“How’s our little Olympic skater?” Roy asked Marissa. Sterling could tell he was trying his best to be pleasant, but Marissa wasn’t having any of it.
“Good,” she replied without a trace of enthusiasm.
Who is this guy? Sterling wondered. It can’t be her father. Maybe an uncle? The mother’s boyfriend?
“Fasten your seat belt, princess,” Roy cautioned in a too-cheery voice.
Honey pie? Princess? Olympic skater? This guy is embarrassing, Sterling thought.
Give me a break, Marissa sighed.
Startled, Sterling looked for Roy ’s reaction. There was none. Roy was staring straight ahead, paying rapt attention to the road. His hands were wrapped tightly around the steering wheel, and he was driving ten miles below the speed limit.
I could skate home faster, Marissa moaned.
Sterling was inordinately pleased to realize that he not only had the power to make himself visible to her on demand, but when he tuned in, he could read her thoughts as well. The Heavenly Council was obviously making certain tools and powers available to him, but leaving it up to him to discover their extent. They certainly weren’t going to make it easy for him.
He leaned back, aware that even though he was not there in the flesh, he nonetheless felt crowded and uncomfortable. He had had much the same reaction when he’d bumped into the woman at the skating rink.
The rest of the seven-minute ride home was spent mostly in silence, except for the radio, which was tuned to a station playing particularly bland music.
Marissa remembered the time she had switched the station in Daddy’s car to the one that played this stuff. He had said, “You’re kidding! Haven’t I given you any taste in music?”
“This is the station Roy listens to!” Marissa had cried triumphantly. They had laughed together.
“How your mother went from me to him I’ll never know,” Daddy had marveled.
So that’s it, Sterling thought. Roy is her stepfather. But where’s her father, and why, now that she’s thought about him, is she both sad and angry?
“ Roy went to pick her up. They should be here any minute, but I don’t think she’ll want to talk to you, Billy. I’ve tried to explain that it isn’t your fault that you and Nor have to stay away for a while, but she isn’t buying it.” Denise Ward was on her cordless phone, talking to Marissa’s father, her ex-husband, and trying to keep her two-year-old twin boys from pulling down the Christmas tree.
“I understand, but it’s killing me that-”
“Roy Junior, let go of that tinsel!” Denise interrupted, her voice rising. “Robert, leave the baby Jesus alone. I said… Hold on, Billy.”
Two thousand miles away, Billy Campbell’s concerned expression cleared for a moment. He was holding up the receiver so that his mother, Nor Kelly, could hear the conversation. Now he raised his eyebrows. “I think the baby Jesus just went flying across the room,” he whispered.
“Sorry, Billy,” Denise said, back on the phone. “Look, it’s pretty hectic here. The munchkins are all excited about Christmas. Maybe you’d better call back in fifteen minutes, even though it’s going to be a waste of time. Marissa just doesn’t want to talk to either you or Nor.”
“Denise, I know you’ve got your hands full,” Billy Campbell said quietly. “You have the packages we sent, but is there anything Marissa really needs? Maybe she’s talked about something special I could still get for her.”
He heard a loud crash and the sound of a wailing two-year-old.
“Oh my God, the Waterford angel,” Denise Ward nearly sobbed. “Don’t go near it, Robert. Do you hear me? You’ll get cut.” Her voice taut with anger, she snapped, “You want to know what Marissa needs, Billy? She needs you and Nor, and she needs both of you soon. I’m worried sick about her. Roy is too. He tries so hard with her, and she simply won’t respond.”
“How do you think I feel, Denise?” Billy asked, his voice rising. “I’d give my right arm to be with Marissa. My guts are torn out every day that I’m not with her. I’m grateful that Roy is there for her, but she’s my kid and I miss her.”
“I think of how lucky I am to have met a dependable man who has a nice steady job, who isn’t out till all hours playing with a rock group, and doesn’t get himself into situations where he has to hightail it out of town.” Denise did not pause for breath. “Marissa is hurting. Have you got that, Billy? Her birthday is in four days. Christmas Eve. I don’t know what she’ll be like when you’re not here for that. The child feels abandoned.”
Nor Kelly saw the expression of pain that came over her son’s face and watched as he clasped his hand over his forehead. Her ex-daughter-in-law was a good mother, but was nearing the end of her rope out of frustration with the situation. She wanted them back for Marissa’s sake, but would be frantic with worry that Marissa might be in danger if they were around.
“So, Billy, I’ll tell her you called. I’ve got to hang up. Oh, wait a minute. The car just pulled into the driveway. I’ll see if she’ll talk to you.”
A nice house, Sterling thought as he followed Marissa and Roy up the steps. Tudor style. Evergreens covered with blue lights. A small sleigh with Santa and the eight reindeer on the lawn. Everything pristine. He was sure Roy was a neatnik.
Roy unlocked the door and flung it open. “Where are my munchkins?” he called playfully. “Roy Junior, Robert, your daddy’s back.”
Sterling jumped aside as two identical sandy-haired toddlers raced toward them. He could see into the living room where a pretty blond woman, looking extremely harried, was holding a phone with no cord (obviously another innovation since Sterling ’s departure). She gestured to Marissa. “Your dad and NorNor want to talk to you very, very much,” she said.
Marissa walked into the living room, took the phone from her mother, and to Sterling ’s astonishment, replaced the receiver on the cradle, and, her eyes brimming with tears, ran upstairs.
Wow! Sterling thought.
He didn’t yet know what the problem was, but he empathized with the helpless glance Marissa’s mother exchanged with her husband. It looks as though I’ve got my work cut out for me, he decided. Marissa needs help now.
He followed Marissa up the stairs and knocked on the door of her room.
“Please leave me alone, Mom. I’m not hungry, and I don’t want to eat.”
“It’s not Mom, Marissa,” Sterling said.
He heard the lock turn, and the door opened slowly. Marissa’s eyes widened, and her woebegone expression changed to one of astonishment. “I saw you when I was skating and then when I got in the van,” she whispered. “But then I didn’t see you anymore. Are you a ghost?”
Sterling smiled at her. “Not really a ghost. I’m more on the order of an angel, but I’m not really an angel. In fact that’s why I’m here.”
“You want to help me, don’t you?”
Sterling felt a wrench of tenderness as he looked into Marissa’s troubled blue eyes. “I want to help you more than anything in the world. For my sake as well as yours.”