Eight Christmas Eves (2 page)

“You have no
use for her
at all
. Are you planning to just go about your business as
usual and ignore her existence?”

“I’ll ensure
she’s taken care of and that her inheritance is preserved for when she’s old
enough to claim it.  That’s the extent of my responsibility. She has a
nanny to coddle her, if she needs it.”

“This is
absolutely insane,” Cyrus muttered. After a pause, he added, “It’s Christmas
Eve. Did you plan anything special for her?”

“I bought a
gift for her. It’s over there.”

There was the
sound of footsteps and then some rustling she couldn’t identify.

Then Cyrus
burst out angrily, “A Renaissance dagger? You got a ten-year-old girl a
Renaissance dagger?”

“It’s a woman’s
dagger. Made to be hidden in a dress. It’s exquisite.”

“She’s ten! She
won’t even be able to play with it. It’s too dangerous.”

“She’ll
appreciate it when she gets older.”

“Damn it, Dad. I
really think you’ve lost your mind, and that poor kid is going to suffer for
it.”

His voice
seemed to get closer, and Helen realized he was about to leave the room. She
scurried across the hall and ducked into an open room so he wouldn’t see she’d
been listening.

She heard him
stomp down the hall and then heard the main door of the house slam as he left.
She went to the window and watched as he got into his fancy silver car and
drove away.

She felt
flustered and upset from overhearing the conversation, but she wasn’t quite
sure why.

She’d liked Mr.
Mac well enough, but he’d never tried to be a father to her. It sounded like
Mr. Owen would be the same way. That was fine with her. She liked Sally, her
nanny. Otherwise she was used to taking care of herself. She didn’t want
someone to try to boss her around anyway.

She didn’t know
why Cyrus was getting so mad about it.

She wished he
hadn’t left without saying goodbye. She’d liked him. He’d seemed nice.

But it was no
big deal. People either left or died. She was used to it.

She did some
more exploring—finding a basement packed full of fascinating knick-knacks that
would take her weeks to investigate. Then she ended up in the TV room, where
she found a huge collection of movies.

It was
Christmas Eve, so she started to look for one movie in particular.

She searched
the collection for about ten minutes, kneeling on the floor sticking her head
into the cabinet so she could scan the back rows.

“Hey, kid,” a
voice came from behind her.

She was so
startled by the unexpected voice that she jerked in surprise and hit her head
on the shelf of the cabinet.

“Don’t scare me
like that,” she said grumpily, rubbing her head as she turned around to see
Cyrus standing in the doorway.

“Sorry,” he
said, with that look in his eyes that meant he was secretly laughing. “What are
you looking for?”

“A movie,” she
said sharply, since that should have been obvious. “I thought you were gone.”

“Not for good.”

“You were mad,”
she said, eyeing him suspiciously. She was glad to see him, but he was holding
something behind his back, and she didn’t know what it was or why he was here
again.

“Not at you.
Besides, I came all the way here. I wasn’t about to turn around and head back
on Christmas Eve.”

“Oh.” She
thought about this for a minute. Then nodded, deciding it made sense. “What do
you have behind your back?”

He pulled a
worn gray sweatshirt out from behind his back. “I stopped by the car place and
managed to salvage this for you.”

Helen clasped
her hands at the sight of her father’s sweatshirt.

Then she
scrambled to her feet and ran over to snatch it out of Cyrus’s hand, hugging it
to her chest. It smelled like a garage, but she didn’t care. She could wash it.

“Thank you!”
she gasped, looking up at Cyrus after she’d greeted the sweatshirt appropriately.
“You didn’t have to do that.”

“It wasn’t any
trouble. What movie were you looking for? If we don’t have it already, I’m sure
we could get it for you.”

Helen looked
down at the floor, feeling kind of embarrassed for some reason. “On Christmas
Eve,” she explained, “Mr. Mac always watched
White Christmas
, so I
watched it with him. I was just seeing if you had it.”

“The old Bing
Crosby musical? We should have that somewhere. You like that movie?”

She nodded. “It’s
okay. We always watched it and had hot cider and sugar cookies. Mr. Mac would
spike his cider for extra fortification.”

She added the
last bit of information since she thought it sounded impressive.

Cyrus’s mouth
turned up again, but his voice was serious when he said, “Well, you can watch
that movie tonight too.”

Helen just
nodded. It wouldn’t be as fun watching it by herself. It would be nice if Cyrus
would watch it with her. She’d learned not to ask for things like that, though,
since so often they wouldn’t happen.

“I can watch it
with you, if you don’t mind company. I won’t have anything else to do.”

Beaming up at
him, Helen said, “I don’t mind. You can watch with me. But won’t you do
something with your dad?”

He shook his
head. “We never do anything after dinner. Sometimes I even drive back to the
city in the evening.”

“What do you do
if you drive back?”

He looked a
little uncomfortable, but Helen didn’t know why that might be. “Just hang out
with friends. But I’m not going to drive back this evening, so I can watch the
movie with you.”

“I guess you
probably don’t have hot cider and cookies.”

“We might be
able to dig something up along those lines.”

Helen grinned
at him again. “Will you spike yours?”

“After dinner
with my father, it’s entirely possible I'll need some extra fortification.”

For some
reason, his tone of voice made her want to giggle. So she did.

*
* *

Dinner wasn’t too bad.

Both Cyrus and
Mr. Owen were dressed nice, so Helen was glad that her luggage arrived before
dinner. She changed out of her dirty jeans and red sweater and put on a green
turtleneck dress with snowflake tights. The food was okay. She liked the rolls
and the beef and the fizzy grape juice, but the vegetables had a weird taste,
and there wasn’t enough dressing on her salad. The soup was cold. Evidently, it
was supposed to be cold, but she didn’t like it.

Mr. Owen asked
her a lot of questions—not like he was trying to get to know her but like he
was just curious about her. She wasn’t afraid of him. He seemed like he would
probably work all the time like Mr. Mac, and that was just fine with her. At
least, he wouldn’t try to boss her around.

But she was
glad when dinner was over. It took a long time to get through all the different
courses, and she was getting bored and tired by the end of it.

As they were
leaving the dining room, a couple of men came in the main door, carrying a lot
of boxes.  All the boxes were wrapped in beautiful Christmas paper and
bows.

“You can take
them into the library and put them near the tree,” Cyrus told one of the men.

Mr. Owen raised
one of his eyebrows and gave Cyrus a funny look, but he didn’t say anything.
Just walked away.

“Are all those
presents for your dad?” Helen asked, her eyes widening at how many there were
and how pretty they were wrapped. Mr. Mac would always just give her one
present.

Cyrus laughed
softly. “My dad would have a heart attack if I gave him so many presents.
They’re for you.”

“For me!” She
stared at the men carrying the beautiful presents down the hall.

“Of course. It
would be a pretty bad Christmas morning if you didn’t have anything to unwrap.”

“I have a
Renaissance dagger from your dad.”

“Did he give it
to you already?”

“No,” Helen
said without thinking. “But he said—“ She broke off when she realized she wasn’t
supposed to know that.

“Done a little
eavesdropping, have you?”

She thought for
a minute Cyrus might get mad, but he just shook his head and continued, “Can’t
really blame you—stuck in this big house by yourself. I know how it feels.”

She didn’t really
know what he was talking about, and he seemed to almost be talking to himself.
She thought it was okay if she didn’t answer.

“Can we go
watch the movie now?”

“Yeah. Sounds
like a plan. I’ll go tell someone to bring us cider and sugar cookies.”

Helen ran to
the TV room, found the movie out on a cabinet and played with the machine until
she’d figured out how to turn it on. Then she grabbed a soft blanket and curled
up with it in a big chair.

She waited a
few minutes but, when Cyrus didn’t appear, she got up and went to find him.

She heard him
talking before she saw him, so she paused in the hallway. It sounded like he
was just around a corner.

He was saying,
“I know I said I might be back, but I’m not going to make it after all.”

There was a
pause, which meant he must be talking on the phone. Then he continued, “I’m
sorry if you’re upset. But she’s just a kid, and she’s all alone. I feel bad
for her. She’s got no one else.”

Helen froze as
she realized who he was talking about. Her.

“I never
claimed to be good with kids,” he said after another pause, now sounding a
little annoyed. “But she seems to like me all right, and it’s not a flimsy
excuse. We’ll go out when I get back—tomorrow or the next day. You can give me
the present then.”

Helen
understood what the conversation was about. He must have a girlfriend, and she
was upset because he was staying here instead of going back to the city.

And he was
feeling sorry for her.

She was more
upset than the situation warranted, and she ran back to the TV room and curled
up under the blanket again. She felt kind of like she might cry, but she wasn’t
going to do it.

She never cried
if she could help it.

Cyrus didn’t
have to stay with her. She’d always been fine on her own. She didn’t need
anyone to feel sorry for her.

He came into
the room a few minutes later and looked at her for a minute in silence. She
just stared at the blank TV.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she
lied. “I decided I want to watch the movie by myself.”

“What?” He
sounded really surprised, and it upset Helen even more. “What are you talking
about?”

“I can watch
the movie by myself,” she said, breathing a little heavily to keep from crying.
“You can go back.”

“I don’t want
to go back. I wanted to watch the movie with you. The cider and cookies are
coming. What’s wrong? What happened?”

“Nothing
happened,” Helen said, wishing he would just shut up. “I do fine on my own.
I’ve always done fine on my own.”

She wasn’t
looking at him, but she felt something change in his expression. He walked over
and sat down on the couch near her chair and leaned forward, clasping his hands
together. “I can tell you do fine on your own, Helen, but can you put up with
me for one evening?”

A tear slipped
out of her eye and streamed down her cheek. She brushed it away impatiently. “You
don’t have to feel sorry for me, is all I mean.”

“I see,” he
murmured. She could feel his eyes on her face. “You’ve been eavesdropping
again.”

“Not on
purpose. You were talking in the middle of the hallway!”

“I was.” There
was suddenly a smile in his voice. She turned to look, but he wasn’t smiling
with anything but his eyes. “I wasn’t really looking forward to the date
anyway. I can go out with her later. This is the only Christmas Eve I have this
year, and I’d rather spend it here.”

She peered at
him, suddenly hopeful. “Really?”

 “Really.”

“Okay,” she
said, brushing away another tear and feeling a lot better. If he
wanted
to watch the movie, then that was all right. She'd be happy to have him watch
with her.

“So I can
stay?”

“Yes,” she
said, giving him a definitive nod and grinning up at him. “You can stay.”

So they watched
White Christmas
, and they had hot cider and sugar cookies. And Helen
made Cyrus laugh because she knew all the words to the Sisters song. And there
were lots of presents waiting for her to open in the morning. They were
probably just dolls and stuffed animals, but they'd be fun to open anyway.

So it was a
pretty good Christmas Eve after all.

nine
years ago

Large, wet flakes of snow blew
against the windshield, so hard and thick that Cyrus could barely see the road.

If he hadn’t
known the route so well, he never would have made it these last few miles. The
steady snow that had been falling when he’d left D.C. had gradually turned into
blizzard conditions.

He never should
have driven out to Clarksburg this afternoon. He’d decided against it after
looking at the forecast and seeing the snow already coming down earlier in the
day. Although obligation ensured he made the trip to see his father every
Christmas, it wasn’t a trip he relished, and he’d been relieved to have a
legitimate excuse to cancel it.

There was a new
club opening downtown that he’d wanted to visit tonight, and last week he’d
started seeing a stunning brunette. She was wild, exotic, and so sexy it took
his breath away. Christmas Eve at a club with her sounded a lot more appealing
than an uncomfortable dinner with his father and a precocious twelve-year-old
girl.

He’d called to
tell them he couldn't make it out because of the snowstorm, and Helen had said
it was fine. Her voice had been small and wobbly, however, so he’d known she’d
been crushed. She’d tried to act nonchalant, but he suspected she’d been crying
before she hung up the phone.

So he decided
to make the trip after all. Irrational guilt and pity pushed him into it.

He’d always
liked Helen. She was a smart, amusing girl who’d somehow managed to keep her
vibrant spirit despite how little love and human connection she had in her
life. He’d never spent much time with her because he was at college in the
city, but it wasn’t like hanging out with her was ever unpleasant.

But watching an
old movie with a twelve-year-old just couldn’t compare to spending the evening
with gorgeous, dark-haired Arlette who had legs that stretched for miles and
knew how to use them.

He couldn’t
resent Helen for missing out on a night with Arlette, though, and he couldn’t
resent her for the blizzard he was trying to inch through on the last stretch
of road to the house.

It had been his
choice to come, and he wasn’t convinced he wouldn’t have made the same decision
again, when faced with Helen on the phone sounding so defeated.

Cyrus was the
only son of a very wealthy, influential businessman. He was used to getting a
certain kind of attention, merely because of that fact. In a way, it was nice
that
someone
wanted his company so much—without the draw of his money,
reputation, or resources.

It was just his
luck that the someone happened to be a twelve-year-old girl.

He was focused
so intently on keeping the car on the slippery road that he almost missed the
turn into the drive that led up to the house. Fortunately, a grounds worker
must have plowed the drive sometime recently, since there were only a couple of
inches of snow covering the pavement.

He steered the
car down the long driveway and then into the garage, letting out a sigh of
relief when he finally shifted into park. He’d never been a nervous driver, but
for a while there he was convinced he might end up in a ditch on the side of
the road.

He was here
now, though, and it was just four o’clock in the afternoon. At least Helen
would be excited to see him.

The butler
greeted him politely when he emerged from the garage into the house, but
otherwise his welcome was nonexistent. The house was almost eerily silent.

Last year, when
he’d arrived on Christmas Eve, Helen had come bounding down the stairs with an
excited squeal and practically tackled him with a hug. This year she wasn’t
expecting him to come at all, though, since he’d never phoned to tell her he’d
changed his mind.

He carried his
overnight bag and the bag of presents he’d brought into his room. Then he
stopped by Helen’s room, but it was empty.

The room looked
different than it had when he’d last been out that summer. The walls were still
painted an elegant cream-color, with one accent wall covered in expensive cream
and gold damask wallpaper.

But the dolls
and stuffed animals, which had gradually thinned out over the last two years,
were now completely gone, and a new bookcase had been brought in to join the
other two—all three overflowing with books. One wall was covered with posters,
pictures, maps, and magazine photos of different places in the world she
evidently liked or wanted to visit. Some were obvious or predictable—London,
Paris, Vienna, Moscow, Edinburgh, Athens, Fiji, Hong Kong. But there were also
several images of ancient sites like Machu Picchu, Tikal, Petra, Delphi, and
Leptis Magna.

Cyrus was
distracted by scanning and identifying the pictures for a minute before he
turned to look at the messy computer desk, on which was placed the laptop he’d
given her the previous Christmas.

He was about to
turn away when he noticed that the worn gray sweatshirt that had been her
father’s was draped over the upholstered chair in the corner. For some reason,
the sight struck him as poignant, and it took a moment to shake off the
feeling.

Eventually, he
left the room. He checked the rest of the house but still couldn’t find any
sign of her.

Finally, he
gave up and tapped on the door to his father’s study.

Drake Owen
arched his eyebrows as he saw his son. “So you braved the snow after all?”

“Yes,” Cyrus
replied, biting back a justification or excuse. He knew from long experience
that such explanations only left him at a disadvantage. “Where’s Helen?”

“She’s around
somewhere. Is she in her room?”

“No. And she’s
not in the library or the media room.”

“I’m sure
she’ll turn up eventually. Maybe she went outside.”

Cyrus’s mouth
dropped open. “Outside? There’s a blizzard outside!”

“Maybe not. I
believe she likes to investigate the artifacts in the basement. Maybe she’s
there. She’s an independent little thing and doesn’t like me interfering with
her activities.”

Cyrus scowled
but bit back his instinctive sharp response. He’d had many conversations with
his father over his treatment of Helen, and none of them made the slightest
difference. Drake Owen spent most of his time in D.C., while Helen stayed at
the Clarkburg house with her nanny and the domestic staff. In some ways, it
might be better that his father mostly acted like she didn’t exist.

At least she
was spared the pressure, the biting sarcasm, and the coldness that Cyrus
himself had always received from his father.

Cyrus left the
study and went down to the basement.  Helen had been at work down there
too. Instead of rows of boxes and trunks holding memoirs of past years and Owen
travels around the world, she had pulled out and rearranged most of the
treasures. In one corner she’d draped all of the exotic fabrics, tapestries,
and antique rugs and then hung lines of lanterns, chimes, and crystals until it
looked like a Persian bazaar. In another corner she’d collected all of the
statues, sculptures, and totem poles.

He couldn’t
help but smile at all of her work. He couldn’t imagine how long it had taken
her to arrange all of the items so carefully and intentionally.

He walked past
several towers of antique side tables and saw that one whole section of the
basement was filled with dozens of neatly laid out table settings of the
various sets of china the Owens had collected. A family of carved Mayan gods
were eating from 18th century Bavarian china. A collection of Russian dolls
were set up around Japanese dishes and tea cups. And a battalion of wooden
soldiers were grabbing a quick bite off blue and white Grecian plates.

Cyrus laughed
as he examined the place settings. She’d even found centerpieces for each
arrangement.

Finally he
shook himself back into focus and realized that he still needed to find Helen,
since she obviously wasn’t down in the basement.

He went back upstairs
and headed to the kitchen, where the housekeeper told him she’d seen Helen
heading outside an hour or so ago. “It wasn’t snowing so hard then.”

Cyrus felt a
flare of panic when he glanced outside. The snow was blowing so wildly that it
was impossible to see beyond an arm’s length. What the hell was wrong with
everyone in this house, letting a girl go out by herself in a blizzard?

As he put his
coat, hat, and gloves back on, he made himself think through what he knew of
Helen’s habits. Although he only saw her a few times a year, she’d taken to
emailing him several times a week. He tried to respond at least once a week so
she wouldn’t think he was ignoring her, but he just didn’t have the time or
energy to be a pen pal to a little girl, and he didn’t always read her rambling
messages very carefully.

He did
remember, however, that several times she’d mentioned converting an outbuilding
that used to be a tool shed into what she called a “writer’s retreat.”
Evidently, she liked to go there to write or to be alone when she was upset.

He knew where
the outbuilding was, so he started through the snow in that direction. It
wasn’t unbearably cold—probably not much lower than freezing—but the wind was
so strong and the snow so thick that it beat at his face and nearly blinded
him.

He trudged
through the snow, which was nearly as high as his knees, and directed his
course by instinct, since he couldn’t see well enough to verify his direction.
The uncovered skin of his face burned, and his throat ached from the cold air.

He couldn’t
really tell how long he’d been fighting the blizzard when he saw a hint of red
in the distance.

“Helen!” he
called, surprised by how raw his voice sounded.

“I’m here!” She
wasn’t that far away.

He pushed toward
her voice until he found her. She must have fallen down and was now struggling
to her feet, hugging something under her coat.

“What the hell
are you doing out here? Are you crazy?” He had to speak loudly to be heard over
the wind, but he probably didn’t need to speak quite as loudly as he had. She
really was an infuriating little thing sometimes, and she didn't even sound
contrite.

“Don’t yell at
me. I was getting back fine on my own.”

When she
started defiantly back toward the mansion, he saw how far her words were from
the truth. She was limping quite dramatically.

“What
happened?”

“I just twisted
my ankle. I’m fine. I don’t want to talk to you, since you’re being so rude.”

“I’m sorry if I
was rude, kid,” Cyrus said, trying to hide his impatience. He really wanted to
get them both out of the snow and wind. “I was worried about you.”

“I was fine,”
she replied, sounding a little less indignant.

Deciding the
rest of the conversation could wait until they’d gotten inside, Cyrus reached
down and hauled Helen up so he could carry her. She was small, even for a
twelve-year-old, and she normally wouldn’t have been any sort of a burden. But
she was wearing a puffy coat that kept slipping against his wet gloves, and she
was carrying under her coat what he discovered was an enormous hardback book.

He discovered
this when it accidentally clobbered him in the shoulder.

He bit back a
few expletives as he fought to keep her from sliding out of his arms, and his
muttering wasn’t quite under his breath when he heard her start to giggle.

“Some heroic
rescue this turned out to be,” she said, still laughing as she tried to help by
grabbing onto his neck.

He almost
strangled from her tight hold, but at least it kept her from falling back into
the snow. “You are an ungrateful little wretch who deserves to be left to the
mercy of frostbite and polar bears,” he grumbled as he was finally stable
enough to start back to the house with her.

As expected,
she wasn’t remotely fazed by his words. “I wish there
were
polar bears.
That would be so cool. I watched a documentary about them on Monday and all the
scientists say they're doomed, that there’s no hope of them surviving much
longer in the wild because of all the climate change and the glaciers melting.
The little baby polar bears are the cutest things in the world. It’s so sad. I
thought you weren’t going to come today because you were too scared of the
snow.”

She was like a
glint of white light. Sharp, quicksilver, ever-changing, maddeningly ephemeral.
And she was rambling right into his ear so he could hear her over the whipping
of the wind. Although he was now breathless from the cold, wind, and effort and
she hadn’t even paused to breathe between her sentences, Cyrus didn’t have any
trouble keeping up.

“I wasn’t
scared. I was trying to be smart and not drive when the road conditions were
too bad, but I made it after all. At the moment, I’m rather jealous of the
polar bears, since they are made to withstand these kinds of blizzard
conditions and we're not.”

“You wouldn’t
be jealous if all your ice was melting and you had to swim and swim and swim to
look for seals and other food that just isn’t there anymore. They showed one
that was so hungry—poor thing—she tried to catch a whale to eat.”

“Did she get
it?” Cyrus let out a relieved breath as he reached the back door to the house,
stepped inside, let Helen slip down to the floor, and then shut the wind and
snow outside with a click of the door.

“No.” She’d
remained on the floor in a heap of puffy red coat, snow-caked strawberry-blond
hair, and clever green eyes. “It was so sad I almost cried. Poor, starving
polar bear.”

Cyrus could see
that her empathy for the creature was genuine, and he wondered how an isolated,
neglected girl could still have such a soft heart and generous spirit.

“We can
discourse on polar bears more later. Now you need to warm up.”