A Magical Christmas by Heather Graham Page B

was delicious.
    Millie was a barracuda—Jon had long since discovered that—but oddly enough, she seemed to be on Jon’s side that night, though she was usually a bra-burning antimale militant. She was friendly throughout the meal—asking serious questions about the Bobo Vinzetti pizza case.
    Maybe Millie was just trying to make sure that Jon and Julie didn’t have much of a chance to talk.
    Maybe that was damned fortunate.
    Christie had come along meekly enough. She ordered a small steak and actually appeared to beeating it rather than shoving the little pieces around on her plate. She did argue with him throughout the meal about driving to school with Jamie. She did it well—she set forward her facts. Jamie Rodriguez had gotten straight A’s in driver’s education. He drove a beat-up old car, but it was a beat-up old Volvo wagon, and he was extremely careful. “If you only took some time, Dad, you’d like Jamie. He’s a straight-A student all the way round.”
    “Thank God someone is. It’s your last year, kid,” he told his daughter. “If you don’t get your grades up, you’re going to be out of the colleges you want.”
    “I want to go to a state school,” she said firmly.
    “Christie, you’re not looking at your opportunities.”
    Again his daughter stared at him with her mother’s eyes. “That’s interesting. You want your wife to stay at home and blow noses but you want your daughter to be superwoman, a Harvard grad.”
    “What’s the matter with Harvard—other than the fact that Jamie Rodriguez won’t be there?”
    Christie stared at him—with her mother’s condemning eyes, once again—and then excused herself in an icy tone to go to the bathroom.
    Ashley knocked her silverware on the floor and spilled a Coke.Jordan, who usually ate well, ordered a huge steak—and didn’t touch it.
    The restaurant was really busy. It had taken a long time to sit, a long time to eat, and even a long time to get coffee.
    By the time it was all over, Jon had just one thought.
    The meal had been exhausting.
    It was almost eleven before they were home. Julie was saying they’d never get out of the house in the morning. Ashley was going to be cranky and miserable.
    “I told you, I’ll drive the kids in the morning,” Jon said irritably.
    “Right. Well, good. Then I’ll only have them whining for the first hour of the day because they’re so damned overtired,” Julie said.
    “They can’t possibly whine more than you do,” Jon muttered.
    He braced himself, ready for her response. Amazingly, she didn’t have one. Maybe she hadn’t heard him.
    They were in his car, and Ashley was sleeping on her lap. Christie and Jordan were bickering in the backseat.
    He pulled up in front of their house. He startedquickly from his own seat to come around and lift Ashley from Julie’s lap so that she could get out.
    Julie was already out of the car, Ashley crushed to her breast. In quick, precisely whispered words, she told him what he could do to himself.
    Apparently, she had heard him.
    She hurried into the house.
    The older kids muttered good night.
    He stood by his car for a few minutes, staring up at the sky. A feeling of hopelessness suddenly invaded him. Where the hell had it gone so wrong? They should have had everything. He did have a great job—even if he’d liked the D.A.’s office better. They had a good home with a decent, payable mortgage. He and Julie had their own cars, and they’d planned on buying one for Christie when she graduated from high school as long as she kept up a B average or higher.
    Their kids were healthy. Damned healthy. And they both knew they had to be thankful for that.
    How the hell had they managed to have everything and yet be so miserable?
    He walked into the house. It was already in darkness, only the night-lights on. He went into his own bedroom, shedding his jacket and shirt as he did so.
    Julie was already in bed. All the way on her own side of it—in fact, it looked