Christmas Pie Read online

  “Polly, dear, please don’t scold me.”

  “Scold you?” Polly stared at her mother, hurt gobbling up anger and fear in her bosom.

  Lillian looked contrite, and Polly’s heart constricted painfully. “Oh, Mother, I don’t mean to scold you. I was just so frightened to see you trying to walk. You need to preserve your strength. You know what Dr. van Pelt said.”

  “Dr. van Pelt said there was no harm in trying, dear. I was only trying.”

  Quickly, Polly slid to the floor and knelt before her mother, taking her hands in hers. Her mother was so dear to Polly. It broke her heart to see her this way: shattered in heart and body. Oh, Lillian MacNamara put on a brave front, but Polly knew how much she suffered.

  Of all the married couples Polly had ever seen in her life, her parents had been the happiest. They’d done everything together. Polly still felt guilty because she used to envy them their closeness. Now she would give anything to have her father back again.

  The parlor was warm from the fire crackling in the hearth, and gas lamps glowed around them. The upcoming Thanksgiving holiday had inspired Polly to decorate the room with bronze and yellow chrysanthemums from Mother Francis Mary’s own garden. Splashes of rusty reflection bathed the room in a toasty golden aura which, under different circumstances, might have warmed Polly’s heart. Right now, though, her heart held only the chilliness of hurt and sorrow.

  “I didn’t mean to yell at you, Mother.” Now that her terror had subsided, Polly felt foolish for having reacted so strongly. “I merely would rather you waited until I came home from work before you tried to get out of your wheelchair. Then, if you have any trouble, I’ll be here to help you.”

  “Oh, Polly, please don’t be cross with me. I know you only mean the best.”

  Polly nodded, unable to speak for the moment. She squeezed her mother’s hand.

  Mrs. MacNamara’s voice was very soft when she said, “Every now and then, though, dear, I like to try something on my own.”

  Swallowing the lump in her throat, Polly tried to subdue an unexpected itch of irritation. “I know that, Mother. I just don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

  Mrs. MacNamara sighed. “You know, Polly, sometimes I think it suits you to have an invalid mother.”

  “What?”

  “I’m not being unkind, Polly. Not intentionally. But you’re a young, pretty girl. You should be out and about, not shut away in here with me.”

  “But Mother, I don’t mind. Truly, I don’t—”

  “That’s what troubles me, Polly.” Mrs. MacNamara carefully pushed herself up from the chair. Polly immediately leapt up and began to support her.

  “I’m sorry, dear. You’re the best daughter a mother could ever want. I guess I feel guilty about you. I know I feel guilty about you, in fact.”

  If there was one thing Polly did not want from anyone, particularly her mother, it was sympathy. “There’s certainly no need to feel sorry for me, Mother. You and Father kept me well in the fat years. In the lean years, the least I can do is take care of you.” Her voice sounded more sharp than she’d intended.

  Another sigh saw Polly’s mother to her wheelchair, where she sat with resignation. “I’m not so sure of that, dear. I often think Franklin and I were so happy together that we neglected you and Stephen shamefully. I worry that you’ve withdrawn from the world because you finally have your mother to yourself and you’re not about to be abandoned again.”

  Her mother’s words were so very nearly true, and Polly was so ashamed of the truth, that denial rose hot and repentant to her tongue. “No, Mother! How can you even think such a thing, much less say it? You and Father were always wonderful to us. Stephen and I—well, we never wanted for anything.”

  Memories of her brother and herself in the care of Cousin George’s mother Grace struck Polly as she pushed her mother’s chair into the dining room. She recalled the birthdays, Easters, Thanksgivings and Christmases she and Stephen had shared with Grace and George, reading cheerful messages from their parents sent from faraway, exotic places.

  Stephen always held Polly’s hand and assured her that they were the two luckiest children in the world to have such interesting parents. And their parents loved them dearly, too, Stephen used to declare. Why, did a birthday ever pass without at least a message if Mother and Father couldn’t be there in person? They even telephoned, when they could. Now, how many other children received telephone calls from their parents? How many other children had gifts of exotic toys, strange ornaments, odd-tasting condiments and fancy silks from the Orient to show their friends?

  Polly was fifteen years old before she realized other children didn’t receive exotic gifts and telephone calls because they were blessed with parents who weren’t always darting off and leaving them. Yet she couldn’t fault her parents. They had loved their children in the only way they knew how. Polly understood such things now.

  She also knew, although she didn’t want to admit it, that her mother was right about her. It had taken a horrible tragedy and a wrenching loss, but Polly’s mother was with her now. Never again would Polly celebrate birthdays and holidays alone. Guilt made her knuckles whiten as her fingers clenched the wheelchair.

  Her heart ached. First her father and now Stephen. What a selfish, miserable girl she was to have resented her parents’ closeness. Although she knew better, Polly couldn’t help but wonder if her greedy childish wishes might have somehow caused these tragedies. Perhaps her hopes had been captured by a mischievous devil who’d thrown them back in her face.

  Polly dragged her thoughts out of the sucking pit of remorse. She knew better than most people that remorse counted for naught in this world of prosaic, everyday duties and dull responsibility.

  Oh, but she missed Stephen, though, every minute of every day. She pressed her medals unconsciously and that wished Stephen could be with them now. If only word would come. If they could only know what happened. Not knowing was so difficult.

  # # #

  James stared at the mottling on his father’s thick neck and wondered if such choler was good for the old man’s heart. Almost at once he was smitten by the cynical thought that he probably needn’t worry, having been offered thus far in his life no reason to suspect his father of possessing such an organ of benevolence.

  Schooling his face to betray none of his emotions—James knew from bitter experience that J. P. Drayton pounced on any hint of emotion—he tried to keep his voice level when he responded to his father’s insane proposition.

  Insane? No. James knew better. Shrewd, is what it was. The old man would try anything to get James back into his orbit, to shove him once more under his blasted, tyrannical thumb. But James was too smart for him this time. It had taken years to wriggle out from under old J. P.’s thumb. James would be damned and crucified before he’d willingly submit to its crushing pressure again.

  “I can’t imagine why you’d want my firm to represent you, Father. I should think you’d prefer a firm more intimately acquainted with the ins and outs of the shipping business.”

  “About which, you have taken great pains to learn nothing.”

  James said, “Absolutely nothing,” in as neutral a voice as he could manage. A small—virtually invisible—smile dragged at the corners of his lips. If only the old man knew.

  Not for the world and everything in it would James reveal the depth of his knowledge of shipping and J. P. Drayton’s business enterprises. Not to J. P. Drayton, he wouldn’t, at any rate. Such a revelation would be tantamount to admitting to a weakness, and the old man could smell weakness an ocean away. Like a truffle pig in a mossy forest.

  No. More appropriately, like a vulture scenting carrion, old J. P. sniffed out weakness. And once he sniffed it, the sufferer was dead meat. J. P. was the most ruthless man in America if everything James knew and read about him was correct. Hell, the old man prided himself on the attribute.

  The purple mottling on his father’s thick neck deepened with James’s
two brief words. He seemed almost to vibrate as he stood before his son, his ham-like fists pressed against the finely polished mahogany of James’s expensive desk. His breath scraped audibly through his constricted throat.

  “Proud of yourself, aren’t you, James?” J. P.’s diamond-hard eyes glittered.

  Mercifully, James could not recall the last time he’d seen his father this angry; although, his sore heart acknowledged, those times were legion. James knew he was a bitter disappointment to the old man.

  On the alert, he chose his words carefully. “I’ve worked very hard to make my business succeed, Father. And, yes, I am proud of its success.” He couldn’t quite maintain his gaze on his father’s face when he added, “And every one of the dollars that went into the millions I now oversee was earned honestly. Nor did it seem necessary to crush the spines of weaker creatures as I climbed the ladder of success.”

  Although he was prepared for something of the sort, the ringing slap of his father’s hand on his desk made James jump. “Damn it, boy, you make it sound like I’m some sort of ogre! Business is business, damn it! I can’t be held accountable for every idiot whose business failed in the thirty years it’s taken me to get where I am.”

  With an enormous sigh, James recognized the refrain of an ancient, acrid argument. It was the oldest, sourest argument in his life, which spanned the same thirty years of which his father spoke. He decided to stand, too. Not only would it give him a tactical advantage since he was, after all, slightly taller than his father, but perhaps it might speed the old man on his way. James wanted to go home and read something. Something funny. Something to get the sour taste of this confrontation out of his mouth and mind.

  “Of course, Father,” he said wearily. “You’re not responsible for the idiots. Nor are you responsible for the widows and orphans created when your ships, pushed beyond the bounds of sanity and improper maintenance, sank in rough seas. Or the poor souls whose assets you gobbled up when you wouldn’t give an inch on a mortgage or a loan. Or the thousands of Chinese girls kidnapped and sold into slavery by the soulless men you hired to captain your ships. You’re not responsible for any of those things.”

  He gave his father a thin, tight grin. “I believe we established that fact a long time ago.”

  “Damn it, boy, you don’t know what it was like for me.” J. P. Drayton shoved himself away from the desk and gave James his back. The gesture didn’t surprise J. P.’s son.

  What did surprise him was the sight of his father’s beefy hand lifting and raking through his still-thick, salt-and-pepper hair as though the old man were distressed. James couldn’t recall another single time when J. P. had given so much of himself away. It was an effort to keep his kind heart from flinching, but James knew J. P. Drayton too well to dare believe the one tiny gesture meant much of anything. He did, however, narrow his eyes and watch his father closely.

  “I had nothing. Nothing. You don’t know what it’s like to have nothing, James, but I do.”

  J. P. turned with a jerk and pinned his son with a granite green gaze. James, who knew his father’s methods, did not so much as blink.

  “I had to scrape for everything. Everything. You vilify me for being unscrupulous, boy, but you don’t know the half of it. You don’t know the obstacles I faced. You call me unscrupulous!”

  J. P. paused, a circumstance which allowed James to murmur a gentle, “Yes, I do.”

  His father harrumphed. “Well, if you think I’m a scoundrel, you ought to have seen the men I was up against.”

  All at once James was sick of this. It was a conversation he and his father had engaged in over and over again through the years. Nothing in it ever changed. The words were the same. The emotions were the same. The results were the same. Only now, in James’s elegant Montgomery street law offices with the trappings of his own success all about them, his father’s words rang more hollow than James could ever remember.

  “I have no doubt, nor have I ever professed any doubt, that you overcame monstrous obstacles, Father. God knows, you’ve regaled me with them often enough. And I know my own business philosophy has always struck you as weak and addle pated. Nevertheless, I still maintain that two wrongs don’t make a right. And I’ll tell you this, Father, and honestly, that if I’d found it necessary to grind my fellow men under my heels the way you did in order to achieve success, I would be a poor man today.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake!” J. P. sounded disgusted.

  All at once, James decided to take a different tack with his parent. Although he knew the words would be useless, he said, “Why don’t you make up for some of that now, Father. Why don’t you direct one of your Pacific ships to search for the U.S.S. China Seas? It vanished somewhere near the Philippines. Just think of all the wonderful publicity you’d get. Why, people might even begin to think of you as a philanthropist.” James’s smile felt more like a sneer than anything else, and he was almost ashamed of himself for it.

  His father only glared at him. James knew he wasn’t through, though. J. P. would never, ever allow James the last word, no matter what the conversation. James suspected his father would go to his grave before he admitted he’d ever been wrong to wrest his wealth away from his competitors by the heartless methods he’d employed over the years.

  Before J. P. could say a word, a sharp rap came on James’s office door. Surprised, James turned toward the door in time to see it creak open.

  Then, as if some cheerful godlet had decided the atmosphere in the room was too grim to be tolerated another second longer, a huge hound’s long, long nose appeared. Snuffling loudly and wrinkling expressively, the nose hugged the carpet. It was followed by a pair of ridiculous ears, one standing at attention and the other flopped over, as if the dog were sending signals via semaphore to a ship lost at sea. Between the ears sat two eyes, the likes of which James had never seen. The beast boasted four enormous paws of a different color, being one each brown, white, black, and spotted.

  James suspected he could count the animal’s ribs if he’d been so inclined. The bony torso was held aloft on legs too long for beauty and too knobby for grace. The dog’s overall coloring was, he guessed, whitish, but one of those silly eyes was black and the other brown. Twin wavy lines of black and brown followed the hound’s spine to terminate in a whip-like tail held aloft, a proud period to an otherwise disreputable being.

  J. P. Drayton stared at the hound, speechless.

  James said, dryly, “Raymond?”

  Raymond Sing peered around the door jamb, a sheepish smile on his face.

  “Do you mind, James? The poor thing was starving to death. It followed me from the orphanage and I couldn’t make myself—” Raymond spied J. P. Drayton and stopped speaking, horrified. “Oh, Lord, James, I’m sorry. I had no idea—”

  “It’s all right, Raymond.” James actually was rather grateful for the distraction.

  “Another of your strays, boy?” J. P. Drayton’s voice was as dry as year-old toast.

  “Looks to be,” said James, unaffected by his father’s sarcasm.

  Peering at the hound and then at Raymond with withering distaste, J. P. said, “I’ll say this for you, boy, nobody would ever guess. You’ve done an admirable job of hiding your damned eccentricities from the business community.”

  For the first time since his parent’s arrival, James smiled. “I have, haven’t I?”

  With another grimace for the dog, J. P. slapped his shiny black bowler hat on his head. “Damn it, James, I know you’re not a fool. I didn’t raise you to be a damned fool!”

  “Thank you, Father.”

  With an enormous snort, J. P. Drayton stormed out of his son’s office, having uttered not a word to Raymond Sing. The words, “Damned strays and wastrels,” drifted back into the office before the door slammed shut.

  “I’m really sorry, James.”