Not long after, Virgil carried his sleeping daughter up to her bed, sliding her between the covers, marveling at the softness of his little girl’s closed eyes and the lips that were Del’s in perfect miniature. In the front room, Davey was on the sofa, leaning close against his mother as she played her fingers in his hair. “She swallowed it hook, line, and sinker,” he said.
“You’re a good big brother,” Del told him.
“Ah, heck. Anyone would do it.” Davey was looking into the fire. “When Jill first asked me if Santa was really real, like she was afraid to ask you and wanted it to be a secret between just us, I didn’t know what to say.”
“How’d you handle it, honey?”
“That’s when I came up with the plan. To have an answer for every question she had. How does he make it to every house? He goes superfast and there aren’t all that many houses anyway. What about a house with no chimney? He can use the oven or the furnace.”
“Touching the milk to make it cold,” Del whispered to her son as she brushed hair off the soft skin of his forehead. “So smart. So quick.”
“That was cinchy. He’s a magic man.”
“You’ll have to do the same for Connie soon.”
“Of course. It’s my job now.”
Virgil came back downstairs to Daddy’s Chair as a carol, in Latin, was crooning out of the mouth of Bing Crosby.
“Dad, how does radio work?” Davey wanted to know.
At quarter past ten, Davey went off to bed, announcing this might have been the best Christmas Eve ever.
“Should I put on some coffee?” Delores asked.
“You’d better,” Virgil said, following her into the kitchen, where he stopped her from reaching for the coffee can, wrapped his arms around her, and kissed her. She kissed back, both of them feeling that such a kiss was one of the reasons they were still married. The kiss lasted longer than either of them expected, then they smiled at each other. Del prepared the coffee as Virgil stood next to her at the stove.
“Next year, let’s try to get to the Midnight Mass,” Delores said. “We are raising godless kids.”
“Just Davey.” Virgil chuckled. Davey had been born seven months after their wedding day.
“The Midnight Mass is so beautiful.”
“Three kids up all hours on Christmas Eve? The drive all the way to St. Mary’s? If we’d tried that tonight with the snow?”
“The McElhenys manage.”
“Ruth McElheny is as nutty as a can of Planters. Ed doesn’t dare cross her.”
“Still. The candles. The music. So pretty.” Del knew that in years to come they’d make the drive to Midnight Mass. Not because he didn’t dare cross her but because he loved to give her what she wanted. But for this Yuletide, there was just his hand over hers in the quiet, warm kitchen of the snowbound house as they sat with their coffee.
Virgil put his overshoes back on and pulled on his heavy coat, cracking open the front door just wide enough for him to slip through. Nearly three inches of snow had collected. Hatless, he went to the Plymouth’s trunk to retrieve Santa’s bounty. Not wanting to risk a fall on the frozen walk, Virgil made two trips carrying small loads. Closing the trunk, he paused a moment to ponder the final hour of Christmas Eve 1953. A cold night, yes, but Virgil had been colder.
Stepping carefully, he felt the pull of a ghost pain where his lower left leg used to be. He took the five steps to the front door one at a time.
Del laid out the nurse’s kit by Jill’s stack of treasures. Honey Walker, the walking doll “just like a real little girl,” needed batteries. Santa had batteries. Before too long Davey would find his Space Rocket Launch Base, with towers and soldiers and spring launchers that, once Virgil assembled the components, actually flung spaceships into the void. Connie would delight in a new play blanket and a set of blocks direct from the North Pole. When all was laid out and Honey Walker had taken a test stroll, Virgil and Del sat close together on the sofa and kissed some more.
After they’d sat, arms entwined, quiet and still for a while, Del eyed the fire, then rose up. “I’m done in,” she confessed. “Try to answer on the first ring, honey. And give him my love.”
“I will.” Virgil checked his watch. It was almost 11:30. Seven minutes after midnight, the shrill peal of the phone broke the silent night. As instructed, Virgil picked up before the first ring gave way to the second.
“Merry Christmas,” he said.
An operator was on the line. “This is a long-distance call for Virginia Beuell from Amos Boling.”
“Speaking. Thank you, Operator.” As always, the operator had gotten the name wrong.
“Sir, your party is on the line,” the operator said, clicking off.
“Thanks, honey,” said the caller. “Merry Christmas, Virgin.”
Virgil smiled at his nickname. Because of Amos Boling, the whole outfit had come to call him Virgin. “Where the heck are you, Bud?”
“San Diego. I was over across the border yesterday.”
“You don’t say.”
“Lemme tell you something about Mexico, Virgin. The place is loaded with cantinas and cathouses. Nice and hot, too. How deep is the snow up there in Dogpatch?”
“Seen worse. But I’m sitting by a nice fire, so no complaints.”
“Delores still burdened with you?”
“Gives her love.”
“You are one lucky son of a bitch and that gal could have done better.”
“I know that but haven’t told her.”
Both men chuckled. Amos “Bud” Boling forever joked that when Delores Gomez was taken off the market by Virgil “the Virgin” Beuell, there was no longer any point in getting married. There had been a time, more than thirteen years before, when someone else in the outfit might have come along to snag Delores. Ernie, Clyde, or Bob Clay, or either of the two Johnny Boys would have all taken a run at her had Virgil not met her first. A dance at the Red Cross Center was so chockablock with soldiers, sailors, and airmen that Virgil needed some air and a few moments away from the crowd. He stepped outside for a smoke and found himself lighting a cigarette for a brown-eyed girl named Delores Gomez. By the end of the next morning she and Virgil had danced, laughed, had griddle cakes with lots of coffee, and kissed. Two lives changed forever.
In the years since, Bud had not married and Virgil knew he never would. Not landing Delores had nothing to do with it. Virgil had, years before, figured Bud was one of those men, like his father’s youngest brother, Uncle Russell. Virgil had been around his uncle rarely, the last time during the long day that was his grandmother’s funeral. Uncle Russell had driven from New York City with a friend, a man named Carl, who called Russell “Rusty.” After the service, the burial, and a reunion dinner at the house that ended with coffee and pie, Carl and Rusty drove off into the night, headed all the way back to New York City, still wearing their funeral suits. Virgil remembered his father later saying, under his breath, that “women were neither the weakness nor the passion” of his kid brother. Bud Boling had plenty of weaknesses and a few passions, but just as for Uncle Russell, none of them involved women. “So,” Virgil said. “How you been, Bud?”
“The same, the same,” Bud answered. “Came down here three months ago from a town up north near Sacramento. That’s the state capital, you know. Bought a Buick secondhand and drove it down. Nice town. Navy town. Every cabdriver will tell you he was at Pearl Harbor.”