The Year the Cat Saved Christmas - a novella Page 3

  He tried to ignore the big yellow FOR SALE sign stuck in the snowy front yard, but it wasn't easy. The house he'd dreamed about wasn't for sale.

  "David! Oh thank God, you're here!" As always the sight of her stole his breath away. Her coppery hair was pinned atop her head in a tumble of curls and she wore jeans and a sweatshirt. No makeup. A smudge of dirt on her cheek. She was still the most beautiful woman he'd ever known.

  His spirits soared but he couldn't let her see that. "Denise gave me your message," he said. He paused a second, waiting for her to throw herself into his arms. "Are the kids okay?"

  "They're fine." She seemed distracted.

  "Where are they?"

  "Phyllis took them to Quakerbridge to see Santa so I could deal with the movers."

  She was staring over his shoulder, practically looking right through him. That didn't bode well for a Hollywood-style reconciliation.

  "Uh, Jill, it's snowing out here. Mind if I come in?" It's Christmas Eve, Jilly. Don't you remember what that used to mean to us?

  Her cheeks reddened and she motioned him into the foyer.

  "So what's wrong?" he asked as he shook snow from his hair. "Did I forget to sign something?"

  "It's Sebastian," she said, her chin trembling. "He's gone."

  "Gone?" He glanced toward the living room, expecting to see Sebastian sprawled on the rug in front of the fireplace. There was no rug and no Sebastian. "Are you sure?"

  "He weighs twenty-two pounds," she said, her tears shifting quickly to anger. "He's pretty hard to miss."

  Every now and then he was reminded she wasn't a redhead for nothing

  "You know how he likes to hide in Tori's room. Maybe--"

  She shook her head.

  "What about the basement? That place under the stairs where we used to keep the Christmas decorations."

  "Sebastian's gone, David, and if we don't find him before the kids get back--" She turned her head and he saw her do something to her eyes with a tissue.

  In the old days he would have pulled her into his arms and kissed away her tears. He hated standing there, helpless to comfort her, but he no longer had the right. She'd made that perfectly clear when she filed for divorce.

  "This isn't the first time he's taken off like this," he pointed out after her tears subsided. "In the old days, he was gone more than he was here. You know he always comes back home."

  Home.

  "I know," she managed, "but the kids and I are spending tonight at my sister's Patsy's house in Philadelphia. Unless Sebastian knows about Amtrak, he'll never find us."

  "Damn it," he said, dragging a hand through his snow-damp hair. "The timing stinks. I'm flying out to San Francisco tonight."

  "Denise told me." She paused for a moment. "What's the rush?"

  "The Japanese consortium is holding an open house tomorrow afternoon at the building site."

  "And you wouldn't want to miss a big event like that."

  "There's nothing holding me here." Is there, Jilly?

  "No," she said lightly, "nothing at all."

  He tried to put a positive spin on her words but failed miserably. You're a jerk, Whittaker. It's over. You'd better get used to it.

  "About Sebastian," he said. "Where have you looked for him?"

  "My car is being serviced," she said, "so I couldn't get very far. I checked the yards and the woods behind the house."

  He checked his watch.

  "I know you're a busy man," she said, her words clipped. "I wouldn't have bothered you if I'd realized you were leaving tonight."

  "I have a few hours," he said. "We'll see what we can do."

  "I'll get my coat."

  He stood awkwardly in the foyer, feeling like a stranger in his own house. The walls were stripped bare. The furniture was gone. All that was left were a few cardboard boxes and a bright red suitcase he remembered from years ago. He sniffed the air. The house didn't even smell right any more. Jill used to keep a pot of spices simmering on the back of the stove at Christmastime, a blend of pine and cinnamon and apple that smelled like home and love. Now all he could smell was sadness.

  He turned and went outside to wait by the car.

  #

  How could you spend over one-third of your life with a man and feel like you'd never really known him at all?

  David hadn't so much as blinked a blue eye when she told him Sebastian was gone. Sebastian had been with them since their first married Christmas. He'd appointed himself the twins' official guardian angel the first moment he laid eyes on them. First words, first steps, first communions-- Sebastian had been there for all of them.

  Okay, so maybe this wasn't the first time Sebastian had wandered off but even David had to admit the cat had stuck close to home the last year or two. David acted like Sebastian had wandered down the hall to take a nap.

  She slipped into her coat, wondering how they had ended up as one of those miserable marital statistics you heard about on TV talk shows. Once upon a time David had been her knight in shining armor, ready to slay dragons and lay them at her feet. He was everything she'd ever wanted in a man: strong and idealistic and passionate about life. Passionate about her. Had there really been a time when they couldn't get enough of each other, when they couldn't be apart for more than an hour without hungering for the other's touch? The thought was so alien that it seemed more like someone else's memory than her own.

  He was outside, brushing snow off the windshield of his Porsche. She could almost see the waves of impatience rolling up the driveway toward her. He hated to be kept waiting for anything. It was as if he'd been born with a stopwatch in his hand and he'd been hurrying to catch up ever since, as if he were perennially five minutes behind the pack. She'd often wondered if it had to do with the fact that he'd grown up without a family of his own. She couldn't imagine how it had felt, growing up in foster home after foster home. Her own life had been shamefully blessed in comparison.

  "I'll always take care of you," he'd said when they got married.

  "We'll take care of each other," she'd started to reply but the serious look in his eyes had stilled her words. He needed to take care of her, she'd realized, more than she needed to be taken care of.

  #

  Then

  "You look fine, Davey," Jill said as she smoothed the shoulders of his sport coat. "Nobody's going to know you got the jacket at the consignment shop."

  "Your father will know," he said, glaring at his reflection in the bedroom mirror.

  "The second I walk into the restaurant, he'll know this is a thrift shop special."

  "So what if he does?" she said. "We're students. Nobody expects students to be rich."

  "You're rich," he said with a shake of his head. "At least you were until you married me."

  "Ancient history," she said lightly. "I knew my trust fund would be cancelled if I got married and I'd do the same thing all over again."

  He searched her face for reassurance. "I never wanted your money," he said. "If I could, I'd--"

  "You're not going to start that nonsense again, are you?" She couldn't keep the exasperation from her voice. "I know you didn't marry me for my money. You married me for my cooking." Her lack of culinary expertise had made for interesting dining the last six months.

  His serious expression didn't brighten one iota. "Look at how we're living, Jill." His gesture took in the entire four room cottage. "You had more space in the dorm, for crying out loud."

  "Maybe I did," she said, twining her arms around his neck, "but you're much more fun than my last roommate."

  "I'll make it up to you some day, Jilly, I swear to you. You'll never regret marrying me."

  "I wish you wouldn't talk like that. You're the most wonderful person I've ever known. You're decent and kind and smart and ambitious--" she grinned up at him "--and you love me more than anyone has ever loved me in my entire life."

  His kiss was long and slow and intoxicating. She rose up slightly on her toes and pressed her body close to h
is.

  "Let's skip dinner," she said, tracing his beautiful mouth with the tip of her index finger. She laughed at the horrified expression on his face. "I'm only kidding, David."

  "Your old man hates me enough as it is. If we blew off the dinner invitation, I'd be on the FBI's Most Wanted list."

  "I don't care what he thinks," Jill said, feeling her jaw set into a stubborn--and very familiar--line. "The only reason I said yes to this dinner was because you said we had to accept it."

  "He's your family. I'm not going to cut you off from your own parents."

  "My father hasn't been a real part of my life since I was five years old and he walked out on my mother." He'd gone on to raise two more families and if he ever gave more than a passing thought to the little girl he'd left behind, Jill couldn't fathom a guess.

  And, to her delight, she found it no longer hurt. Her parents had done the best they could with the emotional tools they had to work with. No amount of wishing could change the past but now that she loved David she knew the future would be as golden as the simple ring that circled the third finger on her left hand.

  So they would see her father tonight and he would do what he always did. He would tell charming stories and make every laugh, and before he paid the tab, half the restaurant would be in love with him. He would never ask David about his studies or try to find out why she'd fallen in love with the serious young man with the vivid blue eyes and even if Jill told him, her father would never understand.

  #

  David had been as good as his word. Discipline and determination moved him steadily up the ranks at Bailey, Haverford, and Macmillan and now he was being rewarded with a plum two year assignment in San Francisco, designing a soulless metro complex for a Japanese consortium.

  Rewarded. There was a funny word for you. Whatever happened to Christmas bonuses and a corner office? You didn't reward a man by uprooting his family from their home and shipping them to the other side of the country like lawn furniture.

  Not that it mattered any more. They could be sending him to Saturn for all the difference it made. After tomorrow, she wouldn't be part of his family. She'd be part of his past.

  David motioned for her to hurry as she stepped out the front door. She ignored him, taking great pains to make certain the door was locked and the welcome mat was properly straightened. He waved again, more impatiently than before. She muttered something rude under her breath.

  "I thought you said you checked the backyard."

  Her hackles rose a little higher. "I did check the backyard."

  "So what's that by the swing set?"

  "Snow."

  "Look again."

  "I see lots of snow and a blot of brown near the--" She stopped. "Oh God! Do you think--?"

  He didn't answer but the set of his jaw confirmed her worst suspicions as they started across the yard.

  "You look," she said, stopping a few feet away. "I'm too scared."

  Their eyes met and he nodded. He was scared too and for a moment her heart went out to him. It wasn't often these days when they found themselves in sync. She remembered how it used to be when they thought and acted like one person instead of two very separate individuals. But that was a very long time ago.

  David bent down and reached under the snow while Jill squeezed her eyes shut. "I thought you said it went missing."

  "Sebastian isn't an 'it.'"

  "I'm talking about my backpack."

  "For the last time, David, I don't know where --" She opened her eyes. "You found your backpack!"

  He shook snow off the old leather bag. "Not funny, Jill."

  "You don't think I--"

  The look on his face spoke volumes.

  "David!" Her voice bristled with outrage. "Believe it or not, I buried my last backpack sometime around first grade."

  He was inspecting the wet leather. "What the hell? There are tooth marks on this thing!"

  "Don't even think it," she warned. "You're on thin ice as it is."

  He pushed the backpack toward her. "What do you call those scratches?"

  "I call them tooth marks." She pushed the bag back toward David. "Don't you remember: Sebastian came home in that bag."

  Her tone softened despite herself as more memories pushed into her heart. "The twins spent a lot of time in there too, come to think of it." She could still see their tiny faces peeking out from the backpack as their daddy proudly walked down Main Street with his kids. She'd been so happy, so filled with joy, in those days that she'd wanted to reach out and stop time. She should have. She should have found a way to hold those perfect days close because they were gone now and they would never come again.

  Chapter Three

  "The thing to do is blitz the neighborhood," David said as Jill fastened her seatbelt. "Let people know Sebastian's out there."

  "I called everyone," she said. "No one has seen him today."

  "You got hold of everyone?" He tried not to sound skeptical.

  "All but the Reillys. They're spending the holidays in Aspen."

  "Their store is doing that well?" He remembered when Mitch and Katie had taken a second mortgage on their home to help finance their kitchenware shop at the mall. He'd never known a couple better suited to carving their own path in business. Or in life, for that matter. In some ways they reminded him of himself and Jill before they drifted apart.

  "The Reillys are a great team," Jill said as he backed the Porsche down the driveway. "They set a goal and they achieved it."

  "Most new ventures fail," he pointed out. "They're not out of the woods yet."

  She looked at him, an odd expression on her face. "Kind of like marriage, wouldn't you say?"

  "That isn't what I meant."

  "Are you sure?"

  "No," he said after a moment. "I'm not." He'd found himself speaking in metaphors a lot lately, as if he needed words to cushion him from harsh reality.

  He hadn't needed anything to cushion him from reality in the old days. Reality had suited him down to the ground.

  #

  Then

  The store clerk looked at David and let out a loud, exasperated sigh. "I can set my clock by you college boys. Come eight o'clock on Christmas Eve you're banging on my door, looking to buy anything that isn't nailed down." He shook his head sadly. "Where's your brain, boy? It's not like Christmas snuck up on you."

  David knew what the guy was thinking, that he was some thoughtless yuppie- type, racing in for a last minute present for a girl he barely knew.

  "Listen," he said, leaning across the counter, "Christmas didn't sneak up on me, it steamrollered right over me. I'm in school six hours a day, I study for another six, and pull an eight-hour shift driving a hack, and that doesn't count eating, sleeping, and wishing I wasn't too tired to make love to my wife. If you want to lump me in with all the rest of the SOB's, then go ahead. I don't care. But I do care about making sure my wife isn't disappointed tomorrow morning."

  The guy blinked and backed up a step. "Hey, sorry if I misread you, kid." He squinted in David's direction. "Aren't you a little young to be married?"

  "You want to see my driver's license?"

  "No reason to be insulted. Just asking a question."

  What he wanted to do was pop the guy one and walk out the door, but that wasn't going to take care of the problem. Jilly deserved something wonderful. "I'm looking for Chanel No. 5."

  "Don't have any."

  "Shalimar?" He could almost see the sneer on her father's face.

  "All out."

  "How about Johnny?"

  "Charlie," the salesman corrected him. "That was the first to go."

  The guy didn't have gloves, scarves, flowers, or slippers either. "We still have can openers and pressure cookers."

  David shook his head. "Forget it." He stuffed his money into his backpack and slung the leather bag over his shoulder. "I'll take my business someplace else."

  "Good luck," the clerk said. "The pet shop's the only other place open an
d they're down to their last iguana."

  David refused to be discouraged. Something happened to people when they got older. He didn't know if it was disappointment or jealousy or just bone-deep nastiness, but newlyweds seemed to bring out the worst in some people.

  We'll never be like that, he thought as he trudged down the street in the blinding snow. He and Jill were special...together they were downright magical. Ten years from now they would be exactly the same as they were today, except even more in love.

  Jill had said they shouldn't exchange gifts. "The rent is due in a week and I don't want to let the Zimmermans down. They've been so kind to us."

  And she was right. Their landlords Claire and Eddie Zimmerman treated them like the children they'd never had. They remembered Jill's and David's birthdays, invited them over for Thanksgiving dinner, and provided shoulders to lean on. David would never do anything to disappoint them. He'd saved the twenty dollars by skipping lunches and two haircuts because putting a smile on Jill's face was worth a couple hunger pangs any day.

  After all she'd given up for him, it was the least he could do.

  He walked the length of Main Street, first one side and then the other. Even the all-night drug store was shut tight as a drum. The lights in the pet shop were still on but somehow he didn't think Jill would welcome an iguana into the family with open arms.

  One day when they had a house of their own, the big house of his dreams, they'd go to a shelter and take in as many dogs and cats and parakeets as the place had, but that day was still a long way off.

  A brisk wind was blowing the snow straight into his eyes. It was the kind of wind that whistled up your sleeves and down the collar of your jacket and made it feel twice as cold as it really was. Someday they'd have two cars, both of them brand spanking new with heaters that could keep you warm in the coldest weather, and stereo speakers and--