Mrs. Scrooge
Page 17
Was she wrong or did he flinch at her words?
"I know all about uncertain futures," he said slowly, his words measured. "I still don't know where I'll be come New Year's." He didn't have to say the next words; they both heard them loud and clear inside their hearts: Not much of a life for a child. . .
"Ronald asked me how you figured in our lives."
Murphy's smile was quick and bittersweet "And. . . ?"
"I don't know the answer, Murphy," she said at last. "Do you?"
They had friendship on their side; they had respect, and chemistry, and—just maybe—they had love.
The thing they didn't have was one chance in a thousand to make it work.
* * *
"I'M SORRY," Sam said to Ronald on his fourth day in town. "Patty's still at school,"
"I know. I want to speak with you, Samantha."
She stepped aside and motioned him into her house. Did the man sleep in his uniform? This was their third encounter and she had yet to see him in civilian clothes. No matter how hard she looked, she couldn't find the boy she'd once loved anywhere in the man who stood before her now.
"Coffee?" She led him into the living room and gestured for him to take a seat.
"Nothing, thank you." He stood at attention, and it took Sam a moment to realize he was waiting for her to sit down before he took a seat.
She toyed with the idea of never sitting down for the rest of her life, but decided not even Patty would be this silly, and she perched on the arm of the wing chair. "Are you still taking Patty to dinner the day after tomorrow?"
"Yes," said Ronald, sitting down on the center cushion of the couch. "Linda will be joining us."
"With the baby?"
He shook his head. "My family will watch him." So much for conversational gambits. "What is it you want, Ronald?"
He reached into one of his pockets and withdrew a sheaf of papers with razor-sharp creases, then handed it to Sam. "The best school for advanced students in the country."
Sam's hand shook visibly as she accepted the papers and placed them in her lap. "I'll give this to Patty."
"I want you to read it."
"I'd rather not."
"It concerns Patricia's best interests."
"I think I'm a fairly good judge of Patty's best interests, Ron."
"Perhaps not when it comes to her future."
Sam stood up, anger heating her blood. "You've already missed ten years of her past."
"And I'm trying to make amends."
"I don't need your help."
"I'm not offering any help to you, Samantha. This is for my daughter."
"My daughter, Ron. You don't have any claim over her."
"You have a right to hate me."
"I don't hate you. You just don't figure in my life at all." And I don't want you suddenly turning my daughter's life inside out.
"Now that I have Linda and little Thomas, I understand what I've missed."
"How wonderful for you."
"I'm not looking to take Patricia away from you."
Sam couldn't speak as panic grabbed her by the throat and wouldn't let go.
"All I am asking of you, Samantha, is the right to give Patricia the things you cannot."
"Like what, Ron? Love? Security? A hometown?"
"An education."
She stopped. This was dangerous territory, the one area she'd yet to master. "She's too young to be sent away to school."
"That may be true for an average child, but there is nothing average about Patricia."
"Only her IQ is unusual, Ron. She's still just a little girl."
Ronald stood up, six feet two inches of impressive Air Force blue. 'That's the kind of thinking that will limit her horizons." He talked about the exclusive school in northeast Massachusetts that specialized in expanding the horizons of children as gifted as Patty.
I don't like this, Ron she thought. I don't want you to make sense. I want to hate you and your wife and your baby and everything you have to say . . . The things he was saying were the same things she worried about late at night when her defenses were down and guilt rose swiftly to the surface.
"I want you to think seriously about it," Ronald said, heading for the door. His posture was ramrod perfect; she could have dropped a plumb line straight down from his scalp to his heels. "I would like to broach the topic with Patty at dinner."
"I'll read the brochure but I won't make any other promises. I only want what's best for Patty."
"As do I. You're still a very young woman, Samantha. You've had more than your share of responsibility. Perhaps you and your friend Mr. O'Rourke might have more time to explore your relationship if you didn't have the day-to-day work involved with raising Patricia."
Sam didn't bother to dignify that last remark with an answer. Raising Patty was the single most wonderful experience of her life. "As I said, I'll think about it."
"I can't ask for more than that, can I?"
"No, you can't."
But why did she have the feeling that he would?
* * *
PATTY PRESSED HERSELF up against the kitchen door and listened as Sam walked Captain Donovan out to his waiting cab.
You've had more than your share of the responsibility . . . you and Mr. O'Rourke . . . more time together without Patricia to care for. . .
Murphy hadn't come around today. Her mom had lost that Christmas glow, and the tree Murphy had chopped down for them stood forlorn in the corner of the living room, its glittering ornaments looking sad somehow and abandoned.
You know why, a little voice deep inside her whispered. Oh, they tried to hide what was going on, but Patty knew. Adults always said things like "Love isn't always enough," and Patty had never really understood what that meant until now. She just knew her mom and Murphy were as in love as any two people could possibly be.
But still it wasn't enough to change things.
And it had taken her father, Captain Ronald Donovan, to make her realize that only she could make it all work out for her mom and Murphy O'Rourke.
* * *
For Murphy it all came to a head on the morning of December 23rd.
The choice was the same as it had been from the beginning: the exhilarating daily grind of a New York daily versus the glamour—and loneliness—of the foreign beat. CNN had outdone themselves on the glamour front. It was hard to imagine what reason he could come up with to justify refusing their offer. Money. Position. Perks up the yin-yang. All Dan Stein at the Telegram was offering him was hard work, stress, and an uncertain future in a changing business.
There didn't seem to be much of a choice.
"You'll be okay at the bar?"
Bill nodded. "I've missed it. Besides we're closed tomorrow night for Scotty's party."
"I'll be back Christmas afternoon."
Bill nodded again. "Did you tell Samantha?"
He'd told Sam, but it seemed to him that his announcement barely registered. She'd looked at him with those big brown eyes and said nothing, and he'd felt as if he'd taken a slam in the solar plexus. "She has a lot on her mind lately."
"You're doing the right thing," said Bill as the train lumbered into the station. "Don't make promises you can't keep."
Yeah, Pop, he thought. You've already said that.
* * *
MANHATTAN was one big Christmas party. Murphy dropped in on some of his old pals at City Hall, then strolled over to Wall Street to schmooze with the guys who played Monopoly with real money on a daily basis. Everyone thought he was crazy to ever have considered not taking the foreign assignment. "New York?" they said. "Who needs it? Only a lunatic would stay here when Paris calls."
New York was cold in the winter and hot in the summer. It was loud and dirty and often dangerous.
"You'll regret it," said Dan Stein over eggnog at the Telegram office. "Hook up with those guys and you'll get fat and soft and forget everything you ever knew about hard-hitting journalism."
"Right," said Mu
rphy. "Like the Telegram is going to match their offer."
"Pretty close." Stein quoted a figure.
Murphy whistled. "I'm impressed."
"You should be," said the older man. "Some of that came out of my hide."
"It's tempting but I don't think I'm going to bite."
"You're making a mistake."
"Probably."
"What about that woman with the kid? I thought you had something pretty special cooking there."
"It's complicated," Murphy said, hedging. "We want different things from life."
"Some things you don't walk away from," said Stein. "But I don't suppose you're old enough to realize that yet."
Feeling older by the minute, Murphy popped in at the CNN party a little after six o'clock. He'd expected lights and music and laughter. Good food and better conversation. At the very least, he'd expected a crowd of people bent on having a good time.
What he found was a cleaning woman who looked at Murphy as if he'd escaped from a police lineup.
"Everybody's gone home," she said, making sure her mop was between them. "Don't you have a home?"
He doubled back to the Telegram party. Maybe he could con Dan Stein into taking him out to dinner.
"Everyone is gone," said the night receptionist, her brown eyes kind and warm. Like Sam's.
"Did the party move someplace else?"
She shook her head. He saw pity on her face. He hated pity. "I'm afraid they all went home."
"Dan Stein's not here?"
"Afraid not."
Murphy ducked into a telephone booth in the lobby and dialed Dan's home number. "Hey, Dan!" he said when his one-time boss picked up the phone. "How about you and the wife and I mixing with the hotshots at Nobu? I know how you like sushi and—"
Dan's voice was filled with compassion. Murphy hated compassion more than he hated pity. "We're having a Chanukah celebration tonight. You're more than welcome to join us, kid."
Murphy wanted to join them more than he'd admit even to himself. "That's family time," he said, keeping his voice light. "Mazel tov. I'll talk to you in a couple of days.
The most exciting city in the world was quiet as the grave. Murphy made his way back to the Plaza through a light snowfall. Even the hotel seemed deserted. He went up to his room and ordered a room service dinner. In his entire life, he couldn't remember a time when he felt more alone.
He missed Sam. That went without saying, for he missed Sam every second he was away from her. He missed Patty almost as much. That was no surprise either, but the fact that he missed his father was. He missed Bill's bitching and moaning, his sometimes caustic wit, the nagging sense that they were on the verge of something good after so many years of causing each other nothing but pain.
He missed his sister and his niece and nephew.
And he missed the bar. His pal Scotty with the trenchant humor and steel-trap brain. Joe and Eddy and the other regulars who over the years had made O'Rourke's Bar and Grill into a second home. They were family, all of them, in the truest sense of the word. They were there for each other in hard times; when others turned away, they were still there. They'd been part of Murphy's life since before he could remember. When he swooped into town, they had opened ranks to let him in but never once did they let success go to his head. He could be O'Rourke the gonzo journalist big shot away from Rocky Hill, but there in the bar he was Bill's kid.
It was nice to know you had a place in the world.
Tonight in that empty hotel room in that empty city away from everything that mattered, he realized the truth. If he took that job with CNN, this would be his life. He'd live from hotel room to hotel room with his entire world crammed into two battered suitcases and summed up on his passport. He'd been there before and, by God, he'd be damned if he'd be there again.
He'd had it all before, but it hadn't been enough. It still wouldn't be. He could see that now. The fancy career and the fancy salary and all the fancy perks that came with the package could never reach the part of him that only Sam had been able to touch.
And the answer was so damned simple that he could only wonder how it was it had taken him this long to figure it out.
He'd take Dan Stein's offer to return to the Telegram. He'd fight the traffic, ride the railroad, live in Rocky Hill the rest of his life—hell, he'd do whatever it was he had to do in order to hold on to Sam and Patty and the family they could form together.
"Some things you don't walk away from," Dan Stein had said earlier that afternoon, and finally Murphy understood exactly what his new/old boss had meant.
It was all there, waiting for him, right where he'd first started out thirty-six years ago.
* * *
AT SEVEN on the evening of December 23rd, Ronald came by to pick Patty up for dinner and Sam found it difficult to keep from wrapping her arms around her only child and locking her away in her little house in Rocky Hill.
But of course she didn't. She smiled and said hello to Ronald and kissed Patty good-bye. She even stood on the front stoop and waved as Ronald backed his rented car out of the driveway and disappeared down the street. A light snow had begun to fall an hour ago. "Drive carefully!" she called out before she went inside.
It was out of her hands now. She had read the brochures about the Grey Oaks School. She had digested the impressive paragraphs of information about the Rhodes Scholar tutors and state-of-the-art equipment and five-star accommodations. Her eyes had skittered over the hefty price tag attached to this golden opportunity for Ronald had been one hundred percent right when he said it was beyond her ability to provide.
God knew Patty deserved this opportunity. Rocky Hill fit Sam to a tee, but that didn't mean Patty would spend her days in the sleepy, historic town. Sam had been an average student, with average needs and average desires—not a little girl with the potential to make a difference in this world.
I miss you, Murphy, she thought as she moved through her empty house. I wish I could talk to you about this. Murphy had left this morning for Manhattan and wasn't expected back until Christmas Day. Right this minute he was probably at some fancy party, drinking champagne and eating caviar, up to his eyeballs in beautiful, brainless blondes.
Her whole world was crumbling around her feet. Ronald was there to woo her daughter away. Murphy couldn't wait to see Rocky Hill in his rearview mirror.
There would be no more long lingering kisses in the dark. No more whispered fantasies. No more kidding herself that their worlds could possibly coexist and include Patty, as well.
Merry Christmas, she thought, slumping into the recliner and staring at Wheel of Fortune.
She'd been right about Christmas all along. It was only for fools in search of a broken heart.
And Sam felt like the biggest fool of them all.
* * *
BY THE TIME MURPHY left New York City on the morning of the twenty-fourth, it was snowing in earnest. Big fat flakes obscured his vision from the window of the train bound for Princeton Junction, and the snow showed no sign of letting up. When the train pulled into the station an hour later, at least five inches had fallen, and he considered himself damn lucky to find a cab.
He burst into the bar a little after noon. "Where's Sam?" he called out. "I have to talk to her."
"She left," said Scotty, who was playing a game of gin with Bill. "With the storm and everything, she thought she should get home to Patty."
"What the hell are you doing here?" Bill asked. Murphy peeked at his dad's hand. The old man had three aces sitting side by side. Talk about the luck of the Irish.
"I'm staying," said Murphy, tossing his bags down behind the bar. "I'm taking my old job on the Telegram. I'm going to live in Rocky Hill and commute on that lousy railroad if I have to. And I intend to marry Sam if she and Patty will have me. I know what those two need. They need me. Sam needs a man who loves her, and Patty needs a father who understands she'll be a genius for the rest of her life, but she'll only be a child a little while longer. I'll be d
amned if I let her lose the best years of her life!" He stormed over to his father and glared at the man. "If you have a problem with that, keep it to yourself, or you might find me working the bar until the end of my days."
"Don't even kid like that," Bill said. "Go find her. Tell me that my golden years will be peaceful."
"It's all your fault," Murphy ranted, waving a finger under his father's nose. "I'm the product of conditioning. I want a wife, and a kid, and a damn house in the middle of nowhere. Everything I swore I'd never want." He stopped waving his index finger and offered his hand in greeting. "Thanks, Pop. I don't think I'll be able to repay you."
"So what are you waiting for?" his father bellowed. "Go claim your wife."
Murphy disappeared out the door as a big smile appeared on Bill O'Rourke's face.
"You sly dog," said Scotty, shaking his head in amazement. "This is what you wanted all along, isn't it?"
Bill's smile grew wider and he put his cards on the table. "Full house," he said. "Looks like I won the game."
* * *
MURPHY WAS A SWEATY, miserable wreck of a man by the time he got to Sam's house. The snow was deep and treacherous. He hated driving in the best of times and this was a trip to Dante's hell. But he would have driven through a blizzard to see Sam again and tell her he loved her.
He plowed his way up the unshoveled driveway and stomped up the stairs to the front door. He rang the bell. No answer. He rang again. Still no answer. Her car was there in the driveway. She had to be home.