THE DAY AFTER CHRISTMAS

"Your father's a little upset with you, son."

Mama wasn't telling me anything I didn't already know, anything I hadn't been aware of for months now. Dad thought my job was crazy. Well, I'd figured that from the minute I broke it to my folks that I'd become a Ghostbuster. You'd have thought I'd signed up to work as a carnival barker or to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel, the way Dad had ranted about it. But then I knew he wanted me to work with his construction company, and he would have been down on any other job I'd picked.

Except that this time, he was pretty specific why he was steamed.

"I know. I wouldn't have been late yesterday if I could have helped it. You know that, Mama. I didn't mean to be so late getting home for Christmas, especially since Frank and Charlie couldn't make it back this year."

"He was complaining to me last night after we went to bed last night. You weren't even here Christmas Eve, Winston, and I think he was hurt, even though you called to say you'd be delayed. You know your father. He doesn't admit it when things hurt him."

Last thing I had ever wanted to do was make my folks feel bad. I wasn't sure Dad would ever understand. Mama might get it, but it still wasn't fair to them. "We had an out-of-town job." Mama had been hurt, too, but she was so glad to have me home at all that she lived with it, just like she'd lived with it when I'd been in Nam. A great lady, my mama. She's got a lot of love in her heart. So I figured I had to tell her the truth, no matter how crazy it sounded. "It went wrong, and everything screwed up." I hung back. What would she think when I told her what had really happened? She'd never thought the story of Scrooge was anything but fiction, either. Man, time travel? Sounded like weird sci fi to me, even though I'd been there. I could still hardly believe it myself. "It was a crazy one, mama."

Her eyes widened. "Were you in danger, Winston?" She'd never asked that question before except right after the whole Gozer thing. I'd leveled with her then, said that there was danger, but I'd been with the guys best suited to deal with it and that we'd looked out for each other. I was still getting into the job then, only a couple of weeks with the company under my belt, but going through the Gozer mess up on the roof of that building on Central Park West had changed busting from a job to--something else. I'd gone from thinking I needed my own lawyer 'cause those three were nutcases about to get us committed to realizing that those three nutcases and I had faced death together and come out on top. It changed everything. It made them friends, teammates. It had started to turn them into brothers.

"Not like Gozer," I said. "Just weird. People wouldn't believe it, even if I told them."

She looked up at me and sincerity lit up her warm brown eyes. "I would."

She meant it, too. Mama always could tell when I was on the up and up, just like she could tell when any of the three of us boys was feeding her a story. So I sat her down on the couch and put my arm around her shoulders--my little mama fitted there just right--and told her. Told her about the snowy roads upstate and Ecto fizzling out for no good reason--I went over that engine first thing Christmas morning, and I swear there was nothing wrong with her. How we'd gone though the snow and wound up in Victorian London, how we'd run into Ebenezer Scrooge and busted the three Christmas ghosts. How, when we'd returned to New York, everybody hated Christmas, thought it a humbug. How we had to play the ghosts ourselves to put time back on track. Pete in that blond wig and tutu was a picture I wished I'd captured on film. Mama chuckled when I described him.

"So we convinced old Ebenezer, just like the three ghosts had meant to, and he decided he'd respect Christmas and keep it just right. I suppose instead of writing up his humbug book, he let Dickens tell it instead. Then the ghost of Christmas Present brought us right back to the firehouse, safe and sound."

Mama hesitated, and I could tell she was torn between utter skepticism and wanting with all her heart to believe me. "That's a weird story, Winston. But how did you get your car home, then?"

That's what Dad would ask, too, if he'd even listened this far. I didn't think he'd gave been as patient as Mama, though. He never has been. A story like this, he'd have thought I'd had too much Christmas punch, and he'd start one of his famous rants.

"You got me," I admitted, honestly perplexed. "I suppose the spirits did it. When I went down in the morning I was gonna call somebody to drive me out to fetch her--and there she was, sitting in the garage, neat and clean as she's ever been. There was a huge Christmas tree on the second floor, and we figured they brought that, too."

"Busy of them." Mama was going with the flow, accepting because I was telling her, but her eyes were wide. I suppose once you get past accepting that ghosts are real, a lot of other things can slide in, too. But I felt good because she hadn't just shut down about it.

"Yeah, but that was a good thing. Because Egon says when he went down Christmas morning, Peter was already up, decorating the tree."

She tilted her chin to stare up at me. "That's important?"

"Peter hated Christmas, just like Scrooge, Mama. I knew he wasn't full of the spirit like Ray, and with Egon, who can tell half the time? But it turns out that, ever since they'd known him, Pete had hated Christmas. His dad used to let him down, not be there for the holidays, and Pete finally psyched himself into thinking Christmas was just another day so it wouldn't have to matter." I could tell Mama things like that when I wouldn't dream of violating Peter's confidence in any other way. Mama could keep any secret Frank, Charlie or I ever told her, and understand why it mattered every single time.

Her face softened. "The poor boy," she said softly. "What a thing to have to believe."

"Better than thinking that his dad didn't care," I said fervently. "I've met his father. Really makes me appreciate what a great dad I've got, let me tell you. We might have our disagreements but if I was in trouble, he'd be there for me in a heartbeat."

"That's what family does," Mama said. She snuggled tighter into my arm. "But you said Peter hated Christmas. So why was he decorating the tree?" This kind of thing made a lot more sense to her than my job or the deal with Scrooge.

"Because the spirits helped him out just like they were going to help Scrooge," I explained. "And Pete realized that Egon and Ray had always done their best to give him a good Christmas. Ray and I had taken him out to buy a tree before we realized we'd changed history and had to go back. We were including him even if he didn't want to like it. Egon and Ray always had, ever since they met him. And I think he realized that he was doing like Aunt Mabel always says, cutting off his nose to spite his face." I grinned. "But, more than that, I think he realized that even if his dad didn't come around, he still had family who loved him and who were gonna spend the holiday with him. And that's why I didn't come home on Christmas Eve."

Mama pulled back a little so she could study my face. "To give Peter family on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning?" she asked softly, and her eyes lit up with pride in me.

"Sort of. We were just so relieved on Christmas Eve night and it was so late that I figured I'd better stick around, make sure everything really was all right. We had some Christmas punch and I figured I'd better not drive after that--it was spiked. Janine even stayed over, slept on the couch. She'd waited the whole time we were back in the past convincing old Scrooge to like Christmas. But it was more than that." I smiled. "When I came down and saw Pete putting the finishing touches on that tree and old Egon smiling like Pete accepting Christmas was the best present he was gonna get, I just knew I had to stay for awhile. Dad won't get it, but those guys are family, too. After all we've been through together, they're brothers. I just had to hang with them a little while, not break the mood, you know?" I grinned. Dad had said, "Are you married to those three idiots?" when I'd come trailing in yesterday at three just in time for Christmas dinner. Not married, but family all the same. It was a good feeling.

"And you didn't want to leave too early and upset the apple cart." Mama hugged me. "I'm glad you've found friends like that, Winston. I'm glad you are a friend like that. Even if you have that dangerous job."

I couldn't tell her it wasn't dangerous, not when we'd all been banged up a time or two. It was as safe as we could make it, and we were getting better at it all the time. "We watch each other's backs," I said. "All four of us. That's what it's all about."

"So what are the three of them doing now?" Mama asked.

"Well, Ray's got his Aunt Lois, so he went over there to have Christmas dinner with her last night. Janine went to her family in Canarsie. Egon's mom is back in Cleveland and he didn't go this year, so he and Pete went out to a Christmas music program last night. If he'd gone out of town, I'd have brought Pete home with me, even if he wouldn't have wanted to come."

"Wouldn't have wanted to come?" That was Dad. I wondered how long he'd been in the doorway. "Something wrong with us?" His eyes were narrowed as he waited for my answer. I could tell he was suspecting nasty things like prejudice, but that was way off the mark. Not a bigoted bone in any of my three best buddies. I'd known that the day I got hired.

"Pete knows we're good folks," I said hastily. "He just wouldn't want to feel like I'd brought him out of pity because he was alone. He'd hate to feel like an intruder or somebody we'd just tacked on." I stood up and faced Dad head on. "That's why I was late. I couldn't let the guy down on Christmas. He wasn't as lucky as I am. His father always let him down."

"I heard you say that." Dad grimaced, but there was a twinkle of warmth in his eyes that proved he'd understood and appreciated the compliment I'd just paid him. "I still think you've got the craziest job ever. It's not a real job. It's more like playing a video game. But you're as stubborn as I am. You won't change it. But you tell that friend of yours that if you want to bring him along he'd better come--any of them. I may not think much of your job, Winston, but I think a lot of family. You say they're family to you, too?" He shrugged. "Weird family, but if you feel that way, then you bring them around if you ever need to."

I knew he hadn't accepted Ghostbusting. Probably never would come around to my working any job but with him. But Dad had always been big on family. Even when he was mad at me, I knew he wouldn't turn away from me. I grinned. "Sorry I was late getting home, Dad." I said. "I'd have come if I could."

"No, you were right, son. You did what you had to do. But you take care of those three because I bet you're the only one of them with a grain of common sense."

"You got that right," I said involuntarily and grinned. "Merry Christmas, Dad."

He clapped me on the shoulders and stood there holding on. I felt closer to him than I had since I became a Ghostbuster. Mama snuggled up beside him and put her arm as far around his waist as it would go. Her eyes were warm and contented.

Dad smiled down at her with that grin he gives to her alone, then he raised his head and looked me right in the eye, and I knew that no matter how much he hated my job, it was only the job he was down on, not his youngest son. "Merry Christmas, Winston. And you tell those three crazy friends of yours that I wish them a Merry Christmas, too." He wasn't mad at me any more. Just like that, he was proud of me, and I felt like I was ten feet high.

It doesn't get much better than this.