by Cari Z
He motioned to the mostly full pot. “Just trying to get in for a cup of my own. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“You didn’t.” I moved out of the way and watched Hal pour coffee into a cappuccino mug. Ariel had given the machine to Hal last year—he’d always wanted a cappuccino maker. Great coffee was the one luxury he allowed himself.
“No? You looked pretty distracted.”
“I wasn’t really…distracted. Just thinking.” I smiled. “About how much I’m enjoying my visit.” And my time with Dominic.
“Well, the girls love having you here, but I get the feeling that’s not really what you’re talking about.” He held up a hand before I could protest. “I’m not bothered by it, Max. God knows Nicky could use another friend, and I haven’t been much of one to him lately. I think you’re good for him.”
I frowned. “Dominic worships you. He always has.”
Hal shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe. But it’s not like life has been easy on him either lately, and I haven’t had the bandwidth to do much talking to him about leaving the army and starting up a whole new career.”
“He seems fine,” I said after a second. “Really. His work partner likes him, that’s obvious, and he’s got the house to work on. His counselor seems pretty on top of things, too.”
Hal glanced at me. “He talked to you about her?”
“Just that he had a regular appointment with her, to help him manage his PTSD.”
“Wow.”
Wow what? I was about to ask for clarification, but then Hal chuckled wryly. “God, that fuckin’ house. I told him not to buy it. It was such a wreck. Way worse than what you’re seeing now. He was determined to have his own place, though. Funny, growing up, this house had seemed packed all the time. Now it practically echoes.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “The girls do a pretty good job of filling it.”
“Jesus, you’re telling me.” Hal smiled a bit before taking a sip of his coffee.
I knew that things weren’t okay with Hal. He was putting on a pretty good front for the girls, but in these quiet moments with me, I could see the sadness inside of him, and the anger, and the fear.
I couldn’t magic Hal’s worries away—all I could do was my best to alleviate them while I was here. I also made a mental note to call more often when I got back to New York. The thought didn’t do much to comfort me. New York City felt so far away right now, so distant from Hal’s warm, coffee-scented kitchen and the girls giggling only a staircase away, and Dominic’s company and laughter and kisses and…
An idea teased at the edge of my brain. I knew better than to chase after it, especially with the tiny patter of footsteps transforming into a thundering charge as they got to the stairs. “Speaking of filling the house,” I murmured, and Hal smiled again as the girls rounded the corner to the kitchen.
“Hi, Max!” Marnie said as soon as she saw me. “Did you have another fun sleepover with Uncle Nicky?”
“I sure did,” I replied and fully ignored Hal’s huff of laughter.
Steph wandered sleepily over to her dad, and Hal picked her up effortlessly in one arm, setting her against his hip and kissing her forehead before taking another sip of coffee.
If he wasn’t the best father I knew, I would eat my goddamn shoes. Hal might worry, but I didn’t, not about his relationship with his daughters at least.
“Did you guys stay up late?” Marnie asked as she opened the fridge. She tried to grab the milk, but it was a new gallon and too heavy for her to hold.
I stepped in before she dropped it on the floor. “We did stay up a little late.” I supported her hold on the milk and carrying it over to the counter with her. Then I got a plastic cup out, poured it half full, and handed it to her.
“Did you watch one of your movies?”
I had watched something way, waaay better than even the best movie, but that was definitely not something I wanted to share with anyone present. Although Hal was hiding a smile behind his coffee cup, so he knew what was up.
I cleared my throat. “Not last night. Mostly we just talked.” I got another cup out and poured a little milk in then found a sippy lid for it, snapped it on, and handed it over to Steph. She took it with a little smile and started guzzling it down immediately.
Marnie looked puzzled. “Why did you just talk?” she asked. “That sounds sort of boring.”
“I just wanted to get to know your uncle Nicky a little better, that’s all.”
“You could have done that over here. Next time you guys should have your sleepover in your room.”
“Well, we also worked on his house some,” I said. “We have to be there for that.”
“Is that what they’re calling it now?” Hal murmured.
As soon as his girls weren’t looking, I was going to smack him upside the head. “So,” I began in an effort to change the subject, “what’s on the agenda for today?”
“I’ve got work,” Hal said then added unexpectedly, “but one of my guys is picking me up, so you’ll have the truck to take the girls around in if you want to go somewhere.”
“Yes!” Marnie crowed. “We can go to the mall and see Santa!”
“If Max wants to,” Hal said.
Marnie and Steph both looked at me with big, hopeful eyes.
I was sunk, utterly sunk. So, even though I wasn’t sure about going out and interacting with more townspeople and leaving myself open to questions and gossip, I said, “Sure, we can do that.”
“Yay!” Marnie cheered, and even Steph made a sound of happiness. Unfortunately, Marnie’s cheer was accompanied by shooting her hands into the air, which sent the dregs of her milk all over the floor and her nightdress. She looked down at herself. “Oops.”
“Yeah, oops.” Hal put down his empty coffee cup and switched Steph to his other hip. “Come on, you little menace, let’s get you cleaned up and into your clothes before I have to go. Can you—” He glanced my way and mimicked wiping something, and I nodded. “Great.”
“I’m a my-nuss! A minus!” Marnie said then frowned at her dad. “No, I wanna be a plus.”
“Pluses are very careful with their cups, honey. Do you think you can do that next time?” Hal asked as he guided his eldest toward the stairs.
“Yeah, I think I can.”
“Perfect, that’s my little plus.”
Then Steph said, “Daddy, I wanna be a plus, too.”
Hal, to his credit, barely stumbled. He gave her a squeeze, though, hard enough that she squeaked, and said, “Baby, you already are a plus.”
They headed upstairs, and I stared at the milky floor and wondered when life had turned so upside down that I was actually considering staying in Edgewood.
Wait, what? What? No, I wasn’t!
Yes, my brain helpfully reminded me. You are.
Fine, yes. The idea of living closer to Hal and the girls held great appeal at the moment. Hal was my best friend, a huge part of my past and hopefully a huge part of my future, and he and the girls undoubtedly needed all the support they could get right now. But was I considering the idea because of them or because of recent developments involving a gorgeous man and orgasms?
It was way too soon to be thinking of something more permanent with Dominic. Good grief, we hadn’t really known each other a whole week—we’d had some amazing sex together, sure, but sex didn’t constitute a relationship. At least, not one that I could commit to. I’d be returning to the city after Christmas. Unless we tried long distance or Dominic moved to the city—the first which held no appeal, and the later which was a big no because of his PTSD—I didn’t think either of us should attempt labeling this as anything serious.
Upending my life because of intense chemistry and a couple of nights of great sex with Dominic didn’t make sense, even if my chest tightened at that statement.
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After Hal left, I got a call from the mechanic with news that my car wouldn’t be ready today due to a part not arriving. Good thing I’d already planned on staying until Christmas Day.
Once the girls finished their breakfast—oatmeal with dried cranberries and honey, a habit they got from their mom—and we headed out for a walk. Marnie was careful to point out all the things her dog could sniff if she got a dog, and that she’d really love a dog, and did I think that Santa would bring her a dog?
I told her that I didn’t think Santa specialized in animals. “I mean, how would he get them all on the sleigh? How would he keep the dogs from biting the cats and the cats from eating the birds and the snakes from eating everything? Sounds a little too complicated to me.”
“It might happen,” Marnie insisted, her hair curled tight to her head around the edges of her hat. “If there’s a chance he’ll bring it, I should ask, shouldn’t I?”
A dog hadn’t been an option before Ariel left. She was allergic to them. Was this the definition of a silver lining or something a little sadder than that? I didn’t know.
I turned the girls back toward the house. “Come on. Let’s go to the grocery store, then we’ll head to the mall and visit Santa.” I’d check the mall’s schedule before we left, though—it might be the day before Christmas Eve, but I didn’t want to get there and find out that Santa’s visiting hours were over.
I got all the ingredients to make shepherd’s pie at the store and was hey there’d and well, hello’d so much it was like I couldn’t turn a corner without a new person I vaguely recognized bumping into us. Stranger still, they were all…friendly. I hadn’t expected that. By the time I left Edgewood a decade ago, I’d felt like the only people around who hadn’t painted me as guilty by association were Hal and his family, Dinah, and a few of my mom’s friends. Some of that perception was undoubtedly worsened by teenage angst, but it couldn’t all have been. People had been wary of me. Some of them had been downright accusatory. And now? Smiles, handshakes, and gentle questions.
The worst was when I met my old math teacher, Mr. Fiddler, down the dairy aisle. Ours was a small high school, and he’d been one of two math teachers for the entire school body. He’d been Everly’s teacher, too, and friends with her parents. After she was killed in the car accident with my father, I was convinced that Mr. Fiddler wanted nothing to do with me. He and I didn’t make eye contact the rest of the semester.
Seeing him face-to-face again was literally shocking, as though I’d gotten a static charge on the tip of my nose.
He blinked at me without speaking for a moment. “Well. Maxfield.” He pushed his glasses up his long, stork-like nose and stared at me. “Oh. This is such a…surprise.”
“Hi, Mr. Fiddler,” I said, feeling as awkward as he looked.
“You, ah…” He looked at the girls, who were staring at the goodies behind the glass doors and paying absolutely no attention to us. “You have kids now?”
“Oh, no. They’re Hal’s.”
“Right, right, the older Mr. Bell. All A’s, very good.”
Was that how he remembered us, by our grades? Honestly, I’d rather be in his head as “B’s and C’s, rather disappointing” than “the son of that bastard of an ex-mayor.”
I wondered how he’d categorized Dominic.
“Well. Ah,” he went on. “You’re here for, um, the holidays?”
“Yep,” I replied. God, I was a lawyer. I was supposed to be better than this at words.
“Max, we need chocolate chip ice cream,” Marnie informed me, not caring one bit about the weird tension in the air.
“We still have so many cookies, we do not need chocolate chip ice cream on top of that,” I told her, grateful for the distraction.
Two bright faces beamed up at me winsomely. “We could make ice cream cookie sandwiches!” Marnie said.
“Aw, nice try, but no.” I ruffled her hair. “You’ll have to make do with cookies.” I looked over at Mr. Fiddler, who seemed fascinated by the interplay. “Sorry, we’ve got to be going.”
“Ah, right. Well. Good.” He cleared his throat. “Nice to, uh, see you again. Hopefully not for the last, mmm, time.”
“Um…thank you,” I said, all retrograde awkwardness coupled with an odd sense of relief, and took off for the register. Whew. That had been uncomfortable but…not as bad as it could have been. Not by a long shot.
Edgewood would always remember the past, but maybe not everyone was still hung up on it.
My optimism promptly smashed to bits when I turned the cart toward the only register with a cashier manning it and saw another—barely—familiar face. My entire body locked up. I couldn’t push the cart. I couldn’t even move.
It was my dad.
His back was to me, but I could see him in profile as he argued with the person behind the register, one hand resting protectively on the case of cheap beer he’d plunked on the belt. His thick hair was hidden by a worn black cap, and his face sported a lot more lines than I remembered, but it was definitely him.
“—the hell do you need to see my ID for? Do I look underage to you? Don’t you know who I am?”
“Yes, Mr. Robertson, I do,” the girl behind the checkout said calmly. Apparently, she was used to belligerent customers—or maybe my dad made a habit of this. “But checking IDs for anyone buying alcohol is store policy.”
“It’s the dumbest policy I’ve ever heard of,” my father scoffed.
A manager headed for the checkout stand, an annoyed look on her face. Was she about to kick my dad out? Was she going to have him escorted out by the cops?
“Max?” Marnie tugged on my sleeve. “Shouldn’t we get in line?”
I almost gasped as her question broke the weird paralysis that had taken me over. “L-Let’s use the self-checkout today, okay?”
“Cool! I want to help scan!”
We turned away from the unfolding drama, and by the time Marnie and Steph had helped me scan and pack up everything we’d bought, my dad was gone. He hadn’t seen me at all.
I think I was relieved by that. Probably. Mostly. Seeing him in person again was hard enough, but seeing him like that, drunk and angry and downright mean, made me want to cringe in secondhand embarrassment and an almost unbearable sense of sadness. I couldn’t think about that now, couldn’t think about him right now. Who he was now, what he was, had nothing to do with me. Seeing my father was over and done with, but I still had a full day planned with the girls.
Good. I needed activity to keep my mind off what had just happened.
We went home for lunch—peanut butter and jelly, at Steph’s request, and I was inclined to give her almost anything she actually asked for—then it was off to the mall downtown.
The mall was one of the newer constructs in Edgewood, having been built when I was in high school. It was the last big deal for the town that my father had brokered as the mayor, and from the way cars were packed in the parking lot, I could only assume it had been good for the town’s economy. There were a few big flagship department stores on either end of it, a sports store, a big-box computer store, a bunch of places for kids, and in the middle of it all was a food court with a domed glass ceiling. That, or so the advertisements said, was where we’d find Santa.
There was a huge tree on the right side of the food court, next to windows that looked out on the playground attached to the mall. The tree was festooned in tinsel, red and silver and gold garlands that wrapped the tree up so thoroughly it was almost impossible to see the greenery underneath. In front of it was a big, familiar chair on a low dais, partially covered with a piece of white felt.
I knew that chair—I’d played on it when I was a little boy. It was the chair from the mayor’s office, a heavy wooden antique that was uncomfortable as hell after so many years of people squishing down its cushion, but beautifully carved. I’d seen my f
ather sitting there in it so many times, not the quarrelsome beer-guzzling drunk from the grocery store, but the respectable man he’d once been, putting a smile on for everyone and wearing a Santa hat to the office every day the week of Christmas. It was almost dizzying to see some other man sitting in that chair instead.
Sitting in it was a man in a traditional Santa suit—fluffy beard and hair, red hat, bulging pillow belly—and standing by his side was…a beaver wearing an elf cap and an apron?
Oh my god. Was this Edwina the Blissful Beaver that Dominic had told me about? I couldn’t have asked for a better distraction and bit my lip to keep from laughing as I took the costume in. It was a…well, a beaver, big and brown, with a flat tail that dragged on the ground and huge eyes surrounded by enormous eyelashes. It had a pointed green cap stuck on its head, and now that I looked closely, I could see the white felt collar around its neck in the shape of a snowflake, and the green points that had been tied onto the tops of its feet in an imitation of curly elf slippers.
“Ooh!” Marnie shouted happily. “Edwina is here!” She started to dart forward, but I reeled her back into place in line.
“We have to wait our turn,” I reminded her. “Santa wouldn’t want us to cut in line, would he?”
“No,” she sighed. “And neither would Edwina. She came and talked to our class right before the holiday break, and she said it’s very important to be polite to people, especially our family, especially during the holidays.”
I nodded. “She’s a very smart beaver.”
“I think so, too.” I managed to maneuver my phone so that I could get a picture of the girls standing together with Elf Edwina in the background and sent it to Dominic, along with a few crying-with-laughter emojis.
Edwina was working the crowd, keeping kids entertained and parents busy—not like they needed the help—by walking the line and handing each child a neon Post-it note in the shape of a snowflake and a crayon. “Don’t forget to write a list to Santa!” she said cheerily as she handed the supplies out. “You wouldn’t want to forget anything once you get up there to talk to him.”