Three

The waitress wore a low-cut green blouse and a very short green skirt. Her shapely legs were encased in dark hose, but the effect was ruined by the run in the back of her left leg. Although she didn’t look a day over nineteen, her pretty face was drawn from exhaustion.

“You want something to drink?” she asked T. J., as she extended her bottom lip to blow away the errant tendril of red hair that had fallen across her forehead.

“Coffee.”

“Coffee? That’s all?”

“I have to drive back to Nashville tonight,” he said. It was easier than saying he didn’t drink, which always got one of two reactions: either hostility from those who felt accused because they did drink, or a quiet, understanding nod from those who believed him to be a recovered alcoholic. The truth was, he just didn’t like it that much, and the few times he had tried it in his youth, booze had made him sick.

“Cream and sugar?”

“Lots of cream,” T. J. said. “And leave room in the cup for me to add it.”

“All right.”

“Oh, and uh . .. this is so you won’t get gypped out of your tip because I’m not drinking.” He handed the girl a ten-dollar bill.

“Thanks!” she said with a genuine smile. “I’ll get your coffee right away.”

As the waitress walked away from the table, T. J. saw the club manager walking onto the stage.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the Paradise Lounge is proud to present the musical stylings of Conroy Conrad!” The manager stepped down, and a young man wearing black pants and a black shirt, trimmed in silver, stepped up to the microphone. Without a word of introduction, he began playing and singing “Ruby Lips.”

“Mom,” eight-year-old Timmy said as he went up to bed that night. “Why didn’t Dad come to our pageant?”

“Oh, you know how it is, honey,” Madison said matter-of-factly. “Something came up at his job.”

“Are you mad at him because he didn’t come?”

“No, I’m not angry. I’m . .. disappointed.”

“You looked mad when you came to school. It seems like you and Dad have been mad at each other a lot lately.”

“We both work very hard, Timmy, and sometimes our work makes us a little short-tempered. But not really mad. Now you go to sleep.”

Madison smiled down at her son as he climbed into his bed, and she bent to pull up his covers. Timmy could see that her eyes were glistening with tears.

“You and Christine were wonderful in the pageant tonight. I was very proud of you both.” As she leaned over the bed to kiss Timmy good night, she added, “Don’t forget to say your prayers.”

“I won’t.”

Timmy watched his mother leave the room, and as she shut the door he closed his eyes to pray.

“Dear Lord, this is me . . .Timmy Carmichael. I know lots of kids are probably praying to you right now about things they want for Christmas. You remember that last night I told You all I want for Christmas is for Mom and Dad to stop being mad at each other? Well, that’s still what I want. I know they love each other, but the way things are going, I’m afraid they might stop loving each other. Please find some way to help them. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”

As T. J. drove back to Nashville that night, he cracked the window in the car just enough to let the air circulate. The outside air was cold, but he wanted to carry away the tobacco odor that clung to his clothes. It may have been his imagination, but it seemed to him that everyone in the Paradise Lounge was smoking and he had watched the show through a fog bank.

Conroy Conrad had been pretty good, even though he sang only cover songs, including two more that Corey Doolin had made popular. Singing only cover songs wasn’t an insurmountable problem, because original music wasn’t that difficult to come by. But when T. J. talked to him after the set, he found that the young man was a little too full of himself. While confidence was certainly necessary for success, T. J. firmly believed that singers should never cross the line into arrogance unless they had the talent to support it. In his opinion, Conroy Conrad did not.

He would give Bob Robison as accurate a report as he could, but T. J. had no interest in representing the kid. He’d wasted an evening and had nothing to show for it but an angry wife.

As T. J. thought about Madison, he realized that he found her no less attractive now than he had in the beginning. If anything, she was even more beautiful, and he respected her work. He laughed somewhat bitterly. She had more than held her own with the atheist who had been her guest today.

He wasn’t sure exactly when things started going sour in their marriage. Remembering her cool response on the phone earlier brought back memories of recent arguments between them, a sense of the growing distance and even alienation that he felt. Did she feel the same way? Did she even think about him when he wasn’t around? When he wasn’t around . . .

In T. J.’s business, he was often surrounded by beautiful women. And with that sixth sense that some women have, many of them perceived that things weren’t going that well in his marriage. Several of them had offered T. J. the opportunity to stray, some by sending very subtle signals, others with out-and-out invitations. But despite many opportunities, not once during his entire marriage had he been unfaithful to his wife.

Somehow, though, fidelity and a healthy appreciation of all her good qualities didn’t seem to be enough. He was failing her in more important ways, and he knew it. In retrospect, he should have passed on listening to Conroy Conrad tonight and gone to the children’s pageant. But after years of following his career wherever it took him, T. J. found it difficult to change course.

It was 11:45 P.M. when he opened the front door to their house. He tried to come in quietly so he wouldn’t wake anyone, but to his surprise he found Madison waiting up for him.

“Madison? What are you doing still awake?”

“Waiting for you,” she answered.

“Waiting for me? Why? Is everything all right?”

“No,” she replied. “Everything is not all right.”

“Did something happen to one of the kids?”

“It’s not the kids, T. J. It’s us.”

“Us.” He hung his coat in the closet.

Looking over at the table beside her, T. J. saw a small pile of soiled tissues. “Madison, I know that things aren’t going as well as they should in our marriage—”

“Marriage?” Madison asked. “What marriage? We aren’t married, T. J. Not really. We’re roommates.”

“Well, if we are, we’re friendly roommates, aren’t we?” He smiled, trying to ease the pain of the moment.

“This has gone too far for jokes. Marriage is supposed to be a partnership. Parenting is a partnership. When was the last time we did something as a family? It’s always me taking the kids somewhere, or you taking them somewhere, or sometimes the nanny filling in for both of us. We never do things together.”

“We both have high-pressure jobs,” T. J. said. “And let’s face it, we are both very successful.” He leaned back into the lounge chair cushions.

“Yes, but at what price? I can’t even remember the last time we sat down as a family for a meal that wasn’t take-out.”

“It’s not all that bad, is it? I mean, we never fight, or say hateful things to each other.”

“Sometimes I wish we would fight. At least that way I would know that there was some . . .some passion in our marriage. There’s nothing there anymore.”

“Where is this going?” T. J. asked.

“Where do all marriages go when there is nothing left?”

“Are you saying you want a divorce?”

Madison took a deep breath. “No, I don’t want a divorce. I don’t think anybody ever really wants a divorce. But the way things are between us, I think it’s inevitable. And that being the case, I think we should do it as quickly and painlessly as possible.”

T. J. snorted. “Do you know some way to have a divorce without pain?”

“No, I don’t,” she admitted in a quiet, choked voice.

“Divorce is going to be awfully hard on the kids, don’t you think?”

“It will be a lot easier on them if we do it now, while they are young enough to recover. And while there is still goodwill between us.” Madison brushed a tear from her eye.

“If there is ‘goodwill’ between us, then why are we talking about divorce?”

“T. J., are you going to sit there and tell me that you haven’t considered this possibility?”

“No, I can’t tell you that.” He took a swallow of coffee. “I have thought about it . .. feared it.” He shook his head, wondering if this conversation could really be happening.

“If we are going to do it, let’s do it now, while we still have enough feelings for each other not to want to cause each other any more pain. We can work out an equitable way of sharing the children. And since we are both economically successful, I don’t think there will be any financial demands.”

“You know, there is a way we could make this work,” T. J. said.

“How?” Madison demanded, her skepticism showing in her voice and face.

“If one of us would give up our career.”

“‘ One of us.’ You mean if I would give up my career, don’t you?”

“I know you don’t want to hear it, Madison, but that would be the more logical choice. I earn more than you do, and besides that, I have two-dozen musicians who depend upon me for their own livings.”

“Do you really think that would work, T. J.? Don’t you think I might get bitter and start blaming you?”

“I don’t know,” T. J. sighed. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it is too late for us. But what about the kids? How will we tell them? And when?”

“I’m not sure how to tell them.” Madison felt numbed by the way the conversation had gone, but she tried to speak matter-of-factly. “But I have a very strong opinion as to when.”

“When, then?”

“I want to wait until after Christmas. Something like this could ruin Christmas for them forever.”

“I have an idea. That is, if you’re up to it. Why don’t we go somewhere for Christmas? All of us, as a family. It might be our last . . .” T. J. let out a long breath. “Our last Christmas as a family.”

“Where would we go?”

“Well, Corey is going to the Bahamas. We could go there.”

“Absolutely not,” Madison said. “If you get down there with Corey, just how much time do you think you would spend with the kids?”

“You’re right. What about taking an ocean cruise?”

Madison vetoed that one too. “No way. The last thing I want to do is be trapped on board a ship with a thousand people who are trying to give me ideas for my TV show.”

“How about Europe? You won’t be as recognizable in Europe.”

“That would be all right, I guess. Though the hassle of flying overseas now doesn’t really appeal to me.”

“All right, then you come up with an idea,” T. J. challenged. “Where would you like to go?”

“I don’t really know,” Madison admitted. “Somewhere quiet, a little out of the way. A place where both of us could spend some quality time with the kids, and maybe even get in touch with Christmas itself.”

“What does that mean, ‘get in touch with Christmas?’”

“I’m not exactly sure. Maybe it’s because of the show I did today, but I just realized that we don’t really celebrate Christmas. I don’t know that we ever have—not the true Christmas. I know I’m not making sense, but . .. I want to go to a feeling as much as to a place.”

“Well, I don’t know how to—” He stopped midsentence. “Wait a minute . . . maybe I do know how! How would you like to go to Possum Hollow? Or, as I’m sure the folks say there, Possum Holler.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I saw something today. It was an ad for ‘Christmas Past.’ I left it in the office, but I can get it in the morning.”

“Christmas Past? There’s no need to wait until morning.” Madison picked up her purse.

“What do you mean?”

She opened her purse and removed a brochure. “Is this what you’re talking about?”

“Yeah, that’s the one. Where’d you get that?”

“It was in my dressing room after the show.” She looked at the back of the brochure. “You’re right, it is Possum Hollow,” she said. “I wonder where that is.”

“In the Smokies somewhere. Anyway, how would you like to go there? I gather it’s some sort of historical Christmas thing. It would be . . .”

“Serene?” Madison asked.

“Yes. I could do with a little serenity. I think we all could.”

“Don’t you think going to a place like that might be a little awkward for us? I mean, pretending to be happily married?”

“All right, let’s pretend not to be married. Let’s just pretend to be happy roommates, sharing a Christmas vacation with a couple of swell kids,” T. J. suggested.

“I don’t know if I can do that,” Madison said.

“Madison, we owe the kids this. And I think it would make it easier to tell them afterward.”

“All right. I guess we can try.”

“Good.” T. J. turned the brochure over so he could see the information on the back, then picked up the phone.

“What are you doing?”

“Making a reservation.”

“No one will be there at this time of night.”

“It’s an electronic reservation. You just leave your name with the answering machine.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I called them earlier today.” T. J. reached for the phone.

Madison looked puzzled. “You mean you were already thinking about going?”

“Not really, but the name intrigued me. Didn’t you notice? It’s the same as the title of Corey’s newest song.”

“I guess I didn’t make the connection.”

“Well, believe me, I did. I just wanted to find out who these people are and what this is all about . . . but all I got was a machine.”

“Wait a minute. You know nothing about them, but you are still willing to go?”

“How bad can it be? If we don’t like it, we can always get in the car and drive away.”

“I suppose you’re right. Okay, give them a call.”

He picked up the phone and punched in the number. “Yes,” he said, when the machine answered. “I’d like reservations for Mr. and Mrs. T. J. Carmichael and two children, a boy age eight, and a girl age six. We’ll be there from December 24 until the 26th.” He hung up.

“That’s it? That’s all we have to do? You didn’t even give them a credit card number.”

“I don’t want to leave a credit card number on an answering machine. They can take it when we check in. And speaking of checking in, let’s go to bed, shall we? I’m dead tired.”

“All right,” Madison agreed.

They walked down the hallway together, but when they reached the bedroom door, Madison didn’t stop.

“Where are you going?”

“Under the circumstances, I think one of us should sleep in the guest room until this is over.”

“You aren’t planning on having separate rooms when we check in to this Christmas Past, are you?”

“No.”

“Then why now?”

“I just . . .I just think we should.”

He stared at her for a long moment, then let out a resigned sigh. “All right, Madison. If this is what you want, I won’t fight you over it.”

“Thank you. This is what I want.”

“Good night,” T. J. said.

Madison paused for a second before opening the door to the guest room. “Good night,” she replied, then stepped into the room and closed the door behind her.