“TIM WOKE UP,” Mrs. Tuttle said when the nurse returned with a mug. “But now he’s dozed back off.”
“He’s exhausted,” the nurse said. “But it’s a good sign. Here you go, young man.”
“Thanks,” John Henry said, taking the mug.
The nurse went over to Tim’s bed and checked his pulse.
“He’s getting his strength back,” she said.
The hot chocolate didn’t have any marshmallows in it, but it was warm and sweet. “Want some hot chocolate, Tim?” John Henry asked.
Tim made a sound that was halfway between a sigh and a moan. Then the door cracked open.
“The sergeant has to go, Alison.”
It was Dr. Tuttle’s voice.
“You go on, ma’am. I’ll stay with them,” the nurse said.
As Mrs. Tuttle stood up from Tim’s bed, John Henry set the mug by the plastic glass and jumped down out of his own bed.
“Stay put, sweetie,” Mrs. Tuttle said.
The soles of his feet still felt strangely tender, but John Henry could tell he wouldn’t have any problem walking now. He grabbed a bathrobe off a hook on the bathroom door and put it on and followed his mother out into a corridor that had an even stronger smell than the room—sort of like the custodian’s closet at school. His father was standing with the Williston policeman and a paunchy physician whose coat was the same pale green as John Henry’s hospital gown.
“Who do we have here?” Dr. Tuttle said with a grin. He gave John Henry a hug. “How are you feeling?”
His father’s hair was even messier than his mother’s—but that wasn’t so strange, since he often came home from the lab with his hair every which way.
“I’m okay,” John Henry said.
“They couldn’t keep you down for long, could they?” the doctor said, ruffling John Henry’s hair. The round, black end of a stethoscope was poking out the side pocket of his coat.
“Tim woke up,” Mrs. Tuttle said. “That’s a good sign, isn’t it?”
“Very,” said the doctor. “There’s that minor frostbite on the big toe of his left foot. But we caught it in time. Basically he’s right as rain.”
“Or sound as snow,” Dr. Tuttle mused.
“I was so afraid he had hypothermia,” Mrs. Tuttle said.
“He probably would have, if he hadn’t had that parka on,” the doctor said. “And it probably didn’t hurt him to have a little extra layer of protection.” He patted his paunch. “I always say, dieting’s not all it’s cracked up to be. I’ll bet you’re a great cook, Mrs. Tuttle.”
“Well, I’m not sure I’d say great. But I do have a turkey in the oven. I don’t suppose Tim will be able to come home for Christmas dinner?”
“He’d better stay with us tonight. There’s that nasty bump on the forehead. We want to keep him under observation in case of concussion.”
“What about John Henry?”
“I don’t see why he can’t go home with you.”
“Speaking of that parka, J. H.,” said Dr. Tuttle, “how’d it end up on Tim? When we found you in the snow, we got you two mixed up.”
“You gave it to him, didn’t you?” Mrs. Tuttle said, taking John Henry’s hand.
“You’re a hero,” said the policeman.
John Henry grinned but felt a bit uncomfortable, his conscience prickling like his feet.
“So are you, officer,” Mrs. Tuttle said, only now noticing the name tag on his uniform jacket. “John Henry, Sergeant Stankowski is the man who rescued you.”
“Thanks a lot for saving my life, Officer.”
“You’re welcome. But it was your folks as much as me.”
“They can’t drive a chopper. I’m so bummed I slept through it!”
“Well, maybe I could take you up another time.”
“Really, sweetie,” Mrs. Tuttle said. “You don’t exact promises from people who’ve just saved your life.”
“When the weather warms up, we’ll go for a spin,” the sergeant said with a smile. He turned to Mrs. Tuttle. “I better get going, ma’am. I’m sure glad everything turned out for the best. For a while up there I didn’t think there was much chance of finding them.”
Mrs. Tuttle seemed about to say something, but instead she stepped up and kissed the sergeant on the cheek, bringing a blush to his face. John Henry shook his hand, thanking him again, then followed his mother back into the hospital room. The nurse was sitting in a chair by Tim’s bed.
“Sleeping like a baby,” she said.
“Good,” said Mrs. Tuttle. “The doctor says we can take John Henry home.”
The nurse stood up. “I’ll get you his clothes. We stuck them in a dryer.”
As the nurse left, John Henry joined his mother at the foot of Tim’s bed. “Think he’ll be able to walk okay?” he asked, lightly poking the bandaged foot.
“I think so.” Mrs. Tuttle pulled John Henry to her. “I can’t get over how you went after him that way. If you hadn’t found him and given him your parka … It’s too horrible to think about. And it would have been all my fault. I can’t imagine why I was so hard on that painting.”
John Henry cleared his throat. “Um, I’m not so sure of that, Mom.”
“Well, your father was kind of hard on him, too. Neither one of us would have been able to forgive ourselves.”
“Um, I mean, I’m not so sure it was either one of your faults.”
“What do you mean?”
While John Henry was telling his mother about his middle-of-the-night painting session, Dr. Tuttle was accompanying the sergeant up in the elevator that accessed the emergency helipad. It was cold as ever up on the roof, but at least there was no wind, and no antiseptic hospital smell. The man in the fluorescent-orange coveralls who’d guided them down earlier with light wands was nowhere to be seen, and the helicopter, its rotor listing to one side, looked rather forlorn, like a bird with a broken wing. Still, Dr. Tuttle had an impulse to run up and kiss it.
Of course his lips would have stuck to it if he had, so he contented himself with opening the pilot-side door for the sergeant. “This is going to sound pretty feeble, Sergeant Stankowski,” he said, keeping the door open after the sergeant climbed on board. “But all I can do is second John Henry. Thank you for saving my sons’ lives.”
“It wasn’t me, sir, it was that picture in the snow. Darnedest thing I ever saw. Looked just like an old lady, didn’t it?”
“It certainly did.”
“Maybe it was Mrs. Santa Claus—a Christmas miracle.”
“Maybe. But if you hadn’t been able to take us up in this thing, we’d never have found them.”
“Well, as they say, your tax dollars at work.”
“I’ll never complain about taxes again.” Dr. Tuttle gave the sergeant a heartfelt handshake. “Merry Christmas. You’ll be hearing from us.”
“Merry Christmas.”
The helipad had a built-in heating element, so it was pretty much free of snow, but even so the helicopter’s liftoff created a bit of a flurry. Dr. Tuttle zipped up his parka and covered his face. Once the helicopter was well up in the air, he lowered his hands and stood watching its red taillight recede. The sergeant buzzed right over the building where Dr. Tuttle conducted his genetic research. When the helicopter disappeared beyond the toothlike crenelations of the lab building’s roof, so did the putt-putt of the rotor. It was replaced in his head by an echo of the sergeant’s words:
“It wasn’t me … it was that picture in the snow. … Maybe it was Mrs. Santa Claus.”
Dr. Tuttle knew very well who it had really been. Just as he knew who was responsible for Tim’s “extra layer of protection.” And as he stared off at the bite the lab building was taking out of the starry night sky, he felt a strange doubt in his lifelong belief in genes. Maybe it was just the subzero temperature making him lightheaded, or the fact that he’d eaten only half a grapefruit all day long. But—for a moment, at least—he wasn’t so positive after all that passing down genes was the only way people could live on after death.