Sweet Christmas Kisses (95 page)

“What?”

“We set up the tree every year right after Thanksgiving, but that was a week ago and still no tree.”

“Yeah,” Yvonne echoed, holding out her hands to indicate the room which was usually decorated with tree, lights, and garland by this time. “No tree.”

“We’ll take care of that, too, after your game and after we set up your train,” Jim answered gravely, wondering when their list of demands would reach its end. “Anything else?”

Ryan tilted his head to the side, then shook it to indicate he was finished for now, then went on. "But you can fix the shower now.” He stood and began picking up the toys and snapping together blocks he'd left on the floor. "Come on, Yvonne," he said to his sister. "Help me."

Something in his tone had Yvonne scrambling to her feet and hurrying to help. She picked up her things, put the books away on the bookcase, and started up the stairs with her toys.

Jim and Cecilia goggled at each other, unable to believe what had just happened.

"Dad," Ryan called from the top of the stairs. "The shower?"

"Coming. I have to get my tools." While he went out to the garage to retrieve the tool kit, Cecilia made a quick check of the family room. Amazingly, everything was in order. She stood in the middle of the room and looked around at the unaccustomed neatness. For a moment, she felt like a stranger in her own house. Well, she thought uncomfortably, not her house anymore. What was this going to mean? Ryan was obviously taking to home ownership with a vengeance. He loved the idea of being in charge. She and Jim would have to rein that in a little, she was sure. It would probably get old for Ryan after a while, but right now, it seemed to be working very nicely.

Jim returned with the tools and started up the stairs after the children. "I hope that judge knows what he's started here," Cecilia heard him mutter.

She watched him go, his long legs taking the stairs easily, his arms swinging smoothly at his sides. She had an odd sense of longing as she watched him. For just a moment, she forgot how miserable she had been in the months before he moved out: the way the two of them had looked past each other, how they'd shared a bed and never touched, how she'd chosen her words carefully before asking him the simplest question because she always seemed to say the wrong thing, how she had seen him struggling the same way. They had lurched through weeks of misunderstandings and awkward silences, each of them trying to find a foothold in a marriage neither of them understood anymore.

Watching him now, with the divorce still not final and Judge Carpenter's signature not affixed on the ruling, Cecilia found herself somehow seeing past all that to the man Jim used to be, the one she'd fallen for the minute she had met him. It made her feel as if she and Jim were both split in two, one part of each of them from the long distant past and one from the last few painful months.

She felt as if she were outside herself, observing Jim as she hadn't in a long time. First of all, he loved his children; there was no denying that. He was a success at his job and well respected by his employees and by the community. He had a dry sense of humor, a mind dedicated to business, a strong work ethic. And oh, was he handsome!

He also had a way of withdrawing into himself to a place where Cecilia couldn't reach him. He could close himself off and seem to look at her as a stranger would. And then there was that side of him that took risks, that shook up what safety they had acquired.

She didn't know who the real Jim was. Or the real Cecilia.

As the thought surfaced, she felt the familiar lump of grief that seemed to have attached itself to her heart in the past months, and a sound of distress escaped her lips

He stopped suddenly at the top of the stairs and looked down at her. "Did you say something?"

"No," she said quickly, turning away. She had learned that short answers were best; they didn't invite more comment. And what was the point of long answers anyway between two people who couldn't even talk to each other anymore?

Cecilia waited a few minutes, busying herself in the family room while she waited for the children to get themselves ready for bed. Yvonne would delay things as long as possible, hoping her mother would come up and help her into bed. Cecilia was getting good at outwaiting her daughter, but that only delayed her own bedtime. She often didn't get to bed until very late, and then she tossed and turned until after midnight.

Finally, she couldn't stall any longer, so she climbed the stairs to the second floor. There she found both children, clad in their pajamas, sitting on the bathroom floor watching Jim fix the shower head. Her heart clutched with love for them—Ryan, his face serious, wearing pajamas with a smoking train engine barreling across his thin chest; Yvonne with her long, dark, disheveled hair hanging around her face. Automatically, Cecilia picked up a hairbrush and sat down on the floor behind Yvonne to smooth out the tangles with long, even strokes.

"The shower just needed a new washer," Yvonne said, as if she actually knew what a washer was and what it was used for. She was so engrossed in what her dad was doing that she didn’t even complain about getting her hair brushed.

"The other one was split," Ryan said, holding up the old one. "It was wasting water."

Jim glanced at Cecilia. Amusement flickered in his eyes and she smiled, too. She felt the tiniest surge of warmth as they shared the humor of Yvonne and Ryan's sudden involvement in the running of the house.

Ryan looked up at his dad, who was giving the shower head a couple of last adjustments. "Who pays the water bill, Dad?" he asked.

"I do," he answered, then glanced at Cecilia. "Or your mom does." The last words trailed off as if he'd just thought of something. "I guess we need to decide."

Cecilia’s lips pressed together as she fought her resentment over the way their lives were still tangled up together. Yet another thing they had to discuss, thanks to this crazy arrangement. She'd been looking for, hoping for, a nice, neat solution, but it hadn't been given to them.

"Come on, kids," she said briskly, standing up and tossing the brush onto the bathroom counter. "It's time for bed."

Ignoring the usual duet of “Aw Mom,” she shepherded them out of the bathroom and into their own bedrooms, where she tucked them in and kissed them goodnight—something Ryan would allow only if there wasn't the slightest possibility of one of his friends finding out.

Ryan lay on his side with his hands tucked under his cheek, the way he’d fallen asleep since he was old enough to turn himself and change his position as an infant. His dark eyes regarded her solemnly.

“Things are going to be different now, aren’t they, Mom?”

“Different how?” she asked, wanting to be sure she understood his question before she answered it.

“Better,” he said around a yawn. “You and Dad won’t argue anymore.”

She gazed at him, trying to think of an answer that would make him feel like his world was safe, that he was in control of it at least a little bit. That would assure him that the adults in charge had even a faint clue that they knew what they were doing.

“We’ll do what’s best for you,” she said. “What’s best for all of us.”

“This house belongs to me and Yvonne now, right?”

“For a while.” She gave him an uneasy look, wondering where he was going with it this time.

“Then we get to make up the rules,” he said, his eyes drifting shut. “No more fighting.” He settled into sleep.

Cecilia stood, pulled the covers up over his shoulders and then laughed softly at the irony of this situation. She wasn’t quite sure how he was going to do it, but Ryan would work this to his advantage somehow. He actually liked rules because he liked to know what was going to happen, what was expected of him. He was going to make sure he knew what was happening by enforcing his own rules.

When she walked out into the hall, she saw Jim standing with his shoulders resting against the wall. His arms were folded across his chest and his legs were extended, ankles crossed in front of him.

Startled, she stopped for a second, her gaze traveling swiftly over him. She hadn’t seen him stand like that in ages, maybe years. Somehow it made her think of the ranch where he’d grown up in southeastern Arizona. It seemed very…cowboy. Not at all like the hard-driving engineer and businessman he’d become.

When she looked back at his face, Cecilia saw that he was giving her a quizzical look that had a flurry of emotions rushing through her—surprise, regret, and, again, that longing she couldn’t seem to quell or understand.

“He’s asleep,” she said, speaking more sharply than she’d intended.

Jim pushed away from the wall. “I can still say goodnight to him.” He walked past her and she turned away, knowing she’d once again said the wrong thing.

She hurried downstairs, reminding herself she was grateful Jim was there to tuck the kids in. Even when he'd lived with them, he hadn't tucked them in very often. He’d rarely been home from work in time for that.

In the family room once again, Cecilia took a large notepad from a drawer in the credenza and sat down on the sofa, then stood up because she knew she wouldn’t be comfortable if Jim sat down next to her. She moved to a chair, smoothed the fabric of her slacks over her knees, straightened the collar of her blouse, and wondered if her hair looked okay.

“Oh, what does it matter?” she muttered to herself.

It didn’t matter. Neither of them were interested in the other, she was simply nervous and uncomfortable. She didn’t know how this was going to work out. She liked to know what was going to happen—a trait Ryan had inherited directly from her. She didn’t like surprises, especially not from Jim, and especially not related to money.

When Jim came downstairs a few minutes later, she was ready for him. She propped the notepad on her knee, clasped her pen, and in a business-like tone said, "We need to decide how we're going to divide up the living expenses."

"All right," he said warily, sitting on the sofa and stretching his legs out in front of him.

There had been a time, Cecilia thought, when he had stuck out his leg on purpose to trip her, tumbling her into his arms and kissing her breathless. That hadn't happened in a long, long time. In fact, she hadn't even thought about that in a long, long time.

From the carefully neutral expression on his face, she knew he probably wouldn't appreciate being reminded of it—not that she intended to.

"And the care of the children," she added, forcing herself to be businesslike and not fall into distant memories or unhelpful daydreams. Being practical, that’s what it was all about now.

"I thought we'd already decided on the kids. Fifty-fifty," he said.

Cecilia bit her lip, reminding herself not to say what she was thinking, that the care of the kids had never been fifty-fifty, but she needed to focus on the future, not the past.

"Yes," she said. "Fifty-fifty. And I think that's how we'd better split the household expenses, too, right down the middle, and if…if anything major comes up, we'll talk about it then."

“What about food?” he asked.

“What about it?” It was her turn to be wary.

“Do you plan to cook?”

“When it’s my turn to take care of the kids, yes, of course. What do you plan to do?” she asked pointedly.

“Take them out, I guess,” he shrugged. “I don’t cook.”

She gestured toward the kitchen. “I’ve never understood why you’ve always insisted we have the refrigerator and the cabinets stuffed with food. What’s the point if you won’t learn to cook? The kids shouldn’t be eating junk food, and taking them out will be so expensive—”

“Which you don’t have to worry about anymore,” Jim answered, surging to his feet. “The division of income is complete,” he said, his voice harsh and his eyes dark with anger. “Even if the division of property isn’t. What I do with what I earn is my concern.”

Turning, he stalked out of the room, through the kitchen and into the maid’s quarters beyond. He shut the door with a pointed snap, leaving Cecilia alone to stare at the blank notebook on her lap. If they couldn’t even have a five-minute conversation, this arrangement was never going to work.

This was never going to work, Jim fumed, flipping open his largest suitcase. He jerked open the dresser drawer, pulled out underwear and socks, tossed them into the dresser drawer and slapped it shut. Then he whipped it open again and began folding things into neat piles.

“Learn to cook, ha,” he groused. There was always plenty of food available without having to cook. What was the point?

He didn’t need to learn to cook. He needed order in his life. That’s what he wanted more than anything. That’s what he’d always wanted, what he’d worked for. Having Cecilia tell him to learn to cook infuriated him because it was only a small piece of a much larger problem, one neither of them could solve: the fact that they saw things in totally different ways.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to have happened, Jim thought. He had worked hard to make sure his family was taken care of. Even when he’d taken risks, it had always been with a larger plan in mind. He wanted to give them a bigger nest egg, a bigger cushion of security. Cecilia had come from a wealthy family, one that had always been secure, with two parents who had doted on her and her sister. Jim didn’t understand why she couldn’t see he’d been trying to give their family the same things her own parents had given her and Stephanie.

He finished putting his things away and stacked the suitcases by the door to be put away in the garage tomorrow. He hoped he’d never have to use them again.

A few minutes later he lay in bed, looking at the ceiling and imagining Cecilia in the room above him, alone in the king-size bed they had once shared. He missed that bed, missed being in it with her—but at least he was home. And he intended to stay. The advantage of having the house belong to his kids now was that, unlike their mother, they wouldn’t want to kick him out. Especially not at Christmas.

****

“Ryan, your coach is here,” Cecilia called up the stairs. Her son bounded down the stairs, pulling on the jacket to his sweat suit on his way. His hair stuck up all over his head, each dark strand doing business for itself. His basketball team was having a practice before the game, one they sorely needed.