No, that wouldn’t work.
“When am I going to see this gingerbread house you’ve promised me?” Jesse asked on Saturday evening. It was the third night he’d come for dinner, the third night he’d had to witness Robin obsessively shadowing her son around the house. But nine o’clock had arrived and she’d tucked Philip into bed. She couldn’t very well hover for the next few hours in Philip’s doorway, watching him sleep.
“I haven’t made it,” she said as she and Jesse descended the stairs to the living room. She had purchased all the ingredients for the house: the molasses, the tubes of white icing, the chocolate wafers she used for the roof, the gumdrops with which she trimmed the windows and door. She should have baked the damned thing by now. Ordinarily, she baked it a week before Christmas so she and Philip could admire it and pride themselves on their ability to resist temptation until Christmas afternoon, when they traditionally broke the house into pieces and gobbled it up.
But she hadn’t been able to bring herself to make the house this year. It seemed like so much effort to go through when Philip wasn’t going to be around to devour it with her.
“Why don’t we make it now?” Jesse suggested.
“It takes hours,” Robin warned him, glancing at her watch. She had already put in a full day at Woodleigh’s, and Jesse had told her over dinner that he’d spent a long day at his office in New Haven. Neither of them had the energy to tackle a project like the gingerbread house at this hour.
“We can sleep late tomorrow,” Jesse pointed out.
Robin glanced sharply at him. Where, exactly, was he planning to sleep late? Why had he said we? Here she was, grieving over her son’s upcoming departure, and Jesse was insinuating that he wanted to sleep with her.
Her suspicion was like a shot of booze, followed by a long chaser of remorse. She trudged into the kitchen and slumped on a chair. “Jesse, I’m a horrible person,” she muttered, focusing on her clenched fists, which rested on the table before her. “You want to spend the night here, and the last thing I can think about right now is whether I want you to do that.”
He glided behind her and began kneading the tense muscles along her shoulders. “I thought we were talking about baking gingerbread,” he said quietly.
She closed her eyes to savor fully his comforting massage. More remorse swept through her. She was horrible. She hated herself way more than Ray at that moment. “How can you stand being around me?” she groaned. “I’ve been such a grouch. All I think about is Philip, Philip, Philip.”
“And maybe, every now and then, you think about yourself,” Jesse remarked, his gentle tone failing to disguise an underlying steeliness. “You think about how sorry you are for yourself, and you wallow in self-pity. You go on and on about the importance of the Christmas spirit, but I haven’t noticed much of it coming from you.”
“I haven’t got any,” she conceded, her voice wavering with sadness. “It’s like the bottom’s fallen out of my world. I don’t expect you to understand it. I only wonder why you haven’t given up on me and moved on.”
“Bottoms fall out of worlds all the time,” he said, ending his massage and circling the table. He took a seat across from her and gathered her hands in his. “If you haven’t got the strength to make your world livable again, then I’m here to help you.”
“Why?” she asked, genuinely curious. “Why me?”
“Because deep down inside you, you do have the strength,” he said, his gaze steady on her, a trusting glow emanating from the profound intensity of his eyes. “Because your world—more than any other world I’ve ever seen—deserves to be good.”
Her fingers wove through his and curled tight, clinging to him. “I do love you, Jesse,” she whispered, returning his unwavering gaze.
He nodded. “I know.”
“Then why aren’t you pushing things? Why aren’t you making demands?”
“Is that what love means?” he shot back. “Pushing and making demands?”
“Is it that you don’t want me anymore?”
“Oh, Robin...” He let out an incredulous laugh. “Of course I want you. Every time I talk to you, every time I hear your voice... Every time I leave your house alone, I feel like some sort of horny adolescent, half-crazy with fantasies.”
“Then why—?”
“Because in my fantasies, you’re ready for me. You’re thinking only of me—of us. Not of Phil and not of the holiday, and not of a tree with lots of stuff hanging off the branches. Just us. That’s what I want, Robin. That’s the way I want it.”
His candor touched her, and made her feel even more unworthy of him. “You could have that with someone else,” she reminded him in a tremulous voice. The last thing she wanted was to drive him away. She had scarcely survived the past week; without him, she wouldn’t have survived at all.
But she loved him. She loved him enough to want him happy. And she knew she wasn’t doing a good job of making him happy.
He pulled her hands to his mouth and kissed her knuckles. “Don’t you think I’m aware of that?” he asked, smiling crookedly. “The problem is, you’re the lady in the fantasy.”
Robin’s eyes glistened with tears. For the first time since she’d come to terms with Philip’s leaving, they weren’t tears of bitterness and loss. They were tears of gratitude, of appreciation. Of love. “I don’t deserve you,” she murmured, sliding her hands from his and pushing away from the table. “But since you’re here, I’ll make you a gingerbread house.”
***
IT WAS RAINING lightly when Robin and Philip left for the airport. The temperature hovered in the mid-thirties, and if anything, it would be warmer at the airport, so Robin wasn’t worried about the possibility of ice on the runway.
Nor was she worried about Jesse’s having to contend with foul weather during his drive to Newport. He had phoned her last night to inform her that the Navy had finally agreed to release Gerald Selby in Jesse’s custody on a two-day pass. Selby would have to be back on base by Christmas night, but Jesse assured Robin that he didn’t mind making the long round-trip drive twice in three days. He was thrilled for his client and her family, jubilant that their holiday would be brightened by the presence of their son. Most of all, he admitted, he was ecstatic that he’d gotten the United States Navy to come around. As he’d told her, he felt as if he’d won a major naval battle.
And he didn’t believe in miracles? Belief or no belief, winning Selby a two-day pass had been miraculous.
“Now remember,” Robin instructed her son, who was squirming on the seat beside her. “The only people you’re going to talk to on the plane are the flight attendants and the officers. No strangers, nobody who isn’t wearing a uniform. Right?”
“I’ve been on airplanes by myself before,” Philip reminded her, clearly bored by her lecture. “I know the rules.”
“The only time you’re to leave your seat is if you have to go to the bathroom,” she continued, undeterred.
He rolled his eyes. Then he twisted to confront her, his brow creased with concern. “You’re not going to forget to leave milk and cookies for Santa, are you?” he asked.
“I won’t forget.”
“The star-shaped ones. Those are his favorite.”
Robin pressed her lips together. She hadn’t baked her rolled-sugar Christmas cookies yet. Baking them was something she and Philip always did together the night before Christmas Eve. She had figured on skipping that ritual this year; the gingerbread house had been a pain in the ass to make, and Jesse had refused to take it home with him. “It belongs here,” he had insisted when she’d tried to foist it upon him.
So now it was sitting at the center of the dining room table, growing stale. The Christmas cookies would grow stale, too. Why should she bother to make them?
“You listening to me, Mom?” Noticing the glassy look in her eyes, Philip nudged her. “Santa likes—”
“—The star-shaped ones. Okay, I’ll make them.”
Satisfied, Phi
lip settled into his seat. Then he suddenly looked concerned again. “It’s on account of, if you don’t leave them for Santa, he might not leave my presents under the tree.”
“Of course he will,” Robin assured him.
“Yeah, but I won’t be there. Like, what if he leaves them, and then when he finds out I’m not home to open them, he’ll take them away?”
“He won’t do that,” Robin promised, wincing at the slight crack in her voice and hoping that Philip hadn’t noticed. “You’ve been a good boy all year, and your presents will be waiting for you when you get home. I’ll make sure of it.”
“Because it’s not like I don’t want them,” Philip said. “It’s just that I won’t be there.”
Don’t, she moaned silently. Please don’t say that again. I already know you won’t be there.
The drive to the airport took them less than two hours. Robin parked in one of the short-term lots and, holding Philip’s hand in one of hers and his wheeled suitcase with the other, she strode stoically to the terminal. It was mobbed with holiday travelers, most of them lugging shopping bags overflowing with gift-wrapped boxes. Obtaining a ticket to Florida for Philip at this time of year, on such short notice, was yet more proof that miracles did happen. But this was one miracle Robin would gladly have done without.
The check-in line zigzagged within a roped-off area, and Robin and Philip took their place at the end. For the forty-five minutes it took until they reached the desk, Philip chattered non-stop about what he would say to Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, which rides he expected to enjoy, what souvenirs he planned to bring home with him. “Would you like a Minnie Mouse watch, Mom?” he asked. “I could get one for you. I have some money left over from my Christmas shopping, and I could probably borrow the rest from Dad. Would you like that?”
“No, thanks,” Robin said, touched by Philip’s generosity. “I’ve got a perfectly good watch. I want you to spend your money on yourself.”
“Should I get a Mickey watch? Or maybe a tee shirt. They’re probably cheaper. Maybe I’ll get an Epcot lunchbox or something. I hate that Smurfs lunchbox.”
And on and on, until they finally checked Philip in and received his boarding pass. Robin accompanied him to a special lounge the airline set aside for children who were traveling without adult escorts, and an offensively cheery woman in an airline uniform promptly showered Philip with a plastic “V.I.P.” badge, a coloring book and crayons, and a deck of playing cards. “Aren’t you a lucky boy, taking a big trip like this at Christmas time,” the woman babbled.
“Yeah! I’m going to Disney World,” Philip bellowed.
“And your father,” Robin coached him in a brittle voice.
The airline employee offered Robin a rueful smile, then turned her attention back to Philip, filling him in on how long the flight would take and what snacks he’d get on the way. This must be what most divorced parents endured at Christmas, Robin thought, fighting the gloom that threatened to wrap around her like a cold, heavy fog: losing their children to their ex-spouses and putting up a brave front about it. For all she knew, Philip’s departure today might be the start of a brand new Greer Christmas tradition, one in which Philip spent every Christmas with his father. But that possibility was too horrible to dwell on. She resolutely shoved it away.
Eventually, Philip and the other unescorted children were ushered to a special security area. Doing an estimable job of hiding her depression, Robin kissed him goodbye and wished him a wonderful time in Florida. It pained her to watch him vanish beyond the security checkpoint, but she waved brightly and shouted another goodbye at his receding form. Then, feeling immeasurably mournful, she left the airport.
She drove directly to Woodleigh’s. The store was in a state of bedlam. Kevin seemed to have mislaid at least half the items in the stock room; the customers were short-tempered and the clerks were frazzled. None of it bothered Robin, however. She needed the distraction, and she was happy to be surrounded by people in worse moods than her.
At five o’clock, she was free to leave, but she loitered for a while longer in the store, reluctant to go home to her empty house. Roaming around the festive displays of merchandise—the ribbon- and holly-trimmed shelves, the doily-like silver snowflakes fastened to the walls, that blasted sprig of mistletoe dangling from the ceiling near the front door—did little to elevate her spirits, not even when she calculated her shrinking inventory and the profits the store would be earning this year. She was seized with the urge to buy something, but she didn’t know what. Capitalizing on her in-house discount, she had already bought just about everything she’d ever wanted from Woodleigh’s selection of merchandise.
Jesse. She had to buy something for him. She strolled the length of the store again, considering numerous items. Linens? No, he didn’t even own a dining table—what would he do with a table cloth and matching napkins? The absence of dining room furniture also caused her to scratch candlesticks or a hand-embroidered runner for a sideboard from her list. Given his aversion to hard liquor, she couldn’t buy him a bar set. A knickknack of some sort? She hadn’t noticed any shelves in his condo. He’d laughed at the stationery. And what could be less appropriate than a Christmas tree ornament?
As it was, most of the ornaments had already been bought. Just a few remained, arranged prettily on a table covered in green felt in the hope that they’d entice shoppers in need of last-minute stocking stuffers. They looked sad to Robin, lonesome and neglected.
She lifted a tiny crystal angel from the table and studied it. Its face was sweet and cherubic, its wings almost gossamer in their delicacy, its robe smoothly draped and its halo an exquisite circle of clarity, radiant with captured light. So what if Jesse didn’t like it? This was one little angel who deserved a home.
Robin carried the figurine to the counter and did a quick job of boxing and wrapping it. Then, having run out of excuses to linger at the store, she left for home.
Her house seemed unnaturally dark and silent when she entered it. No exuberant welcome from Philip, no long-winded description of schoolwork and snakes, no pleading for sweets. It was like stepping into a mausoleum.
She placed the gift-wrapped angel beneath the tree, took off her coat, and went upstairs to the attic storage area to gather up the gift boxes she’d been hiding there. After changing into her jeans and a loose-fitting sweater, she carried the boxes downstairs and dumped them under the tree as well.
“All right, Santa’s been here,” she muttered to her absent son. Her voice echoed in the empty house, and she tried to conjure an image of Philip shrieking with delight at the sight of all the colorful packages.
Instead, she was visited with the sound of his voice: “The star-shaped ones. Those are his favorites.”
“All right,” she said again, marching to the kitchen. She might as well bake the damned Christmas cookies and get it over with. She wasn’t hungry—she’d fix herself a snack later, if she felt up to it.
Her fingers were crusted with gooey dough when her phone rang twenty minutes later. “Have you eaten?” Jesse asked cheerfully.
The sound of his voice perked her up. She was not going to mope, she was not going to sulk. She was not going to wallow in self-pity, as he’d rightly accused her of doing a few days ago. “Not yet,” she told him, feeling her gloom dissipate at the realization that she wasn’t as alone as she’d thought. She couldn’t be alone when she had Jesse. “I haven’t gotten around to dinner. I’m too busy making cookies.”
“Cookies! If I come over with a pizza, do I get to lick the bowl?”
“Whatever lickings there are, they’re yours.”
“Give me fifteen minutes,” he said before hanging up.
He was coming. He would be here. She wouldn’t have to bake the cookies—or face Christmas—all by herself. A wonderful, selfless, arguably too-tolerant man was going to face it with her. And she felt joyous, truly joyous.
Abandoning the kitchen, she hurried to the living room and plugged in the t
ree lights. Then she lit the candles in the windows. This was the way Christmas was supposed to be, she reminded herself, detouring to the den and turning on the television in search for a Christmas special. If Philip were home, he’d be agitating for her to play one of her Christmas CD’s, but he wasn’t there and she hoped to find a rerun of one of the old, classic TV holiday specials. It would remind her of the Christmases she’d enjoyed as a child, holidays that were happy despite the fact that she hadn’t even known she’d one day be the mother of a magnificent little boy.
She flipped through the channels, stopping at the first Christmas music she came to. The screen featured a huge choir robed in blue and standing in a horseshoe formation, singing Joy to the World in a capella magnificence. “Perfect,” Robin rejoiced, turning up the volume and detouring to the downstairs bathroom to check her appearance.
Her hair was a mess, but she barely had time to brush it before the doorbell rang. Racing from the bathroom, her face radiant with happiness at Jesse’s arrival, she swung the front door open.
His hair and the shoulders of his coat were damp from the drizzle, and his arms cradled a steaming white box from which rose the spicy fragrance of the pizza. He was smiling cautiously, peering past her at the tree and then at the bright candles. She flung her arms around him, nearly knocking the pizza out of his hands, and drew him inside. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she murmured, planting an exuberant kiss on his lips.
“I’m glad I’m here, too,” he said, handing her the box and removing his coat. He’d returned her kiss, but he was still observing her warily. “How are you?”
He must have expected to find her in the doldrums, and she was pleased to have proven him wrong. “I’m fine, Jesse, really. How was Newport?”
He shook his head and laughed. “Ridiculous,” he told her, hanging his coat in the closet. “It was as complicated as a bail hearing, just trying to get the kid sprung. But I did it.” He took the pizza back from her and started toward the kitchen. “Where are those cookies?”
Comfort and Joy Page 18