A Magical Christmas

by Heather Graham

  And whatever it was that he tried to reach for was just about as far away as the moon.

  * * *

  Christie told herself that she should have just been glad that her parents were so busy arguing that they hadn’t noticed anything at all amiss at home.

  Not that anything had really been amiss. Ashley had been well taken care of, Jordan—well, Jordan was being Jordan. Nothing new about that. He’d been getting into the drugs for a while now, hanging around with older guys easily because he was so tall and mature-looking when most guys his age—nearly fourteen, trying to go to forty—were squirty little dipsticks with squeaky voices. She and Jordan were ready to strangle one another most of the time, but she never squealed on him about the drugs and he never squealed on her about Jamie. The only problem was… well, she knew what she was doing with Jamie, her folks just hadn’t gotten it yet. Admittedly, she was ready to get into just about anything with Jamie, she was just wildly in love with him, but Jamie was grounded. Jamie had given her a lot. They fooled around, sure, but they were careful and responsible. And Jamie didn’t do drugs and he didn’t drink. He worked hard, because he had to work hard. No one was going to pay for him to go to college, and he was going to go to college—not because he felt he had to be rich or famous or anything, but because he felt that knowledge was the greatest gift in the world. He wanted to be a teacher. He especially wanted to be an inner-city teacher. He thought that lots of kids had dreams, but that too many of them found that no one ever gave a damn about their dreams or believed in their dreams. If he could be a teacher—sure, he’d get his tires slashed in the school parking lots a few times—he might be able to touch a few kids who just might be teetering on a rope. If those kids were scoffed at, they’d wind up scoring on the streets. But if someone just believed in them… well, then, they could fly.

  Jamie didn’t know too much about Jordan and his drugs. The one day he’d found out about Jordan just smoking pot, he’d told her that—whatever Jordan might have to say about the two of them—she had to tell her folks. Christie hadn’t quite gotten to that point yet. For one thing, she was hoping that Jordan would just grow out of the phase he was in. For another, her parents were like kegs of dynamite. She didn’t know what they might do to Jordan. Or to her. Or to one another.

  Like last night.

  They hadn’t noticed a damned thing.

  And when they’d needed Jamie to pick up Ashley for them, well, suddenly Jamie had been all right.

  He was driving her to school this morning, and her father had better not say a damned word.

  Jordan had his face in his Cheerios when Christie came into the kitchen—dressed and ready to go the minute the doorbell rang. She didn’t see her parents anywhere. She quickly sat across the table from her brother.

  “They say anything to you?”

  He looked up, shaking his head.

  “To you?”

  She shook her head.

  “They didn’t realize the Latin lover had just run out?”

  “They didn’t smell the ‘eau de illegal substance’ in your room?”

  Jordan scowled at her. He leaned closer to her.

  “No. They were fighting about some woman,” he whispered.

  Christie frowned. Funny. She was mad at her dad half the time. He was totally unreasonable. But she’d been around him all her life. Of course. And he wasn’t a flirt.

  “She just doesn’t trust him.”

  “She’s worn out. He doesn’t pick up much of the slack.”

  “You think she’s right?”

  Jordan shook his head. “Right? Who the hell can be right or wrong? All I know is that all they do is yell. The only bright spot in it is that we get out of that sick Christmas trip.”

  Julie came clipping quickly into the kitchen then on her high heels. She paused, a hand on Jordan’s chin, lifting it so that he faced her. She frowned. “Jordan, you look really tired. Your eyes are all red.”

  Jordan pulled away quickly. Too quickly, Christie thought. Her brother didn’t look good. How serious was this getting? Should she say something to her parents?

  Their father came into the kitchen then, adjusting his tie in front of the coffeepot. “Julie, did you make flight reservations yet?”

  “Flight reservations?” she repeated.

  “For Virginia. Or D.C., I suppose. Have you rented a car?”

  Christie saw, looking at her face, that her mother had a stricken look in her eyes. She’d forgotten to make the reservations.

  “No, not yet,” she said.

  “Not yet?” Jon thundered.

  Chill, Dad. Chill! Christie thought unhappily.

  “No, damn it, not yet. Did you make the flight reservations, did you rent a car? After all, this harebrained scheme is your damned idea!”

  “We’ll never get reservations now,” Jordan said with a sigh. “Looks as if we’ll just have to forget the whole thing!” he added cheerfully.

  “It was a stupid damned idea anyway,” Christie was surprised to hear her father say.

  He looked worn. Tired. As if he just didn’t care anymore. Oddly, she felt a sense of panic. The fighting was one thing. This just not caring was another.

  “I can cancel the room reservation much more easily than I can get a car rental and airline tickets now, I’m quite sure,” Julie said icily.

  “Good. Then it’s all forgotten,” Jon agreed, pouring himself a cup of coffee and staring at his wife.

  But that announcement was followed by a sudden howl that drew all their eyes to the kitchen doorway. Ashley stood there, huge tears rolling down her cheeks, her teddy bear held tightly to her slim little chest, her green eyes bright and damp.

  Her lower lip trembled.

  “You promised we’d go and build a snowman, Daddy. You said there’d be horses.”

  Jon, startled, set his coffee cup down. “Sweetheart, I—I can find a horse somewhere, I’m sure.…”

  Christie frowned, watching her baby sister. Ashley’s little lip doubled its tremble tempo and her eyes grew bigger as another wave of tears fell down her cheeks.

  “Mommy, you said we’d go away. All of us.We’d have snow. And the people at the old house dress up, you told me that, Daddy, that they’d dress up like old-time people, and that it would be like Christmas more than a hundred years ago.” She inhaled on a remarkably pathetic sob, then let out a shuddering, “You promised!”

  Christie watched as her parents’ gazes met. They both started for Ashley at the same time, crashing into one another in their haste to reach their youngest child. “Baby, baby, it’s okay…” Jon tried.

  “Maybe I can still book us a flight. And find a car,” Julie said.

  “And maybe we can all get packed by tomorrow night to get on the flight,” Jon said slowly.

  “Please, please, please!” Ashley cried softly.

  “I’ll try, I’ll try, I promise—first thing,” Julie said. “First thing when I get into work.”

  “All right, all right,” Jon said. “I’ll drive the kids so that you can get in earlier.”

  “Jamie is coming for me,” Christie said.

  Jon hesitated, only a fraction of a second. “Yeah, all right. Jordan, Ashley—I’ll be right back.”

  “I’ll just grab my purse,” Julie said.

  Christie watched as both her parents went running out of the room. She stared at Jordan, and Jordan stared at Ashley.

  “Now look what you’ve done!” Jordan exclaimed to her.

  Ashley very calmly dried her eyes. Her lip no longer trembled. She stared at her brother with a gaze that was almost frighteningly mature.

  “You don’t care,” she accused Jordan, “but I do! And I don’t want Mommy and Daddy to get a divorce!”

  Ashley spun around, leaving her older brother and sister in the kitchen.

  Jordan and Christie just stared at one another in surprise.

  “I wonder what else she knows,” Jordan said glumly.

  “Scary, huh?”
Christie asked him. The doorbell rang and she leapt up.

  She forgot about her parents and her family. Jamie! She couldn’t leave Jamie for the holidays!

  Maybe her mother wouldn’t be able to get them a flight after all.

  Chapter Eight

  Christmas Eve

  1862

  The captain pushed past Pete and started running down the scaffold stairs just as she leapt from her cavalry mount, firing into the air.

  “My God, what’s happening, what’s happening?” Lieutenant Jenkins demanded.

  Suddenly, shots were being fired from all over. The half-dozen Union cavalrymen who’d been racing toward Oak River Plantation had leaned into their mounts, galloping wildly now in their hurry to reach what was quickly becoming a melee. More townsfolk were arriving on horseback and on foot, and it seemed that everyone had a gun, and everyone was firing.

  She was firing. Oh, God, his wife was still firing, trying to get someone to pay her heed, trying to stop the hanging that had already been stopped!

  “Stop this, now. I demand that you stop this now!” she shouted, and she fired another warning shot into the air.

  She was a Virginian. Born and bred. She could shoot a squirrel in the tooth a hundred yards away.

  Her shot whizzed right through Jenkins’s very proper hat.

  The captain shouted out her name.

  She saw him.

  Saw him racing toward her.

  For a moment, she was dead-still. Then her features came alight with joy.

  “My love!”

  She barely breathed the words. She started running again, running toward him, as quickly as her feet would carry her. She forgot the Colt in her hand, forgot it completely and dropped it as she threw herself into his waiting arms.

  The Colt struck the ground without its safety on. As the captain molded her into his arms, he heard shots explode once again.

  Cries arose.…

  He looked into her face.

  Her face…

  So precious. He touched it. She caught his palm. Kissed it.

  Her beautiful face, her warmth, the touch of the dusk falling hard now upon them. Stars beginning to blink out in the heavens.

  A winter’s night. Crisp, cool, tender, in her arms.

  Snow beneath his feet…

  Her face.

  Shots began to explode from everywhere. Shouts and cries arose, and he knew, oh, God, he knew…

  Her face…

  He raised his head as if seeing what was happening to change things.

  All he saw was that it was his son leading the racing Federals toward their home. He saw his boy’s eyes, and the look in them. And if the situation had not been so explosively damning, he would have smiled.

  His boy had come to save him. He wished suddenly and fervently that his son had not grown to be such a brave and determined man.

  And there…

  Oh, God, there, coming, riding toward inevitable tragedy now, his daughter.

  Pray God, watch over her!

  He looked back into his wife’s eyes. She hadn’t seen. Didn’t know yet, wouldn’t know…

  Her beautiful, beautiful face.

  Bullets pierced flesh, ripped and tore, broke and mangled. Blood flowed, so warm…

  Firing, everywhere.

  The Yanks panicked, thinking they were under attack. The townspeople were firing in every direction.

  Oh, God.

  The pain.

  The numbness.

  Her eyes.

  The blood.

  So red against the purity of the snow…

  Six o’clock.

  Dusk.

  Christmas Eve.

  1862.

  Chapter Nine

  Miraculously, Julie was able, with the help of a friend who worked for the airlines, to get them tickets on an American flight that left Miami International just after 6:00 P.M.

  In the last two days before their family vacation, Julie wondered more and more what they were doing. Not just she and Jon were at odds—though they had actually managed to cease fighting; they simply didn’t bother talking at all—the children couldn’t seem to get along with one another in any way, shape, or form.

  Jamie’s car went into the shop, and on what Christie was calling her last crucial days with the man she loved, she wasn’t able to ride to school with Jamie.

  She sat in Julie’s car, along with her younger siblings.

  “Stop it, brat!” Christie snapped at Ashley, elbowing her in the shoulder.

  Naturally, Ashley started to cry.

  “Damn it, Christie—”

  “She was spitting.”

  “I wasn’t spitting!”

  “Fine, fine, she was rolling water on her tongue and squeezed it out her lips.”

  Jordan, in the front, turned around. “Christie, did you just let out a big one?”

  “What?”

  “Christie farted, Christie farted, I can’t wait to tell lover boy that Christie farted—”

  Christie was halfway out of the backseat, reaching for her brother’s neck. She elbowed Ashley again in her efforts, this time accidentally.

  “Christie, get back into your seat belt!” Julie roared. “You’re going to kill us all.”

  “Small loss!” Christie muttered.

  Julie felt a chill. Not that Christie had said such a thing. Kids talked like that all the time.

  What gave her the shivers was the tone of her daughter’s voice. She seemed to mean it.

  She found herself driving off the road and onto the embankment two blocks from Christie’s school.

  “Stop that, damn you! It’s Christmas! Don’t you see the frigging lights hanging everywhere; can’t you hear the damned music? It’s Christmas. And we’re going to have a good time and act like human beings. Have you got it?”

  They all stared at her blankly for several long moments. Jordan lowered his eyes first, then raised them to her again. “Yeah, sure, Mom, I’ve got it. Do you?”

  She wanted to backhand him. Somehow, she managed to refrain.

  She jerked back into the traffic.

  Christie fought the prospect of leaving until the very last minute. She sobbed to Jamie on the phone. She threatened to have a fit once she was seated on the plane, which would force her parents to take her off it.

  Jordan had remained sullen while the rest of them packed.

  So sullen that Julie found herself in his room, demanding to know what was going on with him. She looked from the heavy-metal posters around his room to all his little incense-burning pots and she felt a real fear developing within her. Had she been blind?

  “Jordan,” she told him. “Drugs kill.”

  “There you go accusing me of things when you haven’t the first bit of proof about anything.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t run around making accusations, Jordan.”

  “Yeah, well, Dad does.”

  Julie hesitated. She had heard once that kids lived up to—or down to—their parents’ expectations of them. She’d spent her life trying to make sure that she always believed the best of her children. Jon told her she was like some combination Mary Poppins/Eliza Doolittle and that she needed to wake up and see the world. She did see the world, more so than he realized, and she just wanted her children to know that she’d always side with them against that world when it got rough.

  “Dad wants the best for you, Jordan.”

  He stared at her, arching a brow. “Well, hallelujah, you just said something kind of nice about him.”

  “Jordan, you’re an intelligent young man. Drugs do kill. I’ll leave you with that.” She started out of the room.

  “Right. ’Cause living in this household makes the value of life so evident, huh?”

  She walked back into his room in a fury. “You ungrateful brat! Whatever our problems are, we’ve done our best to give you everything you need.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re missing something.”

  She slapped him. Hard.<
br />
  Then she wanted to die. To crawl under the rug and disappear.

  She walked out of his room instead and went quickly into her own.

  Jon wasn’t home yet. He was going into work in the morning, but getting out by noon so that they could both collect the children and get to the airport.

  She felt the tears streaming down her cheeks. Were her children just spoiled and ungrateful? Had she really ruined their lives? Was this Christmas worth it all, or was she just torturing everyone further by making a futile effort to reach out and grab a last happy memory for a young child?

  She got up, walked into her bathroom, and reached for a bottle of P.M. painkillers. She took three instead of the recommended dosage of two. She set the container back and started to cry again.

  Hadn’t she just told her son that drugs kill?

  Despite the fact that they had all been like a pack of wild dogs snapping at each other’s feet since the trip had been planned, they flew out of Miami International on the night of December twenty-first.

  They were only able to get three seats together, and even that was incredible luck, so Ashley, Jordan, and Christie were in those seats.

  Jon was toward the front of the plane.

  Julie was toward the rear.

  And that, Julie determined, was best. There had already been terrible delays at the airport along with the incredible tension of the spirit of the season—people determined to get where they were going at all costs. It was probably good that she and Jon were separated, because their nerves were frayed and frazzled, and if they were apart, they wouldn’t be able to start arguing again until they hit solid ground.

  Their plane had to circle over National for forty-five minutes. Julie found herself more tense, wondering if they would run out of fuel.

  Finally, they landed, only to have to wait for their baggage.

  Ashley was so tired that she was nearly dead to the world. She wasn’t a particularly small six-year-old, so between passing her around and trying to get the baggage, she, Jon, Jordan, and Christie were all miserable.

  It took another hour to get the pathetic little rental car they had managed to reserve.

  They checked into their hotel in Crystal City just outside the airport at 3:30 A.M. At least they wouldn’t have to check out the next day until four, since Jon’s business travel allowed him to belong to the hotel chain’s frequent-stayer program.