By the time Sharon pulls into the garage at home, she's decided the curveball thrown into her carefully laid plans-for-planning is more absurd than anything else. It isn't as if a single member of her committee — one who'll probably bail after a few meetings — can ruin her entire party, let alone her entire Christmas. There's too much to anticipate in the approaching season.
The fall's evening air is still warm, pleasantly so. But, before long, the days will shorten and the sun's daily descent will bring a breath of coolness to the nights. Her calendar will fill with recitals and parties; her to-do list will be peppered with offerings for carry-ins and gift exchanges. Lights and wreaths will gild the city. By December, her heart will tug toward the east, homeward, delivering a nostalgia that she can only recapture amid her parents and siblings.
A trip isn't going to happen this year. But, with the kids, Sharon plans to make the most of her local holiday.
With that in mind, she assesses the side of the house for Christmas light potential before pushing the door open. Inside, she finds Gavin and Ricky at the kitchen sink, the latter with dish soap bubbles up to his elbows.
His eyes brighten. "Mom!"
"Hi, honey." He hops the few feet between them and wraps his still-damp arms around her waist. Sharon returns the hug, her voice muffling into his hair when she says, "Are you being helpful?
"He most certainly is," Gavin explains. "We just finished up the dishes."
"I see." Her brow lifts. "You made dinner?"
"Yeah, Uncle Gavin made us gazab… uh… gapach…" Ricky trails off with a concentrated frown.
"Gazpacho," Gavin offers.
"Yeah, that, and these awesome crispy cheese things?"
"Ooh." Sharon reaches out to brush his hair back from his forehead. "Cheese is always a winner in this house."
"Uh-huh," Ricky agrees, even as he ducks away from her hand.
Gavin nods at him. "And we managed to save some for your mom."
"No thanks to the Bottomless Pit over there," Emily snipes as she passes through the kitchen.
As Ricky's face crumples toward outrage, Sharon calls after her, "That's inappropriate, Emily Carolyn!"
Her daughter meets the reprimand with silence. The wall blocks whatever nonverbal response she receives. Squeezing Ricky's shoulder, she trades an eye roll with Gavin. "Teenagers."
"I'm not gonna be like that, Mom."
"Oh, honey," she leans down — barely — to press a kiss to Ricky's forehead. Quickly passing time will tell whether he's right. For now, though…"How about you stay just like this?"
His gaze lifts in thought. "Only if I can still go to Space Camp when I should be fourteen."
Sharon meets this long ago promise, never forgotten, with a serious nod. "That seems only fair."
"All right!" His attention turns to the living room when Emily yells a question.
"Where's the Toy Story tape?"
"It's over by the—" He pauses in his answer, then sets off toward his sister's voice. "It's in the rewinder, right?"
"And he's off." Gavin turns toward the counter. "Let's get you set up with some dinner, hmm?"
Sharon exhales a laugh at the prospect of being served in her own kitchen. "Gavin, you don't need to—"
He tuts, guiding her to the table and into a chair. "It's the least I can do. You deserve to have someone do the cooking every once in a while."
"So that's why you made dinner instead of ordering the pizza I left cash for?"
"Indeed." He delivers a plate to her seat. It's scattered with the lauded cheese crisps; a bowl at its center holds a chunky mixture of chopped vegetables. "Plus, I figured you prefer to feed your children something that didn't roll off an assembly line."
She shakes her head at the sight, muttering, "I can't believe you got them to eat this."
"Oh," he shrugs. "You know how it is. Everything's fun and exciting when Uncle Gavin comes over."
Sharon grins at the truth in this. She long ago learned he's the one and only sitter they won't whine about.
"Speaking of fun and exciting…" His trailing silence leaves him turning from the counter with a bottle of wine and two stemmed glasses. "I brought a treat."
As he unearths the corkscrew from her drawer of kitchen gadgets, Sharon asks, "Is that your—"
"Last bottle of '96 Tamber Bey Sauvignon Blanc? From my trip to Calistoga?"
"I thought you were saving that."
"I was saving it. For a special occasion." With a few twists and a pull, the cork pops free from the bottle. Gavin pours two servings and hands one to Sharon. More quietly, he adds, "Such as the finalization of a dear friend's separation from her leech of a husband." He clinks his glass to hers.
Sharon obliges his celebratory gesture, inhaling a waft of cool citrus air from the glass before taking a sip. The occasion tips the wine's green apple tartness into a sour trail down the back of her throat.
She settles the glass onto her placemat, then turns it along the fabric. "Jack didn't even contest the terms. Is that a victory?"
"Of course it is. It's cleaner that way."
"Yes, but…"
"But?"
Her view of the separation is complex. Even as the process leaves Sharon secure in her home and what remains of her savings, the decision to cleave apart her family has been agonizing. It was a finality, an admission that no amount of begging or shouting or sobbing could keep Jack from leveraging their future for another round of cards.
Even so, his absence claws at her, every night and most every day. By bringing law into the equation, by creating witnesses to the crumbling plaster behind his professional facade, Sharon only ensured he'll never return. In response, his silence, his distance, and his absolute lack of emotional output have combined to form a malicious blow. It lands upon her over and over.
Gavin nudges her hand. "Sharon?"
She sways her head, sloughing off her darkened mood. With a lifted shoulder, she says, "Part of me just can't accept that he didn't put up more of a fight."
On a heavy sigh, he leans in. "Jack is obviously facing several major problems," he murmurs. "That doesn't change that he's an ass and a coward. You did everything you could."
His assurance leaves emotion pressing at her eyes. Rather than answer, she reaches for her glass. The wound is too fresh, she supposes, for the bandage of her best efforts to have any healing effect.
Gavin settles back into his seat, mirroring her motion. "You deserve all the happiness, dear. And now maybe you can focus on chasing that down." After a sip, he hums. "Perhaps starting by spreading your Christmas cheer to the masses. How was your meeting?"
Yes, we could use a change of topic. Sharon takes a draw of wine before saying, "I promise you will not believe who ended up on my committee."
"Is it that creepy JTTF guy?" He snaps his fingers on remembering, "Nelson? The one who has the hots for you?"
"Oh. No." Leave it to Gavin to remind her it could always be worse. "Thank goodness."
"Ooh, is it Pope?"
For some reason, Gavin is enthralled by Will Pope and his pretentious air. He has a never-ending and increasingly outrageous list of theories on how the man ended up in LA.
Memory of his many speculations leaves an unglamorous bark of a laugh escaping Sharon's mouth. "No. The R and R is far beneath the Deputy Chief's stature."
"Such a shame, I could use the intel." Unfazed, he adds another guess. "Is it someone who's thrown a punch at you?"
Sharon meets the question with a hiss before leaning forward, peering into the living room. She finds the kids sitting in front of the TV, staring up at a cartoon.
He waves away her concern, "Oh, they're not listening to us."
"Still." Faced with his cluelessness, she offers a neon-bright hint. "'Honk if you love Jesus?'"
"Oh, Sergeant Flynn!" Gavin's smile at solving her riddle fades into a shrug. "He's harmless, mostly."
"Mostly," Sharon echoes.
"Well, you may not be his favorite person, but he does have a soft side."
She snorts. "I can't imagine where he might be hiding it."
Half into his glass, Gavin says, "Somewhere under those nice suits of his." At Sharon's shocked grimace, he adds, "What? I'm allowed to notice my clients' sartorial qualities."
"If you say so."
"C'mon, you have to admit he clothes himself well."
"I suppose." As she swirls her wine, Sharon considers Flynn's many visits to her office. "Though I don't think any number of three-piece suits can make up for what I've seen in his file."
"Well, no, but you haven't had to add to it lately, have you?"
"He ran someone over. In his LAPD vehicle."
"It was self-defense!"
"Only thanks to your brilliant legal mind."
"Nonsense. It was a good…" He breaks off, directing a thoughtful stare at his glass. "What's the vehicular version of a 'good shooting,' Ms. FID?"
Sharon hums through a mouthful of wine. With most of the bottle drained, the edges of her attention have softened, allowing her to laugh through explaining, "There's no such thing!"
"Maybe there should be," he chuckles. With barely repressed laughter, he adds, "Tell your policy-making friends. You can call it the Flynn Maneuver!"
"I…" The absurdity of the suggestion leaves Sharon rubbing her eyes, trying to fight back a giggle. It breaks through, anyway, aided by the mental image of 'the Flynn Maneuver' listed in a tactical manual. "It would have to be… really, really well defined… just so there's no confusion as to what the term means."
"Well, the directions are simple…"
"Start the car, put it in drive, hit the gas?"
Gavin opens his mouth, only to double over again. He recovers and ekes out, "Wait for the thud!"
Sharon rests her forehead on the table, clutching her sides. She gathers herself just long enough to say, "I don't think we even need guns anymore!"
"Mom, can we have some pop—" Emily appears in the doorway and comes to a stop. Her eyes sweep the room, taking in a cackling Gavin and Sharon muffling her laughter into the tablecloth. She mouths wow and backs out of the room, adding, "Why are you guys so weird?"
Sharon ignores her question and wipes water from her cheeks. On a long sigh, she says, "Oh, I really shouldn't be joking about this."
"Why not?" Gavin splits the remaining wine between their glasses before lifting his own in a toast. "Take the humor where it comes, I say."