Bah! Humbug - A Jeff Resnick Story by L.L. Bartlett Read Free Book Online Page A

sheep waiting for the dreaded security nightmare that
preceded all flights.
    We turned to walk toward the terminal’s
exit, and I swallowed down the lump that had formed in my throat.
The best part of my holiday had just ended.
    “ I wish it was like the old
days when you could stay in the waiting area and wave to the plane
as it took off,” Maggie said, wistfully.
    “ Me, too.” Maybe then I
wouldn’t feel quite so abandoned?
    Maggie’s crystal blue eyes were moist with
understanding. “The good old days,” she whispered, and her hand
snaked down to take mine. All around us, the airport hummed with
passengers and visitors, tearful goodbyes and joyful hellos. It was
painful to experience and I wanted to get the hell out of there. I
picked up my pace, dragging Maggie along with me.
    “ I wish we were going with
them,” she said.
    “ They need time alone. Time
to heal.”
    She nodded, no doubt thinking about the
trauma we’d all endured earlier in the month, thanks to Ray
Sampson.
    “ I’ve had a good day,”
Maggie said, fingering the garnet pendant on the chain around her
neck. I’d bought it for her, not considering she might wear a red
sweater for Christmas. It couldn’t compare with the diamond
solitaire earrings Richard had given Brenda. Or the emerald
necklace, or the sapphire ring ... the trip to Mexico, and
....
    “ Me, too.”
    It had been the best Christmas of my
life, but I had this funny feeling the day wouldn’t end on such a
happy note.
    Maybe I did wish I could’ve gotten on that
plane.
    We headed for the short-term parking lot.
Maybe we should have said our goodbyes outside the terminal, but
Maggie and I had time to kill, and I wasn’t quite ready to let the
best Christmas I’d ever had end.
    To say the air was bracing was putting it
mildly, though late afternoon sunlight glinted off the parked cars
as I huddled into my jacket and lowered my head so as not to take a
direct hit from the wind. Unless the plane hit clear-air
turbulence, they had perfect flying weather.
    We claimed Richard’s Lincoln Town Car, paid
the parking fee, and started off for Lackawanna and the Brennan
family Christmas gathering.
    Bah, humbug.
    Except for carols on the radio, the drive
was a quiet one. Even Maggie’s usually buoyant enthusiasm had
flattened into nothingness as clouds began to gather in the
west.
    “ It’ll be fine,” Maggie
said at last.
    I gave her a skeptical glance, but said
nothing. She didn’t have that familiar quiver in her gut, a feeling
I’d learned to be wary of. She didn’t have that niggling itch in
the back of her skull—trouble on the way. Only I didn’t know what
kind of trouble. And for all her soothing words, she was worried
about something and had been transmitting it for the past hour.
    We pulled up the driveway and I cut the
engine.
    The handmade wreath on the front door was
heavy with what looked like real fruit, straight out of a Colonial
Williamsburg brochure. Maggie’s sister Irene’s deft hand, no doubt.
According to Maggie, Irene made sure everything about her home, her
children, and her marriage was perfect. Or else.
    That’s probably why she didn’t like me. Not
only was I flawed, but I was essentially broke. And I was ruining
her sister’s life. Not that she’d said so the one time I’d met her
back in September. That was after the accident that totaled my car.
I wasn’t hurt, but Maggie.... Well, the five-inch scar on her right
calf might fade in another couple of years. Considering she’d
nearly bled to death, that wasn’t too bad a price to pay.
    I opened the trunk and retrieved the
brightly wrapped presents, then followed Maggie up the walk. She
pressed the doorbell and we waited. Minuscule snowflakes gently
landed in Maggie’s auburn hair. She smiled and impulsively kissed
me.
    The door flew open and Irene, dressed in a
gold sequined top, dark silk pants, with perfectly coiffed hair the
color of muslin and carefully applied make-up, stood before