CAL'S CHRISTMAS VISITOR
Chapter Five

Even though Cal could not feel the bitterly cold air, just looking at the swirling snow and the creaking branches, made him put his arms across his chest and hunch over in an attempt to warm himself.

“Dawson, what are we doing here, in a churchyard of all places?” Cal asked.

Jack looked away from the squirrels he had been watching and studied Cal. “Hmmm? Well, Cal, this is our last stop. Your last chance to see if you can change things, change the future, if you will."

Cal wrinkled his forehead and looked puzzled. “Really, Jack, I think this whole thing has been a waste of time. I got to see Rose, but she didn’t even look at me. And the main thing was that I never got the necklace back from her. You probably arranged that. Do you know how much that cost, Dawson?”

Jack gave Cal an intense look, his eyes boring into the other man’s. “What did what cost, Cal? Not talking to Rose or not getting the necklace? You see, you still don’t get it do you? What was more important to you? Talking to Rose about your feelings for her or getting your hands on the necklace?”

Cal unwrapped his arms and shook his fists in front of him. “God, Dawson, you are hopeless. It was worth so much to me. I can never replace it.”

Jack turned his head away from Cal, almost unable to stomach the man’s surly attitude. “Rose or the necklace, Cal? Which one is irreplaceable?” Jack asked again.

“Why the neck………” began Cal. His words drifted into silence as he remembered Rose’s smile, her laugh and her great beauty. He had always been able to look at her and see that. But she had rarely laughed in his presence and her smiles for him had seemed artificial. He realized that now. Only for Jack had her lively spirit shone through.

“It seems a shame that Helene and the boys aren’t doing this.”

Cal’s eyes moved in the direction of the voices he heard. Jack too appeared to be listening.

Coming around the corner of the church and into the graveyard, Cal saw two people. He had to squint in the heavy snow to see who they were. Both of them were bundled up in scarves and coats. He stretched his head forward trying to make them out.

“Emily, you can’t blame Helene. You know how he treated her in the end. And as for the boys. Well, it’s better this way. They’ll be better off without him. I hate to say that about my own cousin.”

“Cousin Phil and Emily? What are they doing here?” mumbled Cal. “No one died in my family recently. And who is Helene?”

Cal stared at Jack, assuming that he would know the answers to all these questions.

Jack just nodded his head, still watching the two figures.

“You’re just gonna have to listen, Cal. Listen to what they have to say. Maybe you can make your choices then.”

“Phillip, why isn’t he buried in the vault, like everyone else in the family?” asked Emily.

Phillip put his arm around his wife’s shoulder.

“Because of the suicide. It was the final way in which Cal made himself an outcast. He took the coward’s way out. Things would have been alright. But greed got Cal in the end. He had to always have the most.”

Emily leaned her head against Phillip.

“Somehow, Phil, I believe that Cal didn’t start out that way. There has to have been some goodness and kindness in him at sometime.”

Phillip and Emily trudged along in the drifting snow, slowly making their way to a headstone in the far corner of the graveyard.

“My God, of all things, being defended by that simpering Emily Pierce Hockley. What does she know about me?” growled Cal.

“Cal, you know I’ve spent a lot of my time with you tonight, and I really am beginning to think that you are hopeless. Now can you just keep quiet long enough to hear what they are saying,” said Jack impatiently.

Cal glared at Jack, but held his tongue.

“You’re right Emily. When Cal was little, he wanted so much to be like the rest of us. He had no mother and Uncle Nathan just didn’t understand how to treat him. Cal didn’t know how to play like we did. He never knew how to have a good time, because he was not allowed to.”

They reached the grave and as Phillip knelt down, he brushed the snow off the stone.

CALEDON HOCKLEY MARCH 15, 1880–OCTOBER 29,1929

As Emily brushed away a tear, Cal rubbed his eyes in disbelief as he saw his own name on a gravestone. The furrows in his forehead deepened as he strained to hear more of their conversation.

“I’m so lucky, Phil. We don’t have that much anymore. But I still have you and your love. We have a wonderful family with our three girls. What more could I ask for.”

“Yes, I agree. Cal never would have made Helene happy. He married her just to have a hostess. And the boys, Andrew and Matthew were just excess baggage to Cal.”

Jack’s eyes filled with tears as he thought of the children that he and Rose should have had together. Even though he knew that things were meant to be, sometimes the pain of not being near her all the time was unbearable. He watched Cal to see if at least this conversation was making an impression on him.

“It was sad with Rose,” continued Phil. “But in a way, she was the lucky one. Cal would have slowly killed her."

Jack nodded his head, as if to himself, knowing indeed that would have been the case.

Cal started panting, his eyes opening wider at the mention of Rose.

“Killed her?” he muttered. “Why I just wanted to give her everything and it wasn’t enough. Why wasn’t it enough. Dawson? What else could I have done?” he questioned, turning his back on Jack and his cousins.

“Cal, keep quiet,” warned Jack. “They’re talking again."

“I don’t think Helene will ever come here. Cal hardly thought of her as a wife anyway. I don’t mind being a father to the boys though,” said Phillip as he stepped back from the stone.

“Married, Helene, boys? What the devil are they talking about Dawson?” raged Cal. “I know, you probably put them up to all this, you miserable wretch. Just to cause trouble in my life.”

Jack stood quietly letting Cal lose his temper.

“What is this? It’s December 24, 1913. How can you possibly take me to 1929? Who sent you Jack? Where have you come from?” exploded Cal.

Jack just laid his hand on Cal’s arm and pointed his head in the direction of Phillip and Emily. Cal turned to Jack with a puzzled look on his face.

“Over there, Cal. Pay attention over there.”

“You know Phil, Cal had everything going for him. He was good looking, well not as good as you of course,” smiled Emily. “His father had more of the company’s shares, everything they had was bigger and better, but he was never satisfied. Even beautiful Helene was never enough for him. I just am grateful for you, for us every day. Because what we have is based on love, and respect, pleasure and family ties. And that is what life is all about, isn’t it?”

“There she is going on with that love and respect business again,” thought Cal. Hadn’t Dawson just said that same thing to him a little while ago.

Emily put her arm through Phillip’s and snuggled close to him. He tenderly bent down and kissed her on the head as they started back through the snow.

“It’s too bad that Cal didn’t let go of that arrogance, and some of the power sooner. Then maybe the shock of Black Friday would not have hit him so hard. Maybe he would have had a chance. You know Emily, I loved Cal for what he could have been. Sad that it has to be that way. In fact, except for Grannie and his own mother, I don’t think another person ever loved Cal.”

Emily looked up at her husband with a tentative smile.

“If that’s the way you feel, darling, then I don’t mind if we come here from time to time. Maybe he will still feel that love and devotion. Perhaps he can still know that people are thinking about him, but in a good way.”

Phil nodded his head and led his wife away to their waiting automobile.

“Phil, Phil, come back here. I don’t want your pity. I want, I want……….”

Cal reached out futilely, trying to touch his cousin’s arm.

“What do you want Cal?” whispered Jack.

Cal hung his head, at last defeated.

“I want to try, Jack. I want to try,” he said almost silently.

Jack took a deep breath and closed his eyes briefly. Had he at last succeeded? Just now when Cal had bowed his head and said that he wanted to try, he had felt that his mission here tonight had might finally have been accomplished.

“Jack, tell me how to start.”

Cal’s voice no longer had the tone of the pompous individual Jack he seen earlier. He sounded serious, almost humble.

“Alright,” said Jack. “We’ll go back to you study and we’ll start from there. On the way you have time to think. To think about what you can do to change the way you look at things. You might be able to alter your future Cal, if you really try.”

Cal raised his head and studied Jack. He saw for the first time what Rose might have seen in this young man. His gentle manner and kindly ways. He’d had a zest for life that had matched Rose’s. Maybe if he had not had Jack taken away, maybe if he had not shot at them, maybe they would have had a chance together. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

“Jack,” began Cal somewhat awkwardly.

“Yeah, Cal?” Jack looked him straight in the eye.

“I’m sorry, Jack. Maybe if…” Cal stopped. Trying to explain this was too hard right now.

Jack puts his arm on Cal’s shoulder. His lips were tightly pressed together. “Cal, there are certain things that we can’t change. That night was one of them. What happened was out of anyone’s control. I know that Rose and I will be together in the future. And like tonight, I can look after her from time to time. But you, Cal, have a lifetime ahead of you. You have the power within you to change some things. When you said that you were sorry, just now, you have taken the first step in the right direction.”

Cal glanced at Jack and saw the sincerity in his eyes. “Jack, can we go back now? So I can start? I know it’s going to be hard. I don’t even know how well I can succeed. But I know that I want to at least try.” His voice was faltering as he spoke.

Jack nodded his head. “You’ll want to cover your eyes again Cal. Remember? We can go back now. I have no more to show you.”

Cal lifted his arm and covered his face with his wrist. “I’m ready, Jack. Ready to face a new life."

Chapter Six
Stories