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The snow came down vigorously on his windshield and he kept his quivering hands on the wheel, his chest rising and falling with increasing intensity. He felt as if he were choking on air. Inside the old Suzuki Fronte was Blake Miller. His complexion was murky and his hair was greying despite its wildness. His hands were coated in thickening crimson blood. So was the rest of him. He never knew what he could have done differently.
The morning was chilly, but bright; the sun shone ambitiously given the circumstances. It was by far the chilliest winter the Miller family had faced since the winter of ’66. Blake took each curtain in his grip and emphatically pulled them open with a toothy grin on his face. Christmas day. The kids were downstairs waiting patiently for their father. Never mind, he thought, chances are that they have torn open the presents without me. Outside, the trees were adorned with sparkling snow and the front garden twinkled as it all melted. The feel of the carpet on his naked feet was comforting, as the floor was warm. Or was it just the glee of his first Christmas with the new kid?
He dressed quickly, eager to celebrate the day with his children, Ellie (Eileen as it said on her birth certificate) and Cal. It was also Cal’s first Christmas with his dad. Blake finally slipped his knitted jumper over his head and turned the knob on the door. He tiptoed quietly down the stairs and spotted Ellie on the sofa, eating chocolate. He looked down at his watch.
‘Oi! It’s not even ten yet, put that chocolate away, you!’ Ellie giggled and ran up to her father, thrusting a big hug on him and winding him in the process.
‘Merry Christmas, Daddy!’ she yelled enthusiastically. ‘Father Christmas brought loads of presents this year!’ and she was right; he poked his head round the corner of the stairwell to see a Christmas tree with at least thirty presents underneath. He was shocked to see that hardly any of them were open, apart from one container of Cadbury chocolates.
‘That’s right,’ Blake said, picking his daughter up and gently placing her on the sofa in front of the blazing fireplace, ‘I don’t suppose Mummy is around, is she?’ Ellie had placed another chocolate in her mouth. She said something inaudible as she still chewed her chocolate and she pointed to the door to the kitchen.
The freezing tiles in there burned his bare heels and toes. Through the sensation, he saw his wife, Kim, tending to a pan of sizzling bacon and humming to the Christmas music that was coming out of the radio. She was wearing the cardigan that he had given to her the night before, while the children were fast asleep. The smell of searing bacon made him suddenly envious of all the dogs around the world, who were obliviously chewing on bones in their assorted beds, not having to wait for food to be served.
‘Good morning and merry Christmas, Kim,’ he said while his mouth drooled with hunger. ‘Smells extremely tasty, that does.’
‘It’ll be ready in five minutes, hun,’ she turned around and gave a broad, sweet smile. ‘Merry Christmas.’
She approached him and gave him a kiss on the cheek. Abruptly, as she pulled away from Blake to tend the food (he could also smell hash browns turning a divine gold in the oven), her demeanour changed from a happy one to a worried one. Her fingers lightly tapped the marble kitchen counter while she decided whether to turn around or not. Alas, she turned around and stared, earnest and solemn, into Blake’s eyes. ‘Last night, Cal was choking on his own spit up, almost dying, and you didn’t wake up... again.’
Recently, due to insomnia, Blake had been taking sleeping pills to fall asleep; they practically knocked him to the point of being oblivious to the world around him. His body woke up eight hours later and no earlier, meaning that he often missed urgent calls or was unable to be shaken awake as his two-month-old son was on the brink of death. Only he knew about the pills, however.
‘Kim, I really can’t help it,’ he lied, ‘I have a demanding job and when I finally get to bed, after handling the children and working on cases in my spare time, you know I sleep like a log.’ He felt terrible for lying. She deserved the truth but he was ashamed. It felt like a stake through his skull when he had to break the habit, but it was an ache in his conscience whenever he lied about it.
‘Stop lying all the time,’ Kim said, moving closer to him as her face screwed up into a mistrusting visage, ’What are you hiding from me that is so important to keep hidden? You can’t switch off in the day but you’re manipulated like a light switch when it comes to nighttime.’ He knew she was right and yet could not face telling her the full truth. His visit to the grim reaper last year and the scar on his spine where the screws went in reminded him every day of the reason his head was like the city that never sleeps, except there is a power cut every sixteen hours.
D.S. Miller was a coward.
Cal was on his side, fast asleep when Blake went up to wake him on his first ever Christmas. He envied the bliss that must be the feeling of being a baby... except when choking to death. He wished that he could go back to the start and remember how it felt. He gently picked up the infant and rocked him in his arms while he stirred and opened his eyes. He observed his lids slowly reveal Cal’s fluorescent green eyes, full of wonder. The fact was that he would never hold his son again.
At ten A.M, everyone opened their presents while a cosy feeling drifted through the air in the living room. Ellie sat on the sofa, fixed on her new doll and its flowery bonnet, neat blouse, ankle-length skirt and shiny little black shoes. Cal was lounging in his high chair, ignoring the Paddington Bear lying on the rug, which was covered in all sorts of stuff: a new jumper for Ellie, a miniature hat for Cal, Kim’s Polaroid Camera, which she had hinted at wanting in November, dress shoes for Blake and countless more knickknacks which would never see the light of day.
By lunch time, Blake was sat in his study, churning out theories for cases. Most were minor offences such as larceny, public intoxication, or, at worse, a B&E. He was on call and was free to help any time. However, this week seemed to have been a very calm week in terms of crime rate. There had been an assault in The Copper Kettle Inn, but it was found out to be between two brothers, Paul and Nicholas Madden, arguing about football.
Mr and Mrs Chamberlain from two doors down knocked for them at half past one, inviting the family to Christmas dinner at the village hall, to which Blake and Kim politely declined as Kim’s mother had already invited the family to dinner at her house.
She always got lonely around Christmas time.
The snow began to dissolve as the day wore on, and instead, rain fell heavily into the icy puddles in the street. It occurred to Blake that the eerie stillness of the day was simply his resting mind, finally taking a day off.
Ellie had been called for by her friends earlier in the day to play in the snow, and she was still out when the rain started falling, presumably now playing in the icy sludge.
This day had been a happy one, in spite of the cold, in spite of the pain in his fingers from scrawling things down about crimes and criminals, and in spite of the frigid distance that Kim put between Blake and herself.
