Sisters
In the Lane, Snow is Glistening
Spoilers: None. Time frame is after second season, after the arrival of Bunny, and the discovery of Parker's ulcer. After my stories "Journey" and "Pickin' Up The Pieces".
Comments may be sent to: [email protected] Constructive criticism always welcome. Flamers to: Seinfeld or Saddam Hussein.
Actually it was a rather pathetic little tree. It stood on top of the side table I'd put under the window. Which meant it at least was visible out front. Six strings of cheap Made In China lights adorned its plastic branches. It looked colorful enough from a distance, and saved me the bother of buying decorations to put on it. Mr. Bunny ignored it completely.
A single-malt whiskey on rocks was snugly placed between the cushions of the couch. That damned Duncan had good taste in Scotch whisky. I could grow to like it. For now my drink was close to hand and not liable to be spilled if my rabbit decided to jump around. For the moment Bunny sat in my lap, enjoying the companionship. I think.
My legs were under me, and my dark brown nightdress lay over me. Relaxing, trying to let myself get mesmerized by the twinkling points of light. Stop thinking about things. Forget. Deny the outside world. All that exists are me, Mr. Bunny and the electric bill for those damned lights.
Bah, Humbug. Christmas Eve was tomorrow night.
Under the table were the presents I'd gotten at the Centre. Broots, at the prodding of his little Debbie, tried to have us do a Secret Santa this year. A hat full of names, you draw one, and you have to get a present for that person. You weren't supposed to know who was getting you something. Pure cornball.
It failed, of course. The Centre is not a place to find the Christmas spirit alive and well. I couldn't help remembering when Jarod finally discovered the holiday season. What we'd learned from those people we'd very politely interviewed.
Debbie will probably enjoy her own windfall immensely. I was surprised to find she had never had a watch before. Or a really good pair of Western-style boots. No silver metal toes or tri-color engraving for her first pair. Nothing ostentatious.
She, or Broots rather, had gotten me something large. It didn't weight that much and it looked lumpy. I had a suspicion it was a stuffed plush bunny.
Sydney had given a lightweight box and told me to put in the fridge until I opened it. Broots I wondered about. Both him and the small flat wrapped box he had given me. He and I were still trying to find ground where we were both comfortable. Maybe we never would. We'd just have live one @&%$# day at the Centre at a time.
Bunny woke up when someone knocked at my back door. I immediately realized I was expecting a guest.
"Unlocked!" I managed to shout. Still stroking Mr. Bunny.
"Ho, ho, ho!" my guest mumbled once he got to the living room. He was dragging a large red bag with white trim. Also wearing a Santa hat also with white trim. The little white ball on the end of the hat looked ridiculous trailing down the front of his nose.
"Merry Christmas, little girl. Have you been a good little girl this year?"
I glared at him until he finally dragged himself and the sack over to my sofa. "Sit," I invited him. "Happy New Year."
He sat, his bag by his foot. After a moment Mr. Bunny got off my lap and placed himself on my new guest's. A few tickles and scratchings and the rabbit was content. He'd found his place where he wanted to spend the rest of the night.
"Another damned male," I complained. "Trifle's with a woman's tender heart and then leaves as soon as he sees a place where he thinks the grass is greener."
"I'm fine. And you?" he replied.
I pointed a finger at him and told him to hold it right there or I'd shoot. He twitched so I jerked my hand and said "Bang."
He stared at me for a minute until I managed to say: "I warned you not to move." When had we gotten to the point where we could play together? Again?
After staring at the tree another minute so I wouldn't see Mr. Bunny with him, I rose to my feet. "Anything to drink?"
"Egg Nog?"
"Store bought?"
"Fine. Did you know you could put Rum in it? Do you have any?" Every once in a while... I didn't even shake my head. He surprised me by asking what I was having.
He settled for my new Scot's Scotch.
When I gave him his drink I got the chance to study him more closely. "You look like hell, Jarod. Been keeping long hours?" Then I realized he looked....older?
The faded nametag on his old military jacket, his poncho, didn't register for a second. Then I had to whoop with sudden laughter.
"You're Claus? Tomorrow is the day before Christmas and you're goddamned CLAUS??? This is..." Words failed me.
It felt good to laugh. It had been too long. Eventually I wound down. I took a slug of my Glenmorgaine, daring him with my eyes to explain this.
"For all my life, just about, I've wondered what sort of a name is Santa.... Care to explain? Sergeant Claus?"
He was happy to explain. "Some think it is a corruption of Saint-a, Saint-e, Sant-e. I prefer to believe it's old Aramaic. Palestinian. Somewhere, somewhen, Santa Claus really existed. "
I knew better than to argue when he's deep into one of his Pretends. It came to me who he was Sergeant Claus for. Who it was he was telling his new legend of Aramaic Santa's to.
"Is it orphans? Or hospital patients in Pediatrics?"
"Just one patient, and he's adult. And his son. For tonight. Tomorrow I visit a homeless shelter. Do you know how many families with children are in them now?
"For the man is a vet's son. For him and his own son, it's a form of closure. Finally laying the dead to an earned rest."
He looked at me, judging whether I needed to know more. Before I could reassure him, Jarod continued.
"When some grunts never came back from Veeat-Naam, their wives and children felt betrayed." It struck me veterans of that melancholy war pronounced that name the same way. Jarod was now another one of them. Jarod was in the midst of a Pretend.
"Illogical it might be, but the survivors suffered their own traumas. They demonized their husbands and fathers, a reflex against abandonment. The dead had not loved their children enough to come back for them."
Jarod smiled at my look. "Tomorrow one of them is going to hear a different story about their grandfather. Maybe then both father and son can grow together again."
We clinked glasses. "That's lovely, if true," I said. Staring at him I realized he had done something quite different for one of his Pretends.
"You look like damned hell because you're an old man. Of course. If you're a Vietnam Vet you've got to be in your late forties at the very least. Damn, but you've got some really good make-up on. Doesn't smell or look like make-up at all. Unusual for you, isn't it? Relying on paint and plaster?"
He pulled the Santa Claus hat off.
"BALD?!?!?"
"Not all the way back. Just typical male-pattern late-life baldness. In two weeks it'd all be almost grown back. I'm fifty-six years old, after all. For this week at least."
"Amazing how the *&%$#@ you do that." He knew I meant the way he could become his Pretend.
When he put out his hand to my chin I knew what he was doing. Looking at the scars on my neck. I was trying not to think of how crappy I looked with them. Leaning forward and twisting my head. Letting him see the ugly white lines on both sides. My most obvious scars. I knew he was going to do this.
"I can get rid of both of them, you know," he commented. "What does the Centre doctor say?"
"That I was an ass to get myself in that situation. That he'd like to do two or three operations over a period of months to remove the sciata completely." Deliberately not taking a sip of my whiskey as I was reminded of that night in the Maryland motel room. I am woman. I am strong. I just am not &%$#@ invincible, that's all.
He looked at the hand next, flexing the fingers, asking me to squeeze his own fingers. "Are you worried about the scaring there? The mobility and grasp seems quite good."
"I can feel it every time I use it hard. A reminder. I squeeze a ball with that hand for an hour each day. The doctor will get most of the scaring there as well. He says. Or they'll get an outside surgeon.
"However, it's never going to stop reminding me when used."
"Hold the hand right there," he said. He twisted and pulled out a large package from his Santa sack. Mr. Bunny ignored the movements, closing his eyes again once my present was on the coffee table. I stared at it and then at Jarod.
"It doesn't weigh that much. It isn't another stuffed velveteen rabbit is it?" His eyes flickered to the large package under my magnificent spreading Christmas tree.
"Debbie?" he asked. I nodded. He was intensely curious as to how her and I could be such buddies, but I wasn't going to enlighten him. Not before I deciphered it myself. Or before I deciphered my feelings towards her father.
"I'm going to open it." He knew I meant his present and right now. I don't think I appeared eager taking the gilt and silver paper off it. Rather bored. The box stood there daring me to lift the lid. Instead I pointed at the tree.
"The red and white stripes is yours." He waited for me to open my gift first. He smiled and brought his package to the table in front of us. I think I was neater unwrapping mine than he was his.
We lifted the lids together, trying to synchronize movements.
I carefully laid both of mine onto the table. Staring at them. A flat gilt foil box of Godiva mixed chocolates and a dozen long-stemmed roses in a transparent box. He managed to repress his grin. Mostly.
"Someone once said you were not the roses and chocolates kind of a girl," he said. Sydney must die for his sins. Soon.
I was trying not to remember what the three colors of roses in that box represented. Knowing Jarod must know.
Red for love, for passion. Yellow for friendship. White.
For purity.
Glaring at him was easier than deciding whether he meant anything by his choice of colors. Easier than letting him see my face melt at the edges. I am woman, I am strong.
He delved into his box to pull out his own presents, spreading them on the table.
"It's Turkish taffy," I explained, pointing to one package of flat bars. "You slam it against something hard. It shatters and then you can peel the wrapping off it and eat it." He restrained himself from trying a bar of it then and there.
Two antique Pez dispensers. At least they said they were antiques. A bag of ‘penny' candies. He tried one of the Mary Janes immediately. Then he held the water pik and toothbrush kit up to his face, grinning. "Are you trying to say I eat too much junk food?"
Score one for the Ice Princess.
My box of Godiva smelled gorgeous once opened. All that sin and sugar and chocolate. I presented the box to my guest, of course.
"The nuts are mine," I pointed out before he selected one. "You die here and now if you even look at the toffee crunch."
Once every morsel of that delight, and the lovely macadamia was speeding directly to my ass, I leaned back. Debating what to say next. Not looking at those roses, or thinking of them. Especially the white ones.
"Why is that men want their women to look thin and then keep buying them food?"
""Their women?"" he asked. I walked into that one eyes open.
We sipped our drinks. Uncomfortable. I hoped he was processing at least as many mixed signals as I was. "Your whisky is drugged, by the way. You're already on the floor, fantasizing you're still holding Bunny and sitting on my couch."
He took another sip of the single-malt. "I know," he said. "That's why I drugged the nuts in your chocolates. We're both laying on the floor in reality. Fantasizing we're still on the couch. At least sleeping on floors are supposed to be good for your back."
This camaraderie couldn't last. Tomorrow, next week, I'd be back in the chase. "You're going to go right through that five million dollars of the Centre's money soon, if you keep going at this rate." I expected him to smile his sly smile back. To tell me he had other sources. He didn't.
"What are you going to do about your sisters?"
----------------------*****
Eventually I stopped shaking.
Eventually I raised my head from between my knees.
I did not cry.
"I'm sorry," he said. Meaning poor Hope. Her and my nephew still in her womb. So cold the ground must be for her in a Dakota winter.
"Have you any plans for Constance or Felicity?"
"I haven't been able to get that far yet, but I've got to get her out of there. Somehow. I can't let her become like..."
Us. Me. You. Angelo. Lyle too.
Felicity?
---------------------*****
Eventually I could hear him talking. He spoke in a rush, the words tumbling over each other. "I thought you knew by now. Or had guessed."
I am &%$#+ strong. I will not #$%&* cry.
"Tell me about her," I demanded. "I already know she's cute."
"She lives in Fond-duLac, Wisconsin, and she's seven years old. She's a grade ahead already and ice skates constantly. She is in her second year of Dance. She impresses everyone with litle made-up playlets of her own creation. Her dad runs a tire and auto repair shop and is gone too much. Successful. He has his work and lives too much in that. Fortunately her adoptive mother seems to be able to make up for it."
His hands were clasping his knees by now, meeting my eyes. "They may take her at any time now that she's showing talents."
He didn't need to say who "they" were.
"Not this one," I said. "I will kill first." He did not move, or avoid my eyes.
Suddenly I understood.
"You want my permission to take her."
"You don't want the details, but I've arranged for her and her mother...." He didn't go on.
"You'll let me know. I'll have to see her some day, you have to give me that. Some day.
"I want to hold her one day. Soon. If I have to crawl over the dead bodies of every Centre employee on earth and you besides. Capisch?" He nodded.
"Does she have many friends?"
How sad he could look. "Enough so that the move will hurt."
"But you're going to be able to hide her?"
"With any luck Raines will be in a rage for years," he said.
"Relax. This one is going to be safe. She's going to have a chance to grow up loved and as happy as any of us can get."
I noted; "There's still Constance." He nodded again.
"I have some plans already under way. I'll be in touch," he promised. Jarod rose to his feet then, carefully depositing Mr. Bunny back in my lap. He put his box in the sack and knotted the end. "By the way, thank you for the drink. That's very good Scotch. I didn't know you drank it."
"Glenmorgaine. It's a present from a new friend. Scots. Name is Duncan, cute. He's been living in Paris." Hoping for jealousy.
Jarod had that smile again. Once more I was missing something.
"You don't need to go yet," I offered. "I could microwave a pair of low fat dinners for us both. There's still half a pint of Haagen Daz in the freezer."
At least he carefully considered all of what we both knew I was offering him.
"Someday. Soon. Unless someone chases me down before then. I've got to go now, though. I've got to make an unhappy teenager proud tonight and pass out a lot of toys tomorrow.
"Not to mention I've got to curry, warm down and feed my sleigh team before I put them to bed tonight."
When was the last time I felt like smiling like that?
"Give Rudolph a scratch for me."
"I will."
We knew he was going to bend over me and give me a kiss. Nothing to bruise the lips. Just friends. Then he was gone.
I wondered when I would be able to see my youngest sister. Trying to convince myself it was enough of a Christmas present to believe she would be safe. As safe as any of us get. Maybe they'll let me see Constance to give her the Christmas present in my trunk.
Leaving me to worry. To scheme. To cry. To hold Bunny. To watch the tree. To wonder who will watch over me. To contemplate taking the chocolates in to the Centre tomorrow for Broots and Sydney. To wonder how fat I'd get if I ate the rest of the nutty ones. Now.
And listen carefully. Just in case. Maybe I might hear the sounds of a sleigh and team jingling away.