Father Christmas

by Judith Arnold

  John chuckled. Turning back to Molly, he fell silent, as if embarrassed that she should see him enjoying his son’s dreadful singing. “I’ve got to go,” he said abruptly, pivoting on his heel.

  She wanted to grab hold of him and force him to talk about what had happened Saturday. She and John had shared something significant, and she didn’t want to forget about it.

  But she couldn’t force him to accept what he would rather deny. She couldn’t force him to want her today the way he’d seemed to want her Saturday. He might have lost control then, but he wasn’t going to lose control today.

  She considered this a sad thing, and not just for selfish reasons. For a few precious minutes in the foam pit, John had laughed and played. He’d been carefree, not a police officer or a single father but a man in the throes of fun.

  He wasn’t carefree anymore. And that was a loss to him as much as to her.

  ***

  “WHERE’S YOUR SANTA SUIT?” Dennis Murphy asked.

  John wondered what the hot-shot lawyer was doing in the detectives’ squad room. Was Murphy here on a client’s behalf, or did he have personal business with John?

  Maybe last week’s situation with his children and the ATM machine had backfired in some way, requiring further police action. Or perhaps Murphy had just stopped by to razz John about his Santa Claus disguise. What with the holiday hubbub in the station house lobby, where crews were setting up a huge spruce on one side of the entry and an enormous electric menorah on the other, Murphy’s comment might be nothing more than a display of spirit.

  What John had to say about the holiday spirit wasn’t printable, so he kept his mouth shut.

  He’d already been in an unsettled mood when he’d arrived at headquarters that morning and discovered the tree lying tethered on a flatbed truck outside the station house. He didn’t like the way Molly could get to him with such a seemingly innocent question as “How are you?” That was the normal courtesy acquaintances used, wasn’t it? “Hello. How are you?”

  Except that Molly was no mere acquaintance, and nothing that happened between them could be considered a normal courtesy. Not after Saturday.

  He shouldn’t have kissed her. He shouldn’t have let her reach inside and take hold of his soul the way she had. He had no time for an affair with her, no energy. The whole thing had failure written all over it.

  As if seeing her wasn’t enough to remind him of everything that was screwed up in his life, he’d arrived at work and seen the tree. Like the reproachful wag of a finger in front of his face, it reminded him that he was going to have to get a Christmas tree for Mike. Last year, Sherry had argued that standing a huge, messy fir tree in the living room would be more trouble than it was worth, given that Mike was too young to understand Christmas. She, after all, would be the one stuck watering the tree, decorating it and vacuuming the needles from the floor every day. If she didn’t want a tree and Mike didn’t care, why get one?

  But that was last year. This year, Mike knew damned well what Christmas was all about—if not the religious significance, then certainly the part about Santa leaving a sleigh-load of toys under a tree.

  John felt inadequate and overwhelmed. Not only did he have to get a tree, but he had to buy ornaments and tinsel and all that Christmas stuff—plus gifts for Mike. He had no idea what Mike needed or wanted, other than a second toy airplane. The kid was too young for a bike or baseball gear. Did they make basketball hoops for two-year-olds? John had no idea.

  Molly would know.

  Thinking of her brought on a memory of her standing behind her desk at the preschool, peering up at him with her caramel-soft eyes and saying, “How are you?” Such a typical question wasn’t supposed to wreak havoc with a man’s equilibrium, but coming from Molly it did. He knew he couldn’t answer, “Fine.” She’d wanted a real answer, one he wasn’t able to provide—one he could hardly begin to put into words.

  Dennis Murphy was approaching his desk. He had to stop obsessing about Molly and act like a proper officer of the law.

  Murphy drew to a halt at John’s desk and glanced at his civilian apparel. “So, you’re not impersonating Santa anymore?”

  John gazed up and him over his computer monitor and shook his head. “Sorry to disappoint your daughter, but I’ll be out on the streets as Santa this afternoon.”

  “I hate to think my kids are old enough to learn St. Nick is a fraud, but I don’t hold you accountable. You did those two a tremendous favor,” Murphy said earnestly. He adjusted the blazer of his thousand-dollar suit and smiled. “I’ve got a client upstairs, called in for questioning about a bit of financial legerdemain he might or might not have witnessed. I thought, on my way upstairs I could stop by and say hello.” He smiled. Even his teeth looked well-groomed. “Actually, to express my gratitude.”

  John shrugged. He hadn’t considered his actions on behalf of the Murphy twins anything out of the ordinary.

  “Thanks to their little walk on the wild side,” said Murphy, “their mother is paying closer attention to the baby-sitters she hires. This is a good thing.”

  John nodded.

  “You handled the entire incident with great sensitivity.”

  Translation: I owe you big for not opening juvie files on the kids. Well, of course he hadn’t opened files on them. He wasn’t going to give a couple of seven-year-olds a police record, even if juvenile records were usually sealed, and then expunged if the kids made it to adulthood without further brushes with the law.

  John studied Dennis Murphy. Like John, Murphy was a single father, but he wasn’t the custodial parent dealing with the day-to-day stuff. If anyone should have John’s sympathy, it was Murphy’s ex-wife, struggling to find a decent baby-sitter for her children. Mike had been through a few sitters himself: Norma, whom he’d loved, and Harriet Simka, whom he’d hated. John knew just how difficult it was to find the perfect caregiver.

  “I guess I’d better get myself upstairs and make sure my client doesn’t shoot his fool mouth off,” Murphy said, cracking another bright smile. John held his own smile in place until Murphy had vanished into the stairwell. Then, expressing his mood with a quiet curse, he ran through the last of his phone-mail messages and headed for the locker room to change into his Santa Claus costume. He wished he could put on a jolly spirit along with the abdomen padding and the fake beard. Saying “ho, ho, ho” convincingly was going to be impossible when all he could think of was Molly, Molly, Molly.

  ***

  SHE WONDERED HOW LONG she could put off any sort of meeting with him. He obviously felt uncomfortable with her, and his discomfort made her uncomfortable. She wasn’t going to be able to avoid him forever—but that didn’t mean she couldn’t try.

  Monday afternoon, it was easy enough; she simply asked Cara to remain at the desk for the final hour of the day, when parents came to retrieve their children. “I’ll be upstairs straightening up the second floor, if you need me,” she explained. “If I stay down here, I might have to listen to another tirade from Elsie Pelham.”

  “I can handle her,” Cara said sunnily. Molly didn’t doubt it. With her beauty and her sweet disposition, Cara could handle a grizzly bear coming off a hunger strike. Elsie Pelham and her messy divorce would be a snap.

  Going upstairs and sweeping the scattered sand from the floor around the sand table was a snap, too—at least, compared to coming face to face with John Russo again. Sooner or later she’d have to confront him. But she had a decent chance of delaying the inevitable for at least another day. Tomorrow morning, she could arrange to be busy in the supply room while the children were coming in, and she had a dental check-up scheduled for four o’clock that afternoon, so she’d be out of the school by the time parents came to start picking up their children.

  But if she made a habit of staying away from the front desk, she would be unavailable for other parents who liked to talk to her and hear about how their children were progressing. And even if she could elude John for the entire week, he
might show up Saturday at her Daddy School class.

  Not likely, she thought with a snort.

  It wasn’t like her to hide from situations—or from people. She hated lying, or lying low. It simply wasn’t her style.

  Damn it, she wasn’t going to act as if she were afraid of John Russo. Maybe he was afraid of her, but for heaven’s sake, he was a cop. He was the one with the gun. What could she possibly do to him, besides remind him that one time in his too-constricted life he’d cut loose and had fun and kissed Molly?

  Her dentist found no cavities on Tuesday, so Molly had no reason to return to the dental clinic Wednesday. She took her station at the front desk in the morning, but when she heard Michael enter, she gravitated toward the supply room, where she remained for a safe ten minutes. If John had wanted to talk to her, he could have marched right past her desk and into the supply room, the way he had the first day he’d come to the Children’s Garden. But if he’d entered the building at all, he left it without making his presence known.

  She managed to keep him away from the forefront of her mind most of the day. The school was busy and noisy. Swirls of snow descended from the sky and dusted the backyard play area, forcing teachers to cancel their usual outdoor activities. Cooped up inside, the children grew rowdy and restless. The staff needed Molly’s help in keeping everyone occupied and out of trouble. She organized the pre-K class to script and stage a puppet show for the younger students. She opened and mopped up several quarts of finger paint for the older toddlers, put together a potty-training clinic for the young toddlers, and led circle games for the tiny tots until her hands were sore from clapping and her voice was faded from singing.

  “I’ve got to leave,” Cara told her at five-thirty. “I promised to take my sister to the mall for Christmas shopping tonight.”

  “Go ahead,” Molly dismissed her. “Let me know if they’ve got any good sales.” She watched her assistant zip up her parka, lift the hood over her hair and set out into the snow. Only about an inch had accumulated. The roads wouldn’t be bad.

  Even with the roads cleared, though, Molly was anxious to leave. She didn’t want to be around when John showed up.

  Unable to abandon her post by the front door, she straightened out her desk, turned off her computer rehearsed what she hoped was a non-threatening smile. When Elsie Pelham came in, Abigail was so full of exuberant chatter about the snow that her mother didn’t have a chance to vent about her custody battle. Other mothers and fathers came and went. Each time the front door opened, Molly’s heart lurched a little, then settled back into its rhythm when she saw that the person entering wasn’t John.

  She waved off Keisha and her father, then checked her watch. Six fifteen. No sign of John.

  Shannon emerged down the hall with Michael. “Everyone else is gone,” Shannon reported. “Do you want to stay with him till his dad comes, or should I?”

  “I’ll stay,” Molly said. She might as well see John and get it over with. It wouldn’t be so bad, since they’d have Michael between them. They’d be so busy wrestling him into his boots and jacket and mittens, they wouldn’t have time to talk to each other. She wouldn’t have a chance to gaze into his eyes. She wouldn’t have the chance to decipher his smile—if he was smiling, which wasn’t likely.

  Six twenty. Michael sat on the floor of the hall, engaged in a fight to the death with his boots. He’d gotten one boot halfway onto his left foot before giving up and attempting to wriggle the other boot onto his right. Molly peeked past the front door into the parking lot but saw no approaching headlights.

  “Let me help you with those boots,” she suggested.

  “My daddy’s here?”

  “Not yet.”

  “My daddy’s a police.”

  “I know that,” she said, kneeling on the floor next to Michael and easing the boot over his heel.

  “He’s at the policeman place.”

  “I’m sure he is. He’ll be here soon.”

  “We can go there.”

  “I don’t know about that,” said Molly. “If we go there while he’s on his way here, we’ll miss him.”

  “He’s at the policeman place,” Michael insisted.

  “I tell you what: I’ll give the policeman place a call and see if he’s still there.”

  Michael followed her into the office area, his boots clomping loudly with each step. Little boys had a way of walking to maximize noise, and Michael proved himself to be an expert at it. He looked so much like his father, yet in behavior he was the opposite—loud, rambunctious, uninhibited and easily given to laughter or tears.

  While Molly looked up John’s business phone number in Michael’s file, Michael experimented with jumping in his boots. They made a clumsy galumphing noise which obviously pleased him. He jumped again and squealed.

  “Quiet, please,” Molly whispered as the phone was answered on the other end, a weary-sounding woman identifying Arlington Police headquarters. “Can I have John Russo’s line, please?”

  She heard a click, then five rings, and then John’s voice on a tape, saying he was away from his desk and she could either leave a message after the beep or remain on the line. She remained on the line.

  After a minute, the woman who’d originally answered the call said, “Arlington Police Headquarters. This call is being recorded. Can I help you?”

  Molly identified herself. “I’m trying to find out if Detective Russo has left for the day. I have his son here at my preschool, and it’s now—” she checked her watch and scowled “a half hour past pick-up time.”

  “Hang on a second,” the woman said. Judging from the muffled sound, Molly assumed she’d covered the mouthpiece with her hand before shouting, “Hey, Steve, you know John Russo’s car?” There was a pause, and then, “Is it still in the lot?” Another pause, and the woman spoke back into the phone. “His car is still in the lot, so I guess he’s still here. He must just be away from his desk.”

  “Can you give him a message?” Molly asked, following Michael’s clomping dance around the office with her gaze. “Tell him to stay put. I’ll drive his son to the police station.”

  “Okay. I’ll leave a message.”

  “Thanks.” Molly hung up the phone and smiled at Michael. “You were right. Your daddy’s at the policeman place. Let’s go.”

  ***

  THE SNOW WAS WET, and the ground was warm enough to keep it from sticking. The roads glistened, but they weren’t dangerously slick. Molly clicked on her windshield wipers, and Michael burst into his version of “The Wheels on the Bus” once more, crooning gleefully about wet-wipes going swish, swish, swish.

  “Do you like snow?” she asked, glimpsing him in her rear-view mirror. The school kept spare child booster seats on hand, and she’d strapped him into the middle rear seat of her Saturn.

  “I like snow,” he told her. “It’s big and cold and you can make snowmen.”

  “Well, this snow looks pretty slushy. I don’t know if you’ll be able to make a snowman with it.”

  “I can make a snowball.”

  “I bet you could do that.” She turned the corner. Rush hour was winding down, but there was still a fair amount of downtown traffic. Headlights reflected off the streets and glared into her eyes.

  Why hadn’t John picked up Michael? He’d never before neglected to pick his son up on time. If he was running late today, why hadn’t he at least called to let Molly know? Did he really hate her that much?

  Who cared if he did? He knew the school rules, and he would be the first to describe himself as responsible to a fault. Something must have happened, some involved case. Maybe he was locked inside an interrogation room, breaking down a suspect, making the poor guy sweat and squirm. Maybe the suspect was about to spill the beans, and John didn’t want to halt the interrogation when he was so close to a breakthrough. Maybe he was flashing his gun under the guy’s nose, flashing his badge, rattling the keys to a jail cell. Maybe he was throwing around his weight as a police offi
cer, intimidating someone, abusing his power.

  And maybe she shouldn’t listen to Gail so much.

  They reached the police station, parked in one of the spaces marked for visitors, and entered the sprawling lobby. A seven-foot-tall spruce stood on one side of the room. Michael let out a cheer and raced over to it, suddenly agile and quick in his boots. “A tree, a tree! A Christmas tree!”

  Molly smiled and let him dance around the tree for a minute. It was adorned with flashing colored lights and ribbon-wrapped Styrofoam balls. Across the vaulted lobby stood a huge menorah topped with nine flame-shaped red light bulbs, none of them yet lit.

  “Come on, Michael,” she said when it seemed he wasn’t going to leave the tree without urging. “Let’s go find your daddy.”

  “A Christmas tree,” he explained to her, slipping his small, mittened hand into hers and letting her lead him away. “Santa Claus leaves presents under the tree. He comes down the chimbley.”

  “Chimney,” she corrected him. “That’s right.”

  “Where’s the chimbley here? They got a chimbley in the policeman place?”

  “Sure they do.”

  “And a fireplace? Gotta have a fireplace. Santa comes down the chimbley to the fireplace.”

  “I don’t know if they have one of those,” Molly said, leading Michael over to a broad counter behind which officers and dispatchers swarmed. “But Santa knows how to get into buildings even if they don’t have fireplaces. He’s very clever.”

  Michael nodded in agreement. “He’s smart. He gives children toys.”

  Molly suppressed a laugh as she crossed the lobby to the counter and caught the eye of a uniformed woman on the other side. “Excuse me—where can we find John Russo? He’s a detective here.”

  “Russo? Up one flight of stairs and turn left.”

  Molly thanked her. Still holding Michael’s hand, she headed for the stairs. A slow anger began to simmer inside her. John should have called the school. He should have been as responsible today as he always was. He shouldn’t have neglected his child, even though Michael was too excited about this new adventure—driving in the school director’s car to the police station at night, seeing snow, seeing a Christmas tree—to care much about his father’s oversight. Molly cared. And her anger built.