The Heart of Christmas

by Kathryn Shay

  “No. The boy was sent the principal’s office and treated to a discussion about exercising sensitivity toward others. Amy was sent to my office because…”

  “Because her mother died a year ago and the school is handling her with kid gloves,” Conor guessed.

  The school psychologist hesitated before saying, “I think she deserves kid-glove treatment, don’t you?”

  Yes and no. His daughter had suffered a loss no child should ever experience. But she couldn’t go around punching people just because they’d insulted her.

  “I think Amy would benefit from some more therapy,” the psychologist continued. “This is going to be a rough season for her, especially if she believes Santa is going to bring her mother down the chimney and leave her under the tree. I’d be happy to meet with her. If you’d rather she continue with Rosalyn Hoffman, I believe she’s working part-time in a private group practice. Your insurance might cover it.”

  “Right.” Damn. Insurance, therapy, shrinks… Conor believed he and Amy had made genuine progress over the past year. They were functioning. Their home was running smoothly. Amy was doing well in school—when she wasn’t punching her classmates—and she was flourishing in the after-school program he’d enrolled her in at the YMCA. He really, really didn’t want to go back to where they’d been in the first months after the accident.

  But she was his daughter. His motherless daughter. If she needed more therapy, she’d get it. With Dr. Hoffman or with this new school shrink: Potter, Powers…Powell. If Dr. Powell could make Amy happy—without spoon-feeding her troublesome lies—Conor would be grateful.

  “Where is Amy now?” he asked.

  “Back in her classroom. Linda Rodriguez says things are under control,” she added, naming Amy’s teacher.

  “Does the school want to meet with me?”

  “That’s your call. If you’d like to schedule a session with me—with or without Amy—we can do that. If you’d rather work with Rosalyn Hoffman, I’ll email you the phone number at her new practice. We have your email address on file.”

  They certainly did. Last year, when the pain of Sheila’s death had been so raw, the school had been in constant touch with Conor. They had his work, home and cell phone numbers, his work and personal email addresses and his postal address. If he’d had a special smoke-signal frequency, he was sure they’d have that on file, too.

  “If there are any more dust-ups, I’ll be in touch,” Dr. Powell promised. “You might want to sign Amy up for a taekwondo class. Not that I’m advocating violence, but she’s not exactly effective when it comes to punching.”

  Was that a joke? Was Conor actually grinning? “Thanks,” he said. For keeping an eye on my daughter. For not entering a discipline report into her file.

  For making me smile.

  HE APPEARED IN the open doorway of her office as she was packing her tote and waiting for her computer to shut down. She already had her coat on, a scarf looped carelessly around her neck. She hadn’t parked too far from the door, but she knew to bundle up before leaving the school building. The early December afternoon was gray and cold enough to make her muscles clench.

  The man looming on the threshold to her office was enough to make her muscles clench, too—but not from cold. His windblown hair was thick and dark and just long enough to place him on the far side of fashionable. The rest of him wasn’t terribly fashionable, either—snug blue jeans, a ribbed sweater over a striped shirt, scuffed loafers and a bomber jacket of well-worn leather.

  He could be anyone. A parent. A friend of a friend of a friend. A lost driver seeking directions. A crazed gunman.

  A ridiculously handsome crazed gunman.

  Her apprehension mounting, she swallowed to relax her throat so she wouldn’t sound frightened when she said, “Can I help you?”

  “I’m looking for Eliza Powell.” He must have sensed her alarm, because he added, “I’m Conor Malone. Amy’s father.”

  “Oh.” She felt her body unwind…slightly. He was still ridiculously handsome. It had been a while since she’d allowed herself to notice any man’s sex appeal, and her reaction to Conor Malone unnerved her a bit. She certainly didn’t want to notice his sex appeal. He was the father of a student. “I’m sorry—you weren’t announced, and—”

  “No one was at the desk in the main office to sign me in,” he said. “There was a custodian there, though, and he recognized me. He told me he didn’t think you’d left for the day yet, and I should just knock on your door.” He gazed at her open door, then rapped it with his knuckles.

  “Oh. Well. Yes.” Which custodian had sent him to her office? Was that how things were done at this school? It seemed a bit too casual. Unsafe, actually. Just because this man said he was Mr. Malone didn’t mean—

  Once again, he seemed to read her thoughts. He pulled his wallet from the hip pocket of his jeans and handed her his driver’s license. The thumbnail photo on it looked like him, and the name on it read Conor Malone.

  Okay. She could stop being paranoid now.

  She handed the license back to him and smiled. “I was just about to leave.”

  “I should have phoned ahead. I was driving over to the Y to pick up Amy.” He eyed the clock on the wall behind Eliza, and she glanced at her watch. Four fifteen. “It’s a little early for me to be getting her,” he said, “but I figured she had a rough day. And I was having trouble concentrating at work, anyway.”

  Eliza offered another smile and wished he was just a bit less attractive. “This isn’t the Y.”

  “It’s on my way. I figured, what the hell, I’d swing by the school and see if I could catch you.” He returned her smile, although he looked wistful, his eyes churning with shadows. “Your call earlier today worried me.”

  “Amy is fine,” Eliza said.

  “She’s not going to be fine on Christmas morning, when her mother isn’t sitting in a pretty gift box under the tree.”

  “You’ve got a few weeks to set her straight about that,” Eliza pointed out. “If there’s anything I can do to make that easier for you, here I am.”

  His gaze swept over her. She detected more than sorrow in it, more than pain. As a child psychologist, she was adept at interpreting the unspoken messages children conveyed with their facial expressions, posture, word choices and energy level. But she didn’t trust herself when it came to deciphering the behavior of adults. Not after she’d so terribly misread a few of the adults in her own life.

  “Hitting a kid isn’t like her,” Conor Malone said. “She’s never been violent.”

  “I’m sure she was frustrated. He was mocking her and he was bigger than her, and he wouldn’t stop. She probably hit him just to get his attention. I suspect the boy hurt her more with his insults than she hurt him with her fist. But once physical aggression enters the picture, the school has to step in and follow procedure.”

  He looked skeptical. “It’s ‘procedure’ to send a kid who hit another kid to the school psychologist instead of the principal?”

  “The school takes special circumstances into account.”

  He ran a hand through his hair, tousling it even more. “I thought Amy and I were doing well,” he said, sounding weary.

  “You’re doing fine.” She had no way of knowing that, but he seemed desperate for reassurance.

  He sighed. “Well. Thanks for looking out for her. I shouldn’t keep you.”

  “Not a problem.” Her computer had finally shut down, and she lifted her tote. “Let me know if I can help in any way.”

  His eyes met hers, intense blue fringed with thick, short lashes. They were truly beautiful—and that was not an appropriate thought. She swiftly lowered her gaze.

  “Thank you,” he said quietly.

  When she looked up again, he was gone.

  Chapter Two

  HE WAS THE worst father in the world. First, because he’d failed to protect his daughter from the pain of losing her mother—not that he’d had the power to do that, but a f
ather ought to protect his daughter, right? And he hadn’t.

  Second, because his daughter had hit a classmate. Only a crappy father would raise a daughter to go around clocking kids.

  Third, because his daughter was seated next to him in the car, yammering about her math test and her swap of an apple for a banana at lunch and the drawing of a sailboat on a lake she’d done during the after-school program at the Y, and all he could think about was Eliza Powell.

  Flurries swirled through the air, as light as dust. Downtown Arlington was already dressed in holiday finery, store windows decked out with wreaths and tinsel, arches beaded with red and green lights spanning the streets overhead, and a jovial-looking fellow in a Santa suit posted in front the Connecticut Bank and Trust building, clanging a bell and shouting Christmas greetings to passers-by who dropped money for charity into a kettle beside him. Conor doubted the light snow would stick, but with or without white stuff, the charming little city nestled into the hills of northwestern Connecticut appeared to be in the holiday spirit.

  He tried to focus on what Amy was saying, and on what he’d say to her about the punching episode. But every part of his attention that wasn’t devoted to the traffic and the weather clung insistently to the woman he’d met at the school.

  She was no Rosalyn Hoffman, that was for sure. The school psychologist who’d worked with Amy last year had been warm and grandmotherly, with a double chin and bushy salt-and-pepper hair. She’d worn nubby sweaters and smelled like vanilla, and whenever she’d seen Conor, she’d reassured him that everything was going to be okay.

  Eliza Powell had offered reassurance, too. But there was nothing grandmotherly about her. She was tall and slim, with dark blond hair that fell in leisurely waves around a face of hazel eyes, angular cheekbones and soft, sweet lips. She’d already had her coat on when Conor had arrived at her office, but she hadn’t closed the coat yet, and he’d glimpsed the sleek curves of her body beneath a sweater that was smooth, not nubby, and tailored slacks that emphasized the length of her legs.

  He should not be thinking about her lips, sweet or otherwise. He should not be thinking about her mouth, her legs, her hair or any of her other features. He hadn’t thought about women in the context of attractiveness since Sheila had died. He’d loved Sheila, and she was gone, and now he had to concentrate all his energy on being a good father.

  Clearly, he was missing that mark by a wide margin.

  Next to him, Amy chattered happily. “Do you think we’ll get lots of snow? I want to build a snowman. Do we have any carrots? Ms. Rodriguez says if you make a snowman’s nose out of a carrot, the birds can eat it. Do birds eat carrots? I thought they just ate seeds and worms. Oh, and berries. Ethan Salvucci said birds fly south for the winter, but they don’t all fly south. I see birds here all year round. What are those red ones called, Daddy?”

  He shook his head to clear it. “Red what, Amy?”

  “Those red birds we saw in the holly bushes.”

  “Cardinals.”

  “Cardinals. We saw two this morning, remember?”

  A year ago, Amy wouldn’t have been babbling like this. She would have been hunkered down in her seat, brooding and withdrawn, staring at her hands clenched in her lap. She’d been so sad last year, alarmingly sad. Maybe he wasn’t such a bad father, if his daughter had finally emerged from the horrible depression that had wrapped around her like a smothering blanket after Sheila’s death.

  But he couldn’t really take credit for that. Dr. Hoffman had insisted that Amy was a healthy girl and in time she would regain her bearings. Conor’s job, according to Dr. Hoffman, was to love her, support her, listen to her and be honest with her. She would do the rest herself.

  So yeah. He was still a crappy father.

  As they neared their house, he let Amy push the remote-control button to open the garage door, a task she considered thrilling. Once the car had rolled to a halt inside the garage, they gathered her backpack and his laptop bag and entered the house. The next half hour was consumed with the business of settling in for the evening and heating one of the dinners Vera, his part-time housekeeper, had left for them. Vera came to the house once a week, cleaned, ran the laundry and prepared a few entrees, which she would then pack in plastic containers, label and stack in the freezer.

  Conor knew how to cook, but after working all day, he lacked the energy to fix a healthy, satisfying meal. For the first few months after Sheila had died, neighbors had kept him and Amy supplied in casseroles. They’d eaten an awful lot of lasagna and mac-and-cheese that first month. But eventually they’d both grown sick of noodles. And he couldn’t justify spending time dusting, vacuuming, scrubbing the sinks and fixing elaborate dinners when he ought to be devoting himself to comforting his distraught daughter. So he’d hired Vera. She was a godsend, worth twice what he paid her. Every time he discussed giving her a raise, she shook her head and argued that she worked only one day a week for him. Whether or not she wanted it, she was going to get a huge Christmas bonus from the Malones this year.

  Thinking of his holiday gift to Vera reminded him of the holiday gift Amy was hoping for. While the chicken stir-fry and rice heated in the microwave, he threw together a salad and contemplated how he might raise the subject of unrealistic expectations with Amy. Eliza Powell was right: Conor couldn’t allow Amy to believe Santa was going to bring her mother back to life for Christmas.

  First things first. The microwave dinged and he shouted up the stairs for Amy to wash her hands and come to the table.

  She bounded into the kitchen, a cheerful sprite in her blue jeans and a purple sweater—purple was her favorite color this week. Her hands were still shiny with water from their washing, and her hair bounced around her face in fat brown curls. He poured her a glass of milk, popped open a bottle of beer for himself and took his seat facing her at the cozy oak table.

  Except for her hair, she looked like him. Gazing at her, he could see pathetically little of Sheila in his daughter’s face. Her pale blue eyes were his. So were her dimples and her pugnacious chin. He and Sheila used to joke that, given how strongly Amy favored him, he could never deny his paternity.

  Not that he’d want to. In fact, he’d used Amy’s resemblance to him as a strategy for persuading Sheila that they should have another child. “Don’t you want to try for one who looks like you?” he’d tease.

  After years of effort, he’d finally convinced her. They’d been trying. And then she’d died.

  “So, Amy,” he said, deciding there was no point in stalling. “You punched a boy in school today.”

  Amy scrunched her face, looking not the tiniest bit contrite. “Brendan Selchuk. He’s such a creep.”

  “Whether or not he’s a creep, you shouldn’t have hit him. Hitting isn’t good.”

  “He called me stupid,” she defended herself.

  “You could have called him stupid right back. Calling people names isn’t nice, but it’s not as bad as hitting.”

  “I told him to stop and he wouldn’t,” she said, then dug into her dinner. “Some people, the only way you can get them to stop doing something is to hit them.”

  Conor caught himself before disputing the point. A couple of years ago, he’d given her a few simple lectures on self-defense. If a stranger tries to grab you, scream as loudly as you can. Stomp on his foot. Punch him between his legs. Thank God Amy hadn’t punched her classmate there.

  “That’s true,” he allowed, “but you can’t hit your classmates. It’s not like Brendan is a criminal. He was just being obnoxious.”

  “And I got him to stop,” Amy said with a satisfied smile.

  “As I understand it, he was telling you Santa doesn’t exist.”

  “Which is stupid,” Amy said logically. “He said I was stupid. But I know Santa exists. Grandma told me Mommy is Santa’s special angel. How can she be the angel of somebody who doesn’t exist?”

  Conor wasn’t sure he wanted to detour into a theological debate. If Amy chose to bel
ieve her mother was an angel, he had no problem with that. The issue at hand was whether Sheila was Santa’s angel.

  “Amy,” he began, then fumbled. What to say? The child had lost her mother. He couldn’t bear to deprive her of Santa Claus, too. “The thing is, you can’t hit your classmates. Bottom line. It’s a bad thing to do.”

  Her lower lip trembled slightly and her eyes became glossy with tears. “If I’m bad, Santa won’t come.”

  “I didn’t say you were bad. I said hitting is bad.”

  “I did a bad thing. Now Santa won’t bring me Mommy.” She shoved back from the table, eyes overflowing, and ran out of the kitchen and up the stairs. A minute later, he heard the thump of her bedroom door slamming.

  Conor stared at her barely touched meal, and then at his own. He had no appetite. Even his beer tasted foul.

  Amazing that he could decipher the most complicated programing code without blinking. He could start a company, secure venture-capital funding, navigate the company over the threshold and into self-sufficiency, give his investors a generous return on their money, oversee a staff of fifty and bid on both federal and commercial contracts. He could repair a leaking sink, ski down a double-black-diamond slope and assemble an entertainment-center wall unit.

  But he couldn’t teach his daughter how to survive a tragedy.

  I am the worst father in the world, he thought.

  WHAT ELIZA NEEDED was a new best friend.

  After the betrayal she’d endured at the hands of her former best friend, Eliza had landed a job with the Arlington public school system, packed up and moved to Connecticut. Good thing the lease of her apartment in Albany had been in Matt’s name. She’d been able to move quickly. All she’d wanted at that point was to get the hell away.

  She’d found a townhouse condo for rent two days after arriving in Arlington. If she’d taken her time—if she’d had more time to take—she might have chosen something different. A small house with a garden would have been nice. A sensible cape or colonial, not an architectural wonder like this place, with its sharp angles and modern flourishes. The floating stairway rising from the entry to the second floor made a dramatic statement, but Eliza had never believed residences should make statements. The loft above the great room was wasted space, and as she was learning with the advent of winter, rooms with vaulted ceilings were hard to heat. The kitchen’s laminate white cabinets gave the room a sterile feel, and magnets didn’t stick to the stainless steel refrigerator. The condo’s owners were an older couple who’d bought the place thinking to move nearer their grandchildren living in western Connecticut, but then their son-in-law had accepted a job in Washington, D.C., and the doting grandparents had decided to follow their offspring to the nation’s capital. They hadn’t yet decided whether to sell their condo, so they were renting it for the time being.