Very Castle Celebrations

Chapter 34

Celebrating Christmas with a toddler around is going to be an experience Castle hasn't had in about 16 years and Kate has never had at all. A lot of things about the observance will have to change. There can't be anything breakable, or that can be swallowed, on the tree - at least not on the lower branches. The village, the train, and the piles of presents will have to be on much higher ground. Ribbons and anything that could possibly find its way around Jackson's neck are a no-no. Cookies and other holiday yummies will need to be secured up high as well.

The cold weather is also limiting trips to the park. It's not that Castle can't bundle himself and Jackson up, but there is ice, slush, and mud, making it difficult to maneuver a stroller and not very navigable for a beginning walker. The loft has had to become even more of a playground. In addition to the baby monkey bars, the ball activities, and an upsizing of Jackson's swing, the living room has become a roadway for Jackson's push and ride-along car and a site for manipulating oversized blocks.

Castle has a great time watching Jackson conquer every new activity. He's also been down on the floor with his son - a lot. Getting up isn't as easy as it was when Alexis was that age, but he's managing. After Christmas, the loft stands to become even more of a toddler paradise.

In the two days that remain before Santa is scheduled to make an appearance, there is a lot to do. Fortunately, Kate has the time off from work, so it is easier to have a pair of eyes on Jackson. Alexis is scheduled to come help with the tree, but she has a holiday of her own to prepare. Two actually. Her celebration with Cary will be double, with Hanukkah overlapping Christmas. They will have a small tree, with some of Alexis' favorite ornaments, and also a menorah that Cary has lit every night of the Festival of Lights since he was a little boy. Alexis has tried to learn how to make the Jewish-style pancakes known as latkes, but she and Cary settled on sufganiyot, Hanukkah doughnuts, as their seasonal food of choice.

Castle suspects that he might be invited to participate in the gambling game that is played with a traditional top, the dreidel. Alexis may be expecting to beat him, but Castle had enough experience with Jewish classmates at boarding school to gain some skill with that particular amusement. On the other hand, with Cary's prodigious mathematics talent, Castle could find himself on the losing end. He'll just have to pay attention for next year.

Next year? The idea that Alexis' relationship with her boyfriend is that solid is frightening and comforting in equal measure. Castle loves the fact that his daughter is happy, but he'd always pictured her as not getting truly serious about anyone until she graduated college. Of course, he'd been totally serious about Kyra while he was in college - but look how that had turned out. As deeply in love as he is with Kate, there are still a few scars on his soul from that early heartbreak. He hates to think of Alexis going through anything like that, but there's nothing he can do except wait to see what develops.

Along with the traditional Christmas fluff, the news broadcasts are full of coverage of the new vice president that was appointed after Parcival was forced to resign. She came as a surprise to most of the talking heads. Unlike Richard Nixon, who chose to fill the office vacated by Spiro Agnew with a longstanding party leader from the House of Representatives, the president chose his leading rival for the nomination, a firebrand named Tammy Mason.

Tammy comes from a distinguished military family and served two tours in Iraq before being sidelined by an injury. Being in a wheelchair has scarcely slowed her down. She was a tireless campaigner and during her short tenure so far, appears equally energetic as vice president. She's been touring veteran's facilities to develop a proposal for legislation to improve services and response time. She's also made a point of visiting the food banks and pointing out the shame of the food insecurity many in America face, in a country rich enough that it should be more than capable of adequately feeding everyone. Castle has already decided that he would happily vote for her for president in the next election, should she choose to run.

Not everyone, however, is an admirer. Thinly veiled bigotry has surfaced at Tammy's mixed racial heritage. She is also not a darling in the corporate suites who see her as endangering their tax breaks in favor of allocating more money to the social safety net. Then there is always the idiot crowd who thinks a woman shouldn't be in charge of anything. Given his appreciation for powerful, capable women, Castle can just imagine how fast things would fall apart if those morons had their way.

While he's thinking of remarkable women, he checks his watch. Kate went shopping. Unless she's with Lanie and being urged toward the perfect selection, Kate's buying trips are usually very rapid operations. She knows exactly what she wants, and purchases it, end of story. But she's been gone for hours. The stores are crowded this time of year, but even so, he's beginning to wonder if something happened.

As if she could hear his thoughts, her ringtone, the nonurgent one, emanates from his pocket. Kate explains that somehow the streets in midtown have become flooded. She thinks a water main may have burst or something. She called the nearest precinct, but so far there's no official explanation. The liquid has begun to form a thin layer of ice, causing multiple accidents and turning traffic into a nightmare. She's trying to reach the subway, but it's slow going. She says she'll be home as soon as she can, and she doesn't want him to worry.

Castle isn't worried about Kate - much. She can easily handle challenges like slippery conditions and overloaded public transportation. He is curious about what caused the flooding. Usually, it takes quite a freeze to cause heavy pipes to burst, and the city hasn't been experiencing one. On the other hand, if someone wanted to create chaos deliberately, the flooding would be a pretty effective way to do it.

The question is who would profit by causing that kind of disruption. Terrorists would most likely do something a lot more violent and deadly. Could the flooding have been a distraction while a crime was being committed? What crime and by whom? Storylines are beginning to flow freely from his brain. A bank robbery seems unreasonable. Even in the midst of the water flow, it would attract too much attention. If there were a crime, it would have to be something small and subtle, yet with a big enough payoff to justify the risk of getting caught pissing off that many New Yorkers. Jewels, stocks and bonds, the possibilities seem endless. Or perhaps the rushing waters were aimed at one particular target and the rest of the mess was just collateral damage. He sets an alert on his phone for further information. If nothing else, he may get a good story out of Midtown's mass inconvenience.