Not Just For Christmas

by Hazel Redgate

  This could have been me, she thought. This house. The smiling, perfect family. The happy husband. Where did I go wrong?

  That was a long answer, and she knew it. Perhaps the better question would be, where had she gone right?

  Stop it, she told herself. Stop this now. Stop thinking about it. Stop it, stop it, just STOP IT…

  ‘Jo?’

  She forced herself to take a deep breath. When she opened her eyes – when had she closed her eyes? God, he must have thought she was a total look – he was looking at her with concern in his eyes.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s been a long day.’

  He smiled. ‘Yeah, I can see that. Would you like some coffee? Tea, maybe? I think I’ve got some, somewhere…’ He stood up, ready to head back into the kitchen at the slightest word – anything to help. Whoever the woman in those photos is, buddy, she thought, she’s a lucky woman.

  ‘It’s fine, really. I just…’ She paused. ‘Sorry, I have no idea what your name is.’

  ‘David,’ he said. ‘I’m David.

  ‘Well, sorry, David.’ It was better this way; she didn’t belong here, not even for a minute. ‘I think I’d just like to go home.’

  ~~~

  Jo shivered. She had been watching Baxter for almost fifteen minutes, a front-row ticket to the Nervous Canine Bladder Theatrical Extravaganza. He walked circle after circle around the backyard of the Marsh family home, sniffing at every tree and ridge and wall corner, cocking his leg and then deciding, evidently, that this one didn’t feel quite right – only to immediately begin the circuit again, presumably with slightly lower standards.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ she said out loud as he lowered his leg once more. At this point, he seemed to be doing it almost on purpose. He turned to her and cocked his head, as if to say, ‘Well, if you don’t like it, why don’t you go back inside? I don’t stare at you while you try and pee.’

  Not a chance in hell, she thought. Don’t think I trust you, buddy – not after the trick you pulled last time. Two hours’ spent running around in the snow and then a bonk on the head had sullied her on the idea of doing it ever again, and Baxter had spent the last couple of days on the tightest possible leash. Yes, he had spent most of that time whining, but a line had to be drawn. Tough love, she told herself. You wouldn’t be in this mess if you hadn’t decided to go all Great Escape on me.

  Jo sighed, and a plume of white drifted upwards from her mouth. Was this really how she was spending her Christmas break? Waiting for someone else’s dog to relieve himself just so she could go back inside where it was warm?

  She had checked her Facebook feed earlier that day, and found it just as depressing as ever. Even Mrs. Rodriguez had got in on the action. Front and centre on her page was a photo of her grinning on a white sandy beach, with a straw hat on her head and a cocktail – Jo suspected not the first – in her hand. ‘Having the time of my life in Australia!’ the caption read. ‘#DownUnder #BondiBeach #NeverComingHome.’ Who the hell taught an eighty-one year old woman how a hashtag worked? she thought to herself. And you’d damn well better come home. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life looking after your little furball. It’s been a week, and I already feel like I’m losing my mind.

  The gate to the outside world swung open, and her father stepped through it carrying two large bags of groceries. He waddled forward and paused, momentarily checking his balance, before looking up. He seemed almost surprised that she was standing there, in the yard in the middle of winter. Put like that, it didn’t really make much sense to her either.

  ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Didn’t see you there. Give me a hand?’

  She took one of the bags from him and waited while he fumbled with door handle. ‘Everything alright, kiddo?’ he asked.

  She nodded, almost by instinct. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You sure about that?’

  No, she thought. No, not at all.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Mom told me you went for a little wander the other day. Back around the old stomping ground?’

  ‘Something like that?’

  ‘Seeing some old friends?’

  ‘Not really.’ The truth was, she didn’t really have any old friends – not locally, anyway. Maybe not anywhere. That was the thing about marriage. You put all of your energy into one person, telling yourself that This One Is Important… and everyone else just sort of falls by the wayside. Sure, you still see them, from time to time – it’s hard not to, once you take social media into account – but that’s not really the same thing. Friends go out and do things. They don’t make vague promises to ‘do lunch sometime’ that both of them know will never come to fruition.

  ‘What about new friends?’

  ‘Dad…’

  ‘What?’ George Marsh looked genuinely aggrieved for a moment.

  ‘You know what.’

  He sighed. ‘I’m just worried about you, JJ,’ he said. ‘You know that. Your mother too.’

  ‘I know.’ Believe me, I know.

  ‘What happened with Richard–’

  ‘Do we really have to do this now?’

  Her father shrugged. ‘If not now, then when? I know, I know. You’re your own woman. You always have been, right from being a little girl. You’re not like Meg and Amy and Beth. You never really needed anyone.’

  ‘Is that a bad thing?’

  ‘No. I mean, not always.’

  ‘Just for me, then.’

  He paused. ‘Are you happy, JJ?’

  ‘I’m fine. I told you.’

  ‘But that wasn’t what I asked. Are you happy? All alone in that little apartment of yours, way out there in the sticks? Doing God knows what with your time?’

  ‘I live in Freemont, Dad. It’s less than an hour away.’

  He waved his hand. ‘You might as well be off with your sister in the middle of nowhere. You know she’s not coming home for Christmas this year, right?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Everyone for miles around knew. Amy Marsh, middle child and scientific wunderkind – at least, the way her mother told it – couldn’t make it to Christmas dinner because she’d be up at the North Pole, saving the planet. Never mind that it was northern Canada, not quite Santa’s Workshop. Never mind that Amy’s work was less a Captain Planet situation and more a case of looking down a microscope at arctic bacterial samples all day. At least her work sounded like she was doing something important. And then there was Beth, who’d just got herself a place in a major orchestra in New York – and Meg, who still had her whole damn life ahead of her. Not for the first time, the oldest of the Marsh girls felt the cold chill of being overshadowed.

  ‘We were talking about it,’ George said eventually, ‘And I know there’s no good way to say it, but here goes. Why don’t you move back here?’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Here.

  ‘To Riverton?’

  ‘If you like. Or back in here.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Come on, honey. Be reasonable. We’ve got this big house, just the two of us – and really, what are we doing with all this space now that Amy and Beth and Meg are all gone?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Just until you get back on your feet.’

  ‘I am on my feet. I told you, I’m doing OK. I’ve got a place of my own, and a job, and…’ Well, not quite a life; she wouldn’t go that far. But she was settled. That was enough.

  ‘And a dog?’

  ‘Yes. Temporarily.’

  ‘It’s not a substitute for a boyfriend, you know. Or a husband.’

  ‘It’s not supposed to be. And it’s not even a long-term deal. I’m just looking after him for a friend.’

  ‘So you do have friends over there?’

  ‘Yes!’ Sort of…

  ‘Good.’ He nodded to himself. ‘That’s good, JJ. You need to get out there. Meet people.’ George let out a long sigh that condensed into a puff of white in the December air. ‘I know I’m being an old nag. I know you’ll be fine. It’s just… fat
herly protection, that’s all. I have to. I wouldn’t be doing my job otherwise.’

  ‘You’re retired, Dad.’

  ‘Not from that. Never from that.’ He paused. ‘Just… look after yourself, OK?’

  ‘I’ll do my best. I promise.’

  ‘That’s all I ask. And I’ll tell your mother not to worry too. You know what she’s like.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  She leaned forwards and wrapped her arms around her father, and felt a warm glow spread through her as he returned the favour. Just for a moment, she was back to being a little girl again, safe and cared for. It wasn’t much, not really, but it was something. A sign that someone had her back. A reminder that she was loved.

  Maybe he was right. Maybe she was a little too fiercely independent. Richard had always joked about that – but then again, he was the solitary sort too. ‘That’s how you know we work,’ he had said. ‘We don’t need each other. We’re together because we want to be.’ Well, now they weren’t together, and they didn’t still want to be – in fact, she wondered if she ever had, really. It had been a long time since she had been hugged properly.

  And if he was right about that, maybe he was right about other things too. Would moving back home really be the worst idea? It wasn’t like she had much keeping her in Freemont, not anymore. Her job would let her work anywhere. And the apartment was kind of expensive for what it was. She could save some money up, maybe get a down-payment on a little house of her own. Besides, there was no real shame in moving back in with your parents, was there? It was very Millennial. She could manage on her own – and perfectly well, thank you very much. It just made more financial sense not to.

  Something to think about, anyway. Something to consider next year, once Christmas is out of the way and things are a bit more settled. A little bit quieter.

  She wrinkled her nose. Quieter. Yes, that was it: the creeping feeling of unease that had been growing for the past few minutes, a slowly blossoming sixth sense. The yard was quiet. Too quiet. She hadn’t heard that level of stillness in days.

  ‘Dad?’ she said.

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘Did you leave the gate open?’

  ~~~

  ‘Dad! The dog lady’s here!’

  For such a little girl, Molly had a voice like a foghorn. She bellowed down the hallway, and then turned back to Jo, her stance immediately hardening. She stood in the doorframe like a tiny sentry, legs apart, hands on hips, almost daring Jo to try and get past her.

  Stand down, soldier, she thought. I don’t really want to be here either.

  David came to the door a couple of seconds after his daughter, wiping his hands on a dishtowel. He smiled as he saw her. ‘Hey,’ he said.

  ‘The dog lady?’

  ‘Sorry. I told her your name. I guess she forgot.’

  ‘You were expecting me?’

  He nodded. ‘Well, sort of. I think we have something of yours?’

  As if on cue, Baxter came bounding into the hallway with Molly following close on his heels. He skittered across the hardwood until he saw Jo standing in the doorway, and promptly ran off back into the house. Well, she thought, of all the ungrateful little…

  ‘I don’t want you to think this is a regular thing,’ she said. ‘Losing my dog, I mean. I’m usually a lot more responsible than this. I just…’

  David smiled. It was truly amazing how much that one little gesture helped to put her at ease. ‘Hey, we should be the ones apologising to you,’ he said.

  ‘How do you figure?’

  ‘Well, you know. It’s starting to look a little bit like me and Molly are running the world’s laziest dognapping ring.’

  ‘Get the dogs to come to you?’ Jo smiled. ‘That’s not lazy. It’s just smart business.’

  ‘That’s what I’m thinking. I mean, it’s all about the profit margins, right?’

  She held up the leash. ‘I should probably…’

  ‘Oh, right. Right. Obviously. You’re probably super busy.’

  From anyone else, she got the feeling it would have sounded sarcastic, but there was just something about David that made that feel impossible. He was so… sincere. Achingly so, in fact. Her night was going to be filled with nothing more taxing than flicking through the local TV channels – no Netflix, not here; that was a level of technological witchery that George and Patricia Marsh had no taste for – and perhaps idly convincing herself to do some work. She had brought a stack of papers with her to the Marsh home to get finished over the Christmas break, in the hope that being surrounded by people might make it easier to stomach than the oppressive loneliness she was used to, but so far she had barely touched it. She was about as far from busy as humanly possible.

  ‘We would have returned him, but you never actually told us where you lived, so…’ He shrugged. ‘We figured you’d find your way back here eventually. Either that, or we would have gone out looking for you. Put up posters, that sort of thing.’ He turned back into the hallway. ‘Molly! Come out here!’

  There was no response.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I think she’s a little bit in love with him. She’s probably pretending not to hear me. Come on through?’

  He guided Jo gently inside, and gestured through to the living room. ‘He’ll be in there.’

  The twinkling lights were in force again, a shrine to the spirit of Christmas. Molly was in the middle of it all, down on the ground with Baxter looming over her, wagging his tail so fast it looked like he was trying to take off. She didn’t even look around as Jo and her father entered. ‘Honey, stop letting Baxter lick your face,’ he said.

  The little girl giggled. ‘But he likes it!’

  ‘It’s unhygienic.’

  ‘It tickles!’

  ‘I know, but…’ He sighed. ‘Fine, fine. Just don’t lick him back, OK?’

  ‘Gross!’

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Because that would be ridiculous.’ David turned to her. ‘Have you got kids?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Well, it’s sort of like having a tiny little petri dish in the house. Germs on germs on germs. I swear, parenting is about ten percent making sure she gets enough vegetables, and ninety percent trying to stop her from putting stuff in her mouth.’

  If Molly heard, she wasn’t offended; she was too busy on her hands and knees, yapping along with Baxter.

  ‘She really seems to like him,’ Jo said.

  David smiled. ‘Yeah, she does. She pretty much exploded when she saw him in the yard. It was like Christmas had come early.’

  ‘He was just there?’

  ‘Yep. Right on our doorstep, wagging his tail. As soon as we opened the door he walked right in like he owned the place. Made himself right at home.’

  Traitor, she thought as she watched Baxter rolling around on the rug. David had a point, though. The dog did seem to be enjoying himself more here than he did at the Marsh house.

  Molly broke off from her playtime and looked up at the two of them. ‘Dad, does Baxter have to go home so soon?’ she said.

  ‘Sorry, honey. Unless…’ He turned to Jo. ‘You’re welcome to stay for dinner, if you want?’

  ‘Really, I couldn’t. I wouldn’t want to be a burden.’

  ‘You mean, after my daughter stole your dog and we caused you a head injury?’ He grinned. ‘It wouldn’t be a burden. It’s just pasta, but I always make too much. We’re a big leftovers family.’

  ‘Won’t your wife mind?’

  He shook his head. ‘It’s just the two of us,’ he said. There was a momentary look of sadness in his eyes, a wound that had healed but where a phantom pain still lingered. Divorce, maybe? Still recent? No, that wasn’t it. She knew the look that particularly scenario caused – knew it a little too well, in fact. It wasn’t sadness that drove that particular trolley, no sir. Rage? Sure. Blankness? Depression? In spades. But sadness didn’t feature. ‘So yeah. The offer’s there, if you want?’

  ‘Yeah!’ Molly said from the flo
or. ‘And it’s got broccoli in it, but you can pick that out if you like.’

  ‘No, she can’t.’ David paused, then turned to Jo. ‘Sorry. I mean, you can, obviously. But not you, Molly.’

  ‘Lame.’

  Jo smiled. ‘I think I’ll be OK,’ she said.

  ~~~

  Once the plates were cleared away, she could hear David rummaging around in the kitchen for a minute before he emerged holding an enormous dessert plate.

  ‘Can I tempt you?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t. I’m stuffed. That was delicious, thank you.’

  Her resolve lasted just about as long as it took him to lay the plate down on the table. The chocolate sponge he had brought out was so dense as to be almost black, with four thin layers of brown fudge separating it out like the striations in an ancient canyon. He slid the knife in and she watched the cake separate with barely a crumb: moist and firm.

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘Maybe a small slice wouldn’t hurt…’

  He grinned. ‘Hard to resist?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Dad makes it,’ Molly piped up between mouthfuls. ‘It’s real good.’

  He slid a plate over to Jo, and watched with fascination as she took a small, tentative bite. ‘My God,’ she said.

  ‘You like it.’

  ‘You bet I do. Seriously, that might be the best cake I’ve ever tasted.’

  ‘Flatterer.’

  ‘I mean it. So good.’

  Satisfied, he took his seat and began to dig in himself. ‘It’s my weakness,’ he said, almost apologetically. ‘My mom was a hell of a pastry chef when I was growing up. Cakes, eclairs, pies… I ended up with a real sweet tooth. It makes it hard to give my diabetic patients a hard time, but…’ He took another bite of the cake, and the look on his face said it all: hypocrisy it may have been, but when it tasted this good, it was almost permissible.

  ‘You really made it yourself?’

  He smiled. ‘Why, is that so hard to believe?’

  ‘Oh, sure. A single doctor who bakes. You guys are a dime a dozen.’

  ‘A single father doctor who bakes,’ he corrected. ‘Believe it or not, I don’t get a lot of time to go out on dates. It’s a bit of a full schedule.’ He paused. ‘What about you? What’s the story there?’