The first thing I realized was that the air was cold, so cold my whole body was shivering. I opened my eyes and waited for them to adjust to the darkness before glancing around to see where I was.
Dear God, I was up on the rooftop.
I tried to move, but my hands were tied firmly behind my back. Nathan had propped me against the two-foot high redbrick wall that rimmed the department store’s flat, graveled roof, my legs straight out in front of me, my head and neck exposed to the frigid night air. My neck ached from the icy breeze and my ears rang from the blaring alarm I had triggered.
I winced as I turned my head to look over my right shoulder, where I could see the star on top of the Christmas tree glowing brightly. From below came the cheerful crooning of the crowd singing Christmas songs with the choir. The countdown was over. The celebration had officially begun. Had anyone even heard the alarm?
Suddenly I heard Nathan cry out, “Stay back! Keep them back.”
“Calm down. I just want to talk to you,” came Marco’s reply, the sound of his voice filling my whole body with relief.
I looked to my left and saw Levi Churchill just a yard or so away. He was slumped over, his hands tied behind him, also up against the short wall, but he seemed barely alive.
“I said keep them back or I swear I will do it,” Nathan shouted, a desperate quiver in his voice. He stepped out of the shadows and stalked toward me, a long, sharp knife in his hand.
Marco stepped out from the shadows then, too. “Nathan, think what you’re doing.” He had shed the red suit and was shivering in his jeans and long-sleeved t-shirt. He saw that I’d come to and locked eyes with me, his concern for me written all over his face. I gave him a slight nod to let him know I was okay, although on the inside I was anything but, sitting just inches away from a three-story free fall.
Behind him I could see Reilly standing at the entrance to the stairwell. With him were several plain-clothed officers, their guns drawn. Marco slowly backed up to them and spoke quietly, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying.
Keeping one eye on Marco and the cops, Nathan said to me, “You should have listened to me. This had nothing to do with you. You should have let me take over.”
“I couldn’t do that,” I said. “I wasn’t out to get you, Nathan. I just wanted to save your father.”
“You wanted to save your own Christmas,” he scolded. “So did I.”
“Nathan,” Marco said, drawing his attention away from me, “listen to me now.” He walked slowly toward us with his palms facing forward, showing that he was unarmed. “The police are going to stay back, but only for a few minutes.”
As he said it, Reilly and his men stepped back into the stairwell, letting the door close behind them. That left Marco, Levi, and I alone on the roof with Nathan.
“Stay where you are.” Nathan held the knife out in front of him. “You can have your wife when I’m done. Just stay back and let me finish what I started.” He walked over to Churchill and pulled his chin up by the beard. “Isn’t that what you always say, dad? I never finish what I start?”
Levi Churchill struggled to lift his eyelids. His forehead was swollen and bruised, with dried blood matted in his beard, and snow covering his sullied Santa suit and hat. He must have been up on the roof since his disappearance that morning.
“Will you let my wife move away from the edge?” Marco asked. “That’s all I want.”
“No,” Nathan answered. “You don’t always get what you want. That’s another lesson my father taught me.” He bent down closer to his dad, still keeping an eye on Marco. “All I wanted was this store.” He put his free hand around Churchill’s suit collar and tried to lift him. “Stand up!”
Churchill made an attempt to stand but fell back down again. Nathan put the knife between his teeth then pulled his dad up so that he was seated on the narrow rim of the roof. Holding onto his father’s Santa suit with one hand, he put the knife back in his other hand and pointed the blade at Marco. “This store has been in our family for three generations, did you know that? He promised I could take it over when he retired. Then just like that he decided to sell it right out from under me.” Nathan inched his father backward, closer to the edge.
“Let me talk to you,” Marco said, trying to stop him.
“I just wanted to talk to him,” Nathan continued. “But my dad never listens. I tried to make him talk this morning but he pushed me away. I cut my hand wide open. I was bleeding everywhere, but he didn’t care. He had presents to hand out.”
“It doesn’t have to end this way,” Marco said.
“But it does,” Nathan shouted and looked at his father. “He said so himself. This is Churchill’s last Christmas.”
“Stop, Nathan,” Marco demanded. “We were interrupted earlier. I didn’t get a chance to finish my story.”
“I’m not interested in your story,” Nathan snarled. “This is my story and it has nothing to do with you. It’s between me and my father now, and there isn’t anything you can say to stop me.”
“The least you can do is let me finish,” Marco said.
Nathan stared down the tip of his blade at my husband, steam escaping into the cold air with each heavy breath. “Why?” he asked. “Why should I care about your story?”
“Because I understand what you’re going through,” Marco answered honestly. “I know exactly how you feel.”
Nathan gave him a scathing glance. “How could you possibly know how I feel?”
“Because my father died on Christmas Eve,” Marco said, his words coming out strained and filled with pain. “He died because of me.”
Nathan held his father firmly on the edge, but paused. I held my breath as Marco took one step closer. And although my husband stood tall and powerful, his face held a look of vulnerability. It was the look he’d tried to hide in the car that morning. It was the look he’d given before leaving Hailey’s hospital room.
“You told me you hated your father,” Nathan said.
“I did hate my father,” Marco answered. “I hated him for years.”
“Why are you telling me?” Nathan asked. “It’s not going to change anything.”
“I’ve never told anyone,” Marco admitted. “I’ve never been able to. If anyone would be able to understand my story it would be you.”
Nathan lowered his arm and held the knife at his side. He kept hold of his weakened father. All it would have taken was one push and Churchill would have been gone. “Go ahead,” Nathan said. “I’m listening.”
“My dad owned a small Italian diner,” Marco began. “As soon as I was old enough, he expected me to work with him in the kitchen, every day after school. The diner was busy all the time, and we would stay open on every holiday, even Christmas Eve. He said the hard work would teach me discipline. It would make a man out of me. And I hated him for it.”
“Then why do you care if he’s dead?” Nathan asked.
“Because my dad didn’t do it to hurt me,” Marco said. “But at the time I didn’t get it. I just wanted to be a normal teenager and have a real Christmas with presents to open under the tree. I didn’t want to be slaving over a hot stove.”
Marco paused to draw in a breath. “The year I turned fifteen, we got into a huge argument. I wanted to spend Christmas Eve with my friends, and he said no.” Marco stopped again to glance at me.
I didn’t want him to see me crying but I couldn’t move my hands to wipe the tears away.
Slowly he moved another step closer to me, continuing his story for both of us to hear. “My dad tried to get me to stay at the restaurant with him by giving me an early Christmas gift – a football. He even offered to throw some passes with me in the alley before the dinner rush. It was the best he could offer, five minutes in the alley, but that wasn’t good enough for me. I walked out, leaving him holding that football.”
Marco shook his head and looked at me. He was trying so hard to keep his composure. “That’s the last image I have of him, staring after me holding that damn football.”
My heart broke as Marco couldn’t help but let the tears fall from his eyes. “An hour later my father had a heart attack just as the dinner rush hit. I wasn’t there to help him. He died all alone in that kitchen. He died because of me.”
Nathan’s eyes welled up with tears, too, yet he remained unshaken in his resolve. “My father won’t die because of me,” Nathan spouted. “He did this to himself. All he had to do was listen.”
“Sometimes listening isn’t enough,” Marco said. “All I had to do was listen, too. My dad needed my help, but I didn’t care. He was doing the best he could, but I didn’t want to hear it.”
“I like you, Marco,” Nathan said, wiping his cheek. “I think you’re a good guy. I’m sorry about your father, but it’s too late for mine.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Marco countered in frustration. “It’s not too late. You don’t have to go through with this. Do you know what I wouldn’t give right now for five minutes in that alley with my father? I’d do anything to throw that football around with him, to tell him I’m sorry. I would do anything for that chance.”
Marco took another step forward. “It’s too late for me, Nathan, and that’s a heavy burden to bear. I don’t get a second chance. But you do.”
Nathan stared at Marco for a moment, making me hope he’d gotten the message. But instead, he dropped the knife and pulled his father to his feet, even though Churchill’s legs were weak and unsteady and his eyes could barely open.
Tears spilled down Nathan’s cheeks as he said to Marco, “Your father was a good man.” He backed his dad nearer to the roof’s edge. “That’s where our story differs.”
Marco inched closer to me, only a few feet away now as he gave his final plea, “Your father might not be a good man, but he doesn’t deserve to die.”
“You know what the worst part of this is?” Nathan asked as though he hadn’t even heard. He released his grip on Churchill with one hand and pulled out a crumpled, bloody letter, holding it up to his father’s face. “In this letter, my father told his employees that no matter who bought the business” -Nathan drew his words out slowly and let them linger in the cold night air- “he would always be New Chapel’s Santa Claus.” He closed his fist around the letter and threw it at my feet.
At once Marco made a move to grab me but froze when Nathan turned toward him. He was silent for a long moment then said, “Go on. Take your wife. Get her out of here. I don’t think either of you should see what happens next.”
Without a second’s hesitation, Marco lifted me off of the cold, graveled rooftop and carried me away from the edge, untying my hands as Nathan continued his gloomy proclamation to his father.
“You want to be New Chapel’s Santa Claus?” he asked, his hands twisting around his father’s collar. “You couldn’t spend five minutes with me, but you want to be their Santa Claus?” Nathan’s final words came out even colder than the air around him. “Then they can have you.”
“No!” I cried as Nathan gave his father a shove. Churchill’s arms wind milled as he fell backwards onto the roof’s rim, where he hung suspended, his upper body dangling over the side. Marco and I both rushed forward, Marco grabbing Nathan by the coat and dragging him away from the edge. Churchill’s Santa hat fell from his head as his neck bent backwards. I dropped onto the rooftop, grabbing his legs and holding on with all of my weight.
From behind us the New Chapel police force rushed forward. Several officers lifted Churchill off the ledge and back to safety, while Reilly and another officer wrestled Nathan to the ground.
As Nathan was taken away, fighting and shouting, and Reilly stayed to wait for the emergency medical team to arrive, Marco sat down against the stairwell wall, his head tipped forward, his hands closed, trembling all over. I slipped off my long red velvet coat, sat down beside him, and wrapped it around him. No words were spoken by either of us, just an outpouring of emotion, long overdue. I put my head on his chest and wept with him.