Two Christmas Eves 1/1 By Nita Durham a.k.a. "Nita Dee" DISCLAIMER: "The Commish" belongs to Stephen J. Cannell and ABC Circle Television. A companion piece to my Commish stories "Steps" and "The Disappearance of Sara. The first part is the year "Steps" took place in and the final part is the year "The Disappearance of Sara" took place in. This story is supposed to be pages from the computer journal of David Scali so if remarks made about the character of Cyd Madison are less than kind blame him, not the author. ----------------------------------------------------------------- December 23, 1996, 11:00 p.m. Well, I'm back in Eastbridge after my flight from Omaha, Nebraska. Dad and Sara came out to the airport and picked me up this afternoon when the plane came in. Thank God Dad left Cyd at home. I was beginning to think they were joined at the hip. Dad was genuinely glad to see me, as was Sara. They hugged on me and told me "welcome home". I hadn't seen my family since August. I spent Thanksgiving and Hanukkah with my friend Steve and his family. They reside in Omaha. Besides, last Hanukkah was heartbreaking without my mother. I just didn't think I was up to going through it again without her at home. We drove on the expressway to our home. I asked Dad if Cyd had gone either to Florida to see her parents or to Rhode Island to see her brother and his family. No such luck. Seems that Jim and Mimsey (Mimsey is her name, I am not making that up!!) have come to Eastbridge to spend the holidays and to see their darling girl take the office of mayor on January 1st. Eastbridge must be pretty hard up to have elected HER. We pulled into the driveway and the family Madison made their way to the car to greet me. Cyd was still on crutches...I guess that she hasn't had that surgery that my father goes on and on about when we talk on the phone. Mimsey (a big redheaded woman--I hope Dad takes a good look at her, this could be Cyd in a few years) hugged on me and called me "Davy"--yuck. I went into my mother's house, thankful that Cyd has had the good taste not to remodel it. Mimsey had cooked too much..she could feed the homeless of Eastbridge for a month on all the food she had cooked. She kept talking to Cyd about going to some "Daughters of the American Revolution" cooking class. Cyd, who is an awful cook, could use some classes in that respect. Cyd really spoils Sara rotten. Tonight Sara was watching "Willie Wonka" on television. Her bedtime is 8:30, but the movie didn't end until 9:00. Dad tried to send her to bed at 8:30 but Cyd smiled that sexy little smile at Dad and asked him if Sara couldn't have an extension..it was Christmas after all. Dad of course agreed...that woman could talk him into anything! Tomorrow ought to be a fun day. The annual Police Department Christmas party is tomorrow afternoon. ----------------------------------------------------------------- December 24th, 1996 (9:00 a.m.) Well, one of my illusions has been shot to hell in a hand basket. Dad and Cyd are having sex. I had thought that with Cyd's back injury that would be out of the question. But, when I came down the stairs about 6:30 I heard sounds from my mother's old office (which Dad turn into the Palace o' Pleasure for his new sweetie) that told me that they weren't watching the morning news. Dad came into the kitchen about 7:00, singing something in Italian. My mother used to do that to him too. "Well, Dad." I said, anticipating a fight "did you and sweet thang have a good time?" Dad looked pissed off but just smiled and said "Son, Cyd and myself are well above the age of consent." I would have loved to have continued on that subject but in came Mimsey, happy to be cooking breakfast. She said that Jim usually gets something at the club when he goes to play golf and she just loved having someone to cook for again. Sara came down the stairs running and screaming "Merry Christmas" so loud that the people across the state in Buffalo could hear her. Then, I heard the "thumpity-thump" of Cyd's crutches and Jim Madison was coming in the front door with the morning paper. Breakfast was good. Mimsey is a great cook! Shame her daughter can't..maybe my father wouldn't have to come in tired from work and do it. ----------------------------------------------------------------- December 24th, 1996 (6:00 p.m.) The Police Department Christmas party was great! I got to see all my old friends--Ricky, Alan, Paulie, and even Stan. Stan had come back just before my mother was killed from "witness protection"--we had all thought he'd been killed in a car bombing, too. Wish my mother's death had been faked and she was in "witness protection". That would clean Miss Cyd Madison's clock! Dad would take one look at my beautiful mother and tell Cyd she had 15 minutes to get her shit out of their house! The cops went in together and bought my father season tickets to the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. Pavarotti is supposed to be performing there in February. Dad looked embarrassed but pleased. Jim Madison made the comment that Dad ran "one Hell of a police department." Cyd of course was being a social butterfly--very much different from the insecure woman my mother used to try to fix up with dates. I guess my poor mother's attempts went unappreciated by Det. Madison--the man she wanted was Commissioner Scali! Tonight is Christmas Eve. I wish my mother were here to enjoy it. She used to enjoy it so much...our home being a multi religious one. I really think she truly believed in Santa Claus too..when they would show Santa on the Weather Channel radar coming in from Canada she'd make all of us (Dad included) go to bed. It certainly won't be that way this year. Cyd will let Sara stay up all hours if Sara wants to. ----------------------------------------------------------------- December 25th, 1996 4:00 a.m. I am getting a step-mother for Christmas. I did not want one and do not want the one that is being given to me and my sister by our idiot father. I really wasn't supposed to know about it until after Christmas..Dad was going to tell me Saturday before I left for Nebraska. He said he knew I wouldn't understand and he wanted Christmas to be pleasant for the rest of the family. Last night, we were sitting around the living room listening to Christmas music on the stereo. Dad and Cyd were in the kitchen making out like teenagers. And Mimsey made a horrible mistake. "Sara, honey--do you want to go out with Grandma and see if we can see Santa Claus?" The fat old woman said to my sister. I was livid, to say the least. "Mrs. Madison, with all due respect, you are not mine and Sara's grandmother. We have Grandma and Grandpa Scali who live in Brooklyn and my mother's parents are in heaven with her." I said with anger. Mimsey looked hurt. And Sara showed her Scali temper to everyone. "David, why don't you shut up! Mimsey is too my grandma! Her and Jim will be our new grandparents when Daddy marries Cyddie, so there!" Sara said as she stomped her foot. "Dad isn't going to marry Cyd, or anyone else!" I yelled back at Sara. "Son, you are wrong." My father said quietly. "I have asked Cyd to be my wife and she has accepted. It was her idea not to tell you yet. I wanted to take out billboards. I am a lucky man, David Anthony...I will have had the pleasure of having two of greatest women God put on the earth as wives." Cyd had tears in her eyes. "David, if you don't want me to marry your father, I won't. He forgets that I will not only be his wife but also Sara's and your step-mother." "Well, we don't want you! We've never wanted you! You came into this house when my mother was barely cold in her grave and started making your plans. Hell, Ruth Albright told me on the day school opened last year that you had your "cap set for Commissioner Scali". Then, you had to fall from your horsie and get hurt just so you could get my father to feel sorry for you and take you in..knowing full well you came from money and could go into any rehabilitation hospital in the world. Cyd, I really don't know what a woman like you would want with my father." I said, my Scali temper showing. "I want her! Cyddie..don't listen to David. Me and Daddy want you! We love you!" Sara said, running up to Cyd and hugging her so tight she nearly fell over. "And David, I am your father, and I love you. But I will marry Cyd this summer. You told me once that you would come to terms with our relationship. Be a man now, David, and accept Cyd--if only for mine and Sara's sake." Dad said. "David, I don't mean to take Rachel's place..I can't.. those shoes are too big for me. But I can love your father and you and Sara and try to make this a happy home." Cyd said, tears now flowing. "When, then it's a done deal...you can have your wife, Dad. And Sara, you can have your mother. But don't count on me as a member of this family anymore!" I said. I stormed out of the house and jumped into Dad's car (mine is still in Nebraska). I drove out to the cemetery to my mother's grave. Dad at least had the decency to decorate it for the holiday season. I cried hard, my arms on my mother's monument. And that is when it occurred to me..there was nothing of Rachel Scali left on this earth. Her husband and daughter are ready to replace her memory with someone else. And all that is left is just a cold stone monument stating her name, the dates of her birth and death, and the words "Loving wife, mother and friend." ----------------------------------------------------------------- December 25th, 1996, 6:00 p.m. Christmas has come and gone. Everyone here pretended like my outburst had never occurred and were polite and sickeningly sweet to me. Sara got the entire Toy's R Us store for Christmas and some clothes. I got some CD's, videos, a slip to let me know that my spring semester at college was paid for, clothes and a really nice Italian leather coat that my father said about seven times "was picked out by Cyd and wasn't it nice?" Cyd got a beautiful engagement ring that cost my father well over the required two months salary. Hoffman jewelers are happy that there is to be a new Mrs. Scali. Mr. Scali got clothes, some CDs that will have to be taken back (the future Mrs. Scali isn't up on her opera as the former Mrs. Scali was) and a neck chain which had the words "I love you. Cyd, 1996" engraved into it. It reminded me with pain of a fountain pen my mother had once gotten my father for his birthday. "To my Commish, Love Rachel" it said. Dad still uses it. Jim and Mimsey Madison got matching pajama/house robe ensembles, a clay ash tray made by "Sara Scali, 1st grade, 1996" and a Wok. Mimsey's old one had played out, and Jim just loves Chinese. Early that afternoon, after dinner, I went out to my Dad's car to listen to CD's. I have a CD player in my bedroom but I really needed to be alone. Dad was asleep on the couch-- Cyd made mention to Mimsey that he didn't sleep much last night. And Sara was playing Barbies. She made a point to ask Cyd in front of me if her wedding gown would be as pretty as "Bridal Barbie's" was. Cyd said she didn't know, that she hadn't gone shopping for it yet, and that she had only known she was going to marry Daddy about a week. I was sitting out in the car jamming to Pearl Jam when a heard a rap on the window. It was Jim Madison. "Son, I was wondering if you would be so kind as to take me to a newspaper stand? I would really like to get the Christmas edition of "The Wall Street Journal." Jim asked with a smile. I took him over to Chauncy street, were a gentleman kept his newsstand open 365 days a year and Jim got his newspaper. I started to drive home, but Jim said he wanted to see East River. So I drove him to the lookout point and parked the car. "David, can I bother you to listen to an old man's story?" Jim asked. Oh shit, I thought, here comes the "you better be nice to my daughter" speech. "Mr. Madison, about last night...." I began. "Shhh, don't you dare start, David! Because, you see, I can relate to what you are feeling. No, I don't mean I don't want Cydania to marry Tony..he's a fine man. But sit back and listen to what I have to say." Jim began. "In 1954, when I was fourteen years old, I, too, lost my mother. Nearly as quickly as you did, too. She came down to breakfast with a splitting headache and was gone by noon. Massive brain anurism. My brother Tom, my father and I lived in our big house in Providence, RI alone for about fourteen months. Then, one day, my father brought home a pretty young girl, about 23 years old. Her name was Jeannie Fisher and my father was in love. He wanted to marry her." Jim continued "Tom, who was seventeen, and myself developed an instant hatred for her. It wasn't that she was mean or unpleasant. She just wasn't our mother. My father decided to ask her to marry him and both of us threw a fit that would make your little outburst yesterday look like a puff of wind compared to a hurricane. And we got Grandfather Madison on our side too. We told him that she was just after the family fortune. Between the three of us, we convinced our father not to marry Jeannie." "Jeannie married a fellow out of Chicago and moved away. And my father, having nothing in his life--myself and Tom having gone off to college and onto our own lives--plunged himself into his work. He worked so hard that he died of a heart attack in 1961, about a month before his first grandbaby Cydania was born. When the will was read, he left three equal portions...35% to me, 35% to Tom and 35% to a Jeannie Fisher Townsend, who lived in Chicago and who had once "made his life worth living again." "David, men need wives. I know that sounds corny and old here at the dawn of the 21st century, but it's true. I'd be lost without Mimsey. Your father obviously loved your mother Rachel a great deal--we spent one night before you came back from Nebraska talking about her. But, he also realizes that while memories are fine you have to live your life for now." "I hope this can help you, David." Jim said in conclusion. We drove back to the house. The rest of the day was uneventful. I can see Jim Madison's point, really I can. I want my father to be happy and if Cyd Madison can make him happy that is great. I just can't get my loyalty and love for Rachel Scali out of my heart yet. Dad made mention to me tonight about being his best man at his wedding in June. I just don't know if I have that in me. ----------------------------------------------------------------- December 24th, 1997, 3:00 p.m. I never thought I'd say this but I love spending Christmas in Florida. It is 78 degrees outside and earlier today Sara and I went swimming in the Gulf of Mexico. This trip to Florida has done Sara a world of good..she is no longer the pale and thin girl who returned from being abducted nearly a month ago. We still don't know who took her or why. Dad almost didn't come because he wanted to follow up on the case. It took all of mine, Sara's and Cyd's urging to get him to come. The Scali Family of Eastbridge, New York, the Madison Family of Providence, RI, and my Grandpa and Grandma Scali have all come down to spend Christmas at Grampa Jim and Granny Mimsey's gulf front condominium which they purchased last year when they moved out of the retirement village. They had gotten tired of being treated like old people. Cyd and her brother Roger have strict instructions to come and bring their families as often as possible. Cyd. God, what would we do without her!? She has been so good to my father during this past year with Sara being abducted. And when Sara was having nightmares of "gray men, lights, and needles" in the hospital it was Mommy Cyddie she called for, not Daddy or David. I was looking back on my journal entries of a year ago and wonder why Dad and Cyd put up with me and my hatefulness. Dad should have taken me outside and knocked some sense into my head and then Cyd should have come and knocked some more sense into my head. Cyd is scary when she is in "official" mode. I am really not supposed to know this yet, but I overhead Mom Cyd and Granny Mimsey talking today. Cyd has been throwing up a lot. We all thought it was the flu but apparently Cyd is going to have a new Scali. She is going to tell Dad and us tomorrow. Won't Dad be shocked! Of course, I have reflected upon the other holiday seasons which I spent with my maternal mother. But I have learned to leave the past in the past and live for today. Grampa Jim told me that a year ago and it was good advice. I have got to cut it short now. We all are going out to eat at Lobster Heaven. I've never eaten lobster before. THE END I would like to thank all the crazy Melisskateers and Twilight Crossing readers for giving me such a fun 1996 and giving my orphan "Commish" stories a home. Happy Holidays! Nita Durham