by Nina Loard
“Yes, I would. My sons may have had it much worse if it weren’t for him. As much good parenting as I like to believe my wife and I gave them, rest her soul, I think Ari may have matured them better than I ever could have.” He watched the clouds pass by out the tiny window as he drank his coffee.
“What happened?”
“The same year Ari’s father passed away, my boys beat Ari up badly. It’s hard to understand now, more than fifteen years later, but at the time, Ari was very poorly treated at school. He wasn’t like the other boys there and, well, they didn’t like different. In the beginning, Ari took it from the kids, the name calling and teasing that can come with being born outside of wedlock without a proper education. His story was common knowledge by the time school started for him. His father pulled major strings to even get him into the boys’ private school. I didn’t know him well. A good looking kid, but he hardly ever spoke.
“He started boxing for the team and was getting quite good. My boys are boxers as well. There are specific rules with teammates. You have a protocol you follow, and you aren’t ever supposed to take it outside the ring. One day after Ari fought a good fight and won, my boys waited for him behind the school and beat him, threatening him if he didn’t quit the team. Ari made it to the administrative office and they took him to the doctor. He was okay, but it took a couple days home with his father before he came back to school. He wouldn’t tell anyone who had done it to him.
“The school threatened that the students responsible would be expelled and then the police got involved to file a report. Ari wouldn’t talk to anyone. Shortly after that, it became known his father was dying. My boys eventually told me what they’d done. We’d just lost their mother, and it isn’t an excuse, but they weren’t coping well. They saw Ari going through the same thing and felt real bad about taking it out on him. We invited Ari over to the house and I made them sit down with him and tell him why they’d done it. I told Ari I would support his decision if he turned them in. He wouldn’t. He told them he was sorry about their mother — that he knew how hard it could be. My sons are big brutes, even for Scottish men, but they cried like babies. They weren’t the same after that. At Ari’s father’s funeral, the three of us were pallbearers. Ari didn’t have any other family there.”
“Where are your sons now?” I was almost in tears thinking about Ari so alone and hurt. He wasn’t someone you pictured as vulnerable.
“One is in Connecticut and one is in upstate New York. After we drop you off, I’m going to be with them and their families for Christmas.” Kelly brightened at the thought.
“I’m sure it will be good to see them.”
“Yes, it will. My boys are still fighters. I am sure they will come to blows with each other, all in good fun, of course,” he laughed.
I shook my head and said, “I’m not a fan of boxing, it’s hard to watch. Ari just fought in a boxing match at a party the other night. I was covering my eyes the whole time.”
“Huh, I thought you were one of those lady boxers? You had a good size shiner when I flew you to Boston last time. You told me you got it from Raven in the ring. That one I can see throwing a punch.” Kelly laughed again as he started gathering up his paper and coffee.
“You flew me that day and I had a black eye?” I hadn’t thought about how I may have gotten home and just assumed I flew commercial. Why would I have had a black eye?
“Yes, it was a bumpy flight all the way due to some storm systems passing. You stayed glued to your seat for most of it. You were pretty shaken up from all the turbulence, I figured. Anyway, Finn told me what happened to you. I’m real sorry about the accident. I best be getting back and make sure Vince is still awake.” Kelly gently slapped my knee with his newspaper and went back to the front of the plane.
Brutus jumped down from his perch and skidded out the cat door toward a grouping of birds. Wishful thinking on his part. All alone in my house, I considered the facts. Someone had hit me. A part of me could see Raven challenging me in the ring and punching me in the eye, hell, I had seen her handiwork on Luca. However, they had told me everyone was off on their own covers and not in London. According to my friends, the last one of them I saw was Ari, who had given me roughly $250,000 in Edinburgh.
Why would I have told the pilot that Raven hit me if someone else had? Any injuries I had after the accident were explained by being thrown from a car. Whatever happened, I had no memory of any of it. I hadn’t told Finn about the black eye yet. I wanted to trust each one of them, but I was scared of setting something in motion accidentally. I definitely had a feeling that something wasn’t right. I was going to need their help to figure it out, but I needed a plan for myself first, and a decision on which one of them I was going to confide in. As Brutus sauntered back into the house, I decided it was time for a change in scenery.
The drive north wasn’t a very far one, but the traffic was steady and the sleet didn’t help. It took much longer than it should have to get to Chestnut Hill and my old house. It had been close to a year since my last visit, but it stood waiting for me, never changing. The sky had already turned dark and the festive white lights covered the boxwoods that lined the flagstone path to the door. Garlands and red bows adorned the light post out front, the arch over the door, and the white mailbox by the street. You could see the lights of the enormous Christmas tree in the living room, shining through the window. My mother had decorated for Christmas the same way every year. Though I had longed for adventure and a new life in my youth, I was always glad some things stayed the same.
I gathered Brutus’s travel box and walked up the path to the door. Before I could ring the bell, Steve threw it open and Jackson raced out to greet us. Despite Steve commanding him to stay, he was all over me and sniffing wildly at Brutus. Brutus eyed him indifferently and went back to cleaning himself, secure in his domed home. Jackson was a mutt of a dog resembling a Golden Retriever in coloring and height, but with the build of a Rottweiler and the coat of a German Shepherd. He was so loving, you forgave the red hair that coated everything you owned once he made your acquaintance.
My mother came rushing out of the kitchen, delighted to see me. “Evelyn, dear, welcome home. You look wonderful.” She took me in from head to toe and hugged me twice. I realized I had stayed away too long, though she had visited Newport earlier in the year.
“Mom, you look good, too. Sorry I’m later than I thought, the traffic was pretty horrific.” I started taking off my coat and went to the hall closet to hang up my things. Short little coats of mine from primary school still hung off to the side. One jacket even had a lift pass on the zipper from the ski trip I went on in sixth grade. Escaping the past in that house was impossible.
“No matter, Steve made his chili tonight, so it has just been sitting on the stove, waiting for you. Come look at the tree, we decorated it last week.” I followed her into the living room and marveled at the transformation. The fireplace was lit with garland hanging from the mantle. The huge tree was decorated with gold and red accents and the same ornaments were there, front and center. The cardboard wreath I made in third grade with glued on nuts and berries, some of which were missing. The glass Santa Claus on the top of the tree which surprised us every year when it didn’t break. The photos of me at different ages in hanging frames. Steve’s children, Gary and Bridget, were represented as well. I was happy to have some other faces to share the spotlight.
“I think it is the prettiest tree ever,” I told her, really believing it, but it was also a tradition to say it. She looked very pleased and went off to check on Steve’s corn bread in the oven.
“I’ll just take these up to your room. What happened to your back seat?” Steve had already gone out and gotten my luggage.
“Oh, just moving stuff for a friend and something sharp took hold. I’ll get it fixed someday. You didn’t have to get those, but thank you. The tree looks great, by the way.” I really did care about Steve. I wanted him to know it, but I had a harder time
than I probably should have being close to him.
We visited over dinner, talking about my trip to London, and I rehashed the same stories for them. The friends I had made and my few recollections. They thought it all sounded very intriguing. It sparked a lot of talk about their various trips to Europe when they were young and how they wanted to go back before they couldn’t get around as well. Either they sensed I didn’t really want to talk about it or my stories weren’t very interesting, but they shifted the conversation quickly to the plan for Christmas and all they needed to get done before the 24th.
“Evelyn, Steve and I have his office party. Ellis will be there and some other people we’d like you to meet. It’s tomorrow night. Then, we have to go to Copley Place and finish the Christmas shopping. After that, there’s the gingerbread recreation of the museum that I need to help with, and then all the cooking. Violet, of course, will help with the grocery shopping, but she is going off to see relatives in Maine after that. I am so glad you are here. Then, we must all go to the country club for New Year’s Eve, we already have reservations.” My mother went on with her list of things to accomplish as Steve nodded absently, occasionally leaning to the left to get a look at the football score on the flat screen in the library.
Nothing my mother shared excited me and one or two things sounded just plain painful. Ellis, my high school boyfriend? No, I didn’t care to see him, and “other people we want you to meet” I suspected was code for “single lawyers”. New Year’s Eve and her plan for it bothered me in particular. I hadn’t fully decided where I was going to spend it, but when she announced the plans she had made, I felt genuine disappointment. A part of me was already looking forward to Paris, and the thought of being at the country club instead made me sick to my stomach.
After watching football, I excused myself, and Brutus and I went off to bed. My room, done in hues of blue with small flowers, remained the same. The mattress still sloped to the center and the sheets still smelled of lavender from the linen closet. I lay in bed and thought about kissing Finn, the boxing match, the birthday dinner in Paris, and my growing concern over my alleged punch out by Raven. What if I had been mugged in London? Surely I would have told someone. What if Ari hit me and kept the money? I couldn’t even believe I was thinking it, but I had to consider all the options. What if I simply fell down and made up a story to explain the bruising out of embarrassment? That sounded the most like me, but all the options kept me from falling asleep for a long time.
The next couple of days passed quickly. I agreed to be my mother’s shadow, running errands, finding recipes, delivering tins of cookies to the neighbors, etc. There were more than several awkward conversations where I found myself explaining what I was doing with my life. After telling people about being laid off and then having to listen to their well-meaning, pick-me-up speeches, I decided that I was “taking time off and traveling”. That made people much more pleasant to be around. They loved to share their own travel stories, and I could just drink my cocktail and nod politely.
The office party was tolerable. Ellis was down about his recent divorce and I found myself feeling genuinely sorry for him. A couple of other gentlemen were introduced to me. Peter Slovoff was a promising new lawyer at the firm who was the clear forerunner, judging by my mother’s reaction to him. He was handsome, in a collegiate way, and full of himself. Peter found me a couple times, as I hit the punch bowl hard, and asked me about my career goals, my religious views and who I last voted for. I considered pulling the fire alarm, though I was very cordial, giving my mother the completely wrong idea.
Copley Place, the upscale mall my mother favored in downtown Boston, was ridiculously crowded so close to Christmas. The economy was still bad, but you wouldn’t know it from the throngs of frenzied people. Last minute shopping was in full swing. After hours of picking out gifts for people I didn’t know well, we decided to get something to eat on Newbury Street. My mother was not a fan of ‘messy mall food’, as she described it. After circling for a parking place, we dined on a heavy French meal at Chez Americana. When we were done, we did more walking down Newbury, which resulted in more packages. The streets were still crowded, even as the light faded from the sky.
My mother stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and bent to examine her coat closer. “Evelyn, have I been walking around with ketchup all over me this afternoon? I bet it was that damn food court we passed through for coffee at the mall.” She put her bags down and started trying to find something to wipe off her coat and bag. Thick trails of red were falling down the sides, like she had been squirted by a ketchup bottle.
“Mom, pick up your bags and follow me. Keep your purse close to you. Come on, trust me.” I scanned the crowd and saw two suspicious people eyeing us from close by. The fact that they were remaining close to us and not continuing on made the hairs on my arms stand on end. My mother looked at me with some confusion, but did what I said. I pulled her into Ben and Jerry’s ice cream parlor and got her a towel so she could clean off her things in the bathroom. After a few moments, she came back out, curious as to why I had been so insistent. “Just something I learned in Europe. I’ve seen that type of scam before. Someone squirts you with a bottle of something and they follow you, waiting for you to notice and put down your bags, distracted.” I gave her the easy answer.
The real one was that when I saw the ketchup, I instantly remembered Ari telling me about that particular ploy and what I needed to look for if it happened to me. We were sitting at Dura Vita having coffee. He looked younger in my memory, softer around his eyes. I had just told him how ridiculously simple it sounded and that it couldn’t possibly work. He was laughing, telling me I’d be surprised. He was right. It would have worked. Had I not been with her, my poor mother would have been robbed of her things in a heartbeat. The second we got home, I ran up to my room to call him before it got too late.
“Ari, I’m sorry. Did I wake you?” He answered after the third ring and his voice sounded gravelly.
“Evelyn, no. Well… I was dozing. Are you okay?” He came to attention quickly once he realized it was me.
“I’m fine. I had another flash. You were in it. I just wanted to tell you.”
“What was it?” He sounded more apprehensive than pleased.
“My mother almost got taken in by muggers today using a ketchup bottle. I remembered you and I having coffee and talking about that particular scam. Luckily, I recalled it in time and got her and her bags off the street.” I laughed and waited for his response.
“Well done on saving your mother.” He laughed as well. It sounded like he sat up in the bed, more awake as he shifted the phone. “How are you doing, being home?”
“It’s boring, with very little palace dining. It’s good to see my mother, but the endless attempts at setting me up are getting tedious.”
“Oh, nothing to tempt you? Finn will be glad to hear it.” His tone turned more serious. “Evelyn, have you remembered anything else? Anything about Scotland or the money?”
“No, nothing about Scotland.” I wanted so badly to tell him what Kelly told me since Ari was the last person I had seen back then. However, despite all the evidence I had that we were close friends once and becoming friends again, there was much I didn’t know. Not to mention the fear his eyes had caused me that first night. I wouldn’t believe he would hurt me, not after everything I had heard about him, but I simply couldn’t be 100% sure of anything.
“What is it? Evelyn, I can hear there’s something wrong. If I don’t have the answers, I’ll find them, I promise. At the restaurant, it was like you had more to say to me.”
“No, it’s nothing. Listen, I have to go. I don’t know about Paris, my mother is talking about the family being together for New Year’s Eve. I don’t think I can get out of it, though I would like to. Sorry for waking you. I’ll talk to you soon. Good night.” I waited to see if he believed me.
“Good night, Evelyn. Please don’t worry about anything. Whatever it is, we
’ll figure it out.” He didn’t buy it, but he wasn’t going to push either. I could hear the worry in his voice, despite his assurance. I shouldn’t have called him, but I’d been excited to share my discovery.
The rest of the evening and the next two days were filled with neighborhood cocktail parties, club dinners, and cooking for Christmas Eve. My mother was going all out, probably because Steve’s kids, Gary and Bridget, were coming. They usually went to their mother’s for Christmas Eve and Steve got Thanksgivings. Perhaps me being home had something to do with it too, which was why I was enjoying being with her, despite some of the more tedious assignments.
Christmas Eve was when my family had our big dinner, and then we’d reheat it for lunch on Christmas Day. I’d spoken with Bounce, who had now shifted into begging as a way to get me to agree to Paris. Finn had also called to wish me a Merry Christmas. They were going to Raven’s house for dinner. I wanted to be there, but was happy being home, too. I laughed at how extraordinary it would be to have my London friends and my family together under one roof. That would definitely be a Christmas to remember. Of course, Raven would more than likely take my mother’s silver and hit on Steve.
I left my hair down and put on my red jewel neck sweater and black wide-leg trousers. I sighed as I realized my pants would be covered in Jackson’s hair before too long. My mother was beside herself in the kitchen, and I was not much of a cook, but I grabbed an apron and started to help. We had made the same meal every year, so I knew the basics. Violet had done most of the preparation, so we were just struggling with the final stages of cooking and the plating. The table was set with the fine china, crystal, and a beautiful poinsettia arrangement as the centerpiece. I counted the place settings.
“Mom, who else is coming tonight?”
“Gary and his wife. Bridget, of course, and two other friends who had nowhere else to go. Do you mind stirring the gravy? I have to go get ready. There’s wine chilled in the fridge.” She yanked off her apron and was gone before I could say anything else. I wasn’t entirely surprised, but a Christmas set-up felt even more humiliating. It was a night you shared with people who were special to you and it was like saying I didn’t have anyone. I had several actually, but they were far away.