The Year the Cat Saved Christmas - a novella (4 page)

"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
his.

"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 and 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."