Cole in My Stocking

by Jessi Gage

  Cole Plankitt just called me honey.

  I couldn’t read his face, but I could read his voice. Regret. Surprise. Anger. It was all there. I wished I knew why.

  The tension rolling off him made me dread whatever we would be talking about later, but the promise of a “later” with Cole gave me a thrill. A thrill I resented. Why couldn’t my body be on board with the friends plan?

  As Cole pulled into the blacktop parking lot of Hansen’s Funeral Home, I analyzed that honey. Had it been honey as in, I still think of you as my buddy’s kid, so I give you a child’s endearment, or had that been honey as in, I notice the woman you’ve become, and I want to get to know that woman better?

  I could make a case either way, but secretly, foolishly, I hoped it meant he was into me. I thought back to that moment we’d had in Dad’s kitchen. I thought I’d glimpsed vulnerability in him, like he was searching for something and maybe that something was me.

  “Here we are.” Cole parked the truck in a space close to the awning-covered double doors. White Christmas lights and potted poinsettias added a festive air to the green-trimmed, white Victorian house with its somber black doors.

  I should have been thinking of my dad. Instead, I was obsessing about a hot cop I had no business obsessing about. Mentally shaking my head at myself, I jumped down from the truck. Cole and I walked to the main entrance, hands buried in our pockets.

  Based on Cole’s truck being the only vehicle in the lot, I expected to find the doors locked, but when Cole trotted up the steps and tried the handle, the right-hand door swung open to a dim foyer with an empty coatrack.

  He held the door so I could go in first. Once we were in the warm foyer, his hands found my shoulders and eased my coat down my arms. I shivered.

  I wanted to ask why we were here so early, but my tongue was glued to the roof of my mouth.

  A tall, gray-haired man in a black suit came up a set of stairs. Gregory Hansen, the owner and operator of the funeral home. He held his hand out to Cole. “Officer Plankitt. Good to see you. Good to see you.” The men shook, and then he faced me, hand outstretched. “Mandy. How are you this morning?”

  “Fine, thanks.” I shook his hand, wondering why he had greeted Cole first. Maybe they knew each other outside the context of Dad’s funeral.

  “Everything ready?” Cole asked. He’d left the Oakleys in the truck. His eyes were intense but cordial.

  “Of course.” Mr. Hansen turned to me with a warm smile. “I placed your father in the visitation room. You may take all the time you need.”

  I blinked, unsure what we were talking about. “For what?”

  “To say goodbye.” He opened one of the double doors leading into the main reposing room, which resembled a chapel with rows of chairs and a raised platform with a wreath-adorned podium at the front. The white and red carnations I’d picked because Dad’s truck had been red and his Harley had been white, lined the platform and surrounded the podium. The spot where the coffin should be was empty. “Right this way. You enter the visitation room through the side door up front.” He started down the center aisle.

  “I’ll wait out here,” Cole said, his eyes crinkling at the outer edges. He lifted his chin, encouraging me to follow the funeral director.

  When Cole and I had made arrangements for today, we’d argued about whether I should check the box on the form for using the visitation room before the funeral. The form had explained that if desired, close family could have private time to pay their respects to the deceased before the other guests arrived. Despite Cole’s suggestion that I check the box, I’d decided not to. I couldn’t imagine being in a room by myself with my dead father. Just the thought of it left me feeling scooped out and hollow.

  Cole had arranged this against my wishes.

  I stared at my shoes. My face burned with anger.

  I heard Cole’s voice at my back. “Give us a minute.”

  “Of course.” Mr. Hansen did an about-face and went back down the stairs.

  I could feel the heat coming off Cole, but he didn’t touch me.

  “You have no right to push me into this,” I told him.

  I don’t know how I knew, but I felt him nod behind me. It was like the skin on the back of my neck was sensitized to the air between us, and I could feel the disturbance of his agreement.

  “I know,” he said. “You don’t have to take advantage of it. We could just sit in the main room until the funeral starts. Or out in the truck. Or I’ll go out to the truck if you want to be alone. It’s just I know for a fact your dad regretted not seeing you one last time before he died. I don’t want you to regret not seeing him, getting a chance to talk to him, before he goes in the ground.”

  I turned to face him. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him to butt out of my life, but the look on his face stopped me. It was sad. Weary. For once, he looked within five years of his age.

  That look reminded me that yeah, I’d lost my dad and I didn’t know what to do with that information yet, but Cole had lost his friend, and maybe he felt just as empty and adrift as I did. Maybe he felt even worse than I did. He’d been a million times closer to Gripper than I’d been.

  I felt my shoulders slump as all the anger drained out of me, replaced with shame. I’d tried to run away. Again. And someone I cared about against my better judgment had caught me, dragged me back, and was trying to give me a second chance.

  “It should be you,” I told him.

  He shifted on his feet, hands in his pockets, a question in his eyes.

  “Using the visitation room,” I clarified. “You were—” My throat got tight. “You were like a brother to him.”

  The catalogue of my memory held countless glimpses of Cole and Dad together. Sometimes I’d be doing homework at the desk in the shop, using the computer and printer up there for an assignment instead of the ones in the house because I’d craved my dad’s attention, even knowing I’d probably get yelled at sooner or later. Customers would come and go, and I’d work in silence, barely noticing. Then Cole would show up, and every nerve ending in my body would hum in his direction, a chorus of miniature tuning forks, and Cole’s presence was their fundamental frequency. I’d doodle aimlessly or type nonsense sentences and hang on every word spoken by that hard-as-nails, sexy-as-sin mouth. I’d linger long after my homework was done, risking my dad’s displeasure to soak up the laughter between them, the back slaps, the racy jokes, the gun talk. It wasn’t just Cole I appreciated in those stolen moments. It was Dad too. Seeing him the way he was with Cole. Happy. Nice. Sober.

  “Nah,” Cole said. “We were buds, though.” He was being modest.

  More memories invaded the minute of silence hanging between us. The stolen moments in Dad’s shop weren’t all Cole-colored rainbows and happy-Dad sunshine. If I lingered too long, Dad would inevitably remember some offense of mine. I’d misplaced something in the trailer. I’d been too noisy getting ready for school and woken him out of a sound sleep. I’d forgotten to arm the alarm. I’d parked the beast too close to the garage, and he’d almost hit it backing the truck out. Whatever the offense, he’d ream me for it in front of Cole. I’d apologize and slink away, humiliated. But I never regretted the few minutes of joy I’d had before Dad ruined it. And I never begrudged Cole for getting the better part of my dad. Envied him, yes, but never begrudged.

  “I don’t want to see him,” I said. “You go. Go say goodbye for me.”

  “We’ll both go. ’Kay?” He held his hand out, palm up. An offer, not a command. He was asking me to do this.

  For my peace of mind or his, I wasn’t sure. Didn’t matter.

  He was right.

  I was being a coward.

  I swallowed and took his hand. It was time to say goodbye to my father.

  Chapter 7

  Somehow, I ended up hugging my knees and sobbing on the floor beside Dad’s open casket while Cole rubbed circles on my back.

  I should h
ave been contemplating Dad’s death or the sickness that made him a papery shell of the strong man I remembered, or the time we’d lost out on because I moved away, or what I could have done to be a better daughter. I wasn’t thinking about any of that. What I was thinking about was going into the fireproof safe I just that moment installed in my soul. No one would ever know that while I should have been grieving the loss of my father, I was angry instead because he’d done such a pitiful job of loving me.

  He made sure I knew how to defend myself with a gun. He chewed me out if I got lower than A’s, and taught me how to drive defensively. Thanks to Dad, I could mow a lawn, change my own oil, and plow a snowy driveway. He did a lot of things right as a parent, mainly having to do with raising me to be capable and independent.

  But he fell short a lot too, and those shortcomings tipped the scales too far for the good points to compensate. Those shortcomings left me feeling bereft, not because he was dead now, but because he deprived me of himself long before his body expired, long before I left town.

  Losing my mother had been like losing a lung or a leg, something heavy and so important as to be nearly vital. Dad had given me puzzles to do and coloring books to color. He’d dropped me off at his mother’s or at my mother’s sister’s down in Massachusetts for extended stays. He’d met my physical needs, but he’d never attempted to sooth my pain. I don’t know if he even saw my pain. I’d been alone in it. I think he’d been alone in his too. We could have shared our pain, helped each other. But he’d remained too distant. If I’d been older, maybe I would have understood how to reach out to him. But all I’d known at the time was that it hurt and Daddy wouldn’t kiss the boo-boo.

  There were a hundred smaller examples. When I’d gotten my first period, he’d sent me to the internet to “figure it out” for myself and put whatever I needed on the shopping list. When I asked for help on my homework, he was always too busy up in the shop. When I asked him questions about God, he told me I could go to church if I wanted once I could drive myself. If I asked about Mom, he’d clam up and not talk to me for days. The list went on and on. I asked and I asked and I asked. He never answered. By the time I was a senior in high school and faced the worst night of my life, I had no more asking left in me.

  I’d never told him what had really happened to me that night. It had never even crossed my mind I should.

  I wasn’t grieving for the father he’d been. I was grieving for the father I’d wanted and never had. I was grieving for me. That made me a bad, selfish person. I knew it, but I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t feel anything other than what I was feeling, and the more I cried, the emptier I felt.

  At some point, I became aware of far-away murmurs. People were arriving for the funeral. Cole hauled me to my feet and deposited me in a chair. I heard him talk with Mr. Hansen. Dad’s casket got wheeled into the chapel.

  “I’m going to open the doors now,” Mr. Hansen told me softly. “You are welcome to join the others if you wish. I have two seats reserved for you in the front row. Or you may stay here. From that seat over there, you can see the podium without being seen by the other guests.” I followed his pointing finger to see the chair situated near the door. “The ceremony will begin in fifteen minutes.” He left me alone with Cole.

  Cole squatted in front of me and put a cup of water in my hands. “Drink.”

  I drank without looking at him.

  “You good?”

  I snorted and finally looked up. His eyes were bloodshot, but his face didn’t look swollen, like mine felt.

  He moistened a folded tissue with water from my cup. “Dab under your eyes.”

  “What are you, the mascara police?”

  “Yeah,” he said with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Want to see my badge?”

  After wiping up my mascara and blowing my nose, I stood up and approached the door to find the chapel room filling up with cops in blues, cops in suits, bikers in leather vests, craggy hunters with bolo ties, and the occasional woman, none of whom looked like my Aunt Kelly. I wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t show. She and Dad had never gotten along.

  “You going in?” Cole asked. It sounded like cop talk, like we were facing a potential shoot-out.

  I huffed and said, “Yeah. Cover me.” As I strode into the room, I heard a bark of laughter behind me. The marine layer of my selfishness started to burn off, as if cheering Cole up, even for a second, had let the sunshine in.

  Maybe Dad hadn’t done his best for me, but I sure hadn’t done my best for him. We were both to blame for our non-relationship.

  I was going to face his mourners today like the daughter I should have been.

  * * * *

  I stood in the foyer of Hansen’s Funeral Home accepting condolences as Mr. Hansen funneled people to the reception hall on the lower floor. On the outside, I was trading hugs and watery smiles with people I barely knew. On the inside, I was shaking and raw. The components of the funeral were what Mr. Hansen and I had discussed, but it had become apparent to me as the service went on that Cole’s assistance had extended beyond our Saturday morning planning session. He’d gone behind my back to change things.

  I owed him a world of thanks.

  Dad would have rolled his eyes at the out-of-the-box service I’d settled on because I hadn’t known any better. He would have loved what Cole came up with.

  The minister had summarized Dad’s life in a ten-minute eulogy that made my chest puff with pride. My favorite part had been when the minister told the two-hundred or so gathered mourners that my dad had been awarded two bronze stars for heroism during his stint in the Army. He’d saved men’s lives, risking injury to himself. Twice. I’d known he had the bronze stars because the medals had been in his files, but I hadn’t known what they’d been for. Cole must have found that out. The rest, even if I’d known it, sounded impressive coming from a robed stranger. Dad had served a couple of terms as the president of his local NRA chapter. He’d won awards for target and trap shooting. He held a number of patents on devices he’d invented to aid him in his trade. He’d been smart, entrepreneurial, brave, and tenacious. And he was survived by a sister “and a daughter, Amanda Anna Holcomb, who holds a double master’s degree in public health and counseling psychology and works in Philadelphia with women who have suffered abuse.” I hadn’t told Mr. Hansen all that. Cole must have. And since I hadn’t told Cole all that, he must have done some research on me to find it all out.

  I’d caught his eye and jostled him with my elbow. A goofy smile turned his hard mouth soft. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt like somebody in Newburgh genuinely cared about me.

  After the eulogy, so many of my dad’s friends got up to tell stories, the minister had to start cutting people off. At the end, two men in formal U.S. Army uniforms had folded an American flag into a triangle to the accompaniment of Taps, played on two trumpets. That had been special enough, but the men had then lifted a white cloth to reveal a triangular wood and glass case near Dad’s casket. While I watched, they tucked the flag inside and handed me the case. It had Dad’s name and his dates of birth and death on the front. They presented it to me. To me. I could take it home to Philly and put it on my bookshelf if I wanted. A piece of my dad. Oddly, the thought made my insides warm and gooey. I’d cried. Cole had produced another tissue.

  At the end, the minister had invited me up first to pay my respects. I did it without dissolving into a selfish, sobbing heap. Cole had remained at my side the whole time, lending me a sense of strength and belonging in a room full of people who hadn’t known me at all or had known a different, misunderstood version of me.

  Even now, he stood close by. I could feel him eyeing the mourners as they approached. Was his hovering a result of feelings he might have for me, or was he just taking care of me to honor my dad? It didn’t matter. I was thankful.

  Especially when Randall Tooley reached the front of the reception line.

  “Chief
Tooley,” I greeted, hands at my sides. I’d hugged a lot of people I hardly knew today, and some who had said ugly things about me in the past. I knew Tooley, “R-Too” to his friends, pretty well. He’d been an even steadier fixture in Dad’s shop than Cole. I’d been to barbeques at his lake house since I was a kid. But you couldn’t pay me to hug him. What he’d done to me that night he’d had the gall to call tough love. I called it unconscionable. If I’d known then what I knew now, I would have done about a million things differently, including getting tested for STDs immediately as opposed to weeks later and suing Tooley for ignoring the signs I’d been assaulted and for denying me medical treatment. The only reason I hadn’t sued him years later was that I’d made a life for myself in Philly and had been too busy and content to start a lengthy legal process in another state.

  Cole closed the distance between us so he stood right up against my back.

  Tooley flicked him a glance and gave a jowly chuckle—he’d put on weight since I’d last seen him. “Not the chief any more. Haven’t been for quite a while.” He stuck his thumbs in his belt loops, settling in for a chat.

  Fabulous.

  It might have been polite to ask what he was doing for work now. But I just wanted him to say his piece and go downstairs for cookies and coffee. “Thanks for coming,” I said.

  He smiled. It looked like a mask. In my mind, the only expression that seemed to fit Tooley was the one I’d seen after I’d failed the Breathalyzer—lips sucked inward, an angry furrow between his eyebrows, disappointment and disgust coloring his face a ruddy tan.

  “A double master’s, huh?” he said. “That’s real nice, Mandy. I’m glad you turned your life around.”

  His words were a blow to my gut. Yes, I’d partied a few times in high school, and those few times had been enough to secure me a bad reputation, but I’d gotten good grades. I’d known where to draw the line, and I’d stuck to that line, sometimes costing myself friends, sometimes costing myself much-coveted male attention. Despite what Tooley thought, despite what Newburgh thought, I hadn’t been sleeping around in high school. Though I’d experimented plenty, I’d been a virgin the night I was assaulted.