Christmas Mourning

“I’m so damn sorry, Deb’rah, but I’ve got to go. The drug squad’s finally located that panel truck and it’s leading them right back to the area we suspected. If we catch these guys tonight, we can—” He groaned as he took in how I looked. “I wish I could wrap you in cellophane till I get back.”

“Too bad, Major Bryant,” I said, trying to keep it light. “Next time you see me, I’ll be in flannel pajamas.”

Disappointed though I was, I nevertheless reached for the shirt he was shucking off and hung it and his slacks back in his closet while he changed into jeans, pulled on a long-sleeved dark jersey, and fastened his Kevlar vest over that.

There was no point in pouting or stomping my foot. I knew what I was getting when I married him, and this was a case the narcotics squad had been trying to nail down for over a month. They had a tip that the dealers were using a panel truck as a mobile lab to cook up methamphetamine, but so far, the truck had roamed the area undetected.

“Tucker says they’ve been stealing license plates and magnetic signs off other truck doors every few weeks,” Dwight said as he strapped on his gun. “No wonder we couldn’t get a fix on them. Though how they can cook it up in a van and still be able to breathe and drive beats me.”

He shook his head again as he looked at me. “I wish…”

“Yeah,” I said softly, more than mollified by his regret. “Me, too.”

“Don’t wait up. God knows when I’ll get home.”

“Don’t worry about me, darling. I’ll fix myself a ham sandwich and—”

He was shaking his head with a rueful smile.

“What?”

“Good luck on that one. Reese and Annie Sue put a hurting on that ham at lunch, and some of the other kids showed up to polish it off. They did leave the bone if you want to make pea soup.”

He grabbed the navy windbreaker with large white lettering that ID’d him as an officer of the Colleton County Sheriff’s Department, gave me a long hard kiss, promised he’d be careful, and then he was gone.

Hey! Happy anniversary, Deborah!

*      *      *

Twenty-five minutes later, dressed now in jeans, a UNC sweatshirt, and ratty old house slippers, I was rummaging in the refrigerator, trying to decide what I was in the mood for, when Bandit yipped and trotted over to the door that led into the garage. A moment later, I heard voices inside the garage itself. None were deep enough to be Haywood’s rumbling bass tones, but I half expected to open the door and see him there. Instead, I found myself looking into the surprised faces of Annie Sue, Reese, and several other nieces and nephews clustered around the fuse box. Or rather, around the fuse boxes. I hadn’t noticed that we now had two boxes where before there had been only one. The second one was open.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Aunt Deborah?” Annie Sue whirled on her cousin Stevie. “I thought you said you saw Uncle Dwight’s truck go by.”

“I did!” He gave me an accusing look. “He said y’all were going out to dinner tonight to celebrate your anniversary.”

“He got called in to work at the last minute,” I said. “So why are y’all here?”

They looked at Annie Sue, who said glibly, “We were on our way for pizza and I got them to stop by and help me test the new circuit breakers. I knew it would go faster if I could have someone flip the wall switches in each room.”

With that, she briskly deployed the kids throughout the house and had them call out their locations to her as they switched the lights on and off while she kept watch on the fuse boxes. For some reason, they seemed to find the exercise highly amusing.

By the time she pronounced that everything was in order, they had talked me into going out for pizza with them even though I offered to order in.

“Why don’t we stay here and watch A Christmas Story?” I said, something we’d been doing ever since enough of them were old enough to drive.

“We can do that after,” Jessica said. “You don’t want us spilling pepperoni or tomato sauce on your couch. C’mon, Aunt Deborah. It’ll be fun.”

I knew that the fun part would be getting me to pay for their pizza, but what the hell?

“I get to pick where we go, though,” I told them and they didn’t argue when I chose Big Ed’s New York Slice, one of the new cafes that has opened up in the same nearby shopping center as the NutriGood grocery store. Big Ed’s is a little more expensive than the pizza chains, but the taste is exponentially better. I might mourn for the farm that this shopping center has replaced, but when one of those incredible pizzas is set down on the table before me, it feels almost like an equal trade.

Heading for eight o’clock on a Monday night this close to Christmas, we had the place to ourselves except for a few people in and out to pick up orders to go. We pushed two tables together and were debating toppings when I realized that Annie Sue, Reese, and Stevie were missing. Counting Zach and Barbara’s daughter Emma, who seemed to have heard about the impromptu party through osmosis, there were only eight of us.

“Oh, they said to start without them,” said Seth and Minnie’s son John. “Stevie’s riding with Annie Sue and Reese and she wanted to drop off the new boxes at Uncle Zach’s and Uncle Robert’s. You know how he and Aunt Doris love to talk. They said if they don’t get here in time, just to bring them one back.”

The pizza maker on duty was a muscular middle-aged transplant from New Jersey—“Ed usually takes Monday nights off”—who was willing to pile a full pie’s worth of anchovies on the three slices that Jane Ann and I planned to split.

“Just make sure none of that rotten fish juice gets on our slices,” said A.K.