The Last Noel

by Heather Graham

  “May I serve?” Skyler asked.

  Quintin grunted.

  She looked at him. “Pumpkin or pecan?”

  “Pecan for me, with ice cream,” Scooter said.

  “Craig?” her mother said after serving Scooter.

  “Pumpkin,” he said.

  “Ice cream?”

  “No, thank you.”

  Skyler set a piece of pumpkin pie down in front of Craig. “Looks great, Mrs. O’Boyle,” he said casually and picked up his fork, then shouted. “Duck!” as he stabbed his fork into Scooter’s hand, pinning it to the table.

  The entire family went down, gasping…shouting…screaming.

  Above the cacophony, Kat heard the explosion of a gun, and she dared a peek over the table.

  Quintin was staring at her…staring…But he didn’t raise his gun. Instead, it slipped from his fingers. His head crashed against the table, a hole in the back of it. Blood started to pool over his dessert plate and onto the tabletop.

  Scooter was still screaming, a high-pitched and hysterical sound. Though one hand was still pinned to the table by Craig’s fork, he had his gun in his other hand and was trying to aim, trying to shoot.

  Craig had leaped across the table to throw himself on the man and the gun, but he didn’t have to.

  Kat heard a horrible snapping sound, and Scooter started screeching at an even higher pitch, his arm dangling at an unnatural angle. Uncle Paddy was standing next to him, his cane in his hand. He had used it to break Scooter’s arm. Craig quickly reached over and picked up Scooter’s gun. He immediately flipped on the safety and slid the gun into his waistband.

  “Oh God,” Skyler breathed. “Oh God,” she said again, and started to cry.

  Despite the confusion, Kat realized that Quintin had been right about one thing: Sheila Polanski had been in the house all along. Now she came running out of the pantry and into the kitchen.

  “Is everyone all right?” she asked anxiously.

  The question seemed so ridiculous under the circumstances that Kat almost started to laugh. A dead man was bleeding all over the table, and Scooter was still pinned and screaming.

  To her horror, Kat did start to laugh.

  Then she was hugging Sheila Polanski and her brothers, and someone was untying Tim Graystone, and she was holding Brenda and they were both sobbing. The next thing she knew, she was in her mother’s arms, and then her father’s.

  It seemed as if the hysteria, the mix of laughter and tears and hugging and kissing, went on forever, and the whole time, Sheila’s question kept running through her head.

  Was everyone all right?

  Kat didn’t think they would ever be all right again.

  Then she saw Craig. Saw him watching her. And she knew that while they might never exactly be all right, they would be better.

  FIFTEEN

  For a while time moved in slow motion, full of sounds and visuals Skyler knew would haunt her forever.

  There was the sound of Scooter’s screams. There was a look on his face, in his eyes. She had no doubt that he would have killed them if Quintin told him to. He had genuinely longed for and enjoyed his Christmas, but he would have obeyed Quintin without a second thought.

  Another image…The remnants of a turkey dinner, gravy boat still on the table…pies out, ice cream melting…

  Quintin’s head, bleeding onto his plate.

  So much confusion, the storm slowing but not gone, and the need—the bone-deep need—to get out of the house before she went mad. Scooter had been tied up, and Brenda saw to his wounds while he continued to howl.

  They had to get out, Skyler thought. She knew she couldn’t stay in the house that night.

  She knew that, as long as she lived, she would never forget the way Quintin had died, never forget the blood flooding out over the table.

  And all of her life she would be grateful that the blood had been Quintin’s, that, miraculously, her family had all survived.

  The wind finally began dying down for good. Sheila or Tim must have managed to get a signal and make a call, because, to her amazement, it wasn’t long before they heard movement outside and realized that the state police had arrived and the house was surrounded.

  It seemed impossible. As detectives and crime-scene investigators filled her house, all Skyler could think was that it must have been a dream. A nightmare. They had lived those hours so intensely, and then…

  So quickly, it all seemed so impossible.

  She couldn’t mourn Quinton, but she almost felt badly for Scooter. Almost. The threat against her family had been far too terrifying for her to feel anything that resembled forgiveness for him yet, but maybe the time would come.

  Skyler had feared for Craig when the police got there. She had been ready to testify that, whatever he had done in the past, he wasn’t a killer and had in fact been ready to die for her family.

  But the police didn’t take him away. Instead they started to talk to him as if they knew him, knew all about him.

  Tim was the one who explained it all to her. “I knew I had seen his face,” he said, grinning. “And I finally remembered. He works with the state. He graduated from the state police academy with one of my buddies. I’d seen him in their graduation photo.”

  “So…he was a cop. All along,” Skyler said.

  “All along,” Tim agreed, amused by her choice of words.

  They were rather foolish, she thought. He hadn’t suddenly become a cop in the midst of everything.

  Tim looked at her and took her hands. “I’m sorry we couldn’t get to you sooner. I don’t know how that guy Scooter knew I was up there.”

  Skyler shrugged. “He…I don’t know. He had an instinct.”

  “Yeah, well, that almost blew the whole thing. I still don’t know why the other guy, Quintin, didn’t just shoot me.”

  “He wanted his turkey dinner,” Skyler said.

  “Can someone really want a turkey dinner that badly?” Tim asked.

  “It wasn’t the dinner, exactly. Quintin wanted what Scooter wanted, and Scooter wanted…Christmas.”

  “What an elusive wish,” Tim said.

  The whole family had to be questioned. Nicely, but still, it seemed to take forever. The punishment for survival was always paperwork, one of the officers joked.

  There were even moments of levity, despite the horror of having to relive everything.

  At one point Jamie suddenly stopped in the middle of answering a question and asked to be excused to brush his teeth. It was the little things, she thought. They could be so important.

  Eventually she saw the body taken from the house on a gurney, zipped into a body bag. Even then, she couldn’t bear the thought of going back into the kitchen. She wasn’t sure she could ever return to the kitchen.

  There were people everywhere. It was early evening when they finally finished asking questions and filling in reports. When they were gone at last, she looked outside and stared at the blanket of fresh white snow, gleaming in the moonlight. From somewhere she could hear a Christmas carol playing.

  God rest ye merry gentlemen,

  Let nothing you dismay,

  Remember Christ our savior was born on

  Christmas Day

  O, tidings of comfort and joy

  Comfort and Joy

  O, tidings of comfort and joy.

  Warm, strong hands fell on her shoulders, and she turned. David was standing behind her, and he took her in his arms. He started to speak, then stopped.

  “It’s all right,” she said.

  “No, it’s not,” he told her, and smiled awkwardly. “We all…I guess we all start out like Frazier and Brenda. With our hopes and our dreams—swearing to one another that we’ll never be like our parents. And then…” He paused, smiling ruefully, shaking his head. “We let things stop us. Small problems become big ones. We see things in different ways, and we assume we can’t change, so things fester and grow and…and I was angry that Frazier wouldn’t hold the Chris
tmas tree straight. It honestly never occurred to me that he was holding it the best he could.”

  She looked up at him, searching his eyes. “David…who cares about the Christmas tree right now?”

  His smile deepened. “I don’t. It isn’t anything to do with the Christmas tree. It’s life.”

  She realized she was shaking. “We’re alive, David. Our kids are alive,” she said.

  “And I’m wondering if I deserved to survive,” he told her.

  She gasped.

  “Don’t misunderstand…I’m grateful But I keep remembering how strong everyone was, how our kids must have been terrified, but they didn’t fall apart. Skyler, we survived this. We survived it as a family. That’s…that’s what I didn’t deserve.”

  She touched his face. “But we are a family. Not one of us is perfect. No one can be. We have to…we have to just do our best and…stumble along. That’s the journey.”

  “What if we hurt others on our journey?” David said. “When I think about the things I’ve said, the things I’ve gotten mad about…”

  “David, all we can do is the best that we can, love the best that we can. I’m not suddenly going to become a perfect mother because of today, and you’re not going to become the perfect father. But we will be smart enough to know that our lives are a gift, that our children are a gift.”

  “I do love you.”

  “I know,” she assured him. “Christmas,” she murmured. “I always thought it was such a time of promise….”

  “And it is,” he told her huskily.

  “Hey, Dad!” Jamie shouted from upstairs. “Guess what? Tim’s mother has a huge house, and Tim just talked to her. He didn’t think we’d want to stay here tonight, so she’s invited us all over.”

  David looked up. “That’s nice of her, but there are too many of us to—”

  “Mrs. Graystone says the more there are the merrier,” Sheila said.

  “Mom, Dad, please?” Jamie asked.

  Skyler looked at David. “I sure as hell don’t intend to stay here tonight.”

  They were all trying hard, Kat knew. Tim’s mother, Lydia Graystone, was trying harder than anyone, taking in their entire entourage for a real Christmas dinner, on top of her own family and the people she’d already invited over, including Sheila.

  Lydia insisted she was happy for the company, and as Kat helped her set up for her turkey dinner—one that she could eat, she was certain, because she was starving now—she thanked her for her generosity.

  “It’s the least I could do. When Tim told me what happened…” She broke off, shivering. “You have quite an amazing family.”

  Kat moved to the doorway and leaned against it, looking out into the other room. She had to smile, and not only because her parents looked like newlyweds or because Frazier and Brenda were clearly oblivious to anything but each other. Not even because Tim had a sixteen-year-old sister, Olivia, and she and Jamie seemed to have hit it off as if they were long-lost friends.

  But because of Uncle Paddy. Their hero.

  He didn’t seem to consider himself a hero, but she was certain Craig would have died trying to save them if it hadn’t been for Paddy and his cane. But to Paddy, it had simply been something that needed to be done and he’d been there to do it. According to him, life was something you fought for, every immigrant new that. She smiled, aware of a new appreciation for her uncle and her ancestry that would remain in her heart forever. And Uncle Paddy was smiling at the moment, too, deep in appreciation of Sheila’s company.

  They had just sat down at the table when the doorbell rang.

  There was a collective gasp from her family, and she wasn’t surprised when her mother croaked, “Oh God. Don’t answer it!”

  Tim Graystone set his hand on her mother’s shoulder. “It’s okay,” he said, and went to see who it was. A minute later, he came back. “Kat?”

  “Yes?” She stood, and her heart took flight as she allowed herself to hope.

  “An old friend wants to see you,” Tim told her, and she knew without being told who it was.

  Craig.

  She wanted to see him.

  She didn’t want to see him.

  You couldn’t go back. She knew that, and knew, too, that she had no real idea what had gone on with him in the last few years, but…

  She set her napkin down. “Excuse me,” she told the group around the table and fled.

  He was waiting for her on the spring porch. Somewhere along the way he had taken a shower and changed clothing, and he was in jeans, boots, a flannel shirt and a heavy wool coat. His hair was sparkling clean, light as straw, soft against his forehead. His eyes were very blue, very deep, serious.

  She kept her distance. “I was wondering if we would see you again,” she said politely. Oh God, how ridiculous that sounded. She swallowed and tried again. “I’m sorry. I really thought at first that you were with…them. It fit with the way you left school…and there was a rumor at one point that you were in jail.”

  “Yeah. I started that rumor. It made things easier,” he said.

  “I’m glad to see you.”

  “Are you?” he asked, and she wondered if there was a hopeful tone in his voice.

  “To thank you for all you did. We’re probably all alive because of you.”

  He lowered his head for a moment, then met her eyes again. “I think we’re all alive because of all of us,” he said.

  She shrugged. “Maybe. You might have had a better chance of surviving if it weren’t for us, though,” she told him.

  “Who knows?” he said. “I think Quintin had me pegged from the start. It was the first ‘job’ I did with them. And I’m pretty sure he knew I wasn’t what I pretended to be.”

  “Still, thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  He was still looking at her. She shook her head. “You had no right not to tell me the truth.”

  “That my father was a cocaine freak and loan sharks were going to kill him if I didn’t help them rob someone?” he asked softly.

  “I loved you. You’re not your father. You’re not your family.”

  He looked doubtful. “I think in a way we are our families,” he said. “You’re a lot like both your parents,” he said with a smile. “And yes, I remember you used to tell me how they could drive you nuts, but even so, I mean it as a compliment.”

  “Tonight, I’ll take it that way.” She paused, then met and held his eyes. “I would have understood you were having problems, you know.”

  “Your parents owned a bar. My father had gotten into knocking them over.”

  “I still wish you had believed in me, told me. It would have hurt less.”

  She was right. He had owed her. But he had been young then, with a young man’s sense of pride and shame. And it had been a pretty desperate situation, and Kat, being Kat, would have gotten involved. Her life, too, would have been at risk if he hadn’t walked away.

  But that was all in the past. Who knew what might have happened if they’d taken different forks in the road, made different choices?

  “I’m sure you’re welcome to have dinner here, too,” she told him.

  He shook his head uneasily. “I just…needed to see you.”

  She nodded, looked at him…remembered. And remembering hurt. “We can’t go back,” she whispered vehemently to herself—but he heard, too.

  “No. We can never go back. And, oddly enough…I’m not sure I would go back, even if I could. I’d certainly never relive today, but…I’m so sorry I hurt you.”

  “You did hurt me. You devastated me. But I accept your apology. It’s just that…like I said, we can’t go back.”

  He nodded, but he was still staring at her steadily. “We can go forward, though,” he said very softly.

  She studied him. In the background, she could hear a Christmas carol playing, accompanied by her brother’s violin. She had to smile. Unbelievably, she actually felt like laughing. Life was good, so damn good. And she wo
uld remember that.

  “Come to dinner,” she told him.

  He hesitated. Inhaled, exhaled.

  She offered him her hand. “All you have to do is take a step forward.”

  He grinned. Accepted her hand. And they walked in to Christmas dinner together.

  EPILOGUE

  “It’s Christmas Eve,” the man said.

  The younger Hudson of Hudson & Son looked so much like his father that, for a moment, Craig thought he’d lost his mind.

  He hadn’t expected the shop to be open. Sheila had told him that before his death, Lionel Hudson had been intending to close the shop and move west to be with his son.

  This Hudson wasn’t a spring chicken, either. He looked like his father, but at the age of sixtysomething rather than eighty-plus.

  “I know. I’m sorry. You’re trying to close up. I just saw the sign and…”

  Hudson frowned, looking at him. “You’re Craig Devon, aren’t you?”

  Craig was startled. “I—yes.” He felt awkward. Guilty. “I’m so sorry about your father.”

  Hudson nodded, studying him, then offered his hand. “I’m Ethan Hudson. I heard you tried to save my father.”

  The man was looking at him with such appreciation that Craig felt like a fraud, but he had to say something.

  “I didn’t know that…I didn’t know they would kill anyone. I am so sorry. I should have been more prepared. I—”

  “Please,” Hudson said, and smiled. “I’ve heard all about it from Sheila and Tim. You’re a good man. I know you would have saved him if you could. I’ve thought about it a lot, though. He wouldn’t have wanted to waste away, to die in agony. Who knows what’s for the best?” He shrugged, then grinned. “I remember him with love. That’s the important thing.”

  “I thought the store was closing,” Craig said.

  “Funny, I thought so, too. But then Dad…died and I came back, and I’m still here. I’m glad, too. I loved this place when I was a kid. I’d sit on my dad’s lap when he’d take out his magnifying glass and study a stone. In a way, working here, running this place, I feel like he’s still with me.” He offered Craig a strange and rueful smile. “Sometimes you learn what really matters, huh? I remember one time, there was a ring a woman wanted to sell. Even I knew the stone wasn’t a good stone, but my dad paid her really well for it. And afterward he told me that what’s valuable in life isn’t things, it’s what those things mean to people and what can be made of them.” He paused, then said, “Sorry, I guess Christmas Eve is making me nostalgic.”