No Place Like Home (Holiday Classics) (2 page)

“Go home, Harry, and let me sleep. Is Freddie all right?”

When Freddie took her place next to Loretta, Harry turned off the lights, leaving only a night-light on in the kitchen and the light in the hall leading to the downstairs bathroom. He patted Loretta’s shoulder, and said softly, “It’s hell getting old, my friend, but it beats the alternative. Sleep well.” He let himself out quietly. Tomorrow was
not
going to be a good day, he could feel it in his bones.

*  *  *

Jonathan Cisco arrived at noon the following day. His jaw was grim, his eyes furious as he stalked his way into the kitchen, where his mother was sitting in the rocker. He wasted no time. “I told you this was going to happen, didn’t I, Mom? Why didn’t you listen to me? Dr. Nathan and I both urged you to get a live-in but you wouldn’t hear of it. This is what happens when you don’t listen. Now, until those cataracts come off, you’re going to Laurel Hills where you can be looked after properly. I don’t want any more calls in the middle of the night. I have a lot on my plate right now, Mom, and I don’t want to have to worry about you hurting yourself.”

Loretta reared up in her chair. “It wasn’t the middle of the night. It wasn’t even nine o’clock, and I am not going to that stainless steel assisted-living facility. Get that idea right out of your head. This is my house, and I’m not leaving. Go away, Jonathan. I’m sorry I called you. You have no idea how sorry I am.”

“You’re going, Mom, even if I have to carry you. I arranged everything. It wasn’t easy either. You can take Freddie with you. That took some doing, but I managed. I’m going to pack your things, and that’s my last word. Tell me what you want to take with you.”

“Jonathan, please, I don’t want to go there. I saw that place once, and it’s awful. Freddie will hate it. I don’t belong in a place like that. Please, son, listen to me.”

“Mom, you’re going, and that’s final. It’s for your own good.”

Loretta Cisco shriveled into herself. She was beaten, and she knew it. She was blind, she had a broken arm, and she had a dog who needed to be cared for. What chance did she have against her son? None.

I’ll die there,
she thought.
I’ll never see this place again.

An hour later, she was in her son’s car. They were almost to the top of the little rise above the cottage. She rolled down the window and stuck her head out. The scent of burning leaves wafted through the window. She couldn’t see her beloved little cottage in the valley, but she could
smell
it. Loretta waved good-bye. Freddie threw back her head and howled. And then she barked her own good-bye.

If this is all God is going to give me, so be it.

T
he Cisco triplets stared at one another across the table, shivering inside their warm ski jackets. They ordered hot chocolate from a weary-looking waitress.

Sam, the youngest of the triplets by seven whole minutes, finally spoke. “Will somebody please tell me what the hell we’re doing here in New York City, anyway? We should have gone to the mountains like we planned. I hate it that we switched up, and Cisco is spending Thanksgiving by herself. I thought we had more guts than to kowtow to our father and his new…squeeze.”

Hard-Hearted Hannah, as she came to be known during their childhoods, punched her brother’s upper arm. “We’re here because Granny Cisco insisted we do what Dad said. It’s one of Dad’s command performances, so let’s just make the best of it. It’s a lousy day and a half out of our lives, okay? I think we’re tough enough to handle whatever he throws at us.”

Sara, a.k.a. Sassy Sara, folded her arms across her chest, still unwilling to remove her down jacket. She looked around, knowing they were causing a small stir in the coffee shop. It was uncanny the way the three of them mirrored one another. They had the same curly reddish-brown hair, the same smattering of freckles across the bridges of their noses. Their eyes were a startling blue that turned a pearl gray when something distressed them. At present their eyes were pearl gray, their well-defined jaws grim. And their noses twitched, another sign of anxiety. People did tend to stare at identical twins, and their brother looked so much like the girls that it was sometimes difficult to tell them apart when they were dressed in bulky clothing with their woolen hats on. When the caps were removed, of course, Sam stood out like a beacon, because of his close-cropped hair. Once, in their senior year in high school, Sam had let his hair grow when they did a skit pretending to be the McGuire Sisters. Not that any of their peers knew who the McGuire Sisters were, but they did bring down the house. “We’re outta there the minute they serve dessert. Do either one of you have a problem with that?” Sara’s tone clearly said they’d better not have a problem with it. She was the oldest by seven minutes, and as such was the ring-leader of the trio.

As one, they cupped their hands around the steaming mugs of hot chocolate. As a rule, they moved in sync, and this time it was no different. They even sipped the hot drink on cue.

“I’m pissed. Not just a little bit pissed but big-time pissed,” Hannah growled, menace ringing in her voice. “How could he do such an ugly thing and not tell us until after the fact? We aren’t little kids anymore. We’re seniors in college. We’re grown-ups,” she clarified, her freckles bunching into a knot over the bridge of her nose.

Sam poked at the tiny marshmallows in his cup with his index finger. His lips compressed into a tight line across his face at his sister’s words. “Slapping Granny Cisco into an assisted-living facility is not my idea of a united family. We need to spring her. Why’d he do it? All I need is one reason. Just one lousy reason.”

It was Sara’s turn to make a comment. “Because he wants to take control of Cisco Candies without interference from Cisco. He has a new playmate now, and he probably needs to feel important. Men his age do stupid things like this when they go through a midlife crisis. I read that in a book somewhere. She’s only
twenty-nine,
seven years older than we are. Cisco said Dad met her in a health club.”

“The best part of this, if there is a best part, is Cisco is allowed to have Freddie with her,” Hannah said, referring to her grandmother’s seven-year-old golden retriever. “What I don’t understand is why she couldn’t continue to stay at the cottage. Hell, she could afford to have a whole team of medical people help her twenty-four/seven. So she stumbles around a little because of her cataracts, so what? I know, I know, they have to be ripe before they can be removed. She knows that cottage by heart. So she broke her arm, so what? She slipped on the kitchen rug. She’s only seventy-four and not ready to be put out to pasture, which is what I think Dad wants. Why didn’t she fight? Cisco has weathered all kinds of storms, but she caved on this. I just don’t get it.” She was so breathless in her anger, she deflated like a pricked balloon.

“Damn it, Hanny, she didn’t fight because Dad blindsided her. She didn’t see it coming. No pun intended. Her own son, our father, did that to her, and he broke her heart by doing it. His explanation was, it was for her own good. He said broken bones at her age never mend properly, and he didn’t want to feel responsible if she took another tumble.

“Dad also said the cottage is so isolated Cisco could take a bad fall and no one would know because she’s too stubborn to have help. We all know she refuses to wear her hearing aids. He made a big deal out of that, too. He got three doctors to sign off on it and was prepared to go to court if Cisco balked. She just caved, it’s that simple. You do that when someone breaks your heart. I say we take off the next semester and stay with her at the cottage. Let’s take a vote.”

“Yesss,” Hannah and Sam said, their fists shooting in the air.

“Okay. Now, which one of us is going to break the news to good old Dad?”

“You’re the oldest. Take a guess,” Hannah said.

“Okay. Before or after dinner?”

“Let’s play it by ear. We’ll know when the time is right. I want to make sure we’re straight on something. We’re going home for Christmas, right? Who cares what Dad and his nubile squeeze do. We spring Cisco and take her back home even if we have to kidnap her, right?” Sam’s face was so fierce, his siblings reached out to him as they nodded.

“That’s right, little brother. We’ve never missed a Christmas with Cisco yet, and this is not the year to start,” Sara said tightly. Three hands slapped down on the table, one covering the other. “If Dad has other plans, we can live with it.”

“It’s time to go,” Hannah said, fishing money out of her pocket to pay for the hot chocolate. “I can’t wait to see what this one looks like,” she said, referring to her father’s latest companion. “Anyone want to bet she has big tits, collagen lips, and a tight ass?”

“That’s a sucker bet,” Sam snarled as he struggled with his backpack, gloves, and jacket.

Hannah shrugged into her jacket, aware that the other customers were staring at them. Their smiles were forced as they left the warm, steamy coffee shop for the walk to their grandmother’s apartment at the Dakota, the historic apartment building on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

Forty-five minutes later, they rode the elevator to the ninth floor. Hannah reached into her pocket for her key.

“Forget it, the locks have probably been changed,” Sara said. “We ring the bell and wait. Don’t you get it, we’re guests now? It’s a whole new ball game this time around.”

“I don’t doubt you for a minute, big sister, but let’s be sure. Ah, right as usual,” Hannah said, withdrawing the key from the lock. She gave an elaborate shrug as she kicked the door instead of ringing the bell. When there was no response, she kicked it again, this time louder. “Look, I made a smudge,” she said, pointing to an ugly black mark at the base of the door.

The door swung wide. Jonathan Cisco stared at his children. “The doorbell really does work,” he said coolly. He was a tall man. A handsome man with the same curly redbrown hair as his children, and the same blue eyes. Eyes that were now pearl gray just like the triplets’. Not yet fifty, he carried his years well, in part because of his daily workouts, good eating habits, and eight hours of sleep a night, not to mention drinking the requisite eight glasses of water a day. He stood aside for the triplets to enter their grandmother’s apartment. His apartment now.

“Oh myyy God!” Hannah wailed.

“I hate it!” Sara cried.

“You sure move fast, Dad,” Sam said, looking around at the glaring black-and-white decor. “I never saw a black flower before. I guess you did all this redecorating before you slapped Cisco in
that place.
Looks like a major undertaking to me. Like you
planned
it way ahead of time. My opinion, for whatever it’s worth, is it’s ugly.”

Hannah ran into the apartment and down the hall. Sara and Sam ran after her when they heard her high-pitched squeal of distress. Their eyes were wild with horror as they surveyed the three bedrooms that had at one time been theirs. Hannah’s room was black and white with purple accents. Sara’s was black and white with red accents. Sam’s was black and white with blue accents.

“Where’s our stuff?” they asked in unison. “Where’s Mom’s picture? The family picture with all of us in it?”

Jonathan Cisco had the grace to look ashamed. He turned away. “In storage. It was mostly just clutter. I thought since you will be graduating in the spring, you’d all be finding your own places to live. I know young college grads don’t want to live with their parents.”

“Now, you see, Dad, that’s where you’re wrong,” Hard-Hearted Hannah said, living up to her childhood name. “We did plan on coming back here for as long as it takes to find really, really high-paying jobs. New York is where the job market is. What’s better than paying no rent? Nothing, that’s what. I want my stuff back.” Her voice dripped ice. “And I damn well want Mom’s picture back.”

They closed ranks then and drew together. Their father realized that he would get nowhere with them. The proverbial brick wall. He shrugged as he prepared to walk out of the room.

“We want to talk about Cisco and what you did to her. She’s our grandmother, and she damn well raised us, no thanks to you, Dad. How could you do that to her? How?” Sam demanded, his voice all choked up.

“I did it because it was the right thing to do. I’m sad to say your grandmother is becoming feeble. She needs to be looked after properly. She needs to eat properly, rest properly, and take her medication on time, not when and if she thinks about it. If she were to fall, she could very well become incapacitated. She couldn’t handle that. She would never be the same again. I don’t think any of us want that for her. I know I don’t. She can’t see, and she can’t handle the business anymore. I’m doing her the biggest favor of her life by making sure she’s safe and sound. She’ll get used to the new routine at the facility. And they made a special concession for her to keep Freddie with her.”

“Favor!” the triplets shouted in unison.

“This is not negotiable, and I do not have to explain to any of you why and what I do. Now, it might be a good idea for you to settle in. I have to go out now for an important meeting. I won’t be home till quite late, so don’t wait up for me. I hired a housekeeper some time ago, and she’ll prepare dinner for you. It’s nice to see you all,” he added as an afterthought.

When the door closed behind their father, the triplets huddled together the way they had when they were children. Their eyes were misty with unshed tears, their bodies trembling. Hannah was the first one to speak. “I can’t sleep in a black-and-white room. I need my junk. I need to see Mom’s picture before I fall asleep. And I hate the color purple. Do you think he had the balls to change Cisco’s room?”

They created their own wind tunnel as they raced down the hall and around the corner to their grandmother’s room. Her hand shaking, Sara turned the knob. They literally wilted in relief when they saw the room was intact. “We sleep in here. Hanny and I get the bed. Sam, you get the couch. It’s just as comfortable as the bed. Look, there’s Freddie’s bed. God, this feels so good.” She bounced on the bed to make her point.

“It smells just like Cisco,” Sam said inhaling deeply. “Just like her,” he said happily.

Hannah swooned as she flopped down on Freddie’s bed.

Sara reared up. She fiddled with her tight curly hair until she had it in a tidy bun at the nape of her neck. “We need a plan.”

To Jonathan Cisco’s chagrin, on Thanksgiving Day his children trooped into the dining room attired in jeans and sweatshirts that said Penn State on the front. They waited expectantly for their father to introduce the young woman at his side. “Alexandra, I’d like you to meet my children—Hannah, Sara, and Sam.” The triplets nodded, their heads barely moving.

“I’ve heard so much about you,” Alexandra gushed. “What interesting lives you’ve led, and you’re not yet, what is it, twenty-two?”

The triplets offered up grimaces.

“And you would be…how old?” Hard-Hearted Hannah asked.

“Forever twenty-nine,” Alexandra said with a tight smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

“What is it you do?” Sara asked politely.

“I’m a decorator. Right now I’m between jobs.”

Sam slapped at his forehead. “Now why did I know you were going to say that.” He looked around at the black-and-white furniture, the chrome and glass that seemed to be everywhere, disgust written all over his features.

“Your eyeballs really stand at attention in a room like this. I find it cold and austere. What happened to all my grandmother’s things? The antiques in particular. I guess black and white is
in
this year,” Sara said.

“Actually, black and white
is
in. I like things that are clean and crisp. Jon said he likes what I’ve done. Your grandmother’s things were placed in storage. I made sure to catalog everything. How do you like the way your rooms turned out?”