Celebration

by Fern Michaels

The banker leaned back in his burgundy chair, a frown on his face. “When do you expect your husband, Kristine?”

  “He’s four days late, five if you count today. Something must have gone awry with his plane reservation. You look... you look like something is wrong.”

  “Something is wrong. Your account here is carrying a debit balance. How do you plan to clear that up?” While his tone was conversational, it scared Kristine.

  “I don’t understand. Logan opened a checking account here months ago, back in the summer if I remember correctly. I signed the papers in July to the best of my recollection. Logan sent enough money to cover the cost of the car and enough to carry us for six months. He said it would take a while to transfer everything back to the States and to do all the paperwork for his pension. Are you telling me the monies never arrived?”

  “Some monies arrived, but you’ve used them all up. It was my understanding the trust monies from your parents would be relayed back here. I had a long conversation with your husband in the early part of October. He said that in November a portion of the trust would be wired here. He even gave me the routing numbers. The remainder of the trust would then automatically go into that new account in December. The November amount was never wired. I checked with the Swiss bank, and no wire transfer was ever executed. There are no monies in that account nor have there been since February of last year. Your husband led me to believe the trust account was quite robust.”

  Kristine’s heart thumped in her chest. “Mr. Dunwoodie, at last count, Logan told me we had close to eight million dollars in the trust account. Where is it?” The panic in her voice was palpable.

  “I don’t know, Mrs. Kelly. I was hoping you could shed some light on the matter. It is never wise to have just one name on an account.” Mrs. Kelly. First it was Kristine and now it’s Mrs. Kelly. Kristine’s heart continued to thump.

  “My name was on the account, Mr. Dunwoodie. I’ve seen the statements. Perhaps Logan changed banks for better interest rates. I suppose it’s possible, but unlikely, that he would have put it in a Swiss numbered account. I don’t even know why I’m saying that.”

  “Did you see any bank statements since last February?”

  “The last one I saw was in January, when we filed our taxes. Logan commented on how nicely the account had grown over the years. We rarely touched it. I was frugal, and we lived on Logan’s pay and my monthly checks. I was even able to save from my budget. It was a small account, seven or eight thousand dollars. It was in a separate account that we called our excess money. So you see, I don’t understand why you’re telling me I’m carrying a debit, or are you saying that account didn’t make it to this bank either?”

  “That’s what I’m saying, Mrs. Kelly.”

  Mrs. kelly again. Kristine thought she would black out any second. “Is it lost?” Any minute now she was going to burst into tears.

  “Banks do not lose money, Mrs. Kelly. In order to lose something, you have to have it in hand first. We never had it in hand. Therefore, we did not lose it. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “No, Mr. Dunwoodie, I do not understand. What I do understand is that you are implying something here that isn’t sitting well with me. When is the next trust payment due?”

  “The first of January.”

  “And where will that go?”

  “Right here, into an account at this bank. I have a form for you to sign. However, you cannot write any more checks on the account until that time.”

  Kristine took a deep breath. “If I’m overdrawn, how can I get through the holidays? I need to do some Christmas shopping and buy some groceries. Can’t the bank lend me some money until January first? Ten or eleven days isn’t much time if you know you can debit the account on the first day of January. Logan will be home any day now and will straighten things out. I know my husband, Mr. Dunwoodie. He’s going to be very angry when he hears about this. He won’t want to bank here any longer if you don’t help me.”

  “I didn’t say I wouldn’t help you, Mrs. Kelly. I’m more than willing to give you an advance to get you through the holidays. I am simply looking at the broad picture here. I want to know, as you should want to know, where the eight million dollars in your trust account is. If I didn’t ask these questions, I would not be respecting your parents’ last wishes. That money was entrusted to you, Kristine. Which brings up another point. Why did you give your husband your power of attorney?”

  “I gave my husband my power of attorney because he is my husband. He managed the account very well. The money almost doubled.”

  “What good is that going to do you if you don’t have it?”

  Kristine threw her hands up in the air. “I can’t tell you something I don’t know. All I can do is go through the unpacked boxes again and wait for Logan to get home. Do you . . . do you think . . . think Logan ran away with the money? My God! That is what you think, isn’t it?”

  “I said no such thing, Mrs. Kelly. Put yourself in my place. Your parents placed their trust in this bank and in my father, who, when he retired, placed that same trust in my hands. I have obeyed the letter of the banking laws we are forced to live by. How well do you know your husband?” he asked coolly.

  “God in heaven! We’ve been married for twenty years! I know him as well as I know myself. I hope that satisfies you. I do not like your tone or what you’re trying to imply. Now, I’d like five hundred dollars, please.”

  “I’ll call out to the head teller. I assume you want cash.”

  “Cash will be just fine.”

  “Mrs. Kelly, what will you do if the eight million dollars never arrives?”

  She was starting to hate the sound of her own name. “I don’t have one damn clue as to what I’ll do. And from here on in you would be wise to keep your insinuations to yourself, or I’ll be banking somewhere else.”

  “Your father told my father he didn’t like Logan Kelly. My father thought I should know that when he passed your account over to me.”

  “That’s a bald-faced lie if I ever heard one,” Kristine said, her voice rising dangerously. “Both my parents adored Logan. How dare you say something like that to me! How dare you!”

  “It’s not a lie. Here, read this. It’s a letter your father gave to my father at the time the trust was set up twenty-five years ago. You can apologize to me later. I have a meeting, and I’m late. Good-bye, Mrs. Kelly. Have a nice holiday.”

  Kristine recognized her father’s handwriting. She also recognized both parents’ signatures at the bottom of the letter. It was a photocopy, but readable. No doubt the original was locked up in the bank vault somewhere. She read the letter twice before she crumpled it into a ball to toss across the room. Tears streaming down her cheeks, she fled the office. It wasn’t until she was in the car with the engine running that she remembered she hadn’t gone to the teller for the five hundred dollars. She blew her nose lustily as she cursed under her breath. Ten minutes later she was back in the car. Until that moment she hadn’t noticed how much snow was on the ground. Damn. Now what was she supposed to do? If she spent a few more hours in town shopping, would she be able to make it home without chains or should she make a stop at the first gas station she came to and buy new ones? She opted for new chains. She was back on the road in thirty minutes. Her second stop was at a shoe store, where she bought a pair of rubber boots. There was no way she was going to give any credence to what Aaron Dunwoodie said or implied. She was never, ever, going to think about the letter her parents wrote either. She had groceries and Christmas presents to buy, and that’s what she was going to do. When she got home, she was going to make a big pot of stew and bake an angel food cake. One-pot meals were perfect for eating off trays in front of the television. The extra plus would be the twinkling lights on the Christmas tree. The kids would love it. Then again, maybe they wouldn’t. Lately it seemed like she knew nothing about her three children.

  “I hate your guts, Aaron Dunwoodie,” Kristine snarled as she parked the c
ar outside the department store. “I will never forgive you for your ugly thoughts about my husband.”

  Kristine continued to mutter to herself as she walked up and down the aisles of the department store until she saw people staring at her. She clamped her lips shut as she squared her shoulders. She was here to buy Christmas presents, and that was exactly what she was going to do.

  3

  Her arms loaded with packages, Kristine climbed from the station wagon and stepped into four inches of snow. Even with the chains on her car, she’d been scared out of her wits that she would have an accident on the slick, icy roads. She sighed her relief, stinging sleet spitting in her face, as she struggled with her bundles. Thank God I’m home. The lights twinkling from the upstairs windows meant the kids made it home safely, too. Damn, how are we going to cut down a Christmas tree in this weather?

  Don’t think about anything, Kristine. Go in the house and check the Crock-Pot. Get dinner ready. Yon can worry about the Christmas tree Later. Don’t think about Aaron Dunwoodie. Don’t even think about Logan. Do what you have to do. That‘s how you get through the days. That’s what the book says. Go by the book now. The book is all you have going for you right now.

  “Mom! We were worried,” the three Kelly children shouted in relief as Kristine entered the warm, fragrant kitchen.

  “We cut down the tree when we got home from school,” Mike said.

  “It’s a monster,” Tyler volunteered.

  “We even got it up in the stand. There are pine needles everywhere, but it smells great. It looks like we might have a white Christmas. We wanted to wait for you to decorate the tree. I set the table and made some eggnog. Any mail from Dad?” Cala asked.

  She doesn’t sound like she cares one way or the other, Kristine thought.

  “Where did you get the saw to cut down the tree?” Kristine asked.

  “Buried under a ton of junk in the barn. It was rusty, but it did the job,” Mike said. “It’s a great-looking tree, Mom. Your eye was good yesterday when you picked it out even though it was dark. Did you buy a saw?”

  “Yes, but I can take it back. I’m just glad we got the tree. It looks like it might snow through the night. Right now it’s sleeting. Thanks for pitching in. No mail from Dad. I made some calls yesterday. The consulate is checking on things. I’m starved. Can we eat?” Don’t think. You have all night to think when the kids are in bed. Forget about the ugly insinuations Aaron Dunwoodie made.

  “The house looks really great, Mom. It smelled so good when we came in from school. It’s almost Christmas, and there’s no more school until January,” Cala said, unpacking groceries. “Tyler, pour Mom some coffee and then the two of you help me put away these groceries. Dad is going to be so surprised when he walks in. I bet he waits till Christmas Eve!” she continued to babble.

  Kris could hear the doubt in her daughter’s voice. Play the game; go by the book.

  “Yeah, he’ll show up Christmas Eve like nothing happened. His grand entrance,” Mike groused.

  “Today was the last day of school before Christmas break, right? For some reason I thought tomorrow was the last day,” Kristine said as she sipped at the coffee Tyler handed her.

  “Yep, we’re off till January tenth. What are we going to do, Mom?”

  “I don’t know about you guys but I’m going to go through my parents’ records and see what I have to do to get their old business up and running. I think this Crock-Pot was one of the best things I ever bought,” Kristine said, hoping to ward off any questions about Logan and the future.

  “Dig in!” Mike said happily as he loaded his plate to the brim. Kristine smiled at the way his freckles danced across the bridge of his nose. He looked so much like Logan it was scary. Cala looked like her, and Tyler had both Logan’s and her features. She looked away.

  “Mom, we need to talk about Dad. You said you made some calls yesterday. I think you need to share information with us,” Cala said, an edge to her voice.

  “I agree about the sharing part, but there’s nothing to share. The airlines don’t give out passenger information. I spoke to Captain Dellwood. He’s new to the base, and he’s the one who drove your father to the airport. I called Tom, and he knew nothing. I even called Sadie, who said I was neurotic and paranoid. After that, I called the American Consulate and asked them to check on your dad. I’m hoping the airline will tell them something. Nobody was the least bit interested.”

  “He’ll show up Christmas Eve, make a grand entrance, look at us all in wide-eyed wonder, and say something titillating like, ‘Now why would you worry about your old man?’ He would be right, too. Why the hell are we worried? So he’s late, so what. I for one do not miss him at all. I personally don’t care if he ever shows up. Don’t any of you notice how quiet and peaceful it is without him ragging on us twenty-four hours a day,” Mike said, bitterness ringing in his voice.

  Kristine watched and listened in dismay as her son filled his plate a second time. She should say something, anything that would lighten the moment. Even if she could think of something to say, it wouldn’t matter to Mike. Undercurrents of something she could never understand were always present when father and son were in the same room. As near as she could tell, Logan wanted his son to conform, and Mike wasn’t about to follow any order given by his father. Cala had at times stood by her twin and at other times bowed to parental pressure. Tyler, on the other hand, was a dutiful son and the apple of his father’s eye, and Logan made sure the twins knew he was his favorite. Sometimes Logan could be unnecessarily cruel. She felt disloyal at the thought.

  “‘That’s enough, Michael,” Kristine said, using her son’s full name, a sign that enough was enough. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Tyler smirk. “Wipe that smirk off your face, Tyler,” she said, getting up from the table.

  “We’ll clean up, Mom. You get the stuff ready in the living room.”

  “All right. I’m going to change my clothes first. Do we have a ladder?”

  “I brought it in earlier,” Mike said.

  Tears welled in Kristine’s eyes when her son hugged her. He whispered in her ear, “I probably didn’t mean half of what I said. I hate what this is doing to you, Mom. He always does it, and you don’t do anything. You just swallow it up and wait for the next time. He beats on you, and you don’t seem to care. We’re all doing fine, can’t you see that?”

  “Maybe you are, but I’m not. I don’t want to talk about this, Mike.”

  “You need to open your eyes, Mom. We don’t care. Tyler pretends and Cala feels like I do. You’re the only one who cares. I hope the three of us are around when you finally realize what a son of a bitch your husband really is. Don’t say it, Mom, because I don’t want to hear it.”

  Tears blurred her vision as Kristine made her way to the second floor. She was losing control, if she ever had any control to lose. It was all getting away from her, and there was nothing she could do about it.

  She sat down on the bed and cried.

  “Mom, it’s nine o’clock. If we don’t eat now, everything is going to be dried out,” Cala said. She struggled for a light tone. “The table looks so ... festive, but the candles are at the halfway mark. I think we should eat now. I wish I knew why we’re having lasagna for Christmas Eve. We always have turkey, ham, and plum pudding.”

  “I ... I know. Your father requested lasagna and a chocolate cake. He said he wanted it to be waiting when he walked through the door. I thought ... you’re right, we should eat. There’s some extra sauce in case it dried out too much. Is the salad wilted?”

  “It’s okay, Mom. Who says grace?”

  As Tyler said grace, Kristine stared at the four-layer chocolate cake she’d made from scratch. It looked like a giant evil eye sitting in the center of the table. She wished she had the guts to throw it at the kitchen wall. Where did one get guts like that?

  Logan wasn’t coming home. Not tonight, not tomorrow, or the day after. She knew that now. Hot tears pricked her lids a
s she glanced around at the pitying looks on her children’s faces. “Listen. I was never overly fond of lasagna. I say we toss it and throw out that cake for the birds. We have some hot dogs in the freezer, and I can make up some french fries in a few minutes. I made a Jell-O mold yesterday we didn’t eat. Everyone in favor say aye. ”

  “Aye,” the three Kelly children said in unison.

  “Then let’s do it!”

  If it wasn’t the happiest Christmas Eve dinner ever, it was the next happiest. At least that’s what her children said over and over.

  Kristine was on her fourth glass of wine when they ushered her into the living room. “We’ll clean up out here, Mom. I’ll bring in the eggnog when we’re done. We’ll sing some carols and make our wish on the North Star. And then we’ll open our presents. You guys are just gonna love what I got you.”

  Kristine nodded as she reached for the half gallon wine bottle to take with her into the living room. She smiled. They’d tried so hard for her sake. They’d gotten dressed in their best. Cala had spent hours on her makeup and Mike and Tyler had moussed their unruly curls. It was their jackets and ties that made her realize how hard they were trying.

  She herself had spent hours on her makeup, hoping to cover the circles under her eyes. Her hair was lusterless and looked dry and stiff. Frustrated with her looks, she’d pulled it back into a tight bun. Until this evening she really hadn’t paid much attention to her weight loss. When she saw how her burgundy-velvet dress just hung on her lanky frame, she’d tied a sash around the A-line dress. Logan would not approve of her looks.

  She knew they were standing in the doorway. She could hear them whispering.

  “She looks tired,” Tyler said.

  “Wrong word, little brother. She looks haggard.”

  “I think we all know he isn’t coming back now or ever,” Mike hissed. “Why in the hell are we pretending and tiptoeing around it?”

  “To make it easier for her. He was her world. That world is falling down around her. Look at her, for God’s sake,” Cala said. “Do you have any idea how much pleasure I got throwing out that damn chocolate cake into the snow? Well, do you?”