Charlaine Harris - Shakespeare’s Christmas

Roy must have been talking again. I could feel my eyes grow heavy now that Jack’s warmth relaxed me. I turned on my side facing him, my eyes closing just for a minute since he had the bedside lamp on and the glare was unpleasant.

“He took Meredith to the doctor the next day, told the doctor that he’d taken the baby to a pediatrician already. He couldn’t have their doctor examine the baby, because he figured that the umbilical thingy was more healed than it would be on a one-day-old baby.”

Roy talked for a minute. It was a distant buzz. I kept my eyes shut.

“Yeah, he’s confessed all the way. Says it was all his wife’s fault for having a baby that died and it being a boy, for interrupting his fun with the little girl he’d so thoughtfully gotten for her, for beginning to wonder where that little girl had come from when she saw the photo in the paper… evidently, Meredith took the little girl in for a blood test, found out she couldn’t be her daughter. But she loved her so much, she couldn’t make up her mind what to do. Emory found out about the blood test, decided Meredith was a traitor, and killed her. He broke into my hotel room, found the pages she’d mailed me… it made him feel justified.”

Some more talk.

Then Jack asked, “You gonna call them now or wait till the morning?”

Sometime after that, I lost track of what Jack was saying.

“Baby?”

I blinked. “What?”

“Baby, it’s morning.”

“What?”

“You got to go home and get ready for the wedding, Lily.”

My eyes flew open. It was definitely daytime. In a panic, I glanced at the bedside clock. I exhaled a long sigh of relief when I saw it was only eight o’clock.

Jack was standing by the bed. He’d just gotten out of the shower.

Normally in the morning I jump out of bed and get moving, but I felt so groggy. Then I remembered the night before, and I knew where I was.

“Oh, I do have to get home, I hope they’re not worried,” I said. “I’ve been so good this whole visit, I’ve done everything right! I hate to blow it the last day.”

Jack laughed. It was a good sound.

I sat up. He’d taken my coat off some time during the night. I’d slept in my clothes, with no shower, and I needed to brush my teeth in the worst possible way. When Jack bent down to hug me, I backed off.

“No no no,” I said firmly. “Not now. I’m disgusting.”

When Jack saw I meant it, he perched in one of the vinyl chairs. “Want me to go get us some coffee?” he asked.

“Oh, bless you for thinking of it, but I better get to my folks’ and let them see me.”

“Then I’ll see you at the wedding.”

“Sure.” I reached out, stroked his arm. “What were you doing last night?”

“While you were confronting the real kidnapper?” Jack looked at me darkly. “Well, sweetheart, I was rear-ending your soon-to-be brother-in-law.”

“What?”

“I decided the only way to look inside the car trunks- which, if you’ll remember, was your suggestion-was to have a little accident with the cars involved. It would be reasonable to look in the trunk after that. I figured if I hit them just right, the trunk would open anyway.”

“Did you hit Jess?”

“Yep.”

“And Dill, too?”

“I was about to. But I was thinking I’d get whiplash, so I’d decided just to out-and-out break into Emory’s. Then I got your call. I got to the O’Sheas’ house just as your ex-boyfriend was pulling up. He cuffed me.”

“He what ?”

“I didn’t want him going in ahead of me, so he cuffed me.”

I didn’t know what to say. I was trying not to smile.

“I better go get cleaned up,” I told him. “You’ll be there?”

“I brought my suit,” he reminded me.

The only day it was possible for my parents not to cast me disapproving looks was Varena’s wedding day. They were not excited that Jack had dropped me off in front of the house in broad daylight, with me wearing yesterday’s clothes.

But in the melee of the wedding day-and the day before-it could be legitimately ignored.

I took a very long shower and brushed my teeth twice. To regain control of myself, I shaved my legs and armpits, plucked my eyebrows, spent ten or fifteen minutes putting on lotions and makeup.

It was only after I came into the kitchen in my bathrobe to drink some coffee that my mother spotted the bruise.

She put her own mug down with a clunk.

“Your neck, Lily.”

I looked in a little mirror in the hall outside the kitchen. My neck had a spectacular dark bruise.

“Emory,” I explained, for the first time noticing how hoarse my voice was. I touched the dark splotch. Sore. Very sore.

“It’s OK,” I said, “really. Just need to drink something hot.”

And that’s all we said about the night before.

It was the best luck I ever had, that day being Varena’s wedding day.

And the next morning, Christmas Day, I drove home to Shakespeare.

I thought during the drive: I thought what would become of the baby, Jane, whom Eve (I had to think of her as Eve Osborn) regarded as her sister. I wondered what would happen in the days to come, when the Macklesbys would finally get to put their arms around their daughter. I wondered when I’d have to go back to testify at Emory’s trial. It gave me the cold shakes, thinking of going back to Bartley again, but I would feel more amenable when the time was closer, I hoped.

I didn’t have to talk to anyone or listen to anyone for four whole hours.

The tatty outskirts of Shakespeare were so welcome to my eyes that I almost cried.

The decorations, the smoke coming out of the chimneys, the empty lawns and streets: Today was Christmas.

If my friend Dr. Carrie Thrush had remembered, the turkey would be thawed and waiting to be put in the oven.

And Jack, having detoured to Little Rock to pick up some more clothes, was on his way.

The presents I’d bought him were wrapped and in my closet. The spinach Madeleine, the sweet potato casserole, and the cranberry sauce were in the freezer.

I shed the past as I pulled into my own driveway.

I would have a Shakespeare Christmas.

Charlaine Harrisis the author of Shakespeare’s Landlord and Shakespeare’s Champion, as well as the Aurora Teagarden mystery series. She lives in Magnolia, Arkansas.