An Underestimated Christmas (Underestimated 3) (14 page)

“She’s older than Tadpole. She shouldn’t still be doing this.”

“She wouldn’t had one of us mommies taken her potty instead of snuggling her little warm body. I’d pee my pants, too, if I could.”

“No you wouldn’t.”

“Yeah, no I wouldn’t,” I agreed.

By one in the afternoon, I was begging Alicia for another pill. Drew still hadn’t called. He should have been on the ground by now. Jason and my mom came and took the kids for some sort of turkey craft for Thanksgiving and I sat on the edge of the sofa, bouncing my knees. Buffalo New York was under eighteen inches of snow. I knew what that was, too. Eighteen inches stops the world. My cousin Jack was born just like the baby Jesus, in a barn. The squad slid into a ditch and the paramedics wheeled Aunt Betty to the nearby barn. Eighteen inches would cripple everything on wheels. Dammit. Where the hell was he?

Alicia ended up giving me a pill by three. I was going out of my mind. This wasn’t like Drew. Drew would call me. What if he didn’t make it to the hotel? What if he was freezing over an embankment or something?

“Morgan, I’m sure he’s fine. Will you stop worrying? Let’s go get the kids. We’ll take them to Crab Mad Joes and let them play on the pirate ship. You have your phone. He’ll call. There’s no sense in sitting around here worrying about it. He’ll call.”

Knowing Alicia was right, I traded with her. One pill for the outing with the kids. Maybe she was right. The boys loved climbing around that pirate ship, Nicky would be ecstatic. The suspension bridges hanging about the massive pirate ship left him talking about it for hours. That wasn’t always a good thing. I read about kids obsessing over certain things from the pamphlets that Dr. Inglewood gave us. Nicky’s was definitely bridges. How do you tell a five-year-old that just because he loves the complexity of a bridge, didn’t mean everyone else did?

Most everyone Nicky enlightened about his bridge knowledge were overly impressed. It wasn’t every day you found a five-year-old that knew why the Angers Bridge in France collapsed back in eighteen fifty. Even I shouldn’t know that wind and possibly a resonance of soldiers led to the collapse.

What if Drew was on a bridge that collapsed? What if he slid off the road and was under a bridge. I’ve heard of people being trapped for days in a snowstorm.

STOP!

“Okay, yes. Let’s go take the boys to eat shrimp and play on the pirate ship,” I agreed without any more reluctance.

I was going to go crazy if I stayed there for one more second.

I checked the dead phone in my room for the fifteenth time. The entire east coast was at a standstill and we were one of the lucky ones to lose power.

“Stacy has some homemade soup. You don’t want to pass that up,” the gentleman not much older than myself said from the door. I smiled, dropping the vintage receiver back to its hook. “Don’t worry about your family. I’ll get you over to the Henderson’s after some hot lunch. He’s got a CB radio. We can send a number to one of his friends out there and they can get a message to your wife if you’d like.”

“Yes, yes, thank you. I would appreciate that. She’s got to be worried sick. I hate giving her unneeded stress,” I explained. That made me feel better. I hated the thought of Morgan sitting around worrying. And I knew she was doing just that. Worrying herself sick.

Mrs. Allen was a very good cook. I would love to have this recipe for Morgan. The bread was just as tasty. I must have been hungrier than I thought.

“Does it always snow like this around here?” I asked, creating conversation with the nice country family who took me in. I would have been frozen to death by now had Mr. Allen not had a cow loose. Thank god for broken fences.

“Actually, we haven’t had snow like this since the eighties, not in November anyway.”

“How long do you expect it to be before I can get out of here?” I worried.

“Hard to say. If it stops soon, should be in the next couple days.”

“Days,” I groaned.

This sucked. I couldn’t even call the store in New York City to tell him I was having a hard time getting there, and I was supposed to be in North Carolina with a new metal detector tomorrow. Looking over the kitchen sink, the small window told me I wasn’t getting out of there whether I liked it or not. The snow had slowed, but stayed light and steady all day.

The Allen’s kids were very well mannered. I enjoyed talking to them around the table while we sat in the eat-in kitchen. Their seven-year-old daughter, Amanda was cute as hell. I swear she could have been Nicky and Tadpole’s sister. Her features could have easily been passed down from Morgan and me. Charlie was eleven and Adam was the oldest, just turned thirteen a week ago.

“Do you work out, wrestle? Something,” I teased the oldest boy. He was buff for such a young boy. Made me decide to pick up another day in the gym, looking at him.

He snickered a little and informed me of something I hadn’t had to endure in my lifetime. “We live on farm. I’m always working out. Come over sometime and I’ll show you what a real work out is. How many bales of hay did we throw off the last time, Dad?” he asked, turning to his father for help.

“Two hundred and twelve, all weighing in at around eighty pounds,” his dad, Solomon explained, looking at his strong son, proudly.

“That explains it,” I settled.

“I have big muscles, too,” Amanda said, trying her best to make a muscle.

“You sure do. I think maybe yours may be bigger than you older brother’s. You think?”

She agreed with a front-tooth-missing smile and a proud headshake. Her puny muscle made me miss my Tadpole. Dammit. Why didn’t I wait at the airport?

Spending the entire day with the Allen family left me longing. I didn’t know what it was exactly. Maybe I wasn’t used to seeing other married couples. Morgan and I didn’t really have a couple that we interacted with like this. Celeste and Alicia didn’t really count. Celeste was too much like me and public affection wasn’t something either of us was accustomed to.

All three kids rose from their seats after the meal and commenced to cleaning up the table. Amanda took care of the silverware, Charlie cleared the plates and the cups, and Adam took care of the rest. Their mother thanked them and sent them on their way while she ran the dishwater. Sole stood, and took a clean dishtowel from the drawer.

“My wife would drop dead if I helped with the dishes without being told. I usually whine long enough for her to tell me to go bathe the boys or something,” I teased, missing my family.

“Haven’t you ever heard the old saying about a man getting more in the bedroom if he helps with the dishes?” Solomon joked. His wife Stacy jerked the dishtowel and snapped him with it. I laughed and stopped myself before saying I got plenty of that. “I’m kidding. Marriage is a two way street. If my wife can help me dig a fence row, I sure as hell can help with the dishes,” he rephrased with a loving smile. God, I missed my family.

Sole kept his word and after him giving me warmer clothes and a pair of boots, we set out to the barn. I climbed on the back and Sole took us through the snow, gliding along the top on a snow mobile. Damn. I hadn’t realized I’d gotten so far off the main road. I knew I was lost, but this was in Never-land.

“Where exactly am I?” I yelled over the loud engine.

“Center Station, New York. Population 2,023,” he called back.

“Where the hell is Buffalo?”

“About fifty miles west.”

Damn, I was really out of the way.

The radio worked perfect. Paul Henderson also showed me appreciated hospitality. Not only did he use the hand held mic to contact a buddy with the same contraption, I got to talk to Morgan. Sort of.

The guy on the other end did the translating, but at least he was able to tell her I was fine, and I would call her as soon as the phone lines were back up, or I had cell phone service. She translated back that she loved me and to be safe. I felt much better knowing Morgan felt better. I kept her waiting for almost twenty-four hours and now I knew she could relax and enjoy her time with Alicia.

Sole and I sat around Paul’s table and had a beer with him. He was young, maybe twenty-five or so, but one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met. Paul was in a wheelchair for whatever reason, but he had a very important job around Center Station. He took care of all the dispatching for the majority of the farmers in the area, instructing the truckers on the silage hauling.

Just because his legs didn’t work, didn’t mean everything else didn’t. He had the cutest little girl and a pretty hot wife. Paul Jr, as Sole called him, told him we’d better get going after he offered us another beer. I didn’t mind sitting around the table, drinking beer with Paul Jr. We were just going to go back to his house and be bored. Damn. I missed my family.

Solomon took us back to his place a different route than when we’d gone to Paul’s.

“Whoa,” I called from behind him. “What is this place, Sole?”

“This is Riverton’s,” he explained, killing the engine. “It used to be a horse farm. John Riverton, one of the grandsons has turned it into a day camp for children with autism.”

“Why?” I asked, getting off the snow mobile and looking in the windows of the most amazing barn transformation I’d ever seen.

“He wants to help,” Sole said with a shrug like it was no big deal. I started to ask why again, but stopped when the door opened, startling us both.

“Come in, Sole. It’s freezing out there,” a tall man called from a side door.

Sole and I stepped inside. I shook his hand and wondered around the massive arena in awe.

“Go ahead, look around,” the guy who introduced himself as John offered. I nodded and checked out the facility. It was still set up like a barn. The stalls were bigger with paintings of colorful animals. Each stall had its own purpose. There was a red gate for reading, a blue stall for music, a green stall for arts and crafts, a yellow stall for snacks, and an orange stall for relaxing. The middle where horses once put on a show was now black top with a basketball court, bicycles, toys, and even a bridge with a giant slide.

“You run this place? I don’t understand. You’re in the middle of nowhere. How can you stay open here? I mean, you can’t have much business.”

“Actually, we’d be even busier. The state shut us down three months back,” John said unemotionally.

“Why?”

“It’s an old barn. A lot of things need fixed yet. I want to build another loft on this side of the barn and run a bridge from one side to the other. I want to line the wall here with stalls for different development stages. I can’t have a unisex bathroom, and I have to have a working kitchen. I can still run workshops here for parents, I just can’t do the all day camps with the kids anymore.”

“John doesn’t have the money to finish it all at once, but we all come over and pick up a hammer or a paint brush on Friday nights. It’s our guy time. A few beers and few laughs later, we get a little more done. We’ll get it,” Sole explained.

“I guess I’m a little confused. Of all things, why, I mean why that?” I asked unable to say the word.

“We help the kids learn ways to express emotions they don’t feel and we teach them how to read other people’s expressions to know what is an appropriate and un-appropriate response.”

“What do you mean?” I asked the same question.

“Do you know someone with autism?” John asked.

“My son,” I replied defeated, dropping my head. “He has Asperger’s syndrome. He’s five and this is all new to us.”

John smiled a big broad smile. “You say that like your son is going to die. You weren’t handed a death sentence with that diagnosis.”

“Pretty much. I mean, how can I teach him to be a man when he doesn’t feel the same way I do?” Why the fuck was I telling this complete stranger everything that I wouldn’t talk to my wife about? All my worries and fears manifested over an entire hour with John.

“Sit down, Drew,” John offered with an open hand to the child’s blue chair. I sat with my knees to my chest in the short, but sturdy chair. “Tell me, what it is that you call success?” he beckoned.

“I don’t know. Me. I’m a businessman. I’m afraid I won’t be able to teach my son that.”

“Ahhh, so you want him to be like you?”

“Not necessarily, I want him to be independent and be able to have everything that every other man has. I want him to marry and have his own family.”

“And you think he’s not capable of this? Why do you think that?” 

“I don’t know. Isn’t that what usually happens to people like that? I mean, I’m perfectly fine with him living with us forever. But someday we’re going to be gone. I want him to be able to look after himself.”

“People like us can go to college, get married, have a family, and create a business like this that helps people like you understand people like us,” he said in that same dry tone with absolutely no emotion.

“People like you? What do you mean?” Damn. I sure was using that a lot.

“John has one of the prettiest wives in Center Station. And the cutesiest little twin boys you’ve ever seen in your life,” Sole offered.

My eyes were wide while I waited for John to retrieve his wallet and show me his family. “Your son has what I have. I mean, I don’t know the severity of his, but I, too, was diagnosed as having Asperger’s when I was a teenager. I’m just like you, Drew. I feel things, I just don’t know how to show it the way you do, and I sometimes need help in knowing other people’s emotions, mainly my wife’s,” he joked.

“I can’t read my wife, so you’re good there,” I offered, joking back. The air had grown thicker and too serious.

“Yes, but when your wife says eat me, I’m sure you don’t take a bite out of her arm.”

“Huh?”

John and Sole both laughed at me. I turned and looked up to Sole a little confused. Was he making a sex joke?

“Some of us tend to take things literally. Like we don’t know you’re joking. What’s your son’s name?”

“Nicholas.”

“Have you ever told Nicholas something that you didn’t mean, but he took it literally and did it? Like if you’re joking about something he said.”

“Hmmm, no. Like what?”

“Like, get out of here? Have you ever said anything like that and he’s gotten up to leave the room?” I nodded, remembering just the other day when I told him to hit the bed. He looked at me funny and then punched the bed. “That’s because Nicholas doesn’t have the receptors to tell him you were only joking. That’s what I do. I’ll help you help him.”

“Where do you live? I am having a Christmas workshop here. You could come then. I would love to have you, but I’m sure your wife has family tradition plans for your holiday.”

“No, I mean. She’ll probably make a turkey for Thanksgiving, and plan a vacation or something for Christmas.”

“You don’t celebrate Christmas?” John asked.