rydell Motors’ employee had voted to keep the business up and running with no interruption of service.
“We’re doing this for Kenny and Pam,” he’d said.
“I don’t know exactly what will happen after the dust settles,” he’d added, “but I’d like an opportunity to buy the business. Kenny and I discussed the possibility of letting me join him as a partner a few months ago. This isn’t exactly what I had in mind, but I might be able to raise the money with some investors, if you can give me a few weeks. A month tops.”
“Me?” Allison had almost choked on the bite of leftover pumpkin pie she’d finally made herself eat.
She told Kenny’s cousin that any business discussion would need to include Jake. She firmly marked a big bold J beside point number two. Kenny always seemed to respect Jake’s ability to handle money. He could figure out what to do with Rydell Motors.
Allison glanced at the clock. “Twelve-forty-three.” Caleb had been asleep since around ten last night. Was that normal? Was he ill? Maybe he had something. Meningitis? Mononucleosis?
Allison slipped off the stool, made a quick dash down the hall to Caleb’s room, then hurried back to the desk. A slate beside the phone included a list of frequently called numbers. She found the line for Pediatrician. If the doctor wasn’t in on Saturdays, maybe his service would tell her who to call.
“Hello, my name is Allison Jeffries. I’m caring for Caleb Rydell, a patient of yours, and I’m concerned that he’s been asleep for almost fourteen hours. Is that normal? Should I be worried?”
She was transferred to a nurse who asked questions about when he went to bed and whether or not he was breathing. “Yes, I just checked, but...”
“Then he’s probably just fine,” the nurse interrupted. “Toddlers sometimes sleep twelve to fourteen hours straight, then go to bed at their regular time without a problem. It’s what their bodies need.”
Feeling a bit foolish but relieved, Allison thanked the woman and hung up. She probably should have called her mother or one of her sisters instead of bothering a nurse, but Allison hated to ask her siblings parenting questions. Invariably, one of them would say something that would remind her of that day in the hospital when she’d made the decision to end her baby’s life. Her sisters had played a role in that choice. Each had called and begged her to do the right thing. “God will forgive you,” Liz, the oldest, had told her.
Yeah, but will I ever forgive God? Allison had wondered at the time. And now, He had even more to answer for in Allison’s book.
Restless, she paced from one end of the kitchen to the other. Since rising at dawn, she’d straightened the house. Taken a roast from the freezer—in case Jake was a big meat eater. And visited ten or twelve websites devoted to childhood trauma and grief. She knew all the current theories on how to help Caleb through this horrible period. Unfortunately, as her mother liked to say. “The problem with manuals on how to raise children, is that children can’t read.”
Luckily, according to Pam herself, Jake was surprisingly good with kids. “Jake is the only man I know who will change a diaper without making a big production about it," Pam once told her. “Even Kenny balks at the task.”
Jake was just a man in a photograph with a charismatic smile as far as Allison was concerned, but she was certain he'd make a better mother to Caleb than she could. Yesterday’s fiasco at the hospital was proof of her ineptitude. The first waiting room near the emergency room had been filled with kids, so the hours passed with relative ease. But when a nurse asked Allison and Caleb to follow her to the surgical floor, they were ushered into a tiny cubicle with a mute television perched on a shelf high in one corner. Allison knew without being told that she'd just entered purgatory.
Caleb’s bag of toys suddenly became “boring." A trip to the gift shop on the first floor bought fifteen minutes of diversion. Her one break came in the form of an angel—a visiting chaplain, who apparently heard Caleb complaining and came to the rescue.
Father Raymund Avila, or “Padre,” as he asked to be called, sat with them for over an hour, engaging Caleb in a game of cards and carefully questioning Allison about the nature of their visit to the hospital. When Caleb finally dozed off, she explained about the accident and Cordelia’s heart attack.
“When do you plan to tell him about his parents?” the silver-haired priest had asked.
“I don’t know. What do you suggest? I'd hoped to put it off until his godfather arrives. They’re close.”
Padre Avila hadn’t called her a coward as she'd expected. Instead, he’d agreed that it was best to wait until a time when they could sit down with the child and help him understand that although his life had irrevocably changed, they would continue to care for him and support him until his grandmother was better.
“This will be a difficult time for you all. If you need my help, please call,” he’d told her, passing his card with a cellphone number on it.
Not long after that a nurse came with news that Cordelia had made it through surgery. “Why don’t you two go get something to eat,” the woman had suggested. “You won’t be able to see her until she’s out of recovery.”
Allison had taken Caleb to a nearby fast-food chain even though she knew his mother would have had a fit. Pam always tried to provide nutritious, balanced meals for her son. But the respite gave Ally time to think while Caleb happily expended his pent-up energy in the fun room.
After a quick check on her cats—neither of whom would come near the eager child, Allison and Caleb returned to the hospital. A nurse watched Caleb while Allison spent a few minutes with Cordelia, who was too groggy to talk. Allison had promised to return today.
She added: number four: go to hospital on her list.
She glanced at the clock again. Jake’s plane should be landing soon. Maybe she should try calling him.
She scrolled down on her notes to the numbers he’d given her last night. As she reached for the phone, a movement to one side made her heart leap. A ghost?
No. A half-awake child in rumpled clothes and bare feet.
Her heart thudded against her chest. Her best friend’s son was so small, so vulnerable, so dependent on Allison. She couldn’t look at the little boy without feeling panicky and overwhelmed. She wanted to do the best for him, but what if she blew it?
“Good morning, Caleb,” she said, getting up. “Or should I say afternoon? I thought you were going to sleep all day.”
His white-blond hair stuck out every which way with several errant locks falling across his forehead.
“How do you feel?” she asked, with forced brightness. “Are
you hungry? Do you want pancakes?”
He looked around. “Where’s Mommy? I want waffles.”
Caleb had asked about his parents a dozen or more times yesterday—even asking her to call them. Allison had made flimsy excuses for not doing so. Finally, she put him off by saying they were too far away for cellular service, and he’d just have to wait for their call.
“Again?” she asked, pouncing on the easier question. “You had them yesterday. How ’bout scrambled eggs?”
He made a face. “Dunkin’.”
“Duncan? Duncan who?”
He blinked once, then laughed, a bright sound that seemed to dispel some of the gloom in the kitchen. “Not a person,” he said. “Mommy cooks the eggs so I can dunk my toast in them.”
Realization hit. “Oh, over easy. I can do that.”
No girl grows up on a farm without learning to cook. Allison had had the basics down years before her senior Home Economics class. She was grateful for that skill now.
“Where’s Mommy?” Caleb asked again.
Oh, God, how do I tell him? I can’t. I just can’t say the words.
“She’s not here. I’m filling in. Do you want toast or an English muffin? Pick whichever you prefer from the pantry.”
Deflect and divert. A method of dealing with the public that Pam had perfected during the summer she and Allison worked at the information booth in Union Square.
When a tourist asked a question they couldn’t answer, Pam would flash her sweetest smile and point toward one of the older women behind the souvenir counter. “Well, now, that is a good question,” Pam would say. “And I’m certain that lovely gray-haired lady right over there can answer it for you. But if you’d like a trolley car schedule, I'm your girl.”
Caleb hesitated just a second then walked to the door where Allison knew he’d find a selection of healthy bread choices. He picked the bag that appeared the least healthful. Allison didn’t blame him. White bread was a standard at her house.
He handed her the bag like a dead fish on a line. “Thank you,” she said. “Have you brushed your teeth?”
Caleb's Christmas Wish Page 4