My dad, Gene, is seventy-four. He was a high school shop teacher for thirty-one years. He’s quiet, gentle, and he notices everything.
After my mom died, he married Darlene. That was nine years ago. Darlene has a son from her first marriage, Troy, who’s thirty-four and has never held a job longer than six months. Troy lives in Dad’s basement. “Temporarily.” For four years now.
My daughter Paige is sixteen. She’s an honor student, works weekends at the library, and has never taken anything in her life that wasn’t hers. She adores her grandpa. He taught her to use a lathe when she was eight.
Every Christmas Eve, we go to Dad’s house. This year was no different. Ham, scalloped potatoes, carols on the old record player.
Then, right after dinner, Darlene came out of the bedroom holding her purse upside down.
“My money’s gone,” she said. “Two thousand dollars. In cash. For the Christmas gifts. It was in my purse an hour ago.”
Everyone went quiet.
Darlene turned slowly. And she looked straight at Paige.
“You were in the hallway by the bedroom. I saw you.”
Paige’s face went white. “I was going to the bathroom.”
“The bathroom’s across from my bedroom,” Darlene said. “Very convenient.”
“Darlene,” I said, “she didn’t take your money.”
“Then she won’t mind emptying her backpack.”
Paige looked at me. I could see her trying so hard not to cry. Then she picked up her backpack and dumped it out onto the coffee table, right there in front of the Christmas tree. Her library books. Her laptop. A water bottle. Her wallet with eleven dollars in it.
No money.
“Check her coat,” Darlene said.
Troy, of all people, went and got Paige’s coat from the closet and went through the pockets. Nothing.
“Then she hid it somewhere,” Darlene said. “Or she gave it to somebody. Kids these days. I want to see her phone.”
Paige started crying. Quietly, the way she does, trying to hide it.
“That’s enough,” I said. “We’re leaving.”
But then my father stood up.
He hadn’t said a word through any of it. He just stood up from his recliner, walked down the hallway to the coat closet, and opened it.
When he came back, he was holding a teddy bear.
A small, old, brown teddy bear with one ear sewn back on. I recognized it. It had been mine when I was a little girl. For the last few months, it had been sitting on the bookshelf in the living room, right where it could see the hallway.
Dad turned the bear around in his hands. I saw something tiny and black glint in one of its eyes.
He looked at his wife.
“Darlene,” he said, very quietly. “Sit down. I need to show you what this bear saw.”
Darlene’s face drained of color.
And behind her, Troy took one step back toward the basement door.
