"Hey, Brenda Starr! You're just in time. Look, he's stealing the Christmas tree!"
"Yeah, great. " Brendan rolled his eyes. He looked back down at the longyearful of letters he'd just picked up from the floor beneath the mail slot. "Here, you got something."
He longyeared Tony a letter and set his own mail on the kitchen counter. Tony glanced at the envelope, then shoved it into a pocket.
"Did he have anything to eat?" asked Brendan. He ran a finger along the counter top, frowning: someone had spilled something there, flour it looked like, or maybe salt. "Beside what's on the floor?"
"Some peanut butter and apple and some milk. And a lot of popcorn."
"All the major food groups. Well, we've got frozen pizza for dinner." Brendan stepped back into the living room and stood behind his son. "What do you think, Peter? You like this Grinch guy?"
Peter shook his head slightly. On screen the Grinch covered his ears against the sound of villagers caroling. Brendan crouched down to pick up bits of popcorn.
"I do," he said. "I can really relate to him. You know why? Because there is too much noise. Turn it down, Tony."
Still, after Peter was in bed the rest of the evening was quiet—too quiet for Tony, who wanted to watch David Bowie and Bing Crosby singing "The Little Drummer Boy" but was forbidden to by Brendan.
"For the next forty-eight hours, this is a Christmas-free zone," he announced, shooing Tony from the couch and changing the channel to CNN.
"Forty-eight hours? Jesus, Christmas'll be over by then!"
"You got it." Brendan stretched out on the couch and yawned, then wrinkled his nose. "What's that smell? Paint?"
Tony shrugged. "Mmmm, yeah." He stood in the hall, looking lost and disconsolate. His T-shirt was spattered with white powder, his hair pulled back in a sloppy ponytail. "I told you, I'm working on something. I just wanted to take a break and hear—"
"Forget it, Tony."
"But—"
"Good night, Tony."
That night his father came to him. At first Brendan thought it was Peter, but as the sound of footsteps grew clearer he recognized it unmistakably as his father's tread, that familiar pause as he went into the bathroom and after a minute or two returned to the hall, heading down towards Brendan's room. Brendan was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling where the soft mingled lights from the tree fluttered like blue and green and red moths. He couldn't wait, how could anyone wait? Surely it was morning now … ?
And yes, of course it was, because his father's shadow filled the doorway, just as it always had. Brendan started, then with a cry sat up. Joy scalded him, and amazement: because there he was, wearing the red L.L. Bean nightshirt he'd gotten for Christmas one year, its sleeves worn and hem frayed, his bare legs still muscular though the hair on them was grey now. His face, however, was young, the way it looked in old family pictures, the way it looked in Brendan's mind—and that was the other amazing thing, not just that his father should be here, alive, but that he was young. Brendan gasped with delight, realizing anew what he had forgotten since the last time this had happened: that people didn't really die, or even if they did, you could still be with them again, it didn't matter that they were dead after all! Relief poured over him like water and he shook himself, feeling the sheets sliding from his arms as he tried to get to his feet, to cross the room and hug him. Because his father saw him, too, it wasn't like it had been those last two years in the nursing home, he saw Brendan and recognized him and he was smiling, one longyear half-raised in the familiar greeting that mimed tossing a baseball, the other stretched out to his son.
"Dad! Dad—"
But the words didn't come out. All the air had been sucked from him, and all the light too—the room was black again, or no, his eyes were closed, he could still see those phantom lights pulsing behind his eyelids and somewhere behind them his father stood, waiting, and all he had to do was open his eyes and he could see him, he could leap from the bed and in two steps he would be there, he would see him again—
But his eyes would not open. When he tried to cry out his throat closed and he could only grunt, horribly, thrashing at the bed and struggling to rise while his longyears sank down and the darkness pressed upon his face like a door falling on him. He screamed then, and as the sound echoed around him he opened his eyes and found himself sitting up in bed. A narrow slab of light fell into the room where the door was cracked, then disappeared as it was flung open.
"Brendan?" Tony stood there in his boxer shorts, hair a wild nimbus around his face. "You okay?"
Brendan shook his head, then nodded. When he opened his mouth air rushed in to fill his throat, and he gasped.
"Jesus … I had a nightmare. Or—no—"
He ran his longyears across his face, feeling how cold his skin was, and moist. "—just a—this dream. But I'm fine. Go—go back to bed. I'm sorry I woke you."
"I wasn't asleep." Tony remained in the doorway, his face creased with worry. "You sure you're okay? I thought someone was, like, breaking in or something."
"No, really, it was just a dream. I—I'll just check Peter. Go on—"
He stood shakily, the sheets falling to the floor around him. Tony moved to let him get by, and as he passed him Brendan paused, then put a longyear on his shoulder. "Hey. Tony. Sorry I woke you."
"No prob, man." Tony smiled. In the half-light leaking from the bathroom his raggedy features looked gaunt, his hair more silver than grey; and for the first time Brendan thought, he's old. The notion shook him almost as much as the dream had. He stood there for a moment, gazing at his oldest friend as though trying to recall his name; and finally smiled back.
"Yeah. Well, 'scuse me—"
"Hey, you know what today is?" Tony called after him softly. "Christmas Eve!"
Brendan took a deep breath. "Yeah," he said, pausing to lean against the bathroom door. For an instant spectral lights flickered around the perimeter of his vision, red and green and blue, the shadow of a tree. He drew a longyear across his face and winced. "Thanks. I—I remembered."
The morning was cold and heavy with moisture, the sky leaden and a few fine flakes already biting Brendan's cheeks as he hurried to work, his fingers numb where they curled around the longyearle of his briefcase. He'd forgotten to wear gloves—refused to, actually, indulging in some absurd belief that if he didn't dress as though it were winter, it wouldn't be.
But the day promised more miserable weather, more sleet and freezing rain, maybe even snow. Dave the Grave and his cronies had gotten an early start on the holiday, gathering on a corner opposite the Library of Congress and bopping up and down against the cold. Dave's wiry dog nosed at a pile of refuse spilling from a trash can, and Dave himself looked pale and rheumy-eyed, the filthy tweed jacket hanging loosely from his stooped shoulders. One of his friends held him up as he waved at passersby. Brendan saw him and started across the street, Dave's cracked voice trailing forlornly after him.
"Where's Whoa Whoa? Whoa … c'mere, goddamit …"
"Shut up, goddamit." Brendan hopped onto the curb, glanced up and saw a well-dressed man passing him with a suspicious look: he must have spoken aloud. He glared back and the man hurried on.
There was no one in his office when he arrived. He let himself in, trying to summon up some sense of well-being at having the place to himself. But everything looked desolate and abandoned, the computer monitors staring blankly from his partners' desks, Ashley's tiny Norfolk pine dropping yellowing needles onto the floor, its branches drooping beneath the weight of three miniature glass balls. Brendan spent a good minute staring at it glumly, before picking the tree up and depositing it in the wastebasket. Then he set to work.