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AMY RILEY HAD A FEVER of 102, globs of oatmeal all
over her face, hair that desperately needed washing, a screaming baby and a five-year-old who was regarding her with such reproach that she wanted to sit down and cry herself. It was not a promising start to the holidays.
"But, Mom, you said we could go to the mall today and see Santa," Josh whined. "You promised."
Amy clung to her patience by a thread. "I know, sweetie, but I'm sick. I'm sorry."
"But it's Christmas Eve," he persisted, clearly not hearing or at least not caring about the state of her health. "We
have to go today. If we don't, how will Santa know what to bring us? He doesn't even know where we live now. What if he takes our presents to Michigan and we're not there?"
"He won't," Amy assured him.
"But how do you
know?"
"Because I sent him a letter," she claimed in desperation.
"What if he didn't get it? Mail gets lost all the time."
"He got it," she reassured him, thinking of the small stash of gifts in her closet. Tomorrow morning, they would provide proof for her doubting son, but today he'd just have to take her word for it.
Thanks to the expense of relocating, she hadn't been able to afford much this year, but she was determined Josh would have at least a few packages from Santa to open on Christmas morning, along with a handful from her folks and the one from his dad that she'd picked out just in case Ned didn't bother sending anything. Unless a miracle occurred and something turned up in an overnight delivery on Christmas morning, she'd pegged her ex's lack of consideration exactly right.
With Josh in her face this morning, she had to keep reminding herselfthat it wasn't his fault that she and his father had gone through a nasty divorce and that she'd packed up with him and his baby sister and moved to a suburb outside of Charlotte, NC, far from family and friends back in Michigan. Everyone had tried to talk her into waiting until after the holidays, but the thought of spending one more minute in the same town as her ex had been too much. Maybe by next year the wounds would have healed and she and the kids could spend the holidays with her folks, but this year staying there a few weeks longer or making a quick trip back had been out of the question. Amy hadn't had the stomach or the money for it.
She'd convinced herself that things would be better after the first of the year when she started her new job at the headquarters of the same bank she'd worked for back home. At the time she'd been offered the transfer, it had seemed like a godsend, a way to get a fresh start with the promise of some financial security in the very near future.
This morning, though, she was regretting the hasty decision. Money was tight and emotions were raw. She was far from home with no new support system in place. And if it was tough for her, it was a thousand times worse for Josh, who felt cheated not to be with family for Christmas.
But, she reassured herself, Josh was an outgoing kid. He would make new friends in kindergarten. In a few more weeks tantrums like the one he was pitching now would be a thing of the past. They just had to survive till then.
"I hate this place," Josh declared, pressing home a point with which she was already far too familiar. Not a day had gone by in the last week when he hadn't expressed a similar sentiment.
Fighting for patience, Amy lowered the now-quiet baby into her portable playpen, then sat her son in her lap and gave him a squeeze. "It's going to get better," she promised him.
He nestled under her chin in an increasingly infrequent display of affection. "When?" he asked plaintively.
"Soon," she vowed. No matter what it took, she would make this work.
"There's not even any snow in this dumb place. At home, we always had snow for Christmas and Dad would take me out on my sled." He sighed dramatically.
"I miss Dad."
"I know you do, sweetie. And I'm sure he misses you, too," she said, though she was sure of no such thing.
Ned had been all too eager to see them gone so he could get on with his new life with another woman and the baby that was already on the way by the time his divorce from Amy was final. He rarely spared more than a couple of minutes for his calls to his son and even those brief bits of contact had become less routine. Ned was an out of sight, out of mind kind of guy, which was pretty much how he'd gotten involved with a woman he'd met on his business travels. Amy--and his marriage--had definitely been out of sight and out of mind during those trips.
Amy resolved not to dwell on her many issues with her ex today. Even though she felt awful, she was going to do whatever she could to make this first Christmas in their new home memorable for Josh. Emma was still too young to notice much more than the bright lights on their skinny little tree, but Josh needed more. He needed to believe that life in North Carolina would eventually be much like his old life in Michigan. Perhaps even better.
She tousled his dark brown hair, which badly needed a trim. "We can bake cookies later," she told him. "We'll play all the Christmas CDs and tonight I'll make hot chocolate with lots and lots of marshmallows and we can watch Christmas movies on TV. How about that?"
"Sure," he said wearily. "But it won't be Christmas if I don't get to see Santa. We
always go on Christmas Eve."
Amy bit back her own sigh. That's what came of creating a tradition for your children. They clung to it tenaciously, even when circumstances changed. And seeing Santa was such a little thing for him to ask for.
He hadn't requested a million presents. He didn't make a lot of demands. He even helped with Emma as much as he could. He'd rock her to sleep in her carrier or even show her his picture books accompanied by dramatic reenactments of the stories. He was a great big brother and, most of the time anyway, a big help to Amy.
How many more years would he want to climb up on Santa's lap, anyway, she asked herself. How much longer before he stopped believing?
Maybe if she took a couple more aspirin and a hot shower, she could manage the trip to the mall, she thought without much enthusiasm. Her head throbbed just thinking about the crowds. Still, one look into her son's disappointed eyes and she knew she had to try.
"Will you stay right here and watch your sister?" she asked Josh. "Keep her entertained, okay?"
"How come?"
"So I can take a shower," she told him without elaborating or making another promise she might not be able to keep.
Josh's eyes lit up in sudden understanding, anyway. "And then we'll go see Santa?" he asked excitedly.
"
Maybe we'll go see Santa," she cautioned. "If I feel better."
He threw his arms around her neck and squeezed. "You will, Mom. I know you will."
He scrambled down, knelt beside the playpen and peered through the mesh at Emma. "We're going to see Santa, Em. You're gonna love him. He's this jolly old guy, who goes ho-ho-ho real loud." He demonstrated, holding his tummy, as he bellowed ho-ho-ho. "He's all dressed in red, and you tell him what you most want for Christmas and then, if you've been good all year, he brings it to you. Santa's the best." He grinned up at Amy. "Next to Mom, of course."
Amy couldn't help grinning back at her budding young diplomat. How could she resist giving him anything he asked for, especially this Christmas? She just hoped she didn't throw up all over jolly old St. Nick.
NICK DICAPRIO WAS NOT having a good week. Hell, he wasn't having a good life. The police department psychologist had informed his superiors on Monday that he was burned out, that he had anger management issues, that letting him go back on active duty in the immediate future would be irresponsible.
Well, duh! After being forced to stand by helplessly while a deranged man had terrorized his own kid to get even with his ex-wife, who wouldn't have anger issues? Nick had wanted to pound heads together that awful day, especially those of the SWAT team who wouldn't allow him to intervene. He couldn't imagine that talking that whole disastrous scenario to death with some shrink was going to improve his mood.
As if all that psychobabble weren't annoying enough, it was Christmas Eve. The whole world was all caught up in the commercialized holiday frenzy. If he heard one more Christmas song, he was going to turn on the gas and stick his head in the oven. Or just get blind, stinking drunk. Yeah, he thought, that was better. Saner. The stupid shrink would be delighted to know he wasn't completely self-destructive.
When his phone rang, he ignored it. There wasn't a single person in the universe he wanted to talk to this morning. Not one. There were even more he wanted to avoid completely, namely his family, almost all of whom seemed to be possessed by unrelenting holiday cheer. The answering machine clicked on.
"Nick, answer the phone!" his baby sister commanded, sounding frantic. "Dammit, I know you're there. Pick up. I'm desperate."
Nick sighed. When Trish hit a panic button, the whole world was going to suffer right along with her. She'd be over here banging on his door, if he didn't answer the phone. Or, worse, using the key he'd given her for emergencies to barge in and turn his world as topsy-turvy as her own apparently was.
He yanked the phone out of its cradle and barked, "What?"
"Thank God," she said fervently, oblivious to his sour mood. "Nick, I need you at the mall right now!"
"Not in a hundred million years," he said at once.
"Are you crazy?"
Just because her duties as a mall events coordinator required Trish to be at a shopping mall on Christmas Eve didn't mean he intended to get within ten miles of the place. He wouldn't have done it when he was in a good mood. Today, it would border on turning him homicidal.
"I'm not crazy," she insisted. "I'm desperate. Santa called in sick. If you ask me he took one look outside at the lousy weather and decided to stay home in front of a warm fire, but the bottom line is it's Christmas Eve and I don't have a Santa."
"Hire another one," he said without sympathy.
"Gotta go."
"Don't you dare hang up on me, Nicholas DiCaprio. If you do, I swear I will tell Mom and Dad all about this burnout thing."
Nick hesitated. The only thing worse than having Trish nagging him to death would be to have his parents all over his case. They weren't that happy about his decision to become a cop in the first place. They'd see this so-called burnout thing as the perfect excuse to harangue him about getting off the force for good. If his sister was annoyingly persistent, his protective mother was qualified to drive him right over the brink into insanity.
"What about Rob?" he suggested, referring to their older brother. "He'd make an excellent Santa. He loves the holidays."
"Rob and Susan are taking the kids to cut down a tree today. It's their Christmas Eve tradition, remember?"
Nick groaned. How could he have forgotten that? Last year he'd gone along. It had taken the entire day, because everyone in the family, including one-year-old Annie, had a vote and there hadn't been a single tree on which they could all agree. How they could gauge Annie's vote, when she only knew one discernible word--mama--was beyond him. By three in the afternoon, he'd vowed not only to never begin any Christmas traditions, but to never have a family.
"And Stephen?" he asked hopefully. His younger brother had no traditions that Nick had ever noticed. No family, either. In fact, he was the DiCaprio black sheep, but surely Trish could corral him for the day. She was the only one in the family who seemed to understand his need for rebellion. In return Stephen did things for her that no one else could persuade him to do. She could even coerce him into showing up for holiday meals and tolerating their mother fussing over him.
"I actually spoke to Stephen. He's a little hung over," she admitted. "I don't think that's a good quality for a Santa."
Nick regretted not getting drunk when he'd had the chance. "Okay, fine," he said, his tone grim. "What exactly do you need from me?"
"Isn't that obvious? I need you to substitute for Santa," Trish said sweetly, obviously sensing victory.
"It won't be hard. Just a few ho-ho-ho's for the kids. Listen to their gift lists. Don't make any promises. Get your picture taken. That's all."
"How long?"
"I need you here ASAP and the mall's open till six. It's a few hours, Nick. How bad can it be?"
It sounded like hell. "Come on, Trish. This is so not me. There has to be someone else," he pleaded. "Don't they have agencies for this kind of thing? Rent-a-Santa or something?"
"Are you nuts? It's Christmas Eve. All the good Santas are already working. I don't have time to hunt down the last remaining qualified Santa in all of North Carolina. And why should I, when you have absolutely nothing to do today? Please, Nick. You're good with kids."
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