The Red Gloves Collection (18 page)

The room began to spin. Casey felt behind him for one of the kitchen chairs. He positioned it and sank to the seat. “This Friday?” His words were little more than a whisper, and he repeated them again. “This Friday, the fourteenth?”

“Yes.” The woman gave a happy laugh. “If that works for you.”

Mrs. Eccles had said it could take six weeks to make a match between volunteers and children, but Billy-G had disagreed. “Two weeks tops.” He had given a wave of his favorite spatula. “I have a feelin’. Two weeks, Casey.”

Indeed.

Casey switched the receiver to the other hand and leaned back in the chair. “Friday would be perfect. Tell me … tell me about the boy.”

“Okay.” Mrs. Eccles drew a quick breath. “Well, he’s a darling little guy, eight years old and midway through second grade. He likes a lot of the things you like, and he lives with his mother and grandmother on the Upper East Side.”

“His father?” Casey almost hated to ask because the answer was obvious. The boy wouldn’t be in the program if his father were alive.

“The man was in his fifties, a bond trader who died of a massive heart attack a few years ago at work. Since then the boy’s mother and teachers have noticed a change in his behavior, enough that he’s had counseling and other help. He’s responded lately to spending more time with his mother.” Mrs. Eccles hesitated. “Unfortunately, his mother is a district attorney, and she can’t be home with the boy as often as she’d like.”

The picture was as clear as air. The boy’s mother loved him enough to sign him up for the program. But on her own, she simply couldn’t make up for all the boy had lost when his father died. Casey stood and poured a glass of water. He wasn’t dizzy anymore, but a certain kind of giddiness had come over him.

A child needed him!

He was about to get involved in the life of an eight-year-old boy, something he was certain Amy would’ve wanted him to do.

Mrs. Eccles was going over some of the details, and Casey tried to focus on what she was saying. Something about coming at three o’clock and expecting an hour-long meeting with the boy’s mother, and possibly having another few hours with the boy after that. Then, if the first meeting went well, he’d be given the boy’s phone number and address.

“If Friday’s a success, you can take the boy out for pizza. Something to break the ice.”

Casey wrote “pizza” across the top of a pad of paper.

The woman was about to hang up when Casey remembered something. “You didn’t tell me his name.”

“Oh … sorry.” He could hear a smile in the woman’s voice. “His name’s Jordan.”

It was all Casey could do to finish the phone call. The boy’s name was Jordan? How was that possible? He hung up the phone and walked across his apartment to the bedroom he’d shared with Amy. Her journal still lay in the nightstand beside their bed, and now he opened the drawer and pulled it out.

The book was worn and flimsy, with a light tan leather binding. Amy had saved favorite sermon notes and Bible verses on pieces of paper that still stuck out every twenty pages or so. Casey held it carefully, as though any sudden movement might break it in half. Inside the front cover, Amy’s name was barely visible, scrawled in blue ink across the center of the page.

It was the same journal she’d had with her in Haiti, the year Casey had first met her.

He ran his fingers across the letters of her name and flipped past the accounts of how the two of them had met and the detailed feelings she’d had for him even back then, past the entries she’d made when they were dating, past every other passage, all of which she’d shared with him many times.

Then, at the back of the journal, he found it.

A list of baby names, names Amy and he had discussed and agreed on for their first child. He already knew what he’d find on the list, but he had to look anyway, and as his eyes scanned the names he saw he’d been right.

Amy had thought she was having a boy, but they’d come up with names for both a boy and a girl—just in case. The list held ten names, five for a girl, and five for a boy. And next to the name they liked best, Amy had doodled a happy face.

Her favorites were written over several times and stood out in bold on the finely pressed piece of paper. Kaley for a girl, and for a boy they’d chosen the name they’d most easily agreed upon.

Jordan Matthew.

Casey stared at the name and imagined the odds that Mrs. Eccles would pair him up with a boy named Jordan. Seconds passed, and chill bumps rose on Casey’s arms and across the back of his neck. What was it Amy liked to say? Something about Christmas miracles. Yes, that was it. She used to tell him that Christmas miracles happened to those who believed.

He would tease her and tell her she was wrong. With her in his life, miracles happened every day of the year. But she had been adamant, insisting that something special happened to people at Christmastime, and that Christmas miracles were there if only people looked for them.

Casey shifted his gaze to the picture of Amy that hung on the wall nearby.
Were you right? All this time … ?

If Christmas miracles really were a special kind of something that happened once a year for those who believed, then Casey was certain that wherever Amy was at that very moment, she was smiling down at him, glowing with that special something that had won him over so easily the first day he met her.

Because here and now, six weeks before Christmas, Casey was suddenly convinced that a miracle was in the works, and that somehow it involved an eight-year-old boy named Jordan.

Even if the two of them wouldn’t meet until that Friday afternoon.

CHAPTER EIGHT

G
od had finally read his letter.

That was the only way Jordan could explain the things that were happening to him. He and his mother had spent more time together the past month than all the months before as far back as Jordan could remember. And then she’d found out about the special program. Healy Hearts. At least that’s what Jordan thought it was called, not that it mattered, really.

The important thing was, God had found him a daddy.

Well, not a daddy really, but a pretend daddy. Someone who would play with him every week and take him to the park and help him with his pluses and minuses the way Keith’s daddy helped him.

Jordan was so excited about the whole thing, he could barely sleep. He’d lie in bed and stare at the blue-and-white-striped wallpaper and the little row of baseball gloves and bats that went around the top of his room, and picture God getting his letter and opening it and knowing that the program, the Healy Hearts thing, would be the perfect way to give him a daddy.

He tried not to, but lots of times that week he asked his grandma questions about that coming Friday.

On Wednesday he found her and tugged on her sleeve. “How many days, Grandma?”

“Until what?”

“Until I meet him. How many days?”

His grandma let out another huffy breath and patted his head. “Two days, Jordan. One less than yesterday. Don’t keep asking.”

“Do you think he’ll be nice?”

“Very nice.”

“Should I tell him my knock-knock joke about the chicken and the bulldog?”

“Sure, Jordan, tell him the joke.” His grandma turned her attention back to the television. “Most men like jokes.”

“What if he wants to be my daddy, Grandma. What then?”

“Jordan … ” His grandma put her hands over her face and sort of stretched out the skin on her forehead until the bunches disappeared. “Your mother already talked to you about that. The man’s name is Casey, and he won’t be your daddy. Just a special friend.”

“But kind of like a pretend daddy, right, Grandma?”

“No, Jordan. Not like a pretend daddy. Like a special friend. That’s what he is, a special friend.”

“Oh.” Jordan thought about that for a minute. “But if he wants to move in with us, can he sleep in my bedroom?”

Grandma took tight hold of the arms of her chair and her eyes got wide. “He won’t be moving in with us, Jordan. You need to understand that. Not now and not ever.”

“Okay.” Jordan waited until his grandma turned back to the TV one more time. Then as soft as he could, he did one more tug on her sleeve.

“My goodness, child.” Grandma’s voice was louder than before, and her eyebrows disappeared into her forehead. “Can’t you leave an old woman in peace?”

“Just one more question.” Jordan made his voice nice and quiet, the way Grandma liked it. Then he smiled just in case she might say no.

“Oh, bother.” Grandma slid down a little in her big chair, and her bones got smaller in her shoulders. “Go ahead.”

“What if … what if he doesn’t like me?”

Grandma sat up straight again, and her eyes got softer. “Of course he’ll like you.” She reached out one arm and gave him a half hug. “Just don’t ask him a hundred questions.”

By Friday morning, Jordan was so excited he couldn’t eat breakfast. This time the questions went to his mother. How many hours until they could meet him? What would he look like? Where would they go and what would they do? And most of all, what if Casey didn’t like him? His mommy was starting to breathe hard, and Jordan was sure she was going to get mad at him, when all of a sudden she did something really strange, something she never did when she was getting ready in the morning.

She laughed.

Then she messed up his hair and set a glass of orange juice down in front of him. “Jordan, I don’t have all the answers this time. Besides, I should be the one asking how many hours until we meet him.” She planted her hands on her hips. “Because then you’ll finally have all the answers you need.”

Jordan laughed, too, but after that he tried not to ask any more questions the rest of the morning. His mother was right. She didn’t know all the answers, but God did. And a little while later, on the way to school, Jordan added a P.S. to his letter. A P.S. was when you wrote a letter and remembered one more special thing you forgot to say.

His mother was reading one of her files, so Jordan looked out the window of the cab and made his P.S. extra quiet. So only God could hear.

“P.S., God. Please make Casey like me.”

Jordan hardly listened to Miss Hanson that day, and twice he had to sit at the back of the room for not paying attention. But that didn’t matter because when the bell rang, his mother picked him up in a taxi, and off they went to the kids’ club, the place where he was going to meet his pretend daddy.

Except he wasn’t going to tell that to anyone else, just himself. Because other people would call Casey a special friend, and that was his ‘ficial title. But Jordan knew the truth. They walked in, and the same lady they met before took them to a room, and just then his mommy’s pager went off.

“Phone call,” she said. She smiled at the lady and held up her finger. “Just a minute.”

When his mommy hung up, she talked to the lady in private for a long time, and Jordan heard only a few of their words. Something about an emergency situation and how it would never happen again and that his mother was very sorry. Then the lady from the club gave Mommy a mean sort of look and did a frowny face for a long time and said just this once maybe.

Finally, Mommy and the lady came over to him.

“Sweetheart”—his mother scrunched down so they were the same size—”Mommy has a special meeting at work, and I can’t stay to meet Casey. Not this time.” She looked at the other lady. “But Mrs. Eccles will stay with you after Casey comes, and everything will be fine. I’ll meet him next week, okay?”

Jordan had a hurt feeling in his heart, but he decided this wouldn’t be a good time to cry. Besides, his mommy had special meetings all the time, and at least he was still going to meet Casey. “Okay.”

His mom left, and after another minute, Mrs. Eccles came back, and this time she had a man with her. A man who looked tall and strong and happy like Brett Favre of the Green Bay Packers. He walked up and held out his hand and did a kind of smile that made Jordan feel all warm and safe inside. “Hi, Jordan. I’m Casey.”

“Hi, Casey.” Jordan shook the man’s hand, and right then and there he knew for sure. Casey was a pretend daddy, not a special friend. Because sometimes Jordan dreamed about having a daddy again, and every time the daddy in his dream looked the same way.

Tall and strong and happy, and exactly like the man standing in front of him right now.

C
asey had to wait five minutes before he could meet Jordan, all the while listening to Mrs. Eccles rail on about Jordan’s mother leaving early.

“I mean, it’s the first meeting!” The woman gave several short shakes of her head. “No one leaves early at the first meeting.”

Casey didn’t really care. He hadn’t given much thought to Jordan’s mother. It had been meeting the boy that had kept him up at night and put an extra spring in his step as he jogged to work and back each day that week. New York City was the prettiest place in the world at Christmastime, and already the transformation was taking place. The first snow had fallen, and Central Park was white except the paths and play areas. Police were making provisions for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and lights were being wound into trees and along storefronts throughout Manhattan.

The closer Friday drew, the more Casey thought that Amy must’ve been right after all. Christmas miracles did happen to those who believed, and somehow, some kind of miracle was definitely coming together for him and Jordan.

Mrs. Eccles finished explaining that this time — against her better judgment—she was going to let Casey meet Jordan even though the boy’s mother wasn’t there, and finally Casey was ushered into the room where the child was waiting. The moment he saw the boy, he had the strangest sense. As though somehow he’d seen the child before, maybe at the café or at the park somewhere.

He took the boy’s hand in his own and shook it, and in that instant Casey felt it. A bond, a connection so quick and immediate he could compare it to only one thing—the way he’d felt when he first met Amy.

They spent an hour talking with Mrs. Eccles, and by the time Jordan started telling knock-knock jokes, Casey and the social worker nodded at each other and knew it was time.