This Christmas (7 page)

The best-laid plans of mice and men…

Naturally Sarah is in the middle of blowing out her hair when the doorbell rings. She sighs and gathers her robe around her as she goes to the top of the stairs and sees Walker and Maggie running to the door. They know they’re not allowed to open it for strangers, but as they peer through the glass they start shrieking and leaping up and down with excitement.

“Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!”

And then Walker opens the door and both of them fling themselves into Eddie’s arms. Eddie crouches down and squeezes them, as his eyes fill up with tears. He never wants to let them go. He never wants this moment to end. Oh, God, how he missed them.

“Daddy? Why are you crying?” Maggie breaks away and looks into his face curiously.

“Because I’m so happy to see you two.” Eddie laughs through his tears. “I’ve missed you so much.”

Walker doesn’t say anything; he just leans his head on Eddie’s shoulder with a beatific smile on his face, and Sarah swallows the lump that is now in her throat.

And once she has successfully swallowed the lump in her throat she takes a second look at Eddie.

“Eddie?”

“Hi, Sarah.” Eddie disengages from the children and walks over to where Sarah is standing, halfway up the stairs, and he leans over to give her an awkward kiss on the cheek, and Sarah’s mouth drops open in shock. She completely forgets her fantasy of wafting down the stairs in a stunning dress and just stares.

“You look amazing,” she says, before she even has a chance to think about what she’s saying. “What have you done?”

Eddie grins. “Just working out. I guess I’ve lost some weight.”

“Show me your muscles, Daddy.” Walker dances around him, unable to stop touching him, unable to believe his dad is finally here.

“Okay.” Eddie flexes. “Feel that.”

“Wow!” Walker gingerly prods his bicep. “Whoa, that’s big. Cool!”

And Sarah comes back to the present, remembering that this isn’t how he’s supposed to see her, and flustered she starts backing up the stairway.

“Look, I hope this is okay but I have a cocktail party at work. It won’t be long but I promised I’d make an appearance. Do you mind looking after the kids for an hour or so?”

“Are you kidding? I don’t mind at all.” Eddie works hard to cover up his disappointment. He was looking forward to spending the evening with all three of them, but he’s not going to show Sarah. He’s going to be cool Eddie, play just a little bit hard to get, not show her how much he’s missed her. At least, not yet.

But, God, it’s good to be home, back where he belongs. He runs a hand lovingly along the chair rail, smiles as he sees the spot on the stairs where Walker spilt some grape juice last summer. He takes the kids into the kitchen and instantly feels remorse when he sees the missing wall. For a moment he feels like a stranger—how odd that something so big should have happened when he was away—but it passes quickly.

And Walker and Maggie have changed so much. In just a few months it seems they have grown louder, more confident. Both of them are crawling all over him, talking talking talking, each of them having so much to say, their excitement making their words spill and stumble together as Eddie laughs. In the old days he would have sent them off to watch television, and now he just wants to be with them.

In the family room the television stays off. Eddie sits on the floor and roughhouses as the kids shriek with laughter and hang off his neck.

“Daddy?” Walker says after a while. “Are you home now forever? Are you staying?”

Eddie takes a deep breath. “I don’t know, Walk. My work is still in Chicago but we’ll have to see what happens.”

Maggie starts to tear up. “Please don’t go, Daddy,” she says, and Eddie scoops both of them up and hangs them upside down.

“Who wants to go to the diner for supper?” he says, as they giggle hysterically, not used to their father playing with them like this.

“Yay! Me!” the kids shout.

“And who’s going to leave milk and cookies out for Santa tonight?” Eddie shouts, as he places them gently on the floor.

“We are!” They dance around him again.

“Dad?” Walker says eagerly. “You know what Santa’s bringing me this year?”

“Hmmm.” Eddie pretends to think hard. “A Barbie jeep?”

“No! That’s for me!” Maggie shouts.

“Oh, okay. A pair of socks?”

“Ew! No! He’s bringing me a light saber and an army jeep and a cool robot thing from the movie.”

“I don’t think Santa will be able to carry all those things, Walk, but I’m sure he’ll manage one of them. Maybe even two.”

“Oh. Okay,” Walker says. “I hope it’s the army jeep and the light saber.”

Eddie thinks about the enormous robot sitting in his suitcase. “Are you crazy? The robots are the coolest thing in the world. If I were you I’d want the robot.”

“Oh, yeah, Dad. I do. I want the robot.”

“We just have to remember to leave the milk and cookies.”

Twenty minutes later Sarah comes downstairs, feeling beautiful and confident in her black cocktail dress and heels. She debated putting her hair up but remembered how much Eddie always loved it down, so she left it softly curling on her shoulders.

“Mommy, you look beautiful!” Walker says, as Sarah enters the family room, and Eddie’s heart skips a beat as he lets out a soft wolf whistle. Damn. He didn’t want to be so obvious but she looks more beautiful than he’s seen her look in years.

“Obviously I’m not the only one who’s changed.” He smiles. “You look beautiful, Sarah.”

“Thank you,” she says. “I made meatloaf for dinner, which is in the fridge. You just have to heat it up for about a minute in the microwave, and then the kids can have I-C-E-C-R-E-A-M….”

“Ice cream!” Walker leaps up and down. “I want ice cream for dinner.”

“Actually,” Eddie says, “I thought I’d take the kids to the diner for dinner. If that’s okay with you.”

“Oh,” Sarah says. “Sure.” Of course it’s okay, but Eddie has never offered to do anything with the kids before. In fact, she doesn’t remember him ever having taken them anywhere by himself just for the sheer fun of it.

“So have fun at your party,” Eddie says, forcing himself to turn away from Sarah. “See you later.”

“Great. Sure. Have a good time.”

“But he looks ten years younger!” Sarah sits at Caroline’s kitchen table while Caroline pours her a glass of white wine. “God. He looks like the old Eddie.”

Caroline raises an eyebrow. “Are you trying to say you fancy him again?”

“No!” Sarah says, a little too quickly. “Don’t be ridiculous. Just because he’s changed on the outside doesn’t mean he’s changed on the inside.”

“And what if he has?”

“I’m sure he hasn’t.”

“But if he has?”

Sarah shrugs, thinking about the young, energetic Eddie she said good-bye to half an hour ago, and she leans her head on the table and groans. “Oh, God. Now I’m all confused again. This morning I was ready to sit down and tell him I wanted a divorce. Now I don’t know.” And suddenly she stands up. “I’m going to go to the diner. Damn it. The only way I’m going to know is to be around him, see if he really has changed. Do you mind?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I was going to say the same thing myself.” Caroline gives her a big hug. “Good luck.”

“Mommy!”
Maggie sees her first and bounces up and down in her seat, holding her arms out for Sarah to give her a hug and a kiss.

“Hi, guys,” Sarah says, feeling suddenly rather sheepish, not to mention overdressed, for the diner.

“That was quick.” Eddie looks at his watch. “What happened?”

“Oh, you know. The party was filled with too many people drinking too much. And I thought that I should really be with my kids on Christmas Eve.”

“I know how that feels,” Eddie says, as he slides a menu over to her.

“So what’s everybody having?”

“Pancakes and French fries!” Walker says.

“French fries and French fries!” Maggie says.

Eddie shrugs, an apologetic smile on his face. Actually, he hasn’t been able to stop smiling since Sarah walked in. He knew it was a ruse. Of course it was a ruse. Did she think he hadn’t got to know her at all in the years they’d been married?
If she turns up at the diner then this marriage will work again
, he had told himself.
If she turns up at the diner then I know there’s hope
.

Sarah thinks about saying something, insisting on something healthier.

“It is Christmas Eve.” Eddie shrugs, by way of explanation.

“Fine,” she says. “I guess I’ll have the French toast then.”

Sarah and Eddie don’t talk much over dinner. Most of the talking is done by the children, their attention focused on Eddie, and Sarah is surprised to find how comfortable she is.

She hadn’t expected this. Hadn’t expected to be sitting here with Eddie and the children, hadn’t expected Eddie to be so interested in the children, and hadn’t expected any of this to feel so…normal.

It isn’t that it feels wonderful. Or special. Or unique. It just feels as if they are a family again, which in itself is something Sarah had forgotten. It is a feeling of contentment that surfaces, and she hadn’t realized how much she missed it. Not just during the weeks that Eddie has been gone, but during the last few years. This, she realizes, sitting at the table, is the kind of father she’d always hoped Eddie would be. This is the kind of family she’d always hoped to have. Is it possible that she could finally have it at last?

By eight o’clock the children are in bed. Walker insists he’s going to stay up to see Santa come down the fireplace, but when Sarah checks on him ten minutes later, he’s fallen asleep in his bed, sitting up, with books scattered all over the comforter, clutching onto his favorite stuffed monkey.

Eddie appears behind her and walks over to Walker, gently removing the books, laying him down, and placing a kiss on his forehead. “I love you,” he whispers, as he turns off the bedside lamp, and Sarah has to blink away the tears.

She lets Eddie check on Maggie as she goes downstairs and starts clearing up the mess the kids made as they baked chocolate chip cookies for Santa.

She had fully expected Eddie to do his usual disappearing act, but he had sat at the kitchen table with the children and helped them roll out the dough, cutting out the cookies with reindeer-shaped cookie cutters, then had insisted on taking them upstairs and giving them a bath himself.

Sarah had started to feel almost redundant. It was like a role reversal. There was her husband, her husband who had been so useless with the children, suddenly being Mr. Mom while she was left sitting on the sidelines, and of course the children were only interested in Daddy, which was to be expected. But still. She couldn’t help feeling left out.

While Eddie had been bathing the kids Sarah had snuck into her office and phoned Caroline.

“This is getting more confusing,” she had said. “I just don’t know what to make of him.”

“Just enjoy it,” Caroline had advised. “And if I were you I’d pour myself a stiff drink.”

And so she had.

Sarah finishes cleaning up the mess as Eddie walks downstairs, and as soon as he enters the room she feels the tension. Now that the kids are asleep it is uncomfortable. This, at least, is what she was expecting.

“The wall looks great. Or, rather, lack of it,” Eddie says.

“Oh, yes. Thanks.”

Eddie sighs. “I’m sorry I never got around to getting that done.”

Sarah shrugs. “It’s done now.”

“Do you mind if I join you in a glass of wine?”

“No. Sure. The bottle’s on the table.”

Eddie helps himself to a glass and pours himself the wine.

“Sarah,” he says eventually, and she knows he’s going to ask to sit down and talk, and suddenly she doesn’t want him to. Suddenly she wants to put it off, because what seemed so certain this morning suddenly seems so up in the air.

“Eddie,” she interrupts him. “We have to do the talcum powder thing and get all the gifts together.”

Eddie grins, relieved at putting the talk off, not sure yet quite what he’s going to say. “Okay,” he says. “You get the powder, and I’ll go out and bring my gifts in from the car.”

Sarah sprinkles the powder from the fireplace to the Christmas tree, and sits back as Eddie treads big footprints through the powder, creating the effect of Santa walking through a sprinkling of snow.

“Sarah,” Eddie says, as he refills both their glasses once they’ve finished laying the gifts at the base of the tree, “please don’t take this personally, but the tree looks terrible.”

Sarah, slightly buzzed from the wine, snorts with laughter. “I know I shouldn’t be passing blame onto a five-year-old, but Walker did it all by himself.”

“God bless him.” Eddie laughs. “I kind of figured as much given that the decorations don’t reach any higher than his head. I can’t deal with it. Please say we can redo it. We can tell him Santa did it.”

“Thank goodness!” Sarah laughs. “I didn’t have the heart to redo it myself.”

“Do we have popcorn?”

“Naturally.”

“Okay!” Eddie rubs his hands together with glee. “Let’s get this show on the road, and while we’re at it, do you mind if I build a fire?”

Sarah hesitates. Red wine. A blazing fire. Popcorn. It’s beginning to feel strangely like a date.

Eddie forces a laugh. “Relax, Sarah. I’m not trying to seduce you. It’s cold in here; that’s all.”

“Oh, sure.” Sarah shrugs. “I didn’t think you were…oh, never mind. Absolutely. Let’s build a fire.”

When the tree has been decorated the two of them sit down on the sofa and smile at one another. Tonight has been fun. They haven’t talked about any of the serious stuff. They haven’t talked about themselves. They’ve talked about the kids, Sarah filling Eddie in on all the funny things that have happened since he’s been away, and they’ve talked about their jobs, their lives independent of one another.

“You’ve really changed.” Eddie is the first one to say it, as he sits on the sofa opposite her.

“I have?” Sarah attempts a mysterious smile from over the rim of her wineglass. “How?”