The Usual Santas

by Peter Lovesey

  The clerk who was helping us asked us question after question to find us the right shirts: did Samuel want tags in the collar corners to keep them sharp, how heavy a fabric did he want, what color white shirt—apparently there were different shades of white to be considered—and what button shape, what cuff length, should the cuff be suitable for cuff links (no), on and on until I almost wished Kurt would call me and tell me we’d been robbed so I had an excuse to go home.

  I’d done this with three sons already (Adam, Kenneth, and Zachary but not Joseph) and I think the shopping got more annoying every year. The first time, it hadn’t seemed like there were that many choices. Or maybe Adam just made them himself and didn’t look to me for advice every time. But Samuel had zero interest in fashion, and shrugged and accepted the clerk’s advice.

  After shirts, it was ties. Samuel picked out ten from a stack and I had to double check to be sure he hadn’t chosen two identical ones. They were all varying shades of red. We had them all packed up in tissue paper, then carted to the front where everything else was waiting. Shoes were next. And socks. The shoes were the first time that Samuel showed real interest. He went for the ones with the highest platform he could find. I wondered if Samuel had a complex about his height. He was nearly six foot, but it was true that he was the smallest of my sons, by about half an inch. They were all just about clones of Kurt when it came to their bone structure.

  The bill, when we finally managed to make it to the register, was over two thousand dollars. I got out a credit card to pay for it, but Samuel waved me away.

  “I’ve got it, Mom,” he said.

  “You’re supposed to be saving that for the rest of your mission,” I said. There would be a $400 bill for each of the twenty-four months he’d be gone, although truthfully Kurt and I had often stepped in to pay our sons’ mission bills in the past.

  “I can cover all of it,” said Samuel proudly. “What do you think I’ve been doing with all that money I saved from summer jobs since I was eight?” He had always been a saver.

  “If you’re sure,” I said, and held my card out for another moment.

  “I want all the blessings, Mom,” said Samuel. “I earned them, every one.” His eyes were shining, and I admit, mine were a little misty, too.

  I worried that he thought that making sacrifices like this would mean the mission would go more easily for him. I knew that wasn’t going to be the case in Boston. I hoped he would get companions who didn’t bully him for being gay, but that was about the extent of my hope. I doubted those conversions would come easily—if they happened at all.I was steeling myself for the most difficult missionary experience I’d ever seen. Samuel was a strong kid, maybe the strongest of all my sons, and if any of them could deal with a hard mission, it was him. But I would be praying for him every step of the way.

  Between the two of us, we managed to get everything into the car in one load. The suits weren’t finished yet. They’d taken measurements and would get them properly tailored in the next week. We weren’t leaving much time to spare, because Samuel had only eight days before he was expected to report to the MTC (Missionary Training Center) in Provo.

  We drove home and when I opened the garage door, Kurt’s car was still there.

  I helped Samuel bring in all his things. We trooped upstairs, and that was when we realized what was wrong.

  The missionary suitcases we’d purchased two days ago were gone. They’d been at the foot of Samuel’s bed when we left this morning, waiting for his clothes to go inside of them. He could take two suitcases’ worth of things with him for two years, and he had to be ready at a few hours’ notice to leave any apartment he was in and move to another one the mission president assigned him to.

  We checked in the closest and under the bed.

  “Maybe Dad came and got them?” Samuel said.

  “Why would he do that?”

  “If he thought we should get some different ones,” Samuel said.

  “He came with us and said those were the best ones,” I reminded him. Kurt had been annoyingly picky about it, and had insisted he knew better than either of us. After all, he had been on a mission and we hadn’t.

  “Maybe he found a sale or something,” Samuel said. “And he had to take them back to get the better price.”

  I went downstairs and checked the back door. Sure enough, it was unlocked. I thought I could make out footprints through the snow in the backyard, but I didn’t go out and follow them. Instead, I closed the door and locked it tight, then closed the blinds as if that would protect us somehow.

  After retreating back upstairs to Samuel’s room, I got out my phone and texted Kurt: Suitcases are gone. Did you take them?

  In a few minutes, Kurt texted me back: Found them gone when I arrived. Also, back door open. Saw strange van pulling out of our street. Must have been parked nearby. Didn’t notice when I passed. Got license plate and called police.

  Then why wasn’t he at home, waiting for them?

  Where are you now? I texted back.

  I followed the van.

  Kurt, my Kurt, the bishop, had gone chasing after criminals in a van?

  Stay there so you can talk to the police, Kurt texted. Can you find the receipt for the suitcases? We don’t have a photo, do we?

  We didn’t have a photo as far as I knew, but to my surprise, when I mentioned the question to Samuel, he pulled out his phone and showed me one he’d posted on Facebook.

  “Where’s Dad?” Samuel asked.

  “He’s out trying to follow the van with the people who stole your stuff.”

  “Dad?” said Samuel.

  “I know,” I said.

  “Isn’t that kind of dangerous?”

  “I’m sure he won’t do anything stupid. He’s a grown up,” I said. With responsibilities, I thought.

  The uniformed police arrived a few minutes later. They seemed rather bored, to be honest. They had Samuel send them his photo and they took my receipt. Then they told us to wait for the detective who was on the case.

  We were waiting when I got another text from Kurt: Coming home. Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.

  It was thirty minutes before he came through the front door, breathing heavily and his hair sticking up all over.

  “What happened?” I asked. He wasn’t carrying Samuel’s suitcases with him, so he hadn’t confronted the burglars—or had he?

  “It’s a long story,” he said, pushing the front door closed behind him and slumping down right there on the tile of the foyer.

  “Kurt, do you need something? Did they hurt you?” I asked.

  He shook his head, then put it in his hands.

  “Dad?” said Samuel, coming in and kneeling beside Kurt. “Do you want to pray with me?”

  “Yes, I do. Would you say the prayer?” asked Kurt.

  I knelt down beside them while Samuel spoke the words. It was a simple prayer, “Our Heavenly Father, please bless the people who stole my suitcases that they will know what is right. And please bless Dad so that he will be able to get better. Bless us all to forgive and to become more like Thy Son. Amen.”

  Kurt managed to get up after that, and moved slowly toward the kitchen. “No police yet?” he asked.

  “The uniforms came, but we haven’t talked to the detective yet,” I said.

  Kurt nodded and sat at the bar in the kitchen.

  I got out the remains of the peanut butter cookies I’d made yesterday when Samuel asked. He’d eaten almost all of them himself, but I’d saved two for a treat for myself today. It showed how much I truly loved Kurt for me to offer them to him.

  Kurt chewed the cookie thoughtfully. “I found where they live,” he said. “It’s the ward right next to ours.”

  “Seriously? We have thieves living in the neighborhood?” I asked nervously.

  Kurt sighed. “They
’re parents,” he said. “They have eleven children and they have two on missions right now. One will be leaving in the next couple of weeks. Just after Samuel, actually.”

  I stared at him. “They took Samuel’s suitcases and all the other stuff?” I remembered meeting a mother of eleven at a Stake Relief Society night.

  “It was their van on our street, and I saw Samuel’s suitcases inside,” he said. “The husband was driving it. I don’t know if the wife has any idea what he’s doing, or any of the children.”

  I sat with that for a long moment, trying to digest the idea that a father of eleven children was funding his children’s missions by stealing Christmas presents from his neighbors. What kind of a messed up world did we live in?

  “Did you talk to him?” I asked.

  “I knocked on the door. As soon as he answered it, I recognized him from stake meetings. He’s in his ward’s High Priest Group leadership. He teaches Seminary, in fact, at the high school. He has one son on a mission and another preparing to go out.”

  I knew instantly who Kurt meant—I even knew his name, though I didn’t say it out loud. I could see Samuel swallow an exclamation. He knew the man, too.

  “What did you say to him?” I asked. Had Kurt confronted him about the thefts?

  “I asked him if I could donate to his son’s mission fund. I wanted to write a check for a couple hundred, but I was afraid he wouldn’t take it. Instead, I held out all the cash I had, which was about sixty bucks.”

  “Did he take it?” Samuel asked.

  Kurt shook his head sadly. “He said they didn’t need any help and he was just fine managing on his own. He said that the Lord would send blessings to the faithful who waited on Him.”

  “And you didn’t point out that maybe you were the blessing God was sending to him?”

  Kurt chewed on more cookie and didn’t answer. When he was finished with the first cookie, he picked up the next one. “Pride,” he muttered.

  “It makes no sense. Stealing from people because you won’t accept any help?”

  “I couldn’t get him to talk enough to explain it to me. Maybe it makes sense to him,” said Kurt.

  “He’s not on school break or anything, is he?” I asked, wondering how he had the time to sneak in and out of houses while he was supposed to be teaching.

  “I suspect if we asked the police, we’d find out they all happened over his lunch break. Or his preparation period,” said Kurt. “After all, it’s not like he had to stake us out for days to learn our day-to-day habits. He knows us all pretty well, even if he doesn’t live in the same ward.”

  It was creepy, thinking about a man who went to church in our same building, who was supposed to be a friend and ally, using the information he knew about us to do something like this.

  “So do we give the detective his name?” asked Samuel.

  It was an excellent question. I looked at Kurt.

  “I’ve always thought I believed in telling the truth no matter what,” he said. “But in this case, I don’t know.”

  “If he’s this confused, he may be headed for some kind of psychotic break. It might be helpful for him to have some kind of intervention,” I suggested.

  “An intervention, yes. But an arrest by the police for breaking into the homes of his neighbors and fellow Mormons? He’d lose his job and he might lose a lot more than that.”

  He could be excommunicated. His wife could well divorce him. And what about his eleven children? Would they be any better off? I could see why Kurt felt it was a moral dilemma.

  “You could talk to the Stake President,” said Samuel. “Maybe he could go privately to the man and make him give everything back.”

  “That doesn’t absolve him of the crime, though,” said Kurt. “The police will still want to prosecute him.” He shook his head. “Look, I don’t want to talk about it anymore. You two can talk to the detective, but only about the lost suitcases. Don’t say anything about what happened to me yet.” He went upstairs and I assumed he was going to our bedroom. To sleep? To pray?

  The detective, Morales, came and took our statements. He was short and bald, but had a precise way of speaking that reminded me of my high school English teacher.

  “Do you have any leads?” I asked, trying to see if he knew anything about the man in the van.

  “I’m sorry, I can’t tell you about that,” he said, closing up his notebook and rising.

  “Have you retrieved anything from any of the other thefts?” I asked.

  “No, we haven’t. You said you have home owner’s insurance that will cover the losses?”

  “Yes,” I said. And we were well enough off that we could buy new suitcases for Samuel immediately without having to wait to be reimbursed for the loss. We had that much plenty, even at Christmas time.

  “Well, then, you’ll hear from me again if I have more information later,” Morales said.

  I watched him drive away and noticed that he turned in the direction of the house Kurt had chased the van to. Did the police know what was going on, after all?

  I told Samuel I couldn’t bear to do any more shopping today, but promised we’d go out tomorrow and get him the same suitcases all over again. Then I went upstairs to talk to Kurt. He was lying flat on the bed, his hands folded together over his abdomen. His eyes were open, but he was still as death.

  “What are you doing to do?” I asked.

  “I haven’t decided yet,” Kurt said.

  “Maybe we could talk to his wife, get her to take some money.”

  “And make her deal with his anger if he finds out?” Kurt said. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “We could talk to their bishop and make sure he knows about the situation,” I suggested. It was the kind of strategy I would expect Kurt to pursue. Going through the proper channels and all that.

  “I’ll try that, but I don’t know if it will change anything in terms of his pride,” said Kurt with a sigh.

  I tried snuggling up against him, molding my body to his. I wanted him to feel that he wasn’t alone in this.

  Kurt eventually fell asleep, which seemed like a good thing, considering how little sleep he got these days, between work and bishoping and parenting.

  I snuck out of the room and went back downstairs. Samuel was working on a new batch of peanut butter cookies. “Well, I did something,” he said.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I called up the store and asked them to send my suit to him, the son who’s heading off on a mission.”

  “Do you think it will fit?” I asked. I didn’t know the kid well enough to guess at his height and weight.

  “He and I are almost exactly the same size. I told them to send it there and if anyone called, to say that it was an accidental duplicate and they couldn’t take it back because it had already been altered.”

  That seemed rather clever of Samuel. “Well, he’ll have a suit, then.” The shirts and ties and shoes and socks were a different matter. But the suits were the most expensive part. “Your father and I are happy to buy you a new suit, of course. But you were so proud to have bought that suit with your own money.”

  “And that’s what was wrong with it,” Samuel said. “Dad said that the man who took our things was too proud to take charity from him. It was pride that led him to do this, and it was stupid. I don’t need to be proud of paying for my own suit. That’s a way of feeling like I’m better than other people and it’s not a good thing at all. I should be humbled, especially as a missionary. If I go into this thinking I’m better than the people I’m called to serve, I’m not going to reach them. They need to know that I’m the same as they are, that we’re all sinners looking for redemption, or I won’t succeed.” He thought for a minute, then held up a finger. “I shouldn’t even put it like that. It’s not me succeeding. It’s God who succeeds through me, if I can just g
et out of the way enough to let Him.”

  I hugged him and wondered how I was ever going to do without him. “I’m going to miss you more than you can imagine,” I said. “I want you to know that.”

  He pulled away, uncomfortable. “Mom, I’m not dying,” he said.

  No, he wasn’t. I knew that. But our family as it had been was dying. I had to figure out what would come out of the change in my role as mother of a herd of boys. They didn’t need me anymore. Now it seemed like I needed them, just as they were ready to leave me and get on with their lives without me.

  “They’re lucky to have you, everyone in Boston. If they don’t figure that out, I’m going to be very angry with them,” I said.

  The timer went off and Samuel got the first batch of peanut butter cookies out of the oven. “And you’ll what? Send them burnt cookies?”

  “No. I’ll send them some of my Chinese food,” I said with a grin. I did many things well in the kitchen. Chinese food wasn’t one of them. Every few months, I thought I’d try a new recipe and see if I could get it right. It was supposed to be easy. Everyone could cook some vegetables and meat with some rice. Except for me.

  “Please, Mom, don’t make Chinese food,” said Samuel, his hands up in a mock plea.

  “I think I’ll make some right now.”

  “Can’t we just get some takeout?” Samuel asked.

  “No. But maybe you can convince your father to actually take us out to a Chinese restaurant.”

  It was as good an excuse as any to spend a few last, precious hours with Samuel before he left. Once he did, we’d be allowed only weekly emails and two phone calls a year, on Christmas and Mother’s Day.