Teresa's Christmas Story Redux

"Yes sir, I did." I said. "No disrespect to you, but she had to know."

"Oh, I agree, it was the right thing to do, for both family and practical reasons." William said. "And I can see that Cindy practically worships you; it was best that come from you than from anyone else on earth, even Molly." I just nodded.

Mr. Ross continued: "And of course I know that you are the father of Molly's sons. I won't hide the fact that it was a bit disturbing to Maggie and myself that you're already married. But I'm finally glad to meet you, as I can see for myself that you're as good and honorable a man as Cindy and Molly say you are, and you're doing right by Ross and Ian."

"Thank you, sir." I said. "And Ross and Ian are my sons as well as your grandsons, and there's nothing I won't do for them"

"Yes, I believe that." William said. Then he peered at me. "I'm told you are a very perceptive man, and observe and understand things most people don't. So I know you're going to understand when I say that I expect you to take care of both Molly and Cindy going forward, and into the future."

"Yes sir, you bet I will." I said, fully understanding the man's words.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

That evening, as the sun was setting, Cindy asked her father to come out onto the deck of the Cabin. It was beginning to get cold as the sun went behind the horizon to the west. As she sat down with her father and spread a blanket over both of their backs, they both saw a train coming out of the western horizon.

"Trains." said William Ross as the whistle of the train reached them on the wisps of the wind. "I always loved them as a boy."

"I like them, too." said Cindy. "So, Dad, I brought you out here so we can stop delaying the inevitable, and talk about it."

"That you're not my daughter?" asked William, nodding slowly. "Yes. I guess we should."

"First of all, Dad," said Cindy, "I am still your daughter and you are still my dad. Oh, maybe not biologically, but you raised me. You were the one that tucked me into my bed every night, that put peroxide on my scrapes, took me to my hockey games and cheered me on when I knocked the other girls down." She heard her father chuckle at those memories. "So you'll always be my dad." She put her arm around him and hugged him. He hugged her back.

"Yes, you will always be my little girl, and you did get a lot of scrapes as a child." he said. "Playing hockey and softball, then you started doing that training for those competitions. And speaking of that... have you truly fully recovered from your wounds from that bad raid?"

"Yes sir." said Cindy. "Pretty much. And I think Don promoted me partly so he can keep me back, and out of trouble."

"You think a lot of him, don't you?" William asked.

"More than words can express, Dad." Cindy replied, looking out over the twinkling lights of the Town.

"Good." said Mr. Ross. "Of all the things in the world, at least the Lord provided for him to be your, what is it, cousin?"

"Yes, Dad." Cindy said.

"I can see the positive influence he has on you, too." said Mr. Ross. "You've always been a fearless little girl, but I see it even now... I've been wondering how we'd face this awkward situation, but you just come right out with it and take it head-on... very direct, just like him."

Cindy realized that her father was right. "Yes, there's no doubt he confronts any issue very directly. Sometimes too much so. And speaking of that... I do appreciate you and Mom coming here. I wanted you to meet Jenna, but... well, I guess Fate got in the way."

"Yes." said Mr. Ross. "And I owe you an apology, for not coming here last year. But... maybe it's for the best, as you found out the truth about... things."

"Well, maybe I can bring Jenna up to Edmonton this Spring." Cindy said. "And you can finally meet her then."

"Yes, if the Lord wills it." said Mr. Ross. "If the Lord wills it..." He hugged Cindy tighter, dissipating her sense of foreboding...

Part 4 - Trouble

Thursday, December 24th. Christmas Eve.

For Teresa Croyle, it was the day that would forever live in infamy in her heart, though she'd learned to accept Alexis's death and to understand her father's agony of that devastatingly fateful night, which robbed him of his sanity.

It was early, about 7:30pm. Traffic was moderate as people went to church services or did last-minute shopping. Teresa was on her way to The Cabin, to help prepare for the big Christmas Eve party. She'd gone by Police Headquarters to get her gifts; they were now in the trunk of her car.

The Commander had wanted her to arrive early, and she knew why: he was getting her off the road and out of trouble as early as he could. The consolation prize was that she got to spend time with baby Ian, Ross, Jim, Carole, and little Pete before the rest of the Detective Force got there, and---- wait, what was that?

She had clearly seen the image of her sister Alexis as she went by a building. Looking up, she saw that it was the Saskia Building. She heard Alexis's voice say "Stop here! Stop here!"

She heeded the call, turning around and bringing her car to the front gate and the opening near it. She had her gun in a shoulder strap, like the Commander used when wearing his gun under a civilian jacket. She also had her badge, but no radio. Nevertheless, she got on her cellphone and sent a couple of texts before going in.

As she approached the main warehouse, she again clearly could see the ethereal form of her sister Alexis at the doorway. "Come on! Our sister needs your help!" Then the form vanished as Teresa got to the door.

Our sister? Teresa thought. No, Amy is not related to us, she thought to herself as she looked around the warehouse.

She heard a shuffle in the far back, near the offices. She walked back there. Just as she went by some stacked boxes, she stopped. Looking between the boxes, she saw Amy crouching down.

"Hey, Amy." she said quietly. "It's me, Teresa. Why are you here?" Amy was looking up at her, scared... and then Teresa saw Amy's companion.

He was a smallish dog, brown and white, and looked like a cocker spaniel. Amy had him clutched tightly to her chest, and was holding his snout to keep him from making a noise.

"Hey, who's your friend there?" Teresa said. "Come on out, I'm not going to hurt him or you."

"No, don't take him away from me!" Amy gasped, about to cry.

"I won't." Teresa said, seeming to understand without consciously knowing why. "I'm not going to take your dog away from you. What's his name?"

"Buddy." Amy said.

"Come on out here." Teresa said. As Amy came out, Teresa saw that the dog was indeed a cocker spaniel. "So Buddy is why you've been running away. They have a no-pet policy at the Orphanage, don't they?"

"I've been keeping him here, and feeding him." said Amy. "I want to keep him, but they won't let me. Now they're telling me they're going to send me to the State Orphanage, and Buddy won't have anyone. He might die! I don't know what to do!"

Tears were streaming down the girl's face, and Teresa knew that Amy would do whatever it took to protect and keep her dog.

"Tell you what." Teresa said. "I can't keep him because I get allergic to dog or cat hair in my apartment. I don't know what to do either, but I know who will. Why don't you come with me, and we'll go see Commander Troy. He's the Iron Crowbar. He can figure out anything."

"Really?" said Amy, hope creeping into her voice for the first time. "He'll do that for me? And for Buddy?"

"Oh you bet. He loves dogs, and he loves solving problems for people like you." Teresa said. "Will you come with me?"

"Okay----" Amy said.

"Like hell you will!" snarled a voice. A man's voice. Teresa looked up to see Patrolman Brett Bryce standing in front of them, his hand on his still-holstered gun. Near the door was the fat Patrolman Justin Hendricks.

"Get away from that dog." said Bryce.

"No!" shouted Amy. "You stay away from him!"

"I said get away from him." Bryce ordered. "I'm going to kill that filthy thing, and I'll kill you too if you get in the way."

"Like hell!" yelled Amy, holding Buddy close.

"You heard her, Patrolman." said Teresa, who'd put herself in front of Amy, protecting her from Bryce. "Stand down and get the hell out of here."

"You're not even supposed to be on field duty, Lieutenant." said Bryce. "You stand aside and get out of here, and maybe I won't report you for this. And if you don't get out of the way, I'll kill you, too."

"And you'll have to." said Teresa. "You're going down for this, no matter what."

"As you wish." said Bryce. He gripped his gun, beginning to draw it from its holster...

*WHAM!!!*

The blue crowbar came down on Bryce's hand. As he gasped in pain, he looked up and to his right to see Captain Cindy Ross standing there, about to swing at him again. He took a quick step back to avoid any further blows. Teresa had time to draw her gun, though she kept it pointed at the floor, and away from Amy and Buddy. But she was now ready to do whatever it took to protect the girl and dog behind her.

"You're done, Bryce." Cindy said. "Put your hands in the air, away from your weapon."

Bryce looked over. Justin Hendricks's hand was over his gun... but Sergeant Micah Rudistan's gun was in Hendricks's earhole.

"Oh please, try it Fat Boy." whispered Rudistan. "Please give me the excuse."

"Who you calling 'Fat Boy', Rudistan?" asked Hendricks. "You're a fucking hypocrite." Nonetheless, he put his hands on his head, and Rudistan took possession of his service weapon."

Seeing he no longer had backup, Bryce snarled "Tell you what, Dyke. I'll put the gun down, real slow, and you put down the crowbar. And then you'll find out that I'm not just some punk off the street. I'll whip your dyke ass, and then I'll whip Teresa Cunt's ass, and then I'll kill that fucking dog."

"Irwin!" called out Teresa, seeing Sergeant Irwin and Patrolman Hicks also in the building, along with Patrolman Morton, "take Bryce's weapon. Search him for more." Bryce was relieved of his service weapon, and the extra, hidden one strapped to his ankle."

"That's a violation, right there." Cindy said. She then extended the blue crowbar behind her. "Hold this for me, Lieutenant." Teresa took possession of the blue crowbar. Amy was behind her, wide-eyed.

"Okay, cocksucker." Cindy said levelly. "No crowbar."

"Who are you calling a 'cocksucker', you fucking dyke bitch?" snarled Bryce. Even so, he came at her.

*THWACK!*

His blow missed. Cindy's didn't. A hard chop to his ribs, behind the bulletproof vest. Bryce grunted, then tried a martial arts blow. Cindy easily blocked it, and slammed her fist into his chest, followed by a solid kick to his left hip. Now in pain, Bryce tried a tactical move, and Cindy easily dodged it.

She let him try a few more, seemingly anticipating his every effort, until she got bored with it. On his last swing, she threw him hard to the ground. Handcuffs were affixed to his hands behind him almost before he realized what was happening.

"Micah," Cindy ordered, "take this piece of garbage to Headquarters, put him in an isolation cell, under guard. He's charged with assaulting a police officer, that being Lt. Croyle, with a gun, having an unauthorized concealed extra weapon, and other bad-cop-using-gun-improperly charges."

"Yes ma'am." said Rudistan, who moved forward.

"Read him his rights, too." Cindy said. "Oh! I almost forgot." She looked at Bryce with a malicious smile. "I think several of us heard you say you intended to kill that dog, Bryce. I will be very sure to let Commander Troy know of your intent. And may God have mercy on you when I do."

Bryce spit at Cindy in response, then he was turned around and led away by other officers. Cindy advised Hendricks to get a good Union rep; his actions here would also come under Internal Affairs review. Hendricks just said he had done nothing wrong, and walked out.

Cindy turned to Teresa, then to Amy. "Hi Amy. I'm Teresa's friend. My name is Cindy. Let's go meet the Iron Crowbar, shall we? Yes, bring Buddy..."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The party was well underway when I went to the front door. First came Cindy. Then came a teenage girl with a cocker spaniel in her arms.

"Commander, this is Amy and Buddy." Teresa said by way of introduction.

"Oh wow, the Iron Crowbar!" Amy whispered, looking up at me.

"Yes." I said. "Come on in, Amy." They came in and I closed the door behind them. Amy was looking around The Cabin as if it were a palace.

"Wow, what a nice house!" Amy said. "It's not like what I thought it would be."

"Well" I said, understanding, "us police officers live in normal houses, too. No bars on the windows. This is my wife Laura. She's a doctor, and I want her to check on you to make sure you're okay. In the meantime, we'll give Buddy a bath and some food."

"Hi, Amy." said Laura sweetly. However, it was clear that Amy was feeling skeptical: she was not willing to relinquish the dog.

"Okay, why don't you bring Buddy into the kitchen." I said. Fortunately, Mr. William Ross came up.

"Hello there, young lady. I'm William Ross, and I'm a farmer in Canada. I know a lot about animals, so why don't you come and help me give Buddy a bath, and I'll make sure he's healthy, okay?" Amy looked at Teresa, who nodded. To reassure her young new friend, Teresa went with Amy and Mr. Ross to the kitchen.

Cindy said to me "We busted Bryce. He wanted to kill the dog, and was willing to shoot Amy and Teresa in the process. It is possible that I whipped his ass in what you like to call 'personal combat' before arresting him."

"Oh, this is getting better every minute." I said. "He was a Green Beret, you know."

Cindy looked up at me with something of a sneer on her face. "Don, I don't want to burst the Army's bubble, but standard Green Beret tactics are so easy to beat, it's ridiculous."

"Well, for a double black belt like yourself, I'm sure they are." I said, then thought about it. Cindy was right... what I'd learned from Sergeant Tate of the ROTC cadre had indeed shown me that the standard tactics weren't so hot against a well-prepared opponent. And there was no opponent more prepared than the current Police Boxing Matches champion...

Part 5 - New BFFs

Mr. Ross and Amy gave Buddy a nice bath, the water not too hot and not too cool. He came out a much cleaner dog. Then Mr. Ross fed Buddy some milk in small doses, telling Amy that Buddy would get sick if he ate too much, too fast.

"Okay, Buddy is clean, and we'll look after him." I said to Amy. "Now it's your turn for a bath and a checkup."

"It'll be fine." said Laura. "Come on up. I have some clean clothes for you, too." Still, it took Teresa going with Amy to get her upstairs.

"Wow." said Molly. "Nice little girl."

"So she was running away from the Orphanage to feed her dog." said Joanne. "That's so sad, but it's uplifting, too."

"What are you going to do about all this?" asked Cindy.

"Oh, we'll see if Buddy and Bowser get along." I said. "If they do, we can keep Buddy here and work out Amy visiting him. If not, then I'd be grateful if one of you could keep him. Teresa's allergic over time to dogs and cats in her home."

"So is Jenna." said Cindy.

"Oh, I can keep him." said Joanne happily.

"Okay, for the litmus test." I said. I went upstairs and got Bowser, who was in the kids room with the kids and my mom and Pamela Feeley. Bowser sniffed at me and seemingly recoiled in wonder.

"Okay, Bowser" I said, "let's go meet your new friend." With that, I took him downstairs, where Mr. Ross was drying off Buddy. I held Bowser as he and Buddy sniffed at each other. Then we put the dogs down. I was ready to grab Bowser if he attacked Buddy, but the dogs sniffed each other some more, started circling and sniffing each other's butts, then sort of settled down like "What's next?"

"They seem to like each other." said Mr. Ross. "You'll have to do some training. If Buddy has been left alone, he won't be house-trained. You'll have to do some cage training for that, but he's a young dog and will take to it. And we'll have to watch them when feeding them, that's when Bowser might stake a claim."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Some minutes later, Amy came down the stairs, looking very refreshed after her bath and new clothes. The clothes were a bit big on her, but it was all good. Laura told Teresa and Amy to go through the food line and eat, and for Amy to eat as much as she wanted to.

"How is she?" I whispered to my wife.

"We'll talk later." Laura replied. "She should stay here tonight and she can be part of Christmas tomorrow. After that...well, we'll talk."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Feeding time. I put down two bowls, one with Bowser's meal, one smaller one for Buddy. Bowser did try to wander over to Buddy's bowl, but I took Bowser and put him back at his bowl, and told him to eat. After a couple of times doing this, Bowser seemed to get the hint, and ate his own food. Buddy wolfed his down, and Mr. Ross said it would be best to give him smaller portions more frequently.

Still, Buddy improved tremendously. His eyes got brighter almost as I watched him, and he began walking around and exploring. I set Bowser down, and he began leading Buddy around. This looked like the beginning of a be-yoo-tiful friendship, I thought to myself.

Part 6 - Paying It Forward

We'd had a Secret Santa gift exchange amongst the Detectives earlier in the week. My gift went to Teddy Parker, and it was a liner for his trenchcoat that he always wore. The gift for me came from Grubby Paul, who gave me a nice bottle of single malt Scotch.

So we weren't really exchanging gifts this evening. But Teresa had a bit of a surprise for us. She stood in the middle of the greatroom as we all listened.

"A while back," Teresa said, "I was given a gift at this party, at the Old Cabin. It was a picture of me and my sister Alexis, but it was a whole lot more than that. I found out that I had a family that night, and that people had my back and stood up for me when I had no right to expect nor ask them to.

"So now I want to give a few gifts." Teresa continued. "This one is for Cindy, my soul sister." She handed Cindy a wrapped gift, which was obviously a framed picture. Cindy opened it to reveal a picture of her, Cindy, throwing a disc golf shot at the course in Teresa's hometown."

"Ah, that's nice." Cindy said. "And this is definitely the best part of that town, the disc golf course."

"I couldn't agree more." Teresa said. "And this is for Don." She handed me bigger package. One of the items inside was a framed poster of the 250-foot towers at Ft. Benning, Georgia, with the "Airborne" word and wings beneath them. Another picture, the same size as Cindy's, showed me letting Carole drop the frisbee into the 18th hole basket at the end of our outing some time before.

"Aw, these are so cool." I said.

"I have one more." Teresa said. "I thought I was going to wait on this one, but I think there's no time like the present. I received this necklace I'm wearing now from the Police in my old hometown." She pointed to the necklace with the Airborne wings that was on her neck. I could feel the emotion in the room.

"There are two necklaces." Teresa said. "One was for my sister Alexis, who you all know died on Christmas Eve. So I think she would want me to pass this necklace along to another daughter of a Paratrooper. I know Carole won't really understand this now, but one day her dad can tell her the story, and she'll be proud to be the daughter of a Paratrooper, too."

She opened the box and took out the other necklace, and draped it around Carole's neck. Carole was being held by Laura. Laura said "Carole, you're wearing a necklace like Teresa's. You look so pretty with it on." Carole smiled happily, then grabbed the necklace to see and feel what it was."