Father Christmas (30 page)

“
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.”

“
I’ve got a different
problem,” Rick spoke up. “We celebrate Chanukah. Rebecca wants to
know why Santa won’t visit her. She thinks it isn’t fair, because
she’s been a good girl all year.”

“
That’s a hard one,” Molly
confirmed. “It’s difficult to see so many people celebrating
Christmas when it isn’t your holiday. Do you give her presents for
Chanukah?”

“
Yes, but she says it’s
not the same. How can I get her to be proud of who she is, when it
looks like everyone else is having more fun than she
is?”

“
You could try coming up
with some family traditions, too. Maybe you could donate some time
at a homeless shelter or a nursing home on Christmas Day. Or take a
drive in the country. If you do something special that none of
Rebecca’s Christian friends are doing, she might feel like
they’re
the ones missing out on all the
fun.”

And so it went, the entire two hours of the
class devoted to making the holidays meaningful and happy for all
the children. The fathers traded information on which toys were hot
and which were worthless. They discussed ways to involve their
children in various holiday preparations. They talked about how to
maintain discipline when visiting relatives doted on the children
and spoiled them. They even swapped laundry tips: cranberry sauce
stained pretty badly, but sweet potatoes washed out all right if
you pre-treated the stain.

John listened without contributing too much.
Molly had no idea whether he cared about wash-day challenges, but
she knew he had already done most of his gift shopping for Michael.
She’d been there while he bought the blocks and the puzzle plane
and all the rest.

At exactly noon, she heard tiny feet
stampeding down the stairs, accompanied by giggles and the babble
of shrill voices. The children spilled into the Pre-K room, all of
them chattering at once: “We went in the foam pit!” “Joey has a
hole in his sock!” “I jumped way, way, way high! I jumped the
highest!”

That last boast came from Michael.

The next few minutes were a jumble of
children struggling into coats and boots, fathers searching for
missing mittens and exchanging best wishes for the holidays. Molly
noticed that Michael was seated in the midst of the chaos,
patiently putting on one of his boots. He didn’t ask for help,
didn’t whine, but just sat on the floor, wriggling his foot slowly
into the stiff rubber boot.

When he’d first come to the Children’s
Garden, he would have quickly grown frustrated and demanded
assistance. He had matured a great deal in the past few weeks.
Molly was proud of him. And then she wondered whether she had the
right to be proud—not simply as a professional early-childhood
educator but as someone who cared personally about his tender
emotions. He had endured so much in his short life, yet he’d
somehow developed the ability to face a challenge and try his
best.

Her vision misted. She experienced more than
a teacher’s satisfaction with a successful student. Her pride in
Michael was maternal—and she had no right to feel maternal about
him.

Abruptly turning away, she spotted John
reaching for the zipper of his jacket. Had he come here only for
the class? Was he really going to leave without talking to her?

She’d slept with him, damn it. She’d shared
herself with him, body and soul—and he’d shared himself with her.
Was he actually going to walk out without a word?

If Michael could face a challenge so
courageously, so could she, even if his challenge was boots and her
challenge was John. Squaring her shoulders, she crossed the Pre-K
room to him. Standing so close to him made her uncomfortably aware
of his height, his size...his virility. When he was this near, her
mind came alive with memories of every minute they’d spent
together, every word spoken, every thought exchanged, every kiss,
every touch.

“
We have to talk,” she
said.

“
Okay.”

She would have preferred
for him to say, “Yes, you’re absolutely right, I have things to
tell you.” And then, of course, she would have wanted him to tell
her what she longed to hear:
I love you, Molly. I needed
a few days apart from you to make sure, but now I know. Now I can
say it.
As if he’d ever say so many words
without prompting. As if he’d say
those
words.

But at least he was willing to give her a
hearing. Now she had to figure out what to say.

She waited until all the other fathers and
children departed, leaving Molly and John alone—except for Michael.
Not wanting to impose on Shannon, who was still upstairs, probably
straightening out after the foam-pit jamboree, Molly hunkered down
next to Michael, who had gotten his second boot about
three-quarters on. “Would you like to do a puzzle?” she asked.
“I’ve got a great animal puzzle.”

“
A big puzzle?” He looked
interested.

“
Yes. Would you like to do
it?”

“
I like a big puzzle.” He
yanked his boot fully on and pushed himself to his feet. “Where’s
the big puzzle?”

Molly led him into the Young Toddlers
section and pulled a box down from a shelf. “Here it is,” she said,
emptying the pieces onto one of the low tables and pulling out a
chair for him. Within minutes, he was immersed in the task of
fitting the pieces together.

Satisfied that he wouldn’t interrupt her and
John for a while, she walked out of the classroom to where John was
waiting on the other side of the partition. They could watch
Michael over the wall while they talked.

John clearly wasn’t going to begin the
conversation. She’d been the one to request it, so she was going to
have to get it started. Ignoring the panic that gnawed at her, she
took a deep breath and lifted her gaze to him. “My sister told me
she had a word with you on Monday.” She wished her voice didn’t
sound so thin, so anxious.

John glanced at Michael, then turned back to
her. He lifted his hand, no longer bandaged, and shoved back his
hair. When he lowered his arm, she saw the red line of his slowly
healing wound across his palm. His wariness fell away, leaving
behind a pained expression. “Yeah,” he said. “We had words.” The
way he said it implied that they’d fought.

“
And ever since then, you
haven’t—” she swallowed the catch in her throat “—you just backed
off from me, John. I don’t know...” Her eyes were beginning to burn
and she blinked, desperate not to cry in front of him.

He wrapped his arms around her and pulled
her gently against him. She wanted to resist, but she needed the
strength of his embrace right now. She needed his warmth. Her
nerves were shivering.

“
I don’t know what she
said to you, John, or why it was so meaningful to you that you
could just—just run away from me—”

“
Your sister only pointed
out the truth,” he murmured, drawing her close. “She wanted me to
promise that I’d never hurt you. That’s a promise I can’t make.
I
will
hurt you.”

The soft wool of his sweater was damp, and
she realized the dampness had been caused by her tears. She hated
herself for weeping, but she couldn’t help it. Stupid though it
was, she felt that falling apart was a safe thing to do as long as
John’s arms were around her.

“
Why do you think you’d
hurt me?” she demanded.

“
I hurt the last woman I
loved,” he said.

Her tears halted as she felt the impact of
his words. Did he just admit he loved her? Wasn’t that implicit in
what he’d said?

Before she could fully grasp his statement,
he continued. “I can’t make the kind of promises you deserve.”

“
What promises have I
asked for?”

He sighed. “My work makes me hard. It makes
me cold. I carry a gun, Molly.”

“
I know you carry a gun,”
she allowed. “And I’m not thrilled about it. But when you got
hurt...” She swallowed again, and leaned back so she could see his
face. “When that creep hurt you, all I could think of was that I
wish you’d shot him. I know, that’s a terrible thing to say.” Her
voice crumbled, and she felt her eyes grow wet again. It was scary
to think how much she loved John—so much that she would wish a
violent punishment on anyone who hurt him.

He pulled her back against him. “That’s what
I’m saying,” he explained. “If you get involved with a cop, it’s
going to change the way you think. It’s going to suck the sweetness
right out of you.”

“
Maybe it’s too late to be
worrying what it’s going to do to me. I’m already involved with a
cop.” Her voice gained strength. She’d said it, said everything she
had to without using the word
love
. Her words rang with truth, and her convictions gave her
strength. “You’re afraid you might hurt me. Well, that’s a chance
I’m willing to take. Love doesn’t come with a guarantee, and that’s
why you have to be brave to try it. I can be brave if I have to.”
She angled her head to view him, and his dark eyes found hers,
locked onto hers the way his mouth might lock onto hers in a kiss.
“I’ve seen how brave you can be, too. So I know you can do it if
you want.”

His lips twitched into a hint of a smile.
“You’re a lot braver than I am, Molly.”

“
I don’t think
so.”

“
And you’re stubborn and
reckless—”

“
Stubborn, yes. Reckless,
no.”

His smile solidified, reaching his eyes,
reaching her heart and warming it. He bowed and brushed her mouth
with his. “I guess I could learn to be brave, if that’s what it
takes to make this thing work.”

“
We’ll make it work,” she
vowed, wondering whether that was a promise either of them could
keep. Perhaps he’d been right in calling her reckless. He was
careful and self-protective enough not to promise
anything.

But she
would
keep this promise. She would do
whatever she could to keep it, because she loved him. And when he
kissed her again, a long, leisurely kiss that held promises of its
own, she knew that the love they had was worth any
promise.

“
I finished the puzzle!”
Michael hollered, startling them. They sprang apart and glanced
over the wall, where Michael was beaming at them, the completed
animal puzzle spread across the table next to him. “A very hard
puzzle. I worked it out. Everything fits. All the
pieces!”