Father Christmas

by Judith Arnold

  Coffey was appropriately sympathetic. He assured John that Bud Schaefer would bring the assault victim in for a line-up, but that the collar would belong to John. He asked if John felt strong enough to be able to dictate his statement to one of the clerks if she went to his house. John said yes. He wasn’t in the mood to give a statement, but he also wasn’t in the mood to refuse his boss’s request.

  He wasn’t in the mood to keep track of a giddy young boy, either. Driving Mike to the Children’s Garden himself wasn’t possible, given the way he felt, but he couldn’t ask someone else to drive Mike for him. He hated having to beg for favors.

  So he spent the day in the den with Mike, watching through bleary eyes as the kid fire-bombed make-believe airports, drop-kicked Duplos, drew a crayon self-portrait on the front page of the Arlington Gazette’s Metro section and watched the video of Mary Poppins that John’s mother had given him for his birthday, singing harmony with Julie Andrews on “A Spoonful of Sugar” and mimicking the chimney sweeps’ dance in “Step In Time.”

  John popped pain-killers and sipped ginger-ale and every now and then dozed off. He gave his statement to the department clerk who showed up with a laptop, and he fielded a call from the doctor who had stitched him up. The doctor wanted to have a look at John’s wounds tomorrow. John said sure, hung up, and listened to Mike mangle “Supercalifragilistic” at the top of his lungs.

  It was for situations like this that a man needed a wife—not for himself but for his son. If Molly hadn’t accompanied him home from the hospital last night, he wouldn’t have been able to fix a real dinner for Mike, not even a snack as trivial as soup and a grilled-cheese sandwich, and he would have had to put Mike to bed without a bath. John wouldn’t have made it without Molly yesterday. He could barely make it without her today.

  Odd, how when he thought about a wife, he didn’t think about Sherry. If she’d been around yesterday, she would have seen the knife assault as just one more bit of proof that cops existed in a world she wanted no part of. She had always resented the special demands of his job. “Why can’t you work nine to five like a normal person?” she used to complain. “Why don’t they pay you more? Why can’t you get a real job?”

  Because a cop was what he was, he would tell her. A cop saw the world a certain way, just as an artist did, or a fisherman, or a priest. It was a calling, something you did because it was the only way to make sense of your life. People didn’t become cops for the money or the hours. They didn’t do it because they thought it would make their wives or husbands happy. They did it because they had to, because not to do it would be a kind of death.

  It was something non-cops couldn’t understand. He doubted Molly would understand it. Her sister, that cool blond lawyer who made a living defending scum like the guy who’d sliced open John’s arm, sure didn’t.

  By the time he put Mike down for the night—skipping bath time—John decided the day qualified as one of the longest of his life. The night felt even longer. He lay in bed, ignoring the pain in his arm for the deeper discomfort of his thoughts about Molly. Those who didn’t feel the calling never understood those who did. They might respect a cop, but they couldn’t really understand one.

  He didn’t want Molly’s respect. He wasn’t even sure he wanted her understanding. He wanted her passion, but he would probably have to settle for her knowledge of children and bath toys.

  He had no right to ask for more from her than her expertise. If he did ask, she would have every reason to say no.

  ***

  ELSIE PELHAM WAS RANTING about the latest indignity her ex-husband’s lawyer had inflicted on her when a familiar-looking man with salt-and-pepper hair and a neatly trimmed mustache came into the Children’s Garden Friday morning. Next to him, chattering at full volume, was Michael.

  Molly held up a finger to silence Elsie and turned to the man. “Bud Schaefer,” he identified himself, extending an envelope to Molly. “We met at the hospital the other day.”

  She nodded, remembering. He was one of the officers in the emergency room waiting area—the one with John’s clothes. She opened the envelope and slid out a sheet of lined paper. In a barely legible scribble, it said, “Bud Schaefer has my permission to pick up Mike. John Russo.”

  “He’s not too good writing with his left hand,” Bud explained.

  Molly smiled, amazed that he could remember to send a written note about releasing his son to someone other than himself. He certainly had enough else on his mind right now. And with his injured right hand, he could have telephoned to let her know he authorized his friend to fetch Michael at the end of the day. Ordinarily she wanted written permission, but John’s circumstances weren’t ordinary.

  “How is he?”

  “Miserable,” Bud reported cheerfully. “He’s got a doctor’s appointment today. They’ll let him know how he’s doing.”

  “He’s going to drive to the doctor’s office?”

  Bud shrugged. “I’d drive him, but I don’t think we can afford the manpower right now. We’ve got our hands full with all those street punks he collared last week during his Santa gig. Besides—” he grinned “—none of us wants to get stuck wearing the Santa costume, so we’re all keeping as busy as we can on other projects, if you know what I mean.”

  Molly knew what he meant: John was a nobler cop than the rest of them. He was willing to take the toughest jobs. She would have assumed that the toughest jobs for a cop involved raiding crack houses or hunting down mass murderers. Evidently, the really tough jobs included dressing up in a silly Santa Claus costume.

  “Does he—do you think he’d mind if I called? Just to see how he’s doing,” she explained, smiling blandly. She didn’t want this friendly police officer to know how concerned she was about John, how deeply she admired him...how much she cared.

  “I wouldn’t advise it,” he said, casting a quick look down the hall at Mike, who was engaged in a one-on-one with his left boot on the floor next to his cubby. He turned back to Molly. “He’s been sleeping a lot. And when he’s not asleep, he’s grouchy as hell.”

  Molly nodded, trying not to let disappointment show. What selfishness, that she should place her own longing to talk to John ahead of his need to be left alone. She thanked Bud for bringing Michael to school, waved him off, and gave herself a stern mental lecture about not letting John preoccupy her all day. At night, alone in her bed, she could think about him. But not today, with Cara out sick with bronchitis and a school full of rambunctious children, and Elsie Pelham resuming her rant about her protracted custody battle.

  And really, she told herself, why did she want to bother him with a phone call, anyway? If he wanted her to know how he was doing, he would call her. He had more important things on his mind than putting her worries to rest. She pictured him storming around his house, growling and snarling, and decided that she probably didn’t want to talk to him, after all.

  He hadn’t been growling and snarling when she’d been at his house. The way he’d gazed at her, and touched her...

  He had obviously been too delirious to know what he was doing then. Now he was recovering, and his first task as he fought his way back to health was to reconstruct all his defenses. She had better things to do than to try to breach them.

  When Bud Schaefer returned to the school at five-thirty to pick Michael up, Molly politely asked him to pass along her good wishes to John. She waited until all the children were gone, then locked up the school and drove home. Yesterday’s snow had melted, leaving nothing but ugly mounds of slush along the curbs. The festive holiday lights and decorations hanging in the shop windows along Dudley Road depressed her. They made her think of street-corner Santas, which in turn made her think of one particular Santa who could have used his gun but hadn’t. Who could have kissed her but hadn’t.

  She wasn’t going to think about John anymore. She wasn’t going to think about the brush of his thumb against her lips. She’d helped out a school parent, period. She would have done as muc
h for Abbie Pelham’s mom, or Dana’s, or Keisha’s. Instead, she’d done it for Michael’s dad, and now it was time to forget about it.

  Or so she resolved as she headed off to her weekly Daddy School class Saturday morning. She was calm and composed, fully prepared to lead a discussion on ways to counteract the overwhelming materialism of the holiday season, how to shop for toys that would hold the children’s interest for more than ten minutes on Christmas morning and how to counteract the barrage of commercials the kids saw on TV.

  The last thing she expected was for John Russo to show up for class.

  Chapter Eleven

  “I GOT MIKE A TREE,” he said.

  Most of the other fathers had left; the two that remained were huddled with their young daughters near the front door, negotiating the details of a play-date. John loitered in the Pre-K classroom with Michael, who was seated on the floor near the gate, working up a sweat trying to get his feet into his boots.

  John looked markedly better than he’d looked Wednesday evening. He was clean-shaven, his hair relatively neat, his right hand wrapped in less bulky bandages. His eyes were still shadowed, his face a bit drawn, but his complexion had regained a healthy undertone, and his lips were no longer pinched with pain.

  He had on a slate-gray V-neck sweater with a white T-shirt underneath, and black jeans. The colorless outfit ought to have seemed drab or even funereal, but on him it looked vivid, a bit dangerous and rather sexy, especially when compared to the way he’d looked in his bright Santa Claus costume.

  Oh, yes, he was sexy. Molly didn’t want to be viewing him that way, but she couldn’t help herself. After not seeing him for several days, she only had to glance at him and her mind was abducted by memories of his naked torso, of his thumb caressing her mouth.

  “A tree?” she asked, her voice steadier than her nerves.

  “White pine. Yesterday when Bud brought Mike home, I asked him to help us get it.” He lifted his injured hand and pulled a face. “I’m useless by myself.”

  “You’re not useless,” Molly corrected him, thinking of all the things he could do with one hand, and then thinking she’d better stop thinking about it. She distracted herself by contemplating her own failure to get a tree.

  In Decembers past, she and Gail used to spend the holiday with their parents, but this year their parents had decided to take a Christmas cruise with friends. Gail had arranged with a few friends from law school to rent a cabin in Killington, Vermont, where they could greet Christmas on skis. Molly had declined Gail’s offer to join them, because she’d also received an invitation from Allison to celebrate the holiday with her, Jamie and the baby. Allison had mentioned that she and Jamie had invited several other friends to their house for the holiday, including—ominously—Jamie’s dear friend Steve, a classmate of his at Dartmouth and an extremely eligible bachelor.

  Molly wasn’t eager to let Allison and Jamie play matchmaker with their respective best friends, but she was even less eager to spend Christmas by herself.

  In any case, she had seen no need to invest in a tree when she wasn’t going to be home on Christmas eve. To create a holiday mood in her condo, she’d decorated the living room with sprigs of holly and hung a wreath on the front door, and she’d placed cinnamon-scented red candles in her pewter candlesticks on the fireplace mantel. But the place didn’t seem festive enough—and spending the holiday in the company of Jamie’s dear friend from Dartmouth wasn’t going to fix that.

  John had a tree. He and Michael would have the holiday spirit in their home. Molly was glad for them, but a part of her felt wistful, wishing she could share their holiday in some way and warning herself that she shouldn’t waste her wishes on the impossible.

  “I don’t have any decorations,” John broke into her thoughts.

  “No decorations? You just said you got a tree.”

  “I have nothing to put on it. No ornaments.”

  “Don’t you have any left over from last year?”

  “I didn’t have a tree last year.”

  She nodded, her mind churning. Last year Michael would have been a year and a couple of months old, old enough to appreciate a tree. Maybe John hadn’t wanted a tree—or maybe his wife hadn’t. Last year at this time, she might have already been making plans to leave. It might have been the most wretched holiday John and his son had ever endured.

  Then again, John’s failure to get a tree last year might be no more significant than Molly’s failure to get a tree this year.

  “I was thinking,” he said almost shyly, “Mike and I could take you out for lunch, and then you could help us buy ornaments.”

  She knew John wasn’t asking her on a date. But the way he gazed at her, his eyes so dark and enigmatic, communicated that this was more than just a casual invitation.

  “A bribe,” she guessed, then grinned to calm her overactive nerves. “It’s a payoff if you buy me lunch after we shop for the decorations. But if you feed me before, it’s a bribe.”

  He smiled, one of his rare, soul-deep smiles, like the smile he’d given her when he’d entered into battle with her in the foam pit. It was a smile that simultaneously soothed and aroused her.

  “I’m bribable,” she said. “Would you like me to drive, or can you manage it?”

  They wound up driving their two cars to Molly’s condominium development, where she parked hers by her townhouse and then joined the Russos in their car. John insisted that he was able to drive just fine, but once she was settled into the front passenger seat, she noticed his slight grimace as he attempted to wield the gear stick with just his fingertips, sparing his palm.

  In his car seat in back, Michael was exuberant. “We got a tree!” he declared. “A big, big tree! All the way to the ceiling. Daddy had to cut it.”

  “You cut your own tree?” Molly asked John, her amazement laced with disapproval. Going to a tree farm and chopping down a tree was fun, but not a suitable activity for a man who three days ago was rushed to a hospital suffering from knife wounds.

  He shook his head. “I trimmed six inches off the top with a scissors. Bud helped.”

  “I guess that’s all right. But you really shouldn’t overdo it, John. You’ve got to give your arm a chance to heal.”

  He shot her a rebellious glance, then turned forward again, working the steering wheel with his left hand. “I’m healing.”

  “Have you been to the doctor?”

  “Yeah. He says I’m healing.”

  His tone left no doubt that he wanted her to drop the subject. Honoring the unspoken request, she twisted in her seat and asked Michael, “Does your house smell different now?”

  “It smells like a tree,” he reported. “A big, big tree.”

  The parking lot at the mall was packed with cars. With less than two weeks until Christmas, hordes had descended upon the place to get their holiday shopping done. John navigated up and down the rows of cars for five full minutes until he located an empty space. Before he unstrapped Michael and let him out of the car, he pulled a foldable stroller from the trunk and snapped it open, using his right elbow and his knee to spread and lock the hinges. Molly was impressed by his agility, and by his foresight in bringing the stroller. Last week, Michael had fallen asleep right after lunch. If he fell asleep today, the stroller would come in handy.

  “I wanna push it,” Michael demanded, grasping the chrome handles and zigzagging madly across the asphalt.

  John raced after him as swiftly as he’d chased the pick-pocket on Dudley the day Molly had run into him outside the bank. Even injured, he ran with a purposeful grace, his movements clean and efficient, his long legs devouring the space between himself and his runaway son. He was probably a fine athlete, she thought. So strong and limber, he was probably an exquisite lover.

  Hazardous thought. She hastily brushed it aside.

  John caught up to Michael before he wandered into the path of a moving car. Instead of commandeering the stroller, though, he shared it, gripping one side of
the handle and letting Michael push the other side, so they could steer in tandem toward the mall entrance.

  Molly followed in their wake. The cold wind blew away Michael’s voice before it reached her, but she knew he was talking to his father. He craned his neck to peer up at John, and his mouth moved incessantly. His little legs pumped alongside his father’s, taking twice as many steps to cover the same distance.

  How could a woman have walked out on them? Molly wondered, touched by the rapport between John and his son. Of course, John’s wife might have had valid reasons for leaving him. For all Molly knew, John might have been selfish or brutish as a husband. Maybe he brought his work to bed with him—and given the work he did, that couldn’t have been particularly romantic. Or maybe he and his ex-wife simply fell out of love. Or perhaps the other man, the one John’s wife had left with, was irresistible.

  Or just possibly, the woman had been blind to what she had: a good man, a loving man, a man who took his responsibilities almost too seriously. An extraordinary man—and a son.

  Reaching the mall entrance, John pulled Michael to a halt and waited for Molly to reach them so they could enter together. “I’m hungry,” Michael announced. “We have lunch now.”

  “First get in the stroller,” John said. “Then we’ll get lunch.”

  “No get in the stroller! No, no, no!”

  “I’m not letting you walk,” John told him. The mall was mobbed with people. Molly didn’t blame him for wanting Michael strapped safely into the stroller, where he wouldn’t be able to wander off.

  “No stroller! I don’t want the stroller!” Michael threw back his head and howled.

  Not bothering to argue, John hoisted Michael up into his left arm and lowered him into the stroller. When Michael squirmed and tried to escape, John brought his right hand into play, pinning Michael in the seat while he strapped the belt around his belly. Molly saw pain crease John’s brow as he used his injured hand. She wanted to help, but his forebidding glower held her at bay. This was between him and his flailing, shrieking son. She had no business intervening.