The Happiest Season (3 page)

He glanced heavenward, but then dropped his head again,
resting his chin on his hands.  “Um, well, God, it’s just…”  He gave a sigh.  “Okay,
well, I’ll just come out and say it.  God, I asked you for a daddy and…”  He
shook his head.  “And you sent me a
camel
…”

***

Maggie padded silently down the stairs and to the family
room.  She glanced at the adjoining kitchen and sighed.  It was a mess, with
empty baking sheets stacked beside the sink, and ingredients strewn all over
the island.  Since Rickey had helped her with the baking, before the arrival of
their unwanted guest, there was sugar and flour on nearly every nearby surface.

The broken plate was still
lying in shards on the floor.

As much as she would have preferred leaving the mess for
morning, she got to work cleaning up.  She just couldn’t bring herself to leave
dirty dishes for morning.  There was something about waking to a tidy kitchen
that always seemed to set her day right.

Well, for the last two years, her days had lost their
‘rightness’—regardless of the condition of her kitchen.  Losing Shane when he
was only thirty-three had been a blow she wasn’t sure she would ever recover
from. 

When he’d been injured on his job as a lineman, and she’d
received the phone call alerting her to his accident, she had nearly collapsed
from the shock.  He hadn’t been electrocuted, nor had he fallen from the dizzying
height of a telephone pole—her worst fears—but instead had been struck by a
passing motorist.  The drunk driver had veered off the roadway, striking him as
he’d climbed down a pole.  He’d been killed on impact. 

When she saw the image in her mind’s eye, she still couldn’t
bear it.  She shook her head vigorously, to eject the painful memory.  How was
she ever going to deal with the loss of her sweet, kind-hearted husband, a man
who had loved her and Rickey so well during their few years together? 

Even tonight, when she saw the camel in her backyard, her
first inclination had been to call for Shane.  He would have known exactly what
to do, just as he had always known what to do in any situation.  He would have
laughed, of course, but he would have then taken swift and decisive action.  That
kicking camel wouldn’t have stood a chance against her husband.

Lord knew, she missed Shane with her whole heart.  She was
about to face her second Christmas without him.  The holiday season had always
been his favorite time of the year.  He was all about traditions—observing old
ones and making new ones with his young family.   

They had known a happiness together she feared she couldn’t
possibly find again.  And even if it were possible, she wasn’t sure she was willing
to try. 

With a sigh, she left the kitchen and dropped onto the
loveseat in the family room.  She tipped her head back and moved it from
side-to-side. 

If it hadn’t been for Rickey—and a deeply ingrained
faith—she didn’t know if she could have gone on after losing Shane.  Her little
boy had just turned three when he passed.  She wondered if he would retain any
memories of his father, after having lost him at such a tender age.

Shane loved his son, with everything in him.  Her heart
broke anew remembering the dreams they’d had for their little family—a family
that they had desperately wanted to expand.  Only now, she wouldn’t have any
other children with her beloved husband.

Maggie took a shoring breath.  She refused to cry.  Looking
back at all the crying she had done in the months since his death, it was a
wonder she had any tears left.  But when one slid down her cheek, and then
another, she knew she had plenty more in her.

***

John arrived back at the station around two-thirty in the
morning, having nearly finished his twelve-hour swing shift.  It had been a
relatively slow night, though it hadn’t been without its highlights.  Finding
himself face to face with a hungry and volatile camel had been a first for him.

He strode into one of the offices the road cops shared with
one another and laid claim to a desk.  He settled his laptop in front of him,
intending to complete a couple reports before he left for home.

Home.

He just couldn’t envision the small apartment he was
residing in as home.  Home had been the large two-story he’d shared with his
wife of ten years—a home the two had had built according to a plan they had
chosen together.  They’d worked together on every aspect of their dream home. 

Of course, he hadn’t banked on his wife falling for the
architect they’d worked closely with over the course of his final year in the
home.  They had decided to add on a large, family room, as well as a second
story office, and the architect had assisted them in the planning.

He’d certainly had no idea how
close
his wife had
become to the man, until he’d arrived home from an overtime shift at work, to
find his suitcases packed for him, and waiting just outside the front door.

He still shook his head at the memory—his wife ousting him
from their house, without preamble—informing him in a voice devoid of emotion
that she had fallen in love with someone else.

Remembering that early morning, he could still recall the
crisp chill in the air, the sunny haze that promised the day would soon warm
up, and the cheerful chirping of the birds in the nearby trees.  His life had
been shattered on a perfect spring day.

He laughed at the absurdity of his life.  He was thirty-four
years old and living in an apartment the size of a postage stamp, while his
wife and her new husband were living in the home he’d built. 

Looking back, he probably should have fought her—fought
for
her—but he’d been so blindsided by the sudden turn of events in his life, he’d
been in a fog.  But perhaps deep inside he’d understood that fighting for her
would have been to no avail.  Kim was perhaps the most stubborn woman he’d ever
met.  Talking her out of anything was akin to trying to talk that camel out of
kicking the back of Maggie’s house.

A slow smile tugged at John’s lips.  He suddenly envisioned
that camel in the backyard of his former home, kicking the daylights out of the
perfectly painted siding with the crisp trim.  He saw Kim’s face—contorted in
rage—as he imagined her chasing the beast around the yard.

Who was he kidding?  The camel wouldn’t have stood a chance
against his ex.  Kim would have taken his service revolver and blasted the
animal to kingdom come.

Maggie, on the other hand, had seemed to take the whole,
ridiculous situation in stride.  She managed to see the humor, maintaining a
relatively cool head for her little boy.  He wondered, was she married? 

The errant thought startled him.  He hadn’t looked at a
woman since Kim divorced him, probably because he viewed the female gender in
the same way he’d view a cobra—dangerous and ready to strike.  He had to concede,
Kim had hurt him deeply—cut him to the quick, really.  When he’d married her,
it was with the intent of spending a lifetime with her.

His parents had instilled sound values in him.  He supposed
his mistake was thinking his wife had embraced the same values. 

He’d known they were opposites.  Every one of his friends
and family members had pointed out to him how different he and Kim were from
one another.  He was solid, quiet, and steady, her—volatile, boisterous, and
prone to flights of fancy.  He’d always told himself that they balanced one
another out. 

He should have listened to the words of warning from well-meaning
people around him.  He should have listened to his sister and brother, both of
whom had taken him aside and offered counsel.  They’d seen something in Kim he
hadn’t.  They hadn’t gone so far as to call her selfish, but had intimated as
much.

With a sigh, he sat back in his chair.  Was Maggie anything
like his ex?  Something told him, no, she was not. 

He gave his head a swift shake.  What was he doing
speculating about Maggie?  Suddenly, he recalled seeing a gold band on her ring
finger.  She was married.  He had no business thinking about her at all.  As a
Christian, he lived by firmly entrenched principles, and fixating on another
man’s wife certainly went against his belief system.

He was relieved when a couple of his coworkers entered the
large office, laughing and joking with one another.  Their arrival pulled his
thoughts to more neutral territory.

He didn’t notice that one of his friends had something
behind his back, until he pulled it out with a theatrical flourish.  “Thought
you might like to have this to commemorate your evening,” Steve said, with a
twinkle in his eye.

John shook his head and chuckled.  “How did you have time to
buy that?”

“Hey, stores are open late for the holidays.  I called my
wife, and…  Ta da!”  He set a toy camel on John’s desk. 

John lifted it up and studied it briefly, before returning
it to the desk.  “Never thought I’d see one of them up close and personal,” he
related.

“Any idea how it got in the woman’s backyard?” the other
officer, Jeff, asked.

“She has a gate that backs up to a park behind her house. 
It happens the park backs up to a field adjoining a church, where the live
nativity scene is set up.”

Jeff nodded.  “Yeah, my wife and I always take our kids over
to see the animals every Christmas season.”

“I wonder what possessed that camel to venture into that
particular backyard?” Steve said.

John gave a shrug.  “The woman who lives there was baking
cookies.  The camel seemed fairly adamant that she feed it the whole batch.”

The officers laughed.  “Well, here’s hoping the camel stays
put from here on out.  If it wanders into the wrong yard, it’s liable to get
shot.”

John conceded the point with a nod, and then rose from his
desk.  “I’m heading home.”

“Don’t forget your camel,” Jeff said.

John smiled ruefully.  “Thanks.” 

He didn’t miss the curious looks from the few support staff
still on duty at the late hour, as he walked past carrying the toy camel.  He lifted
the camel and gave a wave with it, while they chuckled in response. 

When he arrived home, he entered the small apartment with a
weary sigh.  He set the camel on the dinette table, and gave another rueful
smile.  As he headed for his bedroom to shed his uniform and take a quick
shower in the master bath, he realized he was wide awake.  Normally, he went to
bed within moments of arriving home, but he just wasn’t feeling tired now.

He took a shower and was about to head downstairs to watch
television, but remembered his small digital camera in his shirt pocket.  He
retrieved it and crossed the room to a small computer desk.  He sat down and
promptly loaded the photos onto a file and then viewed them.

He couldn’t help smiling at the photos of the camel.  In one,
it regarded him face to face, as if sizing him up.  When he’d tossed it a
cookie little Rickey had given him, the camel appeared to actually smile in
gratitude. 

The rest of the photos showed the handler leading the camel
out of the yard and presumably back to the nativity scene.  John had made sure
to latch the gate when they’d left.  He smiled as he recalled the little boy
passing him a cookie afterward.  “This one is for you,” he had told him.

For whatever reason, that little kid tugged at his
heartstrings.  He couldn’t figure out why, other than if he was being honest
with himself, when he envisioned himself a father to a son, the kid was the
spitting image of the little boy he saw in his mind’s eye.  The kid really
could have been his, with his dark hair and brown eyes. 

He furrowed his brow.  The boy’s father had to be dark,
since his mother was petite and fair-haired.  She was also blue-eyed and
beautiful and he couldn’t seem to get the picture of her smiling face out of
his mind. 

He eased back in the chair and groaned, lifting his hands to
either side of his head.  He ran his hands through his hair, sighing at the
feeling of emptiness that seemed to invade his heart.  He knew he was being
ridiculous, but something about the woman and her child had him pining for a
family of his own.  Had his life continued according to plan—his plan—he would
already be a father to a child or even two.  If only Kim hadn’t shattered his
dreams.  If only she’d meant her vows when she’d said them.

He sighed and rose from the chair, eyeing the photos of the
camel again.  No doubt the little boy was eager to receive them.  He’d promised
to deliver them, and he intended to fulfill that promise.

When Maggie’s doorbell rang early afternoon the next day,
she was struggling to finish up a long list of household chores.  She hurried
to answer the door.  She found her coworker Gloria on her small porch, her arms
leaden with goodies.

“Hi there,” Maggie greeted her with a warm smile.        

“We missed you last night,” Gloria said, her voice holding a
mock-reproving tone.

Maggie stepped aside and gestured her in.  “I know.  I’m
sorry.  But things got a little crazy around here last night.”