Christmas, Actually

“I remember.” Vaguely. He’d taken a brief statement as the EMTs were checking her vitals inside the ambulance. “What can I do for you?”

“May we come in?” Ms. Dane asked.

Anxiety bloomed inside Sophie’s chest. No nurse wanted to go to court. But it was a fact of life that came with her job. No one wanted to take anyone down, or prop someone else up, without good reason. Tessie’s future was too much responsibility.

The same way a baby’s future might seem like too much responsibility?

Sophie held the door open. “I don’t have anything to offer you here, but could I call down to ask for coffee? Or water?”

“Just talk,” Ms. Dane said.

They took the chairs at either side of the fireplace. Sophie sat on the tufted chest at the end of the bed.

“I know you’ve spoken to Tessie,” the probation officer said. “I have to check on her, too. I’ve spoken to her teachers, her friends and her parents. I’ve even had a word with her doctors.”

“Jack Banning?” Sophie hadn’t asked him how he felt about Tessie’s mistake.

“And her GP. I’d like to hear your version of the accident.”

“I spoke to Officer Reese, and I wrote a statement for the police.”

“But I need to hear what you remember now.” Celia smiled. “We’re not out to get Tessie. We want to do the right thing to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

Someone else knocked at the door. Sophie stood. “Excuse me. You probably know Esther’s a little protective of her guests.”

She was wrong again. Jack stood on the threshold. He looked distracted and unsettled, but determined. “I thought you might need—” he looked past her, into the room “—something.”

Baffled, Sophie let him in. “I’m fine.”

“You act as if you’re concerned, Jack,” the officer said.

“Sophie’s alone here. She doesn’t know many people.”

“Let me repeat what I told your friend,” Celia said, and Jack didn’t deny that they knew each other. “We’re searching for the right solution for Tessie. We already know this accident was not Sophie’s fault.”

Jack backed down, but Sophie couldn’t look away from him.

“Ms. Palmer?” the officer said.

She returned her attention to the visitors. “I already told you how it happened. I came off the exit ramp and saw Tessie driving toward me. She was weaving. She saw my car and tried to swerve.” Sophie reached behind her neck to smooth out her hair. To breathe in and out. Her baby was okay, but those horrifying moments replayed in startling clarity. She glanced at Jack again. Was this what happened to him?

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“I’m fine.” She turned to Officer Reese, her blood thrumming in her ears. “We collided. I saw she was hurt. I applied a tourniquet, and the emergency services arrived.”

“Why did you feel the need to speak to her in the hospital?” Celia asked.

Sophie hesitated. “I think it’s because I was so afraid she would die out on that road.” She splayed her hands over her belly. “And maybe because I’m pregnant. I wanted to make sure she was all right. I wanted to know if she was remorseful, and I believe she is.”

“You can’t think she deserves a free pass?” Officer Reese asked, angry in the way of a man who’d seen too many injured drivers.

“I believe Tessie when she says she won’t ever touch her phone again while she’s driving. I believe in second chances. Don’t you have driver’s safety courses? Couldn’t she speak to the children at her school—at all the schools near here?”

“That’s what I’m considering.” Celia turned to the policeman. “I think Sophie’s suggesting that Tessie has already paid for her carelessness.”

“She almost died,” Sophie said. “And she was terrified that she’d hurt me and my child. That’s a lot of responsibility for a teenager.”

“If she remembers this. If she never forgets what might have happened,” Reese said.

“You probably know I’m an ER nurse in Boston. I’ve talked to a lot of people who pretend to feel remorse for things they’ve done. Tessie’s relief when she saw me was real.”

“Jack already gave us that speech,” Reese said.

“He did?”

Jack shrugged but then moved so his shoulder touched hers. “Everyone in this room has faced people they have to trust or doubt,” he said. “I need to know patients aren’t lying about the meds they’re taking, or the extent and location of pain. Reese, here, has to judge every word an offender says to him. And Celia—she has to know when a kid like Tessie deserves probation or when she needs to be locked away.”

“You believe Tessie, too, Jack?”

“I’d put her on courses and community service to make sure she never forgets what might have happened, but I do believe she’s sorry.”

Reese’s smirk worried Sophie. Celia nodded slowly, making notes on the pad she’d balanced on her knee. When she finished, she clicked her pen and rose, smoothing her skirt.

“That’s it, Officer. Let’s leave these people to their evening. I’ll let you know, Sophie, if you need to come to court.”

Sophie managed not to quiver at the thought she might still hold Tessie’s future in her hands. They walked to the white door together, but Jack stayed behind. Sophie tried not to look shocked.

“They came up to the steps as I was walking away,” he told her when the two of them were alone. “I tried to leave, but I didn’t want you to face them by yourself. Reese has a reputation for being hard-nosed, and he’s not above bullying you to testify against Tessie.”

“You tried to leave?”

He unzipped his coat. “Do you think I want to keep getting involved?”

“I’m glad you couldn’t help yourself.” She turned him toward the door. “But I’m tired and hungry, so I’ll leave you to stew over the idea that someday our daughter might do something, accidentally, that involves the police. And I’ll be her only defense.”

His face paled.

“I was joking, Jack! I’m a responsible person with a good job. I’d call an attorney.” As she eased him through the door, Sophie couldn’t help liking the shock on his face. The most detached man in the world had suddenly seen a future where his child might need him. It was about time.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE DAYS SLIPPED BY, and Christmas drew ever closer. Jack performed trauma surgeries, did his rounds and collected toys for children in the hospital, as well as those whose families needed a little help this year.

Each afternoon at three, Santa’s sleigh, drawn by two massive farm horses, glided to a halt on the snow-covered green. Santa alighted from his seat and fell happily into the swarm of children demanding candy canes and chocolates as they offered gift ideas for themselves, their siblings and friends.

Jack had started parking his truck a few miles east to avoid Santa and the adoring youngsters. But he couldn’t forget the old days, when he’d worked as an EMT during breaks from school. His ambulance had often sat on the green to be on hand in case of emergency. Sipping hot chocolate from a stand near his post, he’d enjoyed the shouts of a puppy for my baby sister and a little brother and a fire engine that shoots water. Some asked for video game systems with names that were already unfamiliar, because he was too busy to play any kind of game.

Now, his friends would be taking their own children to see Santa, and next year, Sophie would likely take their baby to visit a Santa in Boston.

Someday his little girl might be a pint-sized video game wizard.

In a few days he’d be playing Santa at the hospital. His grandfather had done the job until he couldn’t drive the blue truck over there anymore. Jack’s dad had taken over, but this year, Jack had to fill in. He dreaded it. Happy children who had no idea what existed in the world outside this town pretty much unmanned him, but he couldn’t let them down.

He veered toward the green, parking close to the square. Listening to the sounds of Christmas might help him brace himself for an evening as the hospital’s jolly old elf. It was the way he’d gotten used to being around families before he’d lost that little girl in surgery. He’d helped with rounds on the children’s floor, walked through the common, even eaten dinner out.

He glanced at his watch. Five minutes before three.

He reached the holly-covered fence just as the gates opened for Santa’s sleigh. Jack was about to walk through one of the decorated arches when he noticed Sophie, one foot on the fence’s bottom rung, laughing as the children surged forward in a line that snaked with their exuberance.

The Victorian carolers that strolled through Christmas Town from Thanksgiving until New Year’s Day burst into “Here Comes Santa Claus.”

Sophie’s laughter was a temptation he couldn’t resist. She included him in her joy, as if she’d expected to see him. “Could they be more on the nose?”

“The kids love it,” he said. Best he could manage when he was breathing her in, like a man starved of oxygen.

“So do their parents. Look how happy they all are.”

He always saw; it was part of his self-administered therapy. Families survived. Fate didn’t draw a target on everyone who dared to be happy.

Sophie pointed to his scrub pants. “Are you headed for work?”

He nodded. “What are you doing out here?”

“I’m losing my cynicism,” she said. “This is the most holiday-loving town in the world. You people are genuinely excited to embrace Christmas.” She gave him a teasing, sidelong glance. “Well, most of you, anyway.”

“You want to hear something funny?” It didn’t feel at all funny, with his throat closing up and his head aching every time he thought of it.

“I’d love to.”

“I’m the hospital Santa night after tomorrow. We give the children on pediatrics a Christmas party every year.”

“You’re Santa?” Her surprise got under his skin, but he couldn’t blame her. “I don’t understand you,” she said, stepping away from the fence.

Each time he saw her, he was more tempted to explain, but what if he said he’d try? What if he said that, deep down, he felt as protective of his child as she did, and that paternal compulsion had driven him to leave her and stay away? “Maybe I’ll see you before you leave town.” Cutting off whatever she’d been about to say, he headed for the truck.

“Jack,” she said.

He turned back.

“I hope you imagine her face as you hand out each present.”

He snapped his head away, to hide pain like a blow to the gut. If he could stop imagining their daughter’s face, abandoning her would be so much easier.

* * *

FROM THE MOMENT Jack had said he was going to be Santa, Sophie knew she’d show up for the toy distribution. She’d never felt a need to punish herself before, making her decision to go as inexplicable as Jack’s own behavior.

But her car would be repaired soon. She’d never have to see Jack again, and maybe watching him playing Santa for children who had no claims on him would finally convince her he was right.

She offered to gather the last few toys out of Esther’s collection box while she waited for a cab.

“Thanks for taking these.” Esther piled them into a canvas shopping tote. She sighed as she patted the bag, smoothing it into a less lumpy shape. “I love this town. It’s full of caring people.”

“Do you?” Sophie didn’t see the town in quite that way, but Jack’s behavior had colored her view. He was saving himself by abandoning their daughter.

She wasn’t like Jack. She couldn’t turn her back on someone without trying to fix whatever had gone wrong.

“We try to help each other,” Esther said. “Just look at the green. How many places in this world do you know where everyone in town donates a good amount of money and time every year to do something that’s nice for the children?”

Sophie took the bag, smiling. “If you aren’t head of the tourist board, they’re suffering a great loss. The adults seem to enjoy it, too, and the tourists are growing ever thicker on the ground.”

“You’ll understand soon. You’ll be even happier at Christmas once you’re sharing it with your own kidlet.”

If only Jack could see that. “There’s my taxi.” Sophie waved as she went through the door. “See you later, Esther.”

“Sing extra loud for me.”

The carolers in their Victorian finery were already making the walls echo when Sophie stepped off the elevator on the hospital’s third floor. Dr. Everly came over to greet her.

“I didn’t expect you. Everything okay?”

Sophie held up her bag as she shrugged out of her coat. “I had a few things to deliver,” she said.

“Oh, good. Always room under the tree.”

Sophie added her packages to the impressive pile. “There aren’t this many children in the hospital?”

“Whatever we don’t give out we take to the green for distribution later.”

“Where’s Santa?” Sophie focused on folding her bag.

“Waiting until all the children arrive. He doesn’t dare show his face early. There’d be a riot.”

“How did Jack end up playing Santa?” she asked.

“His grandfather used to play Santa, and now his dad does, but his parents are touring the country in an RV during the holidays. No one expects them back.”

Sophie still didn’t understand that. Instead of providing a polite answer, she waited in silence, hoping Dr. Everly would explain. Sophie was eager for any tidbit that might explain Jack’s behavior.

“They took care of Jack’s grandmother for years. She had debilitating epilepsy that couldn’t be controlled by medication. She endured several experimental surgeries and I don’t know how many drug trials. Nothing worked, and when she couldn’t be left alone, the whole family pitched in. She passed away recently, and the elder Bannings took off for the first time since I’ve known them. I think they didn’t know what to do with themselves.”

“When did his grandmother die?” Sophie already knew. The “business trip” he’d taken in May. He’d disappeared for nine days, and when he came back, he’d been jumpy and moody, and had made excuses to avoid spending time with her.

If only she’d taken the hint then.

“I think it was just before...oh, I know. The week my children got out of school, end of May.” Dr. Everly guided Sophie toward a table with punch and cookies set out on plates stamped with The Tea Pot’s logo. “He’d hate us discussing him.”

“I didn’t mean to.” Maybe her desperation, even for her baby, didn’t make snooping acceptable, but at last his story was starting to make sense.

They both sipped punch, and Dr. Everly introduced her to members of the hospital staff, who’d also brought their children to the event.

Everyone sang. When a small group of pajama-and-robe-clad children began to recite “’Twas the Night Before Christmas,” the festivities had started. Nurses and doctors drifted among the little knots of young patients, passing out treats and punch. Sophie joined in. Even her own little girl seemed to understand she was at a party. The fluttery sensations intensified, lending Sophie strength and smothering her guilt over badgering Dr. Everly.

The carolers offered a few more selections until the children began to fidget, growing impatient for the big arrival. Sophie couldn’t blame them. What little child hadn’t firmly feared Santa would never come?

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