Daddy's Coming Home For Christmas

Chapter Four: I Wouldn't Put it Past Him

Beth

I carefully hung the freshly ironed and hemmed slacks on my rack of finished items and rubbed my tired eyes. Christmas was always a busy time in my tailoring shop, and I was grateful for the extra work. I had a new order for a set of Mommy and Me dresses for Mrs. Shortsleeve and her three daughters, as well as a lot of mending work as people pulled out their favorite Christmas outfits and found last year’s holes, split seams, missing buttons and broken zippers.

"Every penny counts, especially this time of year." I mumbled.

The cost of heating fuel had nearly doubled since last year, and I still needed to scrape together money to buy some presents for Lucy and Nana. It hurt my heart that I couldn’t buy her nice things like other children her age, but at least she got a Christmas.

Growing up in a religious community, my parents were very strict. We weren’t allowed to have a Christmas tree or put up decorations. According to the Reverend, Christmas trees were a pagan symbol, and Santa was an abomination. While other children were ripping open colorful packages of toys and eating sweets, the only gift I got on Christmas morning was a set of hand-sewn clothes, and new socks and underwear. Until I met the Segretto brothers, I had never really experienced the holiday traditions that most Americans took for granted. The lights, the music. The gifts. The magic.

Not so magical anymore. Not when I had a stack of bills, an almost-empty bank account, a daughter, and an ailing old woman to take care of. But for Lucy’s sake, I would try to make it as sweet and memorable as possible.

I switched off the space heater that I kept under my sewing table. The back porch I used as my workspace wasn’t heated. I threw away some fabric scraps that were too small to be useful, put the empty bobbins back in their box, and then shut off the lights for the evening.

Gabriel often mocked my little tailoring business, saying it was stupid, a waste of time, and that it would never amount to anything. But sewing was one of the few talents I possessed. After I had Lucy, it allowed me to work from home while I cared for my infant daughter, and now, it allowed me to home school her, and spend as much time with her as I wanted. It also allowed me to stay at home to take care of Nana Charlie. And meager as it was, it kept the lights on and food in the fridge.

“Hey Peanut! I’m done for the day!” I rounded the corner to the sitting room. Lucy was sitting on the floor, eating popcorn and watching cartoons. Nana Charlie was asleep in her chair with her mouth open, snoring softly. I dropped onto the old, worn couch and put my feet up on the coffee table, something I never would have done if Nana Charlie had been awake.

Lucy jumped up from the floor and climbed into my lap, wrapping her arms around my neck and leaning her curly head on my shoulder. I kissed the top of her head and breathed in the clean, fresh scent of her shampoo. The last seven years had been hard, but Lucy made everything worthwhile. I’d go through all the heartbreak, all the struggle, all over again, just to hold that precious child in my arms.

“What’s for dinner?” Lucy asked into my chest.

“Macaroni and cheese.”

“The homemade kind, or the box kind?”

“Homemade. Nana Charlie would never forgive me if I fed you the box kind.”

“At Sarah’s house, they eat the box kind.”

“Did you like it?”

“Not really. The cheese tasted like dust. But I didn’t want to hurt Sarah’s mom’s feelings, so I ate it all.”

“That was really considerate of you. I bet Sarah’s mom felt appreciated.”

“Yeah, I guess. But I’m glad you make yours with real cheese.”

I laughed and ran my fingers through her silky soft curls. Luckily, the macaroni and cheese was already assembled. All I had to do was pop it in the oven. Which I would do, right after I watched the six-0’clock news. It was our nightly ritual.

Lucy crawled off my lap to go color, and Charlie roused herself with a particularly loud snore. I took my feet off the coffee table like a guilty kid and listened as the local news anchor, Elrond Parker, started giving a rundown of the night’s headlines.

“He’s going bald,” I told no-one in particular.

“A drunk driver has knocked over the Welcome Center sign for the third time this month,” Elrond said dramatically, as footage of the demolished sign flashed across the television.

“Maybe they should move the sign farther back, away from the highway,” I suggested to the man on the television with the severely receding hairline. However, he never listened to my suggestions.

“And in other news tonight, the Mountain Top Holiday Resort has been sold to Segretto Star Hotels. In a press release issued today, Segretto Star CEO and Vermont Native Raphael Segretto said he plans to close the resort temporarily while it undergoes renovation to bring it up to the Segretto Star brand standard.” A professional head shot of Raphael was displayed in one corner, over some aerial drone footage of the resort facilities that I recognized from one of Resort's old television commercials.

I sat up abruptly. “Nana Charlie,” I whispered. “Nana, did you hear that?”

The old woman had closed her eyes again, and had resumed snoring in her chair.

“I heard it Mama. They said Segretto, that’s our name, right?”

“That’s right,” I said, nearly choking on the words. “Raphael Segretto is…” I couldn’t bring myself to say, your uncle. And I definitely couldn’t say, your father. “He’s Daddy’s brother.”

It wasn’t the first time that Lucy had heard mention of Rafe, but I think he was so seldom mentioned in conversation that she tended to forget about him. “I thought Daddy’s brother lived far away?”

“He does.” I answered shortly. I stood up abruptly and used the remote to turn off the TV, but it was too late. The damage was done. Lucy's insatiable curiosity was peaked. She followed me into the kitchen.

“But he bought that hotel?”

“Sounds like it.”

Her amber eyes widened. “Does that mean he will be coming here?”

Did it? “I don’t know sweetie,” I started to walk numbly toward the kitchen. “Segretto Star is a huge company, and they own hotels all over the world. A lot of people work for them. They might just send other people to take care of the new resort.”

If I could be so lucky.

She looked crestfallen. “But wouldn’t he want to come here and see Daddy?” Her little lip poked out. “To see me?”

I sighed and pulled open the refrigerator door. “I’m sure he would love to meet you, Peanut, but he’s a very busy, very important man. He hasn’t been home in… a very long time.”

She did not look convinced. She walked back to her coloring, but her brow remained wrinkled, a sure sign she was deep in thought. I turned on the oven and slid the heavy glass dish of homemade macaroni and cheese onto the rack, and tried to will my heart to slow down.

What if Raphael did come home? He’d been gone for so long, I had kind of taken it for granted that he would never come back, and I would never have to face him again. But that was naive of me. I was living in his family home and taking care of his mother. Sooner or later, this was bound to happen.

I wiped my shaking hands on a candy-cane themed kitchen towel. It had been almost seven years since Raphael Segretto had abandoned me, seven years since he left me alone and pregnant. I leaned against the kitchen counter and stared out the dark window, seeing nothing but my own reflection.

I was so lost in my own thoughts that the ringing phone almost gave me a heart attack. I picked it up quickly without checking the number.

“Did you know about this?” Gabriel practically shouted in my ear.

“If you are talking about the resort, the answer is no. I could ask you the same question. You are a big real estate hot-shot. You mean to tell me that you didn’t know he was buying Mountain Top?”

“No one knew Mountain Top was up for sale,” Gabe snapped. “It was never listed.” He sounded genuinely irritated and stressed, which made me suspect that he was just as blindsided by the evening news as I was.

“So I take it he hasn’t contacted you?” I asked suspiciously.

Gabe scoffed. “I haven’t talked to my brother in three or four years. Why would I want to start now?”

“Do…do you think he’ll come here, to the house?”

Gabe hissed between his teeth. “He might…to see Mom.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. “Fine, I’ll deal with it.”

“Look Beth, if he finds out I let you stay in the house…he’s not going to be too happy about it.”

I swallowed nervously. “Will he kick us out?”

“As much as Raphael hates you,” Gabe replied coldly, “I wouldn’t put it past him.”