Silhouette Christmas Stories

'Andrew!' The car responded to her first attempt to start it in predictable fashion: a cough and then nothing. 'That's ridiculous.'

'Mom, he looks just like him, and he's even got the same name.'

'Andrew… ' Karen shook her head and pumped the gas pedal several times before trying the ignition key again.

'Well, he does,' Andrew said stubbornly in the ensuing silence.

Karen set her lips firmly and sent up a prayer. This time the engine coughed and sputtered grudgingly to life. She nursed it carefully until it had settled down to a surly growl; then, with a sigh of relief, she backed out of the driveway.

A glance at her son caused her to sigh again, this time with exasperation. What in the world was she going to do about him? He really was too old for these fantasies. Believing in Santa Claus was one thing, but… Mr. Clausen?

Andrew spent entirely too much time reading, she told herself. That was the problem. Reading and watching television. He needed to get outside more. He should be spending more time with other children, playing ball, climbing trees. Karen had originally decided to rent the apartment in the little Victorian because it had such a nice big backyard, with grass to run on and trees to climb. She'd thought it would be a good place for Andrew to play. Now she almost wished she'd taken a place in a crowded, noisy apartment building, one teeming with children, children Andrew's age who could teach him how to roughhouse and get his clothes dirty. Her son really needed to be around boys more, she knew that. He needed someone to teach him the things she couldn't, like how to throw a football, and slide into second base. He needed-

But Karen knew very well what Andrew needed. And she shied away from that truth now just as she had for the last five years, ever since a helicopter crash during a routine training operation had killed her husband and robbed her son of his father.

It had been easy, at first; no one expected her to think about it. It was too soon. It takes time, everyone said; just give it some time. But then Andrew had started school, and the questions had begun. All the other kids had dads, why didn't he? Where was his daddy? What had happened to him, and when was he coming back? Karen had answered the questions as simply and truthfully as she knew how, but Andrew was an uncommonly observant and intelligent child, and it hadn't taken him long to find a loophole. Some kids, he pointed out to his mother, had more than one dad. Since his own was gone and not going to come back, and since there seemed to be extras around, couldn't she simply find him another one?

Eventually, though, the questions had stopped. Andrew, being both observant and intelligent, saw that his questions made his mother unhappy, and although for a while he still made subtle references to the subject in his bedtime prayers and birthday candle wishes, he finally stopped asking. But Karen knew. And sometimes when she looked at her son-a certain way he had of smiling, the tilt of his head, the wistful softness of his jaw and chin-her emotions swamped her, and she had to pretend that it was just her hay fever acting up again.

Emotions-such a painful, confusing stew of them! Anger and guilt, fear and longing, all mixed up together. It wasn't, Karen told herself time and time again, that she expected never to marry again. But such things couldn't be forced; they had to just happen, the way miracles do. The way it had happened for her and Bob. They had truly had something special, the two of them. And then, of course, the three of them. The chances of that kind of miracle happening again for her seemed remote… impossible.

Every day Karen told herself that she was doing the right thing, insisting on the miracle rather than settling for something less just for the sake of providing her son with a father. But every day she faced the anguish of a mother's guilt, knowing that the one thing her child needed most, she couldn't give him.

'What do you think is in the box?' Andrew asked as the car pulled up in front of the school building with its usual clatter and bang.

Karen leaned over to kiss him. 'I don't know. You can have fun thinking about it today. We'll find out tonight, won't we?'

'Maybe,' said Andrew casually, grunting a little as he hopped from the car to the sidewalk, 'it's what I wished for.'

'Oh?' Karen probed with tender amusement, hoping for a Christmas hint. 'And what's that?'

'It's a secret,' he said, turning to look at her over the hump of his backpack. Then he went on up the walk to the school, smiling his secret smile.

Tony heard the car coming from two blocks down the street. Even flat on his back on a dolly looking at the underside of Mrs. Kazanian's Lincoln, he knew who it was. Inner disturbances caused by the sound of that particular engine made him give the wrench he was wielding an unnecessarily vigorous turn.

'Ouch!' He resisted the natural impulse to stick the injured knuckle into his mouth and swore inventively instead. 'Damn bucket of bolts.'

Although it would have been difficult for a stranger to tell the difference, and though Tony certainly wasn't about to admit it, his tone was more affectionate than bitter. He had always been a sucker for old junkers and strays. He wasn't sure whether that was because he liked to feel needed, as a girl he'd once dated-a psych major at Fresno State-had suggested, or whether he just liked a challenge. One thing was sure-keeping that old Plymouth of Mrs. Todd's running did present a challenge.

So, for that matter, did Mrs. Todd.

Mrs. Todd. Tony grimaced as the unholy racket died in midcough, a car door slammed, and the lady's voice called with a note of uncertainty, 'Hello? Mr. D'Angelo? Is anyone here?'

Mr. D'Angelo. 'Yeah!' Tony grunted. 'Be right with you.'

She was a challenge, all right. In the three months since she'd pulled into town with a broken thermostat and a radiator about ready to blow, he hadn't been able to figure out a way to get beyond that 'Mrs. Todd' and 'Mr. D'Angelo' nonsense. And he wanted to; he'd known that much from the first moment. He wanted to get to Karen and Tony, and maybe beyond that all the way to the things people called each other in the velvet darkness that had no meaning to anyone but themselves.

He had to admit it was partly her looks, at least at first. Not that she was so spectacular, or that he hadn't known prettier women, but sun-streaked, long-legged blondes just weren't as common in this part of the state as they were where she was from. Apart from that, though, there'd been something about her even then that had intrigued him, challenged him. A certain aloofness-not arrogance; her voice had been polite and her manner genuine, her eyes direct and respectful, and worried-which was natural enough, given the circumstances. Even in shabby, crumpled clothes, tired, sweaty, with wisps of hair sticking to the dampness on her neck and temples, she'd had a natural, unconscious elegance. Blond, aloof, elegant-the classic ice-princess. And yet Tony was certain there was nothing cold about her. There had been warmth in her eyes when she looked at that little boy of hers, and tenderness in her hands when she touched him. He'd seen both vulnerability and courage in the way her lips first trembled, then tightened, when he told her what it was going to cost to fix her car. No, he knew she wasn't cold. The emotions were there, just held in reserve.

Reserved. That sure was the word for Mrs. Todd. Tony understood that; he was reserved himself. He never would have said shy. And that was really the problem-he was used to being someone else's challenge, to having other people banging on his doors, trying to knock down the walls of his reserve. He'd never had to be the one to reach out before, and he wasn't sure how to go about it. How the hell did a reserved man make contact with a woman who was even more reserved than he was?

He already knew quite a bit about her, of course; it was a small town, and not too many out-of-towners came to take up permanent residence. For instance, he knew she'd come from someplace in L.A., that she'd rented an apartment in one of those Victorians over on Sierra Street, that she was single-whether divorced or widowed he wasn't certain, but for some reason he couldn't put his finger on, he would bet on the latter- and that she had a nice little kid. A bit too polite and quiet, maybe. Too reserved, like his mother.

Tony listened to the tap, tap, tap of Karen Todd's shoes coming toward him across the concrete floor of the shop. High-heeled shoes-black pumps, he saw, as they came to a stop beside the Lincoln, a few feet from his head. Nice slender ankles, encased in nylons… sweetly curving calves disappearing under the hem of a brown wool coat…