New Story: Ghosts of Christmas Past (Part 1)

Merry Christmas to all of you that celebrate it, and Happy Holidays to everyone else.

I have a The Adjusters Christmas Special for you this year. Three parts, pushed out over the next few days. Starting tonight. Enjoy.

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Ghosts of Christmas Past (Part 1)

(Christmas 2002)

Daniel Malcolm, all of twelve years old, was watching television, waiting for his mother to finish getting ready.

They were going to the family Christmas Eve at Aunt Selma’s, and he was ambivalent about it.

He liked his Aunt Selma, he liked his cousins, he liked opening gifts. He liked Christmas, because he was a kid, and every kid likes Christmas.

But Christmas also reminded him of his father, who had loved the Holiday season, and anything that reminded him of his father made him sad.

Not sad in a cry-your-eyes-out way, but that sadness that hooked in the pit of one’s stomach and shifted everything from colorful to gray.

The television was set on a channel running through old seventies and eighties sitcoms—there was nothing else playing on Christmas Eve but that and Christmas specials, the good old ones and the weird new ones.

In the corner of the living room stood the Christmas tree, heavy with the familiar decorations that he always remembered. This year, Gerald and his son Sam had helped put them up. It was a natural tree, and its fir smell permeated the room, making it impossible to ignore.

He could hear his mother moving about in the bathroom, and Gerald in the kitchen arguing with his son about something that Daniel cared nothing about.

The television was showing an old sitcom from the eighties, Family Ties. Daniel enjoyed it. He had caught a few episodes already, and while a lot of it went over his head—they kept talking about old stuff he knew nothing about—who was Reagan—he understood the bickering between the sibling and the love between the parents and everyone. He watched it rapturously.

He tried not to think about Gerald in the kitchen. Gerald was his mother’s boyfriend. They had met earlier that year at the hospital where his mother worked. He was also a doctor, though not a surgeon like his mother. He was old, he was a dad, and he was divorced. Which meant that his wife had left him. Or that he had left his wife. Daniel was not sure, and he did not want to ask. His son, Sam, was younger than Daniel, and a complete brat.

On the television, the brother in the family, Alex, was hanging out at his school with a pretty blonde girl, and they were doing grown up stuff. It was not as interesting as usual—he preferred the episodes where Alex and his sister argued. Those were funny.

He suppresses a groan when Sam, small, bushy dark hair, thick glasses on his nose, stomped into the room and jumped on the couch next to Daniel. “What’cha watchin’?”

“Just a show.”

“Looks old.”

“It is.”

Sam fidgeted for a few minutes, while on the screen the brother Alex was hanging out with his new blonde friend. She was pretty, Daniel observed the more he looked at her. Long blonde hair, a friendly smile. He had just started to notice that girls were, well, maybe slightly more interesting than they had been before.

“I’d bone her,” Sam said suddenly, and Daniel was astonished. He was not entirely sure what boning was, but it had to do with sex, he knew, and he was pretty sure that Sam had no idea what he was saying.

“What?”

“The girl. I’d bone her.”

“What are you talking about?”

Sam was bouncing in place, the hyperactive little runt.

“It’s what my dad does to your mom. He bones her. That’s what Frankie says at school.”

“Does not!”

“Does too! She’s a slut, Frankie says. That’s what you do to sluts, you bone them.”

Even though Sam was four years younger than he was, Daniel wanted to punch him. “That’s not true! Take it back!”

He hated how whiny he sounded. He was older than Sam, more mature. Who cared what a little boy barely out of diapers said? “You don’t know nothing. You’re a stupid kid.”

“Slut! Slut! Slut! Boning the slut!” Sam was bouncing on the couch. On the television screen, Alex and the pretty girl were talking.

Daniel reached over and wrapped his arm around Sam’s neck and pulled him down. “Stop it!”

They wrestled for a while, Daniel older and stronger, Sam younger but without any restraint. They fell from the couch, Daniel never letting go, both of them missing the coffee table on their way down. Daniel flipped Sam around and pressed him down against the floor, resisting the impulse to rub his face against the rug. “Take it back!”

“BOYS!” Gerald irrupted into the living room. “Cut it out! Please!”

Daniel let Sam go, and the younger boy crawled away, tears in his eyes. “He started it, dad!” Sam started crying, rubbing his arm and his face.

Daniel grunted, and pressed his back against the couch, staring at the television. On the screen, Alex was at a party, at his school or something.

“Go get cleaned up, Sam,” Gerald said.

“But daaaad…”

“Now.”

Sam stomped off. Gerald watched him go, then stood for a moment before dropping down on the couch. Daniel was still on the ground, stubbornly watching the television set. Alex was talking to the pretty blonde again, at the party.

“I’m sorry about Sam, Daniel,” said Gerald after a while. He always called him Daniel, the way he wanted to be called. Only his father had the right to call him Dan. And he never would again.

Gerald sighed, and from the corner of his eye, Daniel could see that the older man looked tired, for a moment. “Hey, Family Ties,” he said. “I used to love that show. There’s that bit, where Alex completes a thought by… what’s her name? Mallory? She goes ‘It’s like that little voice in my head that says…’ — ‘Man, you can see for miles from here.’ Gets me every time.” He laughed softly to himself. “Pure comedic timing. The guy’s a genius.”

There was a longer pause. “I’m sorry about what Sam said.”

“It’s okay,” Daniel responded quietly.

“No it’s not. But I appreciate your patience with him. And he deserved what he got.” A pause, as they watched the television. Alex and the blonde girl were dancing, and there was music playing in the background, the kind of music that his mother liked, the kind that sometimes put sadness in her eyes.

“He thinks he can get away with stuff. And maybe I’m too soft on him. He thinks I don’t notice, or maybe he does. I don’t know. I’ll talk to him. I’ll make it better. I promise.”

Daniel had no response. He did not care—though at the same time, he did.

Gerald kept talking, his eyes on the television along with Daniel’s. “I can only imagine how hard it is for you, with me and Sam here. I don’t know how to say this. I’m not good at talking about this sort of stuff. But I’m not here to replace your dad, Daniel. And I don’t want to. It’s like no one can replace Shelley.”

On the television screen, Alex and the pretty blonde were kissing, and it made Daniel feel all weird inside.

“And I can’t replace your dad for your mother either, Daniel. I want you to know that. I’m not taking his place.”

Aren’t you? thought Daniel, but he said nothing.

“True love is marvelous,” Gerald continued after watching the screen, as the blonde girl left. Alex looked upset. Daniel did not know why. He had lost the thread of the story. “When you have that, nothing else really matters.”

The way he said it made Daniel pause.

“Do you love her?” he said finally. Whether Gerald expected the question or not, he seemed to take it seriously.

“Your mother is a good woman, Daniel. And I care an awful lot about her. And I think—no, I know—I can do good by her. And I think she can do good by me. But it’s not going to be easy. For any of us. But I’m willing to make an effort. I’m willing to meet you halfway, if you’re on board.”

Daniel remained silent, watching the credits of the show. And listening to Gerald.

“I miss having a family, Daniel. Miss it an awful lot. And I’m hoping you guys are too.” His voice trailed off.

“You’re not going to replace him,” Daniel said in a low voice.

“I couldn’t even if I wanted to. And I don’t want to. I’m my own person. I’ll screw up in wholly distinct ways, believe me.”

“What are you two plotting?” Daniel’s mother stepped into the arch of the living room, decked in a beautiful dress that Daniel had never seen before. And he knew—without understanding how he knew—that she had worn it for Gerald.

“Gosh, you look beautiful,” said Gerald, and his voice conveyed admiration and—yes, love. And Daniel saw the smile light up his mother’s face, as Gerald stood to go and hug her.

Daniel felt that ambivalence again, wanting to like Gerald but hating him at the same time, and he wondered what his dad—his real dad, the only dad he ever wanted—would have thought about all of this were he still alive, how he would have reacted.

And as he watched his mother and Gerald hug and kiss, he knew. As his mother looked at Daniel with a tentative smile on her face, her eyes almost expectant, waiting for a reaction from him, he knew exactly what his dad would have said.

She’s happy. How bad can it be?

And if his mom was happy, who was he to destroy her world? He smiled at her, and her own smile beamed back at him with the strength of all the Christmas stars.

And in the living room of their house, there was a moment of happiness. A moment where Christmas for the first time in a long time felt like Christmas.

For a moment, Daniel’s world was whole.

Which did not make him miss his future stepbrother miming an obscene gesture looking at his mom and Gerald. For a moment, Daniel was happy. His revenge on the little runt would wait.