The phone rang throughout the house. Miles Cutter wiped his hands and turned to the phone in the kitchen, but a young voice yelled, “Got it, gran’pa!”
He finished wiping his hands anyway, a smile crossing his face. “Kristine’s going to be a secretary,” he said to the amber-haired woman sitting at the kitchen table, peeling carrots. She chuckled at his joke.
The little girl was talking as she was walking with the cordless phone into the kitchen. “Yeah, sure, Uncle Steve, uh huh…he’s right here – yeah, Santa was good! I got a laptop, and I got some Barbies, and I got some clothes, and I got some candy…I did – oh, you did? They’re too small. I’m not five, you know!” She stared incredulously at the phone as if the person on the other end could read her expression. “Oh. Oh, okay, here she is.” The little girl handed the phone over to the woman at the table. “Uncle Steve wants to talk to you about the shoes he got me by mistake.”
She dropped the phone on the table and bounded off into the living room. Miles shook his head as the woman said, “Let’s hope she doesn’t answer the Vice President’s phone like that.” She picked up the phone, “Stevie!”
“Hey, ‘Lizbeth.”
“So what’s your excuse this year?”
She tried to say it in a light-hearted way, but she knew the words would spear his heart. These last five years, he was in the army and he had an excuse to not be home for Christmas. Now, he had no excuse.
“I couldn’t catch a flight back.”
“That’s poppycock and you know it.”
Miles said in his deep Irish brogue, “Give’t here, ‘Lizbeth.”
“Your father wants to talk to you,” she said, and handed the phone over, again, trying to be light about it, but she almost swung the phone into Miles’ hand.
“Hey, Rua buach,” Miles said. “How’s life treatin’ ye?”
“Great, Dad. Is she mad?”
“You know Lizbeth, pushing the buttons. She already let mum have it before leaving to take care of someone this morning.”
“I did not!” Lizbeth yelled.
“Anyway, we miss ye here,” he said.
“I would come there for New Years’ but I have a trip to go on.”
“For business?”
“Pleasure.”
“Oh, really, now? Where to?”
“Hawaii.”
“Hawaii!” Lizbeth perked up. “Not by yeself, I’m takin’.”
“I found someone here.”
There was silence for a minute. Miles struggled to keep the smile in his voice. “A…”
“A man, dad.”
“‘course,” he forced a laugh, “Of course. I knew that.”
Steve quickly changed the subject, “Did you get the drill I bought you?”
“Yes, yeah, I did. And mum got the slippers an’ gloves.” Though it had been years since she liked the leopard print of them, Steve wouldn’t have known that. And Miles already had a couple of drills. He repeated to himself, It’s the thought that counts.
They spoke some more, skirting when Steve would come back, avoiding that topic all together. Miles didn’t understand why he didn’t want to be with family after his tour, but now that Steve found a man there, he’d never be home. Steve didn’t discuss the relationship either, except to say that it was “really nice right now, and I don’t want to jinx it.”
When Miles hung up, he felt like he had just had a conversation with a relative stranger.