Magic hour: a novel (40 page)

A gorgeous, beautifully decorated Christmas tree dominated the corner of the room.

A rush of memories hit him.

Come on, Dan-the-man, let’s put up the star for Mommy.

He turned his back on the tree and sat down on the hearth. A fire crackled behind him, warmed his back. He wouldn’t be able to sit here for long, but at least he wasn’t facing the tree. A coil of sleeping dogs lay at his feet.

“Well, well, well.”

At the sound of Ellie’s voice, he looked up. She stood behind the sofa with her hands on her hips. “It’s nice to see you again, Max.”

“You, too, El.”

She came around the sofa and sat down beside him. “You know what I hear?”

“Trevor McAulley is drinking again?”

“Old news.” She looked at him. There was no smile left. This was her cop’s face. “I hear you took my sister to the movies.”

“That come across the police scanner?”

“I didn’t say anything at Thanksgiving, it being a holiday and all, but . . .” Ellie leaned toward him. She got so close he could feel her breath on his neck. “Hurt her and I’ll cut your nuts off.” She eased back, smiling again. “And you like your nuts.”

“I do indeed.”

“Then we understand each other. Good. I’m glad we had this little heart-to-heart.”

“What if—”

Ellie frowned. “What if what?”

“Nothing.”

Julia and Alice returned.

Ellie immediately stood. “I’m going to Cal’s. You two be good.” She picked up a box of packages and left the house.

Julia handed Max a cup.

They sat down side by side on the sofa. Neither said anything. Alice knelt at Julia’s feet. She grunted at Julia and smacked the book in her lap.

“Use your words, Alice,” Julia said calmly.

“Read. Girl.”

“Not now. I’m talking to Dr. Max.”

“Now.”
Alice hit the book again.

“No. Later.”

“Peas?”

Julia smiled gently and touched Alice’s head. “In a little while, okay?”

Alice’s whole body slumped in disappointment. She popped a thumb in her mouth and started turning the pages.

Julia turned to him then.

“You’re amazing,” he said softly.

“Thanks.”

He heard the throatiness in her voice and knew how much his compliment meant to her.

She was close enough to kiss him right now, and he wanted her to.

He moved away from her slightly, as if distance could provide protection.

She noticed the movement. Of course she did.

“What happened to you, Max?”

He should have been surprised by the question, but he wasn’t. “It doesn’t matter.”

“I think it does.”

He was near enough now to see the tiny mole on her throat. Her cinnamon-scented breath fluttered against his chin. “Love,” he said simply.

“Yeah,” she said at last. “It’ll knock the shit out of you, that’s for sure. Why didn’t you go home for Christmas?”

“You.”

Her gaze searched his, as if looking deep for answers. She gave him a sad, knowing smile, and he wondered what it was she thought she knew. “How about a game of cards, Max?” she finally said.

“Cards?” He couldn’t help laughing.

She smiled. “It’s one of those things a man and a woman can do out of bed.”

“No wonder I’m confused.”

She laughed. “Go get the cards, Alice.”

Alice looked up. “Jewlee win?”

“That’s right, honey. Jewlee’s gonna kick Dr. Max’s ass.”

F
OR THE FIRST
C
HRISTMAS IN RECENT MEMORY THIS HOUSE HAD BECOME
a home again. There was nothing like a child to make Christmas a gala event. Not that Alice had understood it, of course.

Ellie and Julia had both wakened at the crack of dawn and encouraged their sleepy girl to go downstairs.

The presents had been unwrapped in the morning one at a time—according to family tradition—and then carefully restacked under the tree. Except for Alice’s. She
loved
her packages, had carried them around all day and hugged them to her narrow little chest. Any attempts at unwrapping them had led to hysterics.

So the toys inside remained hidden. The packages themselves were her gifts.

In truth, Ellie hated to leave, but going to see Cal on Christmas was one of her few traditions. She’d never missed a year. That was how things were done in Rain Valley. Neighbors visited each other on holidays, usually staying just long enough to share a glass of wine or a mug of hot chocolate. For all his childhood, Cal had come to the Cates’ house for Christmas, where he’d found a stocking with his name on it tacked to the mantel and a pile of gifts under the tree. No one ever said why it was that way, but each of them knew. For Cal, who had lived alone with his wreck of a dad, Christmas only came to other addresses.

That tradition had remained in place for as long as Brenda and Big Tom Cates were alive. Year after year Cal bundled up his wife and daughters and brought them across the field and over the river for dinner. Even after Ellie’s mom died and the tradition began to weaken, Cal kept Christmas and the Cates together in his mind.

When Dad died, a subtle shift had begun. For a few years Cal and Lisa had invited Ellie for dinner at their house. They’d tried to form a new tradition, but nothing quite jelled. Lisa cooked the “wrong” foods and put on the “wrong” music. It no longer felt like Christmas to Ellie; she was an outsider somehow.

This year there had been no invitation at all. No doubt Cal assumed that she and Julia and Alice were a new Cates family and wanted to be alone. But she knew that without Lisa he would be having a rough time of it.

She packed up their presents in a pretty silver Nordstrom’s bag, and headed down the driveway. On either side of her, magnificent fir and cedar trees grew tall and straight; their green tips plunged into the swollen gray belly of the sky. Although the rain had stopped, drops still fell from leaves and branches and eaves, creating a steady drip-drip-drip that matched her footsteps. There were the other sounds of the forest, too. Water rushing, needles rustling, squirrels scurrying across branches, mice running for cover. Every now and then a crow cawed or an owl hooted.

These sounds were as familiar to her as the crackling of a fire in the fireplace. Without a worry she turned onto the path and walked into the woods.

There was no way to calculate the number of times she’d crossed this bridge or walked from one house to the other. Enough so that nothing ever grew up in the path. Even in recent years, when cars and telephones were more common than walking to the neighbor’s house, nothing ever grew up to hide the way.

She followed the beaten and stunted grass around the orchard and through the vegetable garden, past the old pond that used to be their childhood fishing hole. As she pushed through the cattails and heard her boots squish in the soggy ground, she heard a long-forgotten echo of their childish laughter.

There’s a snake in the water, Cal—get out!

That’s just an ol’ twig. You need glasses.

You’re the one who needs glasses—

She remembered their laughter . . . the way they’d sit on that muddy bank for hours, talking about nothing.

She followed the path back around the bend, and there was the house. For a second she expected it to look as it once had: a slant-sided shack with fake shingles; shutters hanging askew on cracked, dirty windows; a battalion of snarling pit bulls chained in the yard.

She blinked and the memory moved on. She was staring at the house Cal had built by himself, in the years after junior college and before marrying Lisa. He’d worked for a construction company back then. After a forty-five-hour workweek he’d piled on the extra hours at his own house, literally building the place around his drunken, useless father.

It was a small house that seemed to have sprouted outward, growing in a collection of sharp angles and awkward slants. Rooms had been added on as money came in, without real rhyme or reason. Cal had poured his energy into the place, trying to build for his family the home he’d never had. The end result was a quaint shingled cabin set on a patch of velvet green grass, surrounded by two-hundred-year-old evergreens.

As always, the holiday lights and decorations were world-class. Ellie always figured he went overboard to make up for all the years there hadn’t even been a tree in the living room.

The porch was studded with white lights; the railings were festooned with boughs. A giant homemade wreath decorated the front door.

Ellie expected to hear music seeping through the walls, but it was oddly still. For a second she wondered if they were home. She glanced behind her and saw Cal’s baby—the 1969 GTO he’d restored to perfection.

She knocked on the door. When no one answered, she tried again.

Finally she heard a thunder of footsteps.

The door wrenched open and Cal’s daughters stood there, huddled together, smiling brightly. Amanda, the eleven-and-a-half-year-old, looked impossibly grown-up in her low-rise jeans and studded silver belt and pink tee shirt. Her long black hair had been coiled into the haphazard braid that could only be made by a father’s clumsy hands. Nine-year-old Emily was dressed in a green velvet dress that was at least a size too big, and eight-year-old Sarah—the only child to have inherited her mother’s strawberry-blond hair and freckled complexion—hadn’t bothered to change out of her Princess Fiona pajamas.

At the sight of Ellie, all three smiles faded.

“It’s just Aunt Ellie,” Amanda said.

The trio mumbled “Merry Christmas.” Then Emily called out for her dad.

“Gee, thanks,” Ellie said, watching them walk away.

Cal came down the stairs. He was moving slowly, as if maybe he’d just woken up. His black hair was a tangled mess. Tiny pink lines creased his left cheek. He wore a pair of Levi’s so old that both knees were gone and the hemlines were foamy fringe. His Metallica tee shirt had seen better days, too.

“Ellie,” he said, trying to smile. As he passed each of the girls, he hugged them, then let them go.

“You look like hell,” she said when the girls were gone.

“And I was going to say how
beautiful
you are.”

Ellie closed the door behind her and followed him to the living room, where a huge decorated tree took up the entire corner. She set the bag of gifts down beside it.

Cal flopped down on the sofa, put his feet on the hammered copper coffee table. His sigh was loud enough to set a tiny ornament spinning and jingling.

Ellie sat down beside him. It confused her to see Cal this way. He’d laughed his way through too many hard times to fall apart now. If Cal could become fragile, then nothing was safe. “What happened?”

He glanced behind him, made sure no little ears were nearby. “Lisa didn’t come for Christmas morning . . . or dinner. She didn’t send any presents. I told the girls she’d call, but I’m starting to wonder.”

Ellie frowned. “Is she okay?”

“She’s fine. I called her parents. She’s out with her new guy.”

“That doesn’t sound like Lisa.”

Cal looked at her. “Yes, it does.”

Ellie heard the wealth of pain behind those few words. She knew it was all Cal would ever tell her about his failed marriage. “I’m sorry.”

“You’ve been here before, right? A divorce is like a cut. It heals. That’s what you always said.”

The truth was, she had never been in his shoes. She’d never stayed married for more than two years, never become a love instead of a lover with her spouse. God knew she’d never had children’s hearts in her grasp. “I don’t think my marriages should be compared to yours, Cal. You might hurt for a long time.”

“Not loving her can’t be more painful than loving her was.” He stared into the fire.

Ellie let him have his time. In a way, it was like the old days when they were kids. They’d sometimes sit on that bridge all day and never say more than
You got any more Bazooka?

“How was your Christmas?” he finally said.