by Jane Lebak
Mrs. D. said, “Something the matter, Father?”
“The fridge—” as he was saying it, he paused, then touched the bowl again and realized the top of the bowl was covered with saran wrap. “Oh. Never mind.”
She chuckled. “One of those days?”
“Is Christmas Eve allowed to be one of those days?”
“I don't see why not,” said Mrs. D. “It's a day.”
Kevin and Bill booked someone for shoplifting (“Even Santa Claus has to pay the elves, buddy”), and while Bill filled out the paperwork, the desk sergeant waved Kevin over.
Turning, Kevin recognized the woman standing at the desk and took a step backward.
A whine built in his ears. White porch lights. Broken glass. An L-shaped Camry beside a flipped Ford Taurus.
“Officer Farrell?” She reached out to shake his hand. “You probably don't remember me, but I'm Sherry Daniels.”
He conveyed to her that he did indeed remember who she was, and again offered his condolences on the death of her daughter two years ago.
She looked misty for a moment, and her gaze dropped. “Christmas won't ever be the same.”
He swallowed. “I don't suppose it ever will.”
Other than repeating, “I'm terribly sorry,” Kevin couldn't think of a thing to say, so he remained quiet.
Mrs. Daniels forced a smile. “That wasn't why I came of course. I didn't mean to upset you.” She reached into the shopping bag resting on her arm and pulled out a red box done up with white tissue paper. “I actually came to say thank you.”
Kevin blinked. Thank you for telling a woman her daughter was dead?
She put the box into his hands. “I know that can't have been the easiest part of your job, and I'm afraid I wasn't very polite. But you were so calm, so strong, that it made it seem as if everything was going to be fine.”
Kevin managed to say he hadn't done all that much, but she wouldn't let him demur. “And then last year you remembered us on Christmas, when it was so awful on the anniversary. No one wanted to even mention her. I'd gone to the cemetery because I didn't know what else to do with myself, and I came home to find you'd been there.” She smiled, her eyes careworn. “Just when it felt as if everyone had forgotten, you remembered.”
Very aware of the desk sergeant listening, Kevin tried to steady himself. “You're a very strong person.”
“No,” she said, “it's God who's been strong for me and so good to me. And the first way God was good to me in all this was by sending you to help me that night. I thank God for sending you.” She gave him a hug. “And all I could do was give you cookies.”
After Mrs. Daniels left, Kevin opened the box to find home-made chocolate chip and sugar cookies. He took a few for himself and left the rest on the sergeant's desk for the other officers. The bounty wouldn't last ten minutes, but that was okay. He wouldn't have to think about them again. He fled to the locker room.
I thank God for sending you.
Can someone bent double by tragedy ever stand straight again?
Between two long rows of lockers, Bill approached him, munching a cookie. “These are pretty good. Whoever brought them, you need to write her one heck of a thank you note.”
Kevin tried to sound amused. “She brought them to me as a thank you. Where would it end?”
“No kidding?” Bill tried his lock, found it resisted his tug, then tried it again. It clunked open. He pulled out a bottle of water, but Kevin still hadn't replied. “What was she thanking you for? You found her purse?”
In a flat voice: “I told her that her daughter was dead.”
“Ouch.” Bill looked at Kevin with intent. “Really?”
Kevin slammed his locker. “You think I make up garbage like that? Two years ago on Christmas Eve, her daughter died in a car crash, and I was the poor slob who walked up her front steps and rang her doorbell. So she thanked God it was me and brought me cookies. I guess I did a better job of it than she expected from the city's finest.”
“She thanked God you were the one who brought her bad news?” Bill looked puzzled. “Did she say why?”
You were so calm, so strong, that it made it seem as if everything was going to be all right.
“No,” Kevin said. “Not really.” He looked down. “No.”
Later in the patrol car, Kevin said, “She said I made it seem like everything would be okay.”
“Woah.” Bill's mouth twitched. “Maybe you did.”
“Maybe that woman shouldn't have died.”
“I don't doubt it.” Bill sighed. “Most of the things we see on the job shouldn't have happened. That's why people need cops. Then the dispatcher sends you.”
Kevin frowned. “You saying God's a dispatcher?”
“People screw up. He's got to send someone.” Bill tilted his head. “An awful lot of people think He sent them your brother. Maybe this one time, He sent you instead.”
I thank God for sending you.
Kevin said, “Why?”
“Because for whatever reason, she needed you, the way you say things, the way you made it seem like someone was in control. Maybe you did something in a way that no one else could have.” Bill puzzled for a moment. “And maybe because God knew she was the kind of person who would say thank you, and you needed a thank-you.”
Mrs. Daniels, baking cookies: It's God who's been strong for me and so good to me.
Kevin said in a low voice, “Why would God care?”
They pulled onto the main strip only to get stuck at a red light. Bill finally said, “Because that's the second biggest gift God gave us. First God gave us Himself, but after that, God gives us each other.”
Jay with eyes afire: “God gave me a second chance. Are you jealous?”
“And second chances,” Kevin murmured.
“And third and fourth chances too.” Bill took a deep breath. “I guess the question left for you, Farrell, is whether you're willing to do the same for God.” The light changed, but Bill didn't hit the gas yet. He met Kevin's eyes. “Are you willing to give a second chance to God?”
Eleven
By five o'clock, the sun had set. Jay found his coat by feel, a black wool coat with sailor buttons big enough for his fingers to slip through the holes even if he were trembling.
He'd prayed not to have a white Christmas this year. Everyone built up the beauty of a snow-covered December 25th, but Jay felt secretly glad whenever it came merely grey. Snow made life hard for the homeless and added so little to the holiday. Plus, snow made it harder for him to walk.
Eddie would have accompanied him if Jay had asked, but Jay craved silence, a silence Eddie would have tried to fill. Is that selfish of me? he asked God.
Jay stepped outside, and the cold surrounded him, stealing his breath.
A block from the church, you couldn't tell the church was even there. Row houses stood in an unbroken line from end to end of the street, the sidewalk parted regularly by two driveways and then two parking spaces. Jay knew the route well, knew where each tree root bumped up the sidewalk and where each square of concrete yawned with cracked stone. Trash sat sodden at the curbside. As he walked, Jay hunched in his coat and pushed his hands deeper into his pockets for the warmth. The blocks went on this way for a mile. When he wanted something different, he'd turn left and walk one block to the main strip.
People passed without saying hello. It was just as well.
Kevin—what to do about Kevin; angry Kevin; Kevin who was too antagonistic toward God ever to be a real atheist. There was no way that divide couldn't hurt their brotherhood, no way at all. Jay dealt with angry ex-Christians on a daily basis, but dealing with Kevin—it was different because Kevin thought Jay was wasting his life.
Jay tried to turn it around. How would he himself cope if he believed all cops were deluded and prejudiced, and that the criminals were right? Jay couldn't begin to form the arguments against the police force, though, so he tried instead to change his brother's role in the hypothetical
story. What if his brother were a practicing Satanist? Well, that involved hurting people or animals. What if his brother were—
—were so antagonistic toward religion that he couldn't talk about it?
It might have been the voice of God. Jay thought back, Ha-ha.
But maybe it was the same thing. They had a hard time relating—mutually—but Jay at least tried to understand. Kevin only mocked him. If Kevin knew that he prayed for him, Jay wondered, would that seem like mockery too?
Oh, that would be bad. He'd better keep that under his hat in the future. I don't want to be one of those people who uses Your name as a weapon.
Of course, God knew what he prayed in secret. Kevin didn't need to know in the first place. But it made things awkward, as if Jay were involved in a sordid affair he needed to hide from his own family.
An SUV laid on the horn as it blew through an intersection. Nasty shouts volleyed back from another driver. The boom of a passing stereo grew distorted as it drew away. And always in the background, Jay heard the indistinct noises of a city in preparation.
Why had Kevin turned on him? All those years as kids, finding trouble when they could, making trouble when they couldn't, Kevin had been always ready for Jay's next escapade. At night, Jay had lain flat on his back in bed, eyes open in the dark as he tried to think of the next mischief that would leave Kevin grinning for days.
Where'd that all go? he asked God. Where's my little brother?
When he'd joined the army, he'd half expected Kevin would enlist the next year.
Jay turned at the corner and walked toward the sounds of the highway sunken through the center of the city. Five minutes later he stood on the overpass, cars rolling both beneath his feet and behind his back. The ones below on the highway moved more slowly than the ones at street level. A long column of red lights brightened, dimmed, jerked forward, and then brightened again. Typical traffic jam. Jay was sometimes glad he couldn't drive any longer because it was spiritually better for him not to be trapped in that kind of morass: less temptation to wrath. The traffic in the other direction flowed heavy with white lights, but at least it moved.
For a few minutes, Jay stood leaning on the railway. The air stank of exhaust, and the cars made sluicing sound as they rolled through the slurry in the streets.
What's getting to Kevin, anyhow? He's so much angrier than he was a few years ago. Is it the job? He sees the worst part of people. Although I guess I do too—the scammers, the lazy folks who want charity and sympathy in exchange for nothing at all. The difference is that Kevin sees all the bad and none of the good. I get to see the heart of people too in my vocation.
But did Kevin really see only the bad? Didn't he ever get the good things, like people turning in lost wallets or people helping one another after a disaster?
Kevin once laughed and said, “No, they don't call us for those things.”
Jay didn't know—and wouldn't ask—if his brother had ever shot someone. Not Kevin, please not Kevin. Jay himself had shot people, but he didn't want to think about those days. He'd defended the country just as his brother defended the city, hardly a sin, but during dark nights Jay wondered if he'd killed anyone, if anyone had gone home as wounded as he had, if anyone cursed the American soldier who had squeezed off that shot.
God, forgive me. It wasn't sinful to have done whatever he had in the line of duty. But it didn't always feel that way.
He looked the rest of the way across the overpass. The brightest lights were the orange and yellow logo of the neighborhood supermarket, Soucy's. Like all the supermarkets in the city, it was open now and would be open until noon tomorrow for those last-minute forgotten items, the quick run-through for milk or a greeting card.
He'd stopped by there already. The store manager had said no, they couldn't take Eddie. And no, he wouldn't reconsider.
“Father Jay?”
Jay turned toward a man's voice.
“Father,” said the speaker, “it's too cold to be standing out here. Do you want a lift?”
“No thanks. I'm clearing my head before the evening services.”
The person sounded familiar enough to be a parishioner, but he wasn't fully visible in the dark. “You should be wearing your gloves.”
Jay chuckled. “I work for Saint Gus. I can't afford gloves.”
A moment later he felt the person handing him a pair. “Here. Take mine.”
“I can't—”
“I've got more. Don't worry.” The person continued walking away. “Have a good Christmas!”
“I will. Thanks for the gloves.” Jay couldn't see the person any longer, but he knew he hadn't turned around as he left. Jay still had no idea who it was or if the person really had another pair.
The red and white lights beneath his feet continued flowing, and Jay pulled the gloves on his hands. He lingered a long time before taking a step back to the rectory, one gloved hand trailing the steel guardrail on the overpass.
But then he turned, and with a deep breath, he once again approached the supermarket.
The call came over the radio at around eleven o'clock. “Assault in progress at the Central Mall.”
Bill put on the lights and sirens and banged a U-turn. Kevin grabbed the radio. “We're headed in. Give us a description of the perp.”
The dispatcher audibly hesitated. “It's— it's Santa Claus.”
Bill roared with laughter.
Kevin said, “Repeat that?”
“It's Santa Claus. Two of them in a fist fight at the mall entrance.”
“Don't go off the road!” Kevin said. Bill was laughing so hard he was gasping.
They arrived at the mall to find three other cop cars and four cops plus mall security doing their best to keep the Santa Clauses away from one another.
A sergeant approached. “It's just about over. They're bell-ringers for different charities, and they wanted the same spot.”
Crowds of final-hour shoppers stood gawking as the police cuffed the two Santas, but then they complained that they didn't have enough time to stick around to give statements. One of the Santas had a bloody nose. The second was holding his arm to his side and threatening to sue the other Santa, the other Santa's charity, the police, the mall, and the city government.
Bill muttered, “Maybe he can sue God too while he's at it.”
“So, about this 'Peace of Christ'...?”
“These guys represent Christ the same way the New England Patriots represent Democracy.”
The sergeant said, “You two take one of them to the station. We can't put them both in the same car. Much as I'd like to.”
“Do I get to fill out the paperwork?” said Bill. “Because damn, I've always wanted to put Santa's name on a booking sheet. Known aliases: Kris Kringle, Saint Nick. The whole works.”
The sergeant rolled his eyes. “Do it, and then you can go home for the rest of the night.”
“Sounds good to me.” Bill grabbed Broken-Arm-I'll-Sue and maneuvered him into the back seat. Kevin radioed that they were coming in while Bill filled in the log book. It took ten minutes to escape the jammed parking lot, navigating between parking space seekers.
“I'd love to turn on the siren right about now.”
“Don't tempt me.” Bill finally pulled out onto the circumference. “This place is a zoo.”
The Santa in back said, “I'm gonna sue—”
“Sure you are. My name's Bill Brooks. Be sure to name me as a defendant.”
Kevin chuckled. “So how do you figure this adds to the Christmas cheer, man?”
“It doesn't. But this isn't Christmas, not really. This is greed dressed up, just the way someone letting his kid toss a nickel into the bell-ringer's pot isn't charity as much as it's cheap entertainment for the kid.”
Kevin glanced at Santa. “So what is Christmas, then?”
“It's the way you took this shift so someone with a family could be home with his kids, or the way your brother slaves year-round to make sure those folk
s at his church have a decent meal. It's the way the people at St. Gus pulled together to find jobs for those troublemaker boys upstairs.” Bill grinned. “You see the TV specials and it's about doing something special on that day because it's Jesus's birthday. That's garbage. I think it's more like you act on Christmas the way you acted the rest of the year, plus one. It's not magic. It's habit.”
Kevin watched the streetlights as they passed in uniform rhythm over the patrol car rolling along the avenue. “People feel worse at this time of year over normal things.”
“I know.” Bill sighed. “They show us all these perfect holidays on TV and in the books, and who really has that? We're just people, and people aren't perfect. Sometimes it's the surprises that mean the most to us, the thing we didn't expect we'd like but ended up loving best. Or the way we said thank you for that scratchy sweater in five shades of ugly and made an old relative happy. Those are the gifts that make us bigger instead of smaller.”
Santa piped up, “You guys are what, philosophy cops?”
“The way you're the Boxing Santa, yeah.” Kevin chuckled. “And where would God fit in all this?”
“I don't think He really does any longer.” Bill frowned. “It's hard to mix in the presents with His Presence. If you know what I mean. But He's definitely here. You just have to look harder.”
“Where?” Kevin said.
“I'd start with your brother's church.” He glanced sidelong at Kevin. “You gotta go talk to him eventually, you know. You might as well do it tonight and tell him it's your Christmas gift.”
Twelve
Midnight Mass was Jay's second-favorite service of the year. Easter Vigil was unparalleled, as far as he was concerned, in terms of sheer power, but Midnight Mass had a splendor entirely different. He reveled in the sparkle brought to life by a frigid night, parishioners outwardly tired and inwardly excited, children vibrating with anticipation, and a sense of connection to mysteries almost ancient. As he lit the white candle in the Advent wreath, the awe of the moment left him breathless.