Christmas Wishlist

by Karen Toller Whittenburg

  “Andrew. Abigail. Don’t say another word.” Katherine squeezed their shoulders to be certain they knew how serious she was...as if they could ignore the absolute authority in her voice. She wouldn’t allow herself to feel the curious stares of everyone within earshot of her children, didn’t dare look at Gabe, couldn’t bear to imagine what he was thinking, didn’t even want to consider his appalled silence. If they hadn’t been caught within the parameters of the roped-off sidewalk and a good-size crowd, she would have run, screaming, down the street, dragging the twins every step. And she wouldn’t have stopped until she reached Nebraska. Or Iowa. Whichever was farther.

  Then she felt a reassuring arm around her waist, was pulled comfortingly against a strong, supportive shoulder and heard Gabe’s soothing “It could have been worse, you know. Imagine how you’d feel if they’d claimed Charlie Sheen was their father.”

  Katherine felt the hot push of tears behind her eyes and wondered how it would feel to bury her face in his shoulder and, for just a minute, turn her back on the responsibilities and choices of her lifetime. But when the minute was over, she’d still be embarrassed and she’d have gotten mascara on his Tom Ford coat. She risked a glance, promptly got lost in his tenderness, and forgot that her favorite thing about him was that coat. “I’m sorry they dragged you into this.”

  “Hey, don’t apologize. I’m flattered.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Oh, right. Sure you are.”

  His smile felt better to her than a Band-Aid on a paper cut. “I am,” he said with a good show of sincerity. “They’re great kids, Katherine. A little too uninhibited, maybe. A little too mouthy, for sure. But great kids. You’ve done a wonderful job with them, no matter who else contributed to their DNA.”

  “Mom?” Andy wiggled under the grip she still had on his shoulder. “Can I have my rocket ship back, now?”

  Abby, who had never stopped wiggling, just changed directions and began to hop up and down. “And can I have my Toss-and-Comb Tresses Tina?”

  Katherine didn’t want to move away from Gabe’s warm comfort, but she knew better than to linger too long. He was, after all, a man. And he wasn’t, after all, a part of her real life. Straightening, she plunged her hands into her pockets and pulled out Andy’s rocket ship and a glove full of...nothing. Handing the one toy to Andy, she looked questioningly at Abby’s expectant face. “I don’t have your doll, Abby. Didn’t you put her in your pocket?”

  Abby patted her coat from hem to hood, and her blue eyes rounded in alarm. “She’s gone! Oh, no! Toss-and-Comb Tresses Tina is missing!”

  * * *

  THE WATER POURING from the tap into the bathtub was lukewarm...at best. The bottle of Harner’s Luxurious Rose-Petal Bath Foam contained some strange substance that didn’t bubble and smelled like suntan lotion. A relaxing soak in the tub had sounded like the perfect end to a very long day, but, as with the day itself, nothing had gone as Katherine planned.

  “Mom! Tell Abby to stop windin’ up her music box! I can’t go to sleep when it keeps playin’ that stupid song!”

  “It is not a stupid song! You’re just a stupid brother! Mom! Tell Andy to stop botherin’ me so I can go to sleep!”

  With a sigh, Katherine turned the tap as high as it would go and flipped open the tub’s drain to release the accumulation of water. She wasn’t going to get the bath, obviously, but at least the sound of running water would help insulate her until her two overly tired children finally fell asleep. She’d ordered them not to get out of bed for any reason, but they’d figure out an emergency in seconds if they discovered she wasn’t actually in the bath. And she was in no mood to monitor their last stand against the sandman.

  Using extreme caution, she turned the knob, eased the door open and slipped quietly into the hall, carefully and almost silently, pulling the door closed behind her. She moved down the hallway like a stealth bomber, feeling her way past the kitchen door and tiptoeing across the front room carpet to the bay window.

  Her view of Central Park was bathed in the soft night darkness and shadowed in pools of streetlights. Snow was starting to fall, a snowflake here and there, an inch due by morning. The weatherman had predicted a perfect New York day for tomorrow, though. Clear skies, no precipitation, and just cold enough to add interest to the cheeks. Or so he’d said.

  Not that she needed any more interest in her cheeks. They still felt flushed from the accumulated blushes of the day. Just thinking about the abrupt goodbye Gabe had said at their door only an hour ago brought the heat rushing back with a vengeance. Not that she’d expected him to want to stick around, but she could now admit to feeling just a tad disappointed that he’d been in such a hurry to get away. She didn’t blame him, of course. If their circumstances had been reversed, she would have said goodbye and good riddance in the lobby.

  The twins had whined, fussed and demanded attention. They’d begged, screamed, cried and thrown up. They’d eaten everything in sight, asked for more, and spent Gabe’s money as if it were hers. They’d manipulated, wheedled and gotten their way. And then they’d had to make matters worse by declaring him their long-lost genetic link. If she’d been in his shoes, she’d have been halfway to Tibet by now, just to be certain that kind of announcement didn’t happen again.

  It wouldn’t. She’d already had a talk with Abby and Andy about their behavior and made some strong suggestions for improvement. Or else. They hadn’t asked the obvious: Or else what? Which was a good thing, considering she had yet to figure that part out, herself.

  The phone rang, startling her with its suddenness, its urgency, and she reached for it blindly, grasping it just before the ringer could go off again. “Hello?”

  “Don’t hang up!” It was Gabe’s voice. His firm, desperate voice. “Please!”

  “Okay,” she said quietly, and then, just to make certain he wouldn’t think she recognized his voice, she asked, “Who is this?”

  “Katherine! Don’t hang up!”

  Her lips curved at the sound of his evident relief. “Are you sure you have the right number?”

  “Don’t hang up, Katherine. This is Gabe Housley. I’ve been calling for the past twenty minutes...and getting a gruff, muffled voice telling me either it’s past my bedtime, or I’m going to get in trouble for making obscene phone calls, or that my refrigerator is running and I’d better go catch it. Then the line goes dead.”

  “Hmm. Sounds serious. Maybe you should report this to the phone company.”

  “I’m reporting it to the mother.”

  “Which makes you a tattletale. How do you know you didn’t dial someone else’s number and talk to their children?”

  “I recognized the giggles. Are they finally asleep?”

  “I don’t know. Why don’t you ask them? Andy? Abby? Are you out of bed again?”

  There was a dual gasp, and then a click and a clearer line as the extension phone was cradled. Far down the hall, Katherine heard the patter of running feet, some hushed conversation, and then the double thump as they each hit their respective mattresses. “They’re not asleep yet,” she told Gabe. “And on top of that, you’ve just blown my cover. Until I answered the phone, they thought I was taking a bath. Now I’ll probably have to tuck them into bed all over again.”

  “I thought they’d be so tired, you’d have trouble keeping them awake long enough to get them in their pajamas and brush their teeth.”

  “I wish. They’re so keyed up, I’m not sure they’re ever going to settle down.”

  “In that case, I’m sorry I left in such a hurry. I figured it would make your life easier if I wasn’t around.”

  As if a man had ever made her life easier, Katherine thought as she turned back to the window. “Well, they’re in bed now, and as long as the phone doesn’t ring again, maybe they’ll go to sleep.”

  “Then the obvious solution is
to keep talking to me so the line stays busy and the phone can’t ring.”

  “I was actually thinking about going to sleep myself.”

  “Well, before you do, I just wanted to say I enjoyed today,” he said.

  She found herself smiling. “You sound surprised.”

  He gave a short laugh. “I am. I never thought I liked kids before, but Andy and Abby are, uh, interesting.”

  At least he hadn’t said cute. “Yes, sometimes they’re so interesting, I can hardly stand it.”

  There was another pause, this one reflective. “On a scale of zero to ten, how interesting a day was it?”

  “Well, if zero is when they’re asleep and ten is complete insanity, I’d say we reached a high seven.”

  He seemed to consider that with some trepidation. “I guess that means tomorrow they might say something really interesting.”

  This time she laughed. “Not if I can help it, they won’t. I’m keeping them off street corners for at least a week.”

  He laughed with her, and Katherine thought how nice it felt to share a lighthearted amusement over some of the not-so-splendid moments of parenthood.

  “I really enjoyed today,” he said again.

  “You already said that.”

  “I was hoping you might respond by saying you enjoyed today, too.”

  Katherine pursed her lips, wondering where this was going and how she wanted to handle it. “Today was...not what I expected. The twins enjoyed themselves excessively and I enjoyed being with them, even though their behavior left a lot to be desired.”

  “I thought they behaved very well.”

  “Easy for you to say.”

  “You have to admit the circumstances were less than ideal.”

  She had to laugh. “That would be about the nicest thing anyone could say, considering that the day’s high point was finding Tresses Tina still at the diner and the low was—” Katherine stopped in midsentence. The low point, of course, was the humiliating moments in front of Saks...moments Gabe had to be nearly as embarrassed about as she was herself. “I don’t usually say, ‘I told you so,’ but...”

  “I take full responsibility for the original idea, but the circumstances were clearly not my fault.”

  “Mmm-hmm. It’s clearly not your fault that Andy drank three cups of hot chocolate and ate who knows how many jelly beans.”

  “I had to give him whatever he wanted. Otherwise, he’d have told you I coached him on what to say to get us out of line.”

  “You did that?”

  “You mean he hasn’t already confessed? I should have kept my mouth shut. Obviously I underestimated the kid.”

  Katherine shook her head at her own indefinable reflection in the window. “No, you didn’t. He’ll tell me all about your devious behavior the minute he remembers. Andy’s better than Abby at keeping secrets, but that’s not saying a lot.”

  “Does that mean they’ve already spilled the beans about tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow?” she repeated, feeling an odd mixture of anticipation and dread. “Please tell me you didn’t make plans with them for tomorrow. No, on second thought, don’t tell me. Because even if you did, your plans just got canceled.”

  “You can join us.”

  “Thank you, but I’ve already planned to take the twins to the Plaza for lunch, and then to a museum. They need some educational field trips to balance out all the excesses of the Christmas holiday. Providing they’re not both sick tonight, which wouldn’t surprise me, after all the junk they ate today.”

  “I was supposed to be there to cover just such a potentiality, wasn’t I? Say the word and I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Or less.”

  The last two words were softer—intimate, somehow—and a tremor of awareness raced down Katherine’s spine. “The word is no. Definitely no.”

  “You’re absolutely certain?”

  “No!” The thought of him here, with her, after the twins were finally asleep, the two of them watching the snow fall. It was too much.

  “So you’re not certain I shouldn’t come over?”

  “No,” she repeated. “Yes. Don’t come over.”

  “Well, okay,” he said on a sigh. “But I was really hoping I’d get a shot at that upper bunk.”

  “After today’s fiasco, Gabe, I can’t believe you’re eager to spend the night in a bunk bed. In fact, after today, I figured you’d be very busy, keeping up with the elves and their pertinent data and all. I didn’t think we’d see much of you, and I certainly didn’t expect to get a good-night call tonight.”

  She expected him to laugh with relieved agreement, make a halfhearted denial, then bring the conversation to a polite close, glad to be free of her and her mouthy children. But he didn’t laugh. He didn’t make any denial, halfhearted or otherwise. He didn’t say anything at all for a very long moment.

  “I had a specific reason for calling, Katherine,” he said, a clear reluctance in each word. “I thought about this all the way home and, well, I have to ask you something. For my own peace of mind. After what was said today, I think I have a right to...well, maybe not a right... Uh, there isn’t a good way to phrase this, so I’m just going to blurt it out and hope you won’t hang up on me.”

  Katherine closed her eyes, praying he wouldn’t ask, knowing he was going to, wishing there was some answer that wouldn’t be bluntly honest. “Yes,” she said, unable to keep from plunging into the embarrassing subject before he made it worse by asking. “I used a sperm bank, and no, there’s no possibility you were the donor.”

  There was a pause, marked by a sharp inhale on his end of the line. “Well, of course there isn’t! I’ve never... That was not what I was going to ask you. I only wanted to know about the kiss...whether I called you someone else’s name or said anything that would help me remember.... Wow. And I thought that was going to be an embarrassing question.” He sounded distressed, and she could imagine him impatiently brushing that recalcitrant lock of hair off his forehead. “It never would have occurred to me you’d think that I might think I could be the father of your twins.” He stopped and took another deep, audible breath. “For your information, Katherine, that is not my idea of a charitable donation.”

  And she had thought the day couldn’t get any more embarrassing. “Sorry. It just seemed like the obvious question.”

  “It isn’t obvious. It isn’t any of my business. It isn’t anyone’s business, and you’ve been dating the wrong men if that’s the kind of thing they ask you about.”

  There was nothing for it now but to buck up and explain as best she could. “Believe it or not, conception isn’t high on my list of preferred topics to discuss over dinner. And the subject has never been open for casual conversation...at least, it wasn’t until a couple of months ago, when the twins shared the miraculous story of their ‘virgin birth’ with the students and faculty at Gately. They had a, uh, little trouble differentiating between in vitro and the Immaculate Conception, which they were learning about in their World Religion class.”

  “World Religion class? They’re seven!”

  “That’s Gately for you.”

  His hesitation was brief, but ponderous. “And I was worried about confusing them with bow and beau.”

  “When they asked the question, I felt they deserved a truthful answer.”

  “For Pete’s sake, what question did they ask?”

  “The where-did-I-come-from question. Most children ask that when they’re four or five.”

  “I guess New York City isn’t good enough?”

  “They get more information than that from Saturday morning cartoons.”

  “So you told them everything you knew about the birds, the bees and the, uh, bank.”

  She bristled a bit. “I didn’t use the term sperm bank if that’s what you’
re getting at. I don’t know where they picked that up, unless someone at the fertility clinic used it.”

  “You took them to a fertility clinic?”

  “Not a clinic. The clinic.”

  “Of course, the clinic,” he said, surprise and a subtle exasperation blending into his tone. “I wouldn’t have expected you to take them on a tour of just any clinic. That would be like telling a lie.”

  She pulled the phone from her ear for a second and frowned irritably at it. “I suppose you would have told them they were delivered by the stork.”

  “No, I would have saved at least half the truth about reproductive science until they had a grasp of basic biology.”

  “They didn’t seem to have too much trouble grasping the concept of reproduction.”

  “It’s the concept of privacy—your privacy—they don’t seem to understand.”

  She opened her mouth to argue further, but closed it with a sigh. “Believe me, if I’d known they were going to repeat everything, no matter how inappropriate, I’d never have taught them to talk.”

  “In your defense, Kate, there isn’t anything wrong with the truth. It’s just that it so often sounds inappropriate.”

  “I should have waited until they were older...at least until they could make some distinction between a private matter and keeping a secret. But I was determined not to hide the truth of their conception. I didn’t want them to think there could ever be anything wrong or shameful about not having a father.”

  “A dad,” he corrected softly.

  “A dad,” she repeated, feeling the uncertainty of her decision arise all over again. A father could be anybody, but a dad was a presence. And a dad was what she had decided her children would be okay without. Now, for better or worse, she had to stand by that decision. “Look, Gabe, this is probably as good a time as any to ask you to call off this so-called Santa search. It was one thing for you to play along when the twins came to your office, wanting to hire a detective. But it’s something entirely different when you spend the day with them and they start to imagine you could be their father. They don’t believe in Santa Claus. They’re not going to believe in Santa Claus. And...I don’t want them to start believing in you.”