'Tis the Season (4 page)

It hadn't been enough. Somehow the system had let him down.

Maybe all his systems were letting him down. Molly Saunders-Russo, who ran the Children's Garden, seemed to think he was falling short. Had she actually told Gracie that her father needed to work on meeting his responsibilities? Just because he'd been held hostage by those two bozos from Atlanta and couldn't pick his daughter up from her school by closing time…

Glancing over at her, he noticed the sparkle was gone from her eyes. She'd adopted her brother's listlessness. Evan decided to try another conversation as he zapped the potatoes in the microwave. “So, what did you do at Scott's house?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

“You know what, Billy?” Evan grinned. “I don't believe you.”

Billy scooped forks and knives from the silverware drawer. “We played Nintendo.”

“The whole time?

Billy rolled his eyes. He was Evan's boy, through and through. He had the same sandy-colored hair, the same gray eyes and brown lashes, the same lazy style of shrugging, the same contemptuous manner of rolling his eyes. “We told each other ghost stories,” Billy said as he distributed the silverware around the table.

Gracie winced. “Billy!” she whined.

“What's the matter, sweetie?” Evan asked. “You don't like ghosts?”

“I don't believe in ghosts,” she said, although her voice trembled.

Evan tried to figure out why she seemed so agitated. She was generally fearless, a fact that filled Evan with both pride and terror. Gracie was the sort of kid who would jump off the high board at the YMCA pool if someone dared her to. She had no fears concerning spiders or nasty dogs or monsters under the bed. Surely she didn't believe in ghosts.

Well, that was what she'd just said, wasn't it?

So why was she so pale?

Billy started talking about a film the substitute teacher had shown his class, and Evan's chance to question Gra
cie slipped away. They ate their broiled chicken, discussing the nuances and subtleties of assorted Disney cartoons, and Gracie relaxed. By the end of the meal, she was jabbering about how she'd much rather be Mulan than Ariel, because Ariel wanted to kiss the prince and kissing was gross.

After dinner, Billy did a page in his spelling workbook while Evan read Gracie
Green Eggs and Ham
. He'd read it to her so many times she had it memorized, and she recited it along with him. Then he got her into a bath. As he washed her hair, he thought about what Molly had said earlier: that he should think about hiring a nanny or an au pair. Was it all right that he—a male adult—was giving his daughter a bath? At what point would this turn from a simple parental chore into something dangerous?

She was his daughter, and she wasn't old enough to wash her own hair yet. Did he have to hire a baby-sitter to wash her hair for her?

Everything he knew about being a father he'd learned on the job. Debbie hadn't taught him much, and Gracie had been only two years old when Debbie had run off. His parents had suggested that he move back to New Haven so they could help, but fortunately he hadn't, because a year later his father was downsized out of his job and wound up taking a consulting position in Washington, D.C. So Evan had learned how to give his daughter a bath all by himself.

She was only four. He probably wasn't traumatizing her by bathing her. But in another year…Could he teach her how to wash her own hair by then?

“Do you think we ought to hire a nanny?” he asked as he helped her out of the tub and wrapped her in a towel.

“A nanny? That's a grandma. Courtney calls her grandma Nanny. Stephen said a nanny was a goat. He and Courtney had a big fight.”

“I'll bet,” Evan said, rubbing the towel over Gracie's wet hair. “What I meant wasn't a grandmother, but someone who might come here and help out a little. For instance, she could give you your bath.”

“I like when you give me a bath. You never get soap in my eyes.”

He accepted the compliment with an earnest nod. “Or maybe this nanny could pick you up at the Children's Garden if I got stuck in a meeting.”

“You could send Heather. I like her.” Gracie reached for her nightgown, a wrinkled heap of pink flannel on the lowered seat of the toilet. She squirmed into it, and when her head popped through the opening, she added, “I think you should marry her.”

“Marry Heather?” Evan sat on the floor, leaning against the tiled wall, and shoved his sleeves up above his elbows. Gracie often blurted out peculiar ideas. He still hadn't figured out the way her mind worked, and he probably never would. “Why do you think I should marry Heather?”

“She's so pretty.”

“It doesn't really matter how pretty a woman is outside,” Evan pointed out. “What matters is if she's pretty inside.”

“I bet Heather's pretty inside. If she opened her mouth, you could look inside and see.”

He struggled not to laugh. “By pretty inside, I mean, if her thoughts and acts are pretty. If she's a good, kind person. Some people are pretty on the outside and not
the inside.” Debbie, for instance—but he didn't say that. “Do you think I should get married?”

“Maybe you could find a princess or something and marry her,” Gracie suggested. “A princess who likes sports so she could buy lots of stuff at the store. And then maybe we could live in a castle. A big stone castle—” She cut herself off and handed Evan her towel. “Uh-uh. I don't want to live in a castle,” she said, her expression pinched. “Brush my hair out, Daddy—and don't pull, okay?”

“I never pull.” So she didn't want to live in a castle, he thought, hauling himself to his feet. He hung her towel over the rack, reached for her hairbrush and carefully brushed the snarls out of her hair, easing the bristles through the damp locks without tugging. He'd assumed most little girls wanted to live in castles, but then, Gracie wasn't like most little girls. “I don't think I'd want to marry a princess, anyway,” he told her.

She relaxed. “You don't have to get married, Daddy. But if you do, you should probably marry Heather.”

“Thanks for the input.” He and Heather would kill each other in a day, he thought with a smile. Heather was a wonderful secretary, but she was not his idea of promising wife material.

Her hair smooth, Gracie brushed her teeth, then padded barefoot down the hall to bed. Evan tucked her in and turned off her bedside lamp. “I want my night-light,” she said.

That surprised him. She'd stopped asking him to leave on her night-light a year ago. But whatever had bothered her yesterday was still nibbling at her.

“Okay,” he said, clicking on the shell-shaped night-
light. It gave the room a faint amber glow. “How's that?”

“Good. I love you, Daddy.”

“I love you, too,” he murmured, returning to her bed to give her one last kiss. “Sleep tight.”

Leaving her door cracked open, he headed down the hall to the den. Billy was sprawled on the rug in front of the TV, watching a sitcom about extraordinarily attractive young singles. “Bedtime, pal,” Evan said, because it was easier than telling him to stop watching shows in which three-quarters of the jokes had to do with sex or other bodily functions. He reached for his briefcase, hauled out the binder of Pep Insoles information Jennifer had given him and gave Billy a firm look.

Slowly, grudgingly, Billy hoisted himself off the floor and stretched. He trudged toward the doorway, but Evan caught his shoulder and held him back. “Are you sure everything's okay?” he asked.

“Yeah.” Billy stared at the sofa.

“Because you can tell me anything, Billy. If anything's bothering you, if there's anything you want to ask me, that's what I'm here for.”

Billy lifted his gaze to Evan. “Everything's okay,” he said, sounding less certain than grateful. Everything wasn't okay, but at least he seemed appreciative of his father's attempt to reach him.

“When you want to talk, Billy, let me know.”

“It's okay, Dad. Really.” He smiled, flashing a gap where one of his front teeth was missing. Evan released him, and he clomped down the hall, his feet too big for his body.

Maybe Billy would open up to Evan, and maybe he wouldn't. Either way, Evan's heart swelled with love and
rattled with anxiety. Should he hire help? Find a nanny? Find a wife? Badger his kids until they told him what was bugging them?

Molly had told him he was a wonderful father. But sometimes—far too often—he wasn't so sure.

T
HANK GOODNESS
the gas company had come through. The house had grown so cold Sunday night that Filomena had gone to bed wearing a nightgown, a turtleneck, a cardigan and knee-high socks, and she'd burrowed under two blankets, one down, one wool. Even with all that she'd awakened shivering before dawn. She could have built a fire in the living-room fireplace—if she had any firewood, which she didn't. So she'd washed in icy water and then dressed, driven down to Dudley Road, bought a jumbo coffee at an upscale café she didn't recall having been there before and started making telephone calls.

By ten that morning she had the gas turned on. That meant not only heat for the house, but a working stove and oven and hot water for bathing. The phone company hooked her up, but although the electrical company had promised she'd have power by the evening, she was still in the dark.

She could survive without electricity. The air in the unheated garage shed was cold enough to keep her milk and fruit from spoiling, and the house could be lit with candles and her mother's blown-glass oil lamp. In fact, she liked the way the candles and the oil lamp gave the place a mystical ambience, all those flickering golden flames creating tiny spheres of shimmering light.

After dinner, she sat in her candlelit living room, sip
ping a glass of wine and contemplating her surroundings. The furniture was massive, well suited to the massive dimensions of the room. The tables and upholstered pieces were old and faded but in generally good condition. She was amazed her mother had thought to cover everything when she'd closed up the house five years ago. Her mother usually didn't think that far ahead.

If Filomena had been able to afford it, she would have arranged for a professional service to come in and clean the place. But given the debts she'd inherited, she didn't want to waste money on that. Once she had electricity, she would find out if the vacuum cleaner in the upstairs closet still worked. If it did, she could clean the floors herself. Dusting and washing windows certainly fell within her range of abilities. The yard was a mess, but in mid-November she wasn't sure what a landscaper could possibly do to make it look better. Maybe it didn't matter. By the time she put the house on the market in January, the ground might be covered with snow, and the unkempt grass, scattered leaves and overgrown bushes would be concealed.

She took another sip of wine, held it on her tongue and then swallowed, feeling it warm her all the way down to her stomach. She'd found a full rack of Bordeaux in the cellar, thickly layered in dust. Twenty-four bottles, none of them less than ten years old. She wondered what they were worth—enough to pay off some of her mother's debts?

It didn't matter. The house sale would cover the debts. She was going to keep the wine for herself. The bottle she'd opened had aged magnificently, and even if she wasn't quite the connoisseur her father had been, she appreciated a good wine. She could still remember some of
the things her father had taught her about wines when she'd been a child. He used to explain about color and balance and bouquet, and then he'd let her take a tiny sip from his glass. Wine had tasted peculiar to her then, but she'd felt naughty and very mature drinking it.

She didn't feel so mature now. Impractical and abandoned was more like it. She was twenty-seven years old, working on a Ph.D. dissertation for a degree that was never going to land her a job—and she was an orphan.
An orphan
. God, that sounded strange.

Actually, it sounded awful.

Her father had been eighty-three when he'd died. She'd grieved for him but taken comfort in knowing he'd lived a long full life. Her mother had been only fifty-five, though. Way too young.

“You died happy, at least,” Filomena murmured into the candlelit room. “You died doing what you loved, Mom, didn't you?”

She sighed. If she didn't get electricity soon, if she didn't get to work scrubbing the house from floor to ceiling, if she didn't get her CD player plugged in so she could listen to music while she whipped the place into shape, she was going to sink into a maudlin state. Sitting alone in a dark room, drinking wine and talking to her dead mother? Sheesh.

She needed electricity—and she needed visitors. She needed human contact. After living in Manhattan for the past five years, she found the silence of the house almost terrifying. Dudley Road had been bustling that morning, and she'd savored the din of voices and traffic.

She liked tranquillity and she enjoyed solitude. But still…She wanted visitors.

The children hadn't come back today. She assumed
that because it was Monday they'd been in school all day, but she had hoped maybe they would come prowling around her property after school so she could meet them. She'd even bought a bag of cookies, just in case they'd wanted a snack.

But they hadn't returned.

“Maybe tomorrow,” she said out loud, and the possibility made her smile. Thinking about her mother, her debts, the numerous tasks and chores that awaited her was depressing. But thinking about the children who'd left their little fingerprints and footprints on her house lifted her spirits.

She hoped with all her heart they'd visit her house again.

 

“W
HAT ARE YOU DOING
?” Gracie squealed.

“Shh!” Billy waved her off, then tiptoed through the hall to the top of the stairs. Down in the kitchen, it was poker night. Dad and a bunch of guys played every Tuesday night, always at the Myers house because Dad claimed he had baby-sitting problems. Billy was glad the game was at his house. If Dad had gone to someone else's house and left a baby-sitter behind, she might actually pay attention when Billy made his escape.

He hovered near the stairway, listening to the sounds of the men's voices. They were talking about the New England Patriots, debating whether the team had a shot at the Super Bowl this year. Billy wanted to shout, “Of course they do!” but he kept his mouth shut.

Dad and his buddies were fine. They were drinking beer, rattling their chips—Billy believed they played for maybe a nickel a game, something really cheap—and
they sure weren't thinking about him. Which was a good thing.

He tiptoed back down the hall. Gracie blocked his bedroom door. She was wearing her nightgown and her fluffy slippers with Minnie Mouse sewn onto the toes. “What are you doing?” she whispered.

“I'm going out.”

“You can't go out!” Amazing how loud her whisper sounded.

“Shh.” He ducked into his bedroom.

She followed him in, her hands on her hips and her head tilted to the side. “Where are you going?”

“The haunted house.”

“You can't go there, Billy! It's haunted!”

“It is not. Anyway, you told me you don't believe in ghosts.”

“It's got spirits in it. I saw a spirit. You did, too.”

Well, yeah, he
had
seen a spirit in the big stone house. And that really bothered him. It bothered them both. Him more than Gracie, because she wasn't too good at hanging on to an idea from one day to the next. But he hadn't stopped thinking about the ghost, or spirit, or whatever it was he'd seen moving in the house on Sunday. Wondering about it was driving him crazy. He had to go back and figure out what was in there.

He couldn't go during the day, because by the time Dad picked him up from Scott's house or the after-school program, it was time for dinner, and then he had to read or do a page from a workbook or something. So there was no way he could hike over to the stone house to see if it was really haunted.

He could do it tonight, though, because of the poker game. His dad wouldn't notice he was gone. He'd just
run through the woods, peek in the window, come up with an explanation for what it was he and Gracie had seen on Sunday and then come home. Dad would never even know.

“How are you going to get out?” Gracie asked as he pulled a hooded sweatshirt over his head. He couldn't go downstairs and get his jacket. He hoped it wasn't too cold outside.

“Through the window.”

She darted past him to his window. The screen was easy to unhook—he'd already done it—and it opened onto the roof of the garage. From there, he could reach the oak tree and shimmy down. He'd climbed the oak tree lots of times, and he'd been able to swing from one of the limbs onto the garage roof, so he knew he'd be able to get back in once his mission was accomplished.

Gracie seemed excited and a little frightened. He hoped she wouldn't race downstairs and tell on him the minute he was out the window. If she did tell…well, he'd sure be in trouble. Grounded for life, probably. “You're not going to tell, are you?” he asked, making sure his sneakers were laced tight.

She shook her head. Her eyes were so wide they looked like they were going to pop out of her face. “What if there
is
a ghost?” she wanted to know. “What if you don't come home? What should I tell Daddy?”

“There's no ghost. Whatever is in the house, I'll figure it out and tell you.” That promise ought to keep her from tattling on him. “And I'll come home. Why wouldn't I come home?”

“Because if there's a ghost, it might kill you.”

“We don't believe in ghosts. Right, Gracie?”

She thought about that for a minute, then nodded uncertainly. “Right.”

“Okay. See ya.” He shoved the window as high as it would go and then maneuvered himself over the sill. The garage roof was right beneath his feet. This was so easy he wanted to laugh.

Climbing down the tree was easy, too. He jumped the last few feet to the ground and glanced through the sliding glass door in the family room. He could see across the family room into the kitchen, where Dad and his friends were playing cards around the table. Dad had his back to Billy.

Convinced that his father was too caught up in the game to notice him missing, Billy turned and started into the woods. The three-quarter moon shed a lot of light, and the path was visible. He'd gone to the stone house enough times to know his way.

About halfway there, he started hearing footsteps behind him. Or imagining them, probably. It was dark, and even though he pretended to be tough for Gracie, he had to admit he was, well, not scared but a little nervous. He knew there wasn't a ghost in the house—but
something
had been in there. He'd seen it move, and it had scared the heck out of him on Sunday. He really wished he could have gone back to check the place out during the day, when there was still some sunlight.

But he couldn't stand not knowing what he'd seen. Day or night, he had to go back for another look.

He took a few more steps and halted. Definitely someone was following him.

Sucking in a big breath, he curled his hands into fists, just in case he had to fight off a monster or something, and turned around.

Gracie stood on the path in her pink nightgown and her Minnie Mouse slippers, with her denim jacket—
his
denim jacket—pulled around her shoulders. She stomped toward him, snapping twigs and trampling on leaves and breathing heavily. “What are you doing?” he asked. He could hear the impatience in his voice.

“I thought I should come, too.”

“You climbed out the window? Gracie, you are so stupid! You could've gotten hurt! I can't believe how stupid you are!”

Her mouth started twitching like she was going to burst into tears. “I'm not stupid!” she wailed. “Take it back!”

She
was
stupid. No way would he get caught if he was doing this himself, but with her along…How was she going to get back into the house? Maybe she could climb down the tree, but she was too little to climb back up. He was going to have to hoist her or something.

“You've spoiled everything,” he said, even though he knew that would set her off. He was just so mad.

“I did not!” She charged up the path, pushing past him. “If there's a ghost, I wanna see it, and you can't stop me.”

She was right about that—he couldn't stop her. If he sent her back to the house, she'd wind up ringing the doorbell, and then Dad would know and come after him and he'd be in big trouble. He had no choice but to let her accompany him. It made him even angrier that she'd twisted things around to get her way. He knew a couple of swear words—the fifth graders used them all the time on the bus, and he'd heard his dad use the s-word a few times when he thought Billy wasn't around. He whispered it under his breath and caught up to Gracie. If he
was going to wind up in trouble anyhow, he might as well swear.

The woods weren't too thick. They spread behind the houses on the side of the street where his house was, down a little dip and then up a rise to the clearing where the stone house stood. He supposed the house was on another street, but there were no other houses near it, so Billy guessed it was set back from the road by a long driveway. He'd tried to find the street on his bicycle once, but he'd come to a major road and there'd been too much traffic, so he'd turned around and biked home. But even if the stone house was hard to reach by the roads, it really wasn't that far away if you just hiked through the woods.