The phone rang shortly after they got walked in the door.
"Who on earth would be calling this late?" asked Dotty, glancing at the clock. "It's almost ten o'clock!"
"It's probably just Lee," replied Amanda, heading for the phone. "Maybe he forgot something."
It was a good guess, and a close guess, but it wasn't Lee.
"Amanda? I hope it's not too late to call. I was just talking to Skip and he said you'd probably only just be getting home."
"No, it certainly isn't, Colonel. We literally just got back from seeing Phillip's play." Amanda finished pulling her coat off with her spare hand and hung it over a kitchen chair.
Robert Clayton chuckled down the line. "Yeah, Skip told me where he'd been. He said he'd enjoyed it although I can't quite picture that being the truth. I was always bored senseless by the school Christmas pageants."
Amanda laughed along with him. "I know exactly what you mean, but we're past the pageant age, thank goodness. Phillip's school is putting on a production of 'Guys and Dolls' and he's one of the gamblers. It sort of ties in with Christmas with that whole Salvation Army theme, you know? It was a great production but it's made my mother all teary-eyed because in the costume, Phillip is the spitting image of my dad in one of his old suits."
"I suppose he would be" agreed the Colonel. "But from how you've described him, I can't imagine Phillip as a musicals kind of guy."
"Well, they needed a lot of boys obviously, for the chorus," explained Amanda, "and the girl he has a crush on was playing Adelaide, so…" she let the sentence trail off and joined the Colonel in laughter.
"Damn if that doesn't sound exactly like something Skip would have done," said the Colonel when he'd finally stopped. "In fact… did I ever tell you about Skip's first Christmas with me?"
Amanda smiled and settled into a chair, ready to enjoy herself. "No Sir, I don't think you ever did."
"Well, I know I told you all he'd say was "no" when I got him," started the Colonel. "But I don't think I ever told you that I wasn't exaggerating. By the time he'd lost Matt and Jennie so young, and then my mother only a year or so later, when he came to me, he wouldn't talk."
"Not at all?" Amanda couldn't picture it. Or maybe she could, that poor lost boy that she still sometimes caught glimpses of.
"Well, I could get a "Yes, Sir" or "No, Sir" out of him, but not much else," recalled the Colonel. "And it was worse at school- his teacher did her best but he just kept his head down and kept to himself. The school even made me take him for psychological testing because they were so concerned about it but that only made it worse. The base shrink thought he had what they called 'selective mutism' and that he'd get better as he got used to people, but I'll admit, that had me worried because I knew he was probably going to have keep changing schools and what if he just never got used to anybody? And then, of course, there are no secrets on an Air Force base, so some of the kids at school got wind of it and he got teased pretty badly about it." The Colonel sighed as he remembered those unhappy days. "I gave the other parents hell for gossiping about it in front of their kids but it was too late by then; he was like a wounded dog, snarling at everyone."
"Like a lone wolf," commented Amanda, tearing up a little as she pictured it. No wonder Lee had such antipathy for psychiatrists.
"Exactly. Anyway, the only person who could get through to him was little Alice Henderson – I told you about her, right?"
"Yes, you did. He got in a fight over her, didn't he?"
"He sure did. Sweetest little thing, that girl. Big brown eyes and always a ray of sunshine. Turns out, even then, he was true to type," he laughed. "Anyway, that first Christmas, the teacher was handing out parts for the Christmas play and I thought she'd have to give him a part like a cow or a sheep or a palm tree or something since he wouldn't talk."
"But she didn't?"
"No, she didn't. Imagine my surprise when he came home with the slip of paper saying he was going to be the Innkeeper."
"Really? That's a pretty important part," exclaimed Amanda. "Was she trying to force him to talk?" She couldn't picture that going well – adult Lee was stubborn enough, seven-year-old Lee must have been worse.
"Well, that's what I thought, so I actually phoned the school and asked her if it was a mistake, and she just laughed and said, no, that I shouldn't worry, and I'd see why on the night."
"So what happened?"
"For starters, it turned out that Alice had been cast as the Innkeeper's Wife, which is probably the only reason he agreed to it. So, it gets to the scene where Joseph and Mary arrive in Bethlehem and they knock on the door of the Inn and Joseph gives his little speech about how they have travelled so far and his wife is so tired and is there any room, and there's this long silence – and I'm not going to lie, I was panicking a little bit – and then Skip looks him up and down and just says "No" and slams the door in their faces."
Amanda collapsed half-laughing, half-crying – she could picture it so clearly. "Oh my Gosh, that teacher was a genius!"
"I know. The audience was laughing so hard, we all almost missed Alice coming back out to tell them that they could stay in the stable instead. And then she had a whole bit where she was finding them blankets and trying to make them comfortable while Skip stood behind her glaring at them. That teacher definitely took all his worst qualities and channeled them perfectly."
"Oh, I wish I could have seen that!"
"Seen it?" snorted the Colonel. "From what I can tell, you're living it!"
"Oh, Colonel!" Amanda laughed. "Lee's nowhere near that bad now!"
"No, he's not," agreed the Colonel. "And I know why – he was like Sky Masterson, just waiting for a good woman to come along and rescue him from himself."
"Oh, Colonel," repeated Amanda, now flushing with emotion.
"It's true and you know it," replied the Colonel. "But even over the phone, I can tell I'm embarrassing you so I'll get back to the real reason for my call. I wanted to say thank you for the invitation for Christmas – it's very kind of you to include me."
"Please tell me there's not a 'but' coming," Amanda sighed.
"Not at all – I'll be there with bells on. I just wanted to bring something for your sons and Skip said you'd have a better idea than he would about what they'd like."
"You don't need to bring anything but yourself," answered Amanda.
"I want to," he answered gruffly. "It's my second chance to get this right, if you know what I mean."
"I do – and thank you for thinking of them," she replied softly. "But they're pretty easy to please – Phillip likes anything with an engine and Jamie is either nose-deep in a book or behind his camera so anything to do with any of that will be fine."
"Well, then I have an idea already," the Colonel answered immediately. "I'll need to check in with some of my friends at Andrews, but do you think they'd like a close-up look at the planes?"
"They'd love it" said Amanda without hesitation. "That would be perfect!"
"Good – with the two of you and your classification levels, it shouldn't be any problem getting them clearance to be out there, although Jamie would have to get his photos vetted to make sure he didn't accidentally get anything classified in there."
"Well, if anyone could, it would be a member of my family!" chortled Amanda.
"You said it first." She could hear the Colonel grinning down the phone line. "Good, well I'll see you in a few weeks then. Good night, Amanda."
"Good night, Colonel." Amanda hung up and looked up at her mother who was moving around the kitchen putting together her nightcap of warm milk with a spike of something extra - apparently it was an Irish cream kind of night – and humming a tune from the show score.
"I assume that was Lee's uncle?" asked Dotty. "He is still coming for Christmas, isn't he?"
"Oh yes – he was just asking about presents for the boys," explained Amanda.
"How kind – Lee must get some of that from him."
Amanda cast her mind back to the numerous arguments she'd watched between the two bull-headed men and stifled a giggle. "He definitely takes after him in a lot of ways," she admitted.
"I'm looking forward to meeting him properly this time," said Dotty, shooting a pointed look at her daughter. "I still can't believe you've known him all this time, even before you were dating – or so you say."
"Oh no, Mother. I really only met him that one time because Lee was desperate for a date to take to dinner. We definitely weren't dating then." She couldn't help smiling at that memory of Lee's tactless plea to help him out that night.
"Oh really?" said Dotty in a tone that suggested she didn't believe a word of it. She picked up her mug of warm milk and headed toward the stairs. "Well, deny it all you want but it must have been the start of something, based on that cat-who-got-the-cream smile on your face right now."
"Mother!"
"I'm just saying, Amanda, that the play tonight had a lot of good advice, if you were listening."
"Oh really?" Amanda repeated her mother's words from a few seconds earlier.
"Oh yes," replied Dotty with a look of pure mischief, as she began to sing on her way upstairs, the words drifting back down to a laughing Amanda. "Marry the man today, Trouble though he may be, Much as he likes to play, Crazy and wild and free…"
Still laughing, Amanda looked around the room at the tree Lee had helped bring home, and the photo with the boys, and gave a little sigh for that little boy of thirty years ago who sometimes still seemed uncertain of his place in her family. "Marry the man today, rather than sigh in sorrow," she sang softly to herself. "Marry the man today… and change his ways tomorrow."
She picked up the phone and dialed. "Hi, Sweetheart. I just wanted to hear your voice."