Now the old neon seemed faded and a little sad in the thin sliver of sunset as Clayton pulled his car to a stop in front of his room and parked. He went inside, flicked on the lights, and sat on the bed with his cell phone in his hands.
He only knew Luke from the phone, and while it wasn't very likely that Luke would turn him away for screwing up and letting the promised Christmas knife and beaded sheath be lost, it was still alittlelikely.
Ever since he'd talked to his Uncle Bill and accepted the idea of this gift for Shawn, Clayton's heart had been expanding with hope. Now, with one phone call, that hope might be lost, or it might be gained. Uncle Bill had said that Luke seemed like a decent guy, and Uncle Bill was seldom, make that never, wrong, so Clayton hung onto that hope while he dialed Luke's number.
After two short rings, the line clicked open.
"This is Luke."
"Luke," said Clayton. "This is Clayton. Hello."
"Hey, Clayton," said Luke, his voice warming right away. "How'd it go in Dickinson?"
"How did you know about that?" asked Clayton, surprised and grateful at the same time that he didn't have to explain what was going on.
"Sarah's Uncle Bill called me," said Luke, and by the sound of his words, Clayton thought the man might be smiling. "He told me about the Bowie knife and the sheath for Shawn."
"I guess I should have checked with you first," said Clayton,allowing himself a minute to dance beneath the pretense that the gift was still on offer. "Is he too young, do you think?"
"Maybe a little," said Luke with some honesty. "But he's a sensible boy, so I'm thinking his Uncle Clayton would teach him how to handle a knife so nobody gets hurt. And I'll keep an eye on him, too. Besides, that kid loves history, so these old, old things are going to make his Christmas."
"I see," said Clayton, as the spit dried in his mouth. "Well, I've got bad news. The whole thing got stolen."
"What?" asked Luke. "Stolen? How did that happen?"
"I was showing it to the bartender, and turned to get my wallet to pay for my beer, and then?—"
"Have you called the police?" asked Luke, his voice more strident now. "Was it the bartender who took it?"
"Yes and no," said Clayton, a little breathless now that the worst of it was known. "He was admiring it with me, and then turned to help another customer when the knife and sheath were stolen. I called the police, and they took the report, but Luke, there might only be four main roads out of this town, but there are a dozen side roads that head across huge tracts of land. There's nobody catching this guy, nobody."
For a small moment, Luke was quiet. Clayton listened to the silence, his heart thudding in his chest, though in the background he could hear the TV going. He thought about Luke and Sarah and Shawn in the family room watching a sitcom together, the way he and his mom and his dad and Sarah used to do, back when the world was much younger. Those days were gone now, and the vision of faded, homey curtains over the window above the sink flashed in front of Clayton's eyes and then vanished.
"Hang on," said Luke. "Sarah wants to talk to you; I'm giving her the phone."
Clayton's heart leaped up in his throat. He'd not talked to Sarah for at least two years, ever since that awful day. The ideaof talking to her now about this dreadful thing, which would surely get in the way of the hoped-for reconciliation between them, made his face go numb, made his chest ache.
There was a quiet rustle on the other end of the line, and then Clayton heard Sarah's voice for the first time in what seemed forever.
"Clayton, it's Sarah," said Sarah, introducing herself as if the two of them were strangers, which they were, a little. "I'm so sorry—was it truly stolen? Did you look beneath the barstool? Remember the time?—?"
Then she stopped, even as the memory flickered in front of Clayton, almost as if it was happening just then. Sarah and him, New Year's Eve that year when Mom and Dad had gone on a tropical cruise, and it'd had been before she'd met her first husband, so with both of them having nobody, they'd spent the evening together. They'd had a few drinks and talked, and Sarah had misplaced her purse. Luckily, they quickly found it beneath the barstool, both of them laughing so hard that Sarah confessed she'd peed a little. Which made them both laugh harder.
The memory was a good one, bright and shining amidst all the other good memories, and the bad ones, too.
"No," said Clayton, swallowing over the lump in his throat. "I looked. The police can't find the guy, I'm sure of it. And now, I won't have anything for Shawn for Christmas."
"We're giving him an Xbox," said Sarah quickly. "We'll change out the tag and it'll be from you. That's how we'll do it."
"But I don't want to give him an Xbox," said Clayton, and his voice shook, hard as he tried to stop it. "Every kid is getting one of those. I wanted to give him something special, something nobody else had—Uncle Bill gave it to me, and now it's gone. Somebody else has it?—"
"It doesn't matter," said Sarah, in that fierce way she had when she'd made up her mind. "None of that matters now.None of it. Only, I'm so sorry for what happened, for what I let happen and didn't stop."
"None of that matters now," said Clayton quickly, taking her apology then and there, putting forgiveness in his voice as he echoed her words. "None of it."
"So come home," said Sarah. "Come home for Christmas. We'll figure it out when you get here. How long will it take you to drive from Dickinson to Parker?"
"Ten hours," said Clayton. "But that depends on the roads. There's a blizzard brewing, from the looks of things. I'll check the weather report, but I'm pretty sure?—"
