Father Christmas Read online

  He closed his eyes and sighed, knowing damned well that he couldn’t promise Gail Saunders any of those things. He might have argued that neither he nor Molly—nor Gail herself—could see into the future. For all any of them knew, Molly might choose to dump him before he even figured out where he was going with the relationship.

  But even if he said as much to Gail, he couldn’t overcome the truth in her words. He couldn’t promise that he would never hurt Molly. He couldn’t promise it to himself. He certainly couldn’t promise it to Molly’s sister.

  “Life doesn’t come with a guarantee,” he reminded her. He’d tried to be a good husband and he’d failed. He was trying to be a good father, but the jury was still out on that one. Saturday night with Molly, he’d been as good a lover as he could be, minus a fully functional hand. But he couldn’t tell Gail what she was demanding to hear: that he would always be good to Molly, always good for her.

  Gail nodded. Her nod didn’t express agreement so much as confirmation. She looked as if she’d decided that John was every bad thing she’d expected, and he was going to destroy her sister without mercy. He couldn’t begin to guess where the enormous chip on her shoulder came from. Even after toiling a few years in the Office of the Public Defender, she didn’t have the right to be more cynical than he was, after his ten years in the police department.

  “I appreciate your caring so much about Molly,” he said, acknowledging that he hadn’t done himself any favors by being honest.

  “I wish I could say the same about you,” Gail muttered. She pivoted on the stack heel of her sensible shoes and headed toward the door leading out to the hallway. “Have a good night, Russo. I’ll be spending it fighting for reasonable bail for Sheila Hampton.”

  He watched her stalk out of the lounge. She had fire in her, just like Molly. And she was pretty like her sister, although the resemblance between the two women wasn’t obvious. They were both smart, and quick on their feet, and not afraid to speak their minds.

  But there the similarity ended. Gail Saunders dressed in dark, dowdy clothes and exuded chilly brilliance, whereas Molly...

  Molly was soft, gentle, warm. Kind. Forgiving. Vulnerable to a man who was himself far too vulnerable.

  He wondered, for a minute, what had happened to Gail, what unnamed experience had scarred her. And then he abandoned that thought for a far more essential question: what was going to happen to Molly if she stayed with him?

  He knew he was going to hurt her, just as Gail predicted. He was going to hurt her, and he ought to protect her from that hurt by sending her away now.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “I JUST CAN’T BELIEVE she did it,” Molly muttered, jamming a star-shaped cookie cutter into the dough. She pressed it through and wrenched it, then lifted it and shook a perfectly shaped star of dough onto the cookie sheet. “My own sister. How could she do such a thing?”

  Allison spread green sprinkles onto the star and sighed. The kitchen still held the scent of onions and soy sauce from the spicy pepper-steak dinner she’d cooked. Although she had more or less moved into Jamie’s place on the west side of town, she spent a great deal of time in this house, her home since childhood and still her grandmother’s residence.

  She’d phoned the Children’s Garden that afternoon and invited Molly to join her, her grandmother and the baby for supper. “Jamie’s backed up in his work, and he’s bribed me to take Samantha and disappear for the evening so he can catch up,” she’d explained.

  “I hope it was a decent bribe,” Molly had teased, although an evening with Jamie’s darling seven-month-old daughter and Allison’s feisty grandmother—whom Molly had known so long, she felt free to call her Grammy, just as Allison did—was reward enough.

  The bribe, it turned out, was an official engagement ring. The emerald flanked by pavé diamonds was dazzling. Grammy had observed that any man who would present his fiancée with a ring that expensive-looking probably expected her to perform kinky sexual acts. Allison, used to her grandmother’s off-color jibes, beamed and said she certainly hoped that was what Jamie had in mind.

  Now Grammy was in the living room with Samantha, trying to teach the baby the alphabet by making her watch “Wheel of Fortune.” And since Allison knew Jamie needed at least another two hours to finish writing his weekly column, she had decided that she and Molly should bake Christmas cookies.

  Why not? Molly had thought. She didn’t have anything better to do, anywhere better to go. Besides, she was frustrated and angry, and Allison was the kind of friend who would listen to her grumble without complaint.

  “It’s been three days,” she lamented. “Three days, and all he’s done is say hi and give me this funny smile when he drops Michael off in the morning, and then when he picks him up. He hasn’t asked me to have dinner, hasn’t invited me back to his house.... I thought things were so right between us. And I swear, I didn’t do anything that would make his feelings change. It must have been Gail.”

  Deep in thought, Allison added some red sprinkles to the green and awaited the next raw cookie. Molly plopped it onto the baking sheet, and Allison lifted the tub of red sprinkles again. “Do you know what Gail said to him?”

  “She told me she more or less asked him what his intentions were. His intentions. I mean, come on! Just because my folks are in Ohio doesn’t mean she has the right to act like my guardian.”

  Allison shook some sprinkles onto the dough. “Your sister has a hang-up about cops, Molly. From the first time you mentioned John—remember, at Thanksgiving?—she’s had qualms about him. He could be any man in the world, but as long as he’s a cop she’s going to have trouble dealing with it.”

  “She’s a narrow-minded busy-body,” said Molly. “Yes, she has a hang-up about cops, but so what? I have a hang-up about men who hate children, but if Gail started dating a guy who hated children, I wouldn’t intervene.”

  “She’s your big sister. She’s just looking out for you.”

  “I don’t want her looking out for me!” Molly was so angry, she mangled the dough in the cookie cutter. Sighing, she flattened it with the heel of her palm and pressed the cutter into it again. “John isn’t just a cop. He’s a brave, kind man with only one big flaw, as far as I can tell: he takes too much responsibility for things. Which is a heck of a lot better than some of the losers I’ve met, who could drive a car straight into a tree and blame it on the tree.” She cut a neat star and placed it on the baking sheet. “And John doesn’t hate kids. He’s a Daddy School student. That’s worth a whole lot of points in my book.”

  “Mine, too,” Allison said with a smile. Setting down the sprinkles, she added, “You know, Grammy put Jamie through the wringer a lot when I first started seeing him—and she’s still putting him through the wringer, even though we’re getting married. It doesn’t matter that he’s going to be my husband—she still calls him a bum. She’s ten times worse than your sister.”

  “Your grandmother’s full of shit. Nobody takes her seriously when she teases like that.”

  “A man who wasn’t sure of his own feelings might very well take her seriously,” Allison argued gently.

  Molly’s stomach knotted. She searched Allison’s face for a sign that Allison hadn’t meant what she’d implied. But she saw no indication that Allison was joking. “In other words—” Molly tried not to choke on the words “—you think John doesn’t feel anything for me.”

  “I’m sure he feels something, Molly.”

  “But his feelings are too weak to matter. That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it. He doesn’t care enough about me to get past whatever the hell Gail said to him.”

  Allison covered Molly’s floury hand with her own, her fingers stained red and green from the sprinkles. “I don’t know if that’s true. But if he was really in love with you, do you think Gail could stop him?”

  “Gail could stop anyone,” Molly muttered, her eyes burning with tears. Allison was right, of course. All she’d done was give voice to the th
oughts and doubts that had been plaguing Molly for three days. If John felt as strongly about her as she did about him, he would have done more than give her his cryptic smile as he dropped off Michael at school. He would have let her know that three days after she’d awakened in his bed, she was on his mind, in his heart.

  It was only bad luck that John had been allowed to resume his usual duties so soon after he’d been stabbed, that he’d participated in the arrest of a woman who had allegedly shot her husband and that, despite the fact that Gail had dozens upon dozens of defenses to prepare, she’d gotten sent to the police station to defend that particular woman.

  Gail had told Molly the woman was innocent. But if the woman’s husband had broken her heart, Molly wouldn’t blame her for shooting the guy. At the moment, Molly was very sympathetic to scorned women.

  “I know John must be fond of you,” Allison said. Molly shot her a scathing look, but Allison didn’t flinch. “Maybe he’s just rethinking the situation before he pursues it further. Maybe he feels awkward because you run his son’s preschool, and he’s trying to figure out how to balance everything. And with his divorce so recent—”

  “His wife left him six months ago—and their marriage was disintegrating long before that. The only recent thing was formalizing the break-up.”

  “But who’s to say how long it will take him to recover? Maybe he wants to be completely healed before he gets involved with you.”

  Molly thought of how un-healed he’d been Saturday night. His right arm and hand had been out of commission, and when she’d accidentally stroked his bruised ribs...

  The knot in her stomach unwound, sending ripples up into her throat, where they reknotted into a tight lump. Surely making love to her must have meant something to him. Surely it had been as significant to him as it had been to her.

  “You know what?” Allison picked up the snow-flake cookie cutter and pressed it into the dough. “If it really matters to you—and I know it does—you could ask him.”

  “Ask him what?”

  “Ask him why he’s steering clear of you. He might say something you don’t want to hear, but you’re already assuming the worst. If you want, I’ll go with you. We could drive to his house right now and confront him.”

  “Oh, God, no!” Molly laughed in spite of herself. “He’s probably giving Michael a bath right now. He’s probably drenched in water from the tub even as we speak. This would definitely not be a good time to confront him.”

  But Allison was right. Molly was doing herself no favors by stewing at home while John avoided her. The only way she was going to find out what was going on in his mind was to ask him.

  His answer might be painful to hear. But not knowing was agony. Nothing he could say to her could make her feel worse than she already felt.

  “Let’s get this batch in,” Allison said, adding a swirl of colored sprinkles to the final cookie and carrying the sheet to the oven. “I want to send you home with a plate of cookies. You might need them for comfort.”

  Molly smiled sadly, not bothering to point out that if John told her he wanted nothing more to do with her, the most delicious holiday cookies in the universe weren’t going to do any good.

  ***

  SHE DIDN’T HAVE the opportunity to talk to him the next two days. When he dropped Michael off at school both mornings, the entry was crowded with parents, and John’s faint smile barely reached her through the swarming adults and the children in their clumsy boots and snowsuits. When the students were picked up in the evening, he seemed to slip in and out, as well.

  She could have telephoned him. But to learn over the phone that he wanted nothing more to do with her would be too cold, too impersonal. If couldn’t see his eyes while he talked to her, she wouldn’t know whether to believe him.

  Shoving herself out of bed Saturday morning, she acknowledged that the moment of truth had arrived. If John didn’t attend today’s session of the Daddy School—the final class of the year—she wouldn’t have to confront him and ask what the hell was going on between them. His absence would be her answer.

  She tried to convince herself not to dress for the occasion. The truth was, she had no idea what the occasion would be: something on the order of a funeral, or a grand, passionate reconciliation, or a nuclear-powered blow up.

  She put on jeans, a shirt and a patterned wool sweater, figuring they’d suit any of the three alternatives. Her appetite had been a sometime thing all week, but she forced down a half a grapefruit, a cup of coffee and one of the buttery Christmas cookies Allison had sent her home with Wednesday evening. Then she brushed her teeth, slapped on a neutral lipstick, grabbed her keys, and headed out to her car.

  At ten o’clock, her students began to arrive with their youngsters in tow. Gordon showed up with Melissa, the four-year-old in the throes of terminal sibling rivalry. Hank showed up with his son Joey. Avery, with Keisha clasping his hand and managing to skip in her bulky fireman-style boots. Rick and his daughter Rebecca. Lance and his son Brett.

  Shannon was on hand to watch the children for the duration of the class. As soon as the children had been liberated from their outerwear, she trooped them up the stairs. Molly watched them go, then turned back to the small group of fathers, feeling her spirits sink.

  John wasn’t there. She had her answer, and it was the one she’d dreaded.

  “Well,” she said with forced cheer, “I’m glad you all managed to make time for today’s class, what with the demands of the holiday. Why don’t we all go into the Pre-K room, and—” Hearing the squeak of the front door opening, she paused. “Oh, wait—it sounds like we’ve got a straggler.”

  Two sets of footsteps echoed down the hall, one heavy and adult, the other the quick, light trot of a child running. Michael’s voice pierced the room: “Where’s the children, Daddy? I wanna go with the children!”

  The Russo men emerged into the room, Michael bubbling over with energy and John lagging a few paces behind him. Michael looked exuberant; John looked wary. His leather jacket hung open to reveal a pale gray sweater above brown corduroy jeans. His hair was wind-tossed, his hands buried in his pockets. His eyes went straight to her, dark and troubled.

  “Hello, John,” she said. The presence of the other fathers compelled her to greet him as if he were just another student. “The children are upstairs with Shannon,” she told Michael. “You can go up and join them.”

  “I go with the children!” he announced, not bothering to remove his jacket before he vanished up the stairs.

  Her gaze moved back to John. He was still staring at her. She couldn’t interpret his expression, except to recognize that it was grim. He wasn’t thrilled to see her. He wasn’t even pleased to be attending the Daddy School class. But he was here—whatever that meant.

  “Let’s go into the Pre-K room,” she repeated for his sake. She wasn’t going to find out why he’d come until after class, if at all, so she figured she might as well get the class started. She waited until they had all settled their bodies on the floor cushions and the ledges, avoiding the child-size chairs, and then began. “Given what’s going on at this time of year, I thought we’d talk about being a good father during the holidays. Are any of you having any problems with your children that relate to the holidays?”

  “My kid wants every single toy they advertise on TV,” Lance moaned. Everyone laughed, and a few of the men nodded in agreement.

  “Have you considered turning off the TV?” Molly suggested. This brought more laughter. John almost smiled, she noticed. “Of course it’s up to the parents to decide what—and how much—your children should get. It’s not up to the TV, and it’s not up to your children. It’s up to you.”

  “I’d like to be reasonable about the gift-giving,” Avery said. “But it’s hard, when everyone else is giving so much more. It makes you feel like a lousy father if you’re all your giving your kid is a doll, a few games, some books and a bicycle. My brother is giving his kids their own computers. It makes me
feel...I don’t know...deficient.” He shrugged.

  “Well, first of all, I don’t think any child at this school needs her own computer. I’d wait until Keisha’s in first grade, at least.” She smiled again to show she was joking. “Remember that when it comes to Christmas giving, the parents are allowed to set limits, and it’s no one else’s business.” She held up her hands to silence the fathers before they could dispute her. “I know it’s hard, but there are many ways to explain your decisions to your children. Talking about peer pressure is going to go over their heads. But instead, why don’t you think about establishing your own family’s holiday traditions? This is a really important part of becoming a parent. You probably have all these memories of your childhood holidays, and your wives have their memories, and now you’ve created your own family and it’s time to establish some new traditions. You can establish a tradition of giving mostly home-made gifts. Or a tradition of picking out a gift to leave beneath the tree at the police station. Those presents are distributed to needy children, aren’t they?” she asked John.

  He nodded. “We collect them. The fire department distributes them.”

  She tried not to respond to the sound of his voice, low and dark, painfully familiar. She tried just as hard not to respond to his eyes, his crooked half-smile, the lean contours of his torso beneath the sweater. It was torture not to grab his hand and march him down the hallway and into the store room next to her office, where they could close the door and hash things out in private...or kiss, and let their passion burn their problems away.

  But she had a class to conduct. Inhaling sharply, she tore her gaze from John and addressed the rest of the fathers. “When I was growing up, my family lived in a house without a fireplace. I thought Santa would never come to our house, because I knew he entered houses through the chimney, and our chimney was connected to the furnace, and you sure wouldn’t want Santa dropping into your furnace.” The men laughed. Even John chuckled quietly. “My parents told me that if we left our stockings somewhere else, Santa would know to enter our house where the stockings were. We hung them along a window sill in the kitchen, near the back door, and lo and behold, Santa managed to get into our house just fine. This is what I mean by setting your own traditions, doing things your own way.”