CHRISTMAS
1992
Glass in hand, Face stood near the door and
watched as Dixie and Trixie tottered between the talking adults, perfectly
happy in their own little worlds.
Murdock was going to have his work cut out for him, he thought. The twins were going to be very pretty young
ladies. They had Kelly’s rounder face
and nose, with Murdock’s big brown eyes and smile, framed by beautiful wispy
brown hair. Face could see easily
imagine them as teenagers, boys flocking to them like moths to flames. Of course, he could also imagine Murdock
standing at the front gate with a baseball bat, ready to threaten any boy who
wanted to date either of his precious little girls. BA would be there as well, of course, growling in the background,
ready to meet any boy who managed to survive Murdock’s initial interrogations.
Where he’d be through all this, he wasn’t
sure.
He sipped his drink.
Single, probably. Alone. It seemed like his
destiny. Every time he…
No.
Shaking his head, he slipped his hand into his pocket, his fingers
curling around his cell phone. Maybe he
could just…
No.
He withdrew his hand, and ran it through his
hair with a sigh.
Family.
It was the one thing he had wanted for as long as he could
remember. He had wanted a family, any
family, just as long as they took him home with them and didn’t let him
go. But that hadn’t happened. All those years at the orphanage and that
hadn’t happened. No one had wanted
him. No one had loved him.
Every Christmas he would sit in front of the
nativity and just stare at the scene.
Stare at the figure of the Holy Virgin Mary, in particular. At the way she held the infant Jesus in her
arms. At the way she smiled. At the way she seemed to protect the infant
from the world outside the stable door.
And then slightly behind them, Joseph stood, proud and protective. Ready
to defend his family at any cost.
As a boy, this was how he had always thought it
would be. How it should be. He wondered if his mother had ever held him
like that. He wondered if his father
had ever felt that proud. He wondered
if it was even possible.
Bancroft had certainly shattered that
illusion. His father hadn’t wanted him
as a child and he hadn’t wanted him as an adult. Nothing ever changed.
That had been an odd Christmas. It had been an extremely strange
thanksgiving, but in some ways an even odder Christmas. At least Hannibal had managed to get Frankie
out the way, so it had been just the four of them as usual. Other wise Frankie would have spent the
entire Christmas complaining that he couldn’t be with his father. Face wasn’t sure he could have handled
that. After all, at least Frankie had a
father who loved him. At least Frankie had a family. Frankie didn’t know just how lucky he was.
He sipped his drink.
Murdock had a family now too. Face had been there when the twins were
born, had seen the look on Murdock’s face when he had first held his little
girls. Pride, wonder and love.
Many people wouldn’t consider Murdock to be good
father material, but he was a great father: attentive, dependable, loving,
willing to change dirty diapers. Face
would have given anything to have a father like that. Even if Murdock had given his children perfectly good names, and
had then insisted on Dixie and Trixie as nicknames. Double Trouble.
Sometimes Face wondered how or why Kelly put up
with the pilot. Maybe it was because
she loved him. And Murdock loved her
back.
Face took another sip of his drink.
Looking at Murdock and Kelly and their girls,
at BA and his mama, at Hannibal and Maggie, Face couldn’t help but feel
alone. Every year in the past few he
had turned up alone. Why? It wasn’t because he had no one to
invite. He had plenty of people, of
girls he could invite. Last year it would have been Jennifer, the year before
Amanda, the year before that Sarah, or would it have been Suzi? Not that it mattered. Girls still breezed almost anonymously through
his life, just like they had when they’d been on the run. None of them seemed, well, important enough
to invite. And anyone who might have
been special enough to invite…
He fingered his cell phone again before quickly
pulling his hand out his pocket.
It was like rest of his life really. Not really all that important. He had his girls, his car, his playboy
lifestyle mingling with the rich and famous.
But when he compared it to Murdock’s circumstances…. Murdock had meaning in his life. Murdock had a purpose, a family, a job he
loved. But what did he have? A smart apartment, a fancy car and no one to
come home to. Although, he had no one
but himself to blame there. Because
every time he faced the possibility of having something more, something
permanent, he always seemed to somehow end up back here at Christmas, alone.
“You look all lonely over here, Templeton.”
He looked up to find BA’s mama now standing
beside him. Pulling himself together,
he flashed her one of his usual smiles, but it faded as he realised she could
see straight through it.
“I’m fine,” he replied.
“You don’t look fine,” she told him. “In fact, you look like you need someone to
talk to. Anything an old woman can help
you with?”
He smiled at that. “You’re not old,” he pointed out.
“But?” She waited.
He sighed again, but didn’t reply. Instead he looked across at where the twins
were crawling onto Murdock’s lap.
“They’re beautiful girls, aren’t they?” Mrs B
said after a pause.
Face nodded, taking another sip from his drink.
“Maggie and Kelly and Scooter’s Dionne,” she
continued. “Christmas is getting
positively hectic.”
Face glanced at her, knowing what was coming
next.
“But what about you, Templeton? Why are you here?”
He blinked at that, surprised by the
question.
“I…”
“Oh, I don’t mean that in a bad way,
Templeton. It’s just, you look as if
there’s something, or should I say, someone on your mind. Like your heart’s somewhere else. It’s easy to do the same things over and
over again, make excuses for staying the same.
It’s harder to change, to take a chance. Isn’t it?”
He looked at her, his fingers once more curling
around the cell phone in his pocket.
“So what happened?” she asked.
He hadn’t intended to answer her
truthfully. He was going to just make
something up, but his mouth seemed to open and the words fell out. “We had an argument,” he said. Then hesitated.
Mrs B said nothing and suddenly he felt like
trying to explain it to someone.
He sighed.
“We had a big fight, two weeks ago.
She wanted to spend Christmas with me.
I told her… well, I told her that it wouldn’t be possible, that I was
spending it with, you know…” he motioned to the rest of the room.
Mrs B nodded.
“What did she do?”
“She, uh, she took it the wrong way. She thought I was ashamed of her, or
something, that I didn’t think she was worth introducing to, uh, to my family.”
“And are you?
Ashamed of her?”
“No.”
He shook his head.
“So what was the problem?”
“I, uh, I don’t know,” he admitted. “I just… it just seemed like a big
step. You know, introducing her to everyone
and all that. Would have meant that it
was… serious.” His voice trailed off as
the realisation finally dawned on him.
“I guess you’re right,” he sighed.
“I just didn’t want to take the chance.”
Mrs B smiled.
“Then tell her that,” she advised.
“Call her. It’s obvious that
you’re not happy. Tell her what you’ve
told me. Find out what she feels about
you. You’ll never know if you don’t,
and trust me, you’ll spend the rest of your life wondering what would have
happened had you talked to her.”
Face sipped at his drink, his other hand still
curled around his phone.
She placed a hand on his arm. “Do what your heart tells you,
Templeton. You might be surprised.”
He watched as she walked back to join the
others.
Do what his heart told him.
He’d never been in a serious, serious
relationship before. Well, apart from
Leslie, and that had been a long time ago.
In truth it scared him. Scared
him a lot.
“Hey, muchacho, you okay over there?”
He looked up as Murdock called. Murdock who had one daughter climbing onto
his back, while the other scrambling onto his lap. Murdock who had a huge grin on his face. Murdock, who had taken a risk. Murdock who had… everything.
“Hey, Face, where you going?”
“To make a call,” he replied, pulling his phone
out his pocket as he went into the other room.
“To make a call.”
*-*-*
