Null Pointer

Sunrise

Bobby woke up in the gray light of pre-dawn, which was typical for him. Twenty two years of living on a farm with the rooster crowing at dawn had accustomed him to waking up at first light. Only their arrival at the house after 2 a.m. had caused him to sleep through dawn the morning before. Still, he knew the Christmas church service wasn’t for several hours, and his hosts likely wouldn’t be awake for a while.

He shrugged into practice clothes and made his way silently to the courtyard and, from there to the beach. Part of him was in awe that he could be walking outside in a t-shirt and shorts on Christmas day; the other part greatly enjoyed the warmth. The sand was packed down near the waterline, from centuries of high tides pounding it, which made for better footing.

Bobby was the only person out. The palm trees waved lightly in the morning breeze. The rhythm of the waves coming in and receding filled Bobby with a peace he hadn’t expected to feel thousands of miles from home on Christmas morning.

Bobby flexed his toes in the sand. Ever since he was a small child, his favorite vacations were always to the ocean. Bobby inhaled, smelling the particular mixture of salt, sand, and brine. He never thought of “sun” as a smell, except when he was at the ocean, and even in the predawn darkness, the smell of the beach wasn’t just the combination of salt, sand, and wet, but also something else he had no word for except “sun”.

For Bobby, who was accustomed to New York’s white Christmases, the idea that he could be outside, before dawn, barefoot, in shorts and a t-shirt, on Christmas morning, was a marvel he still hadn’t quite wrapped his mind around, despite shifting his toes in the sand every few minutes as a reminder. Bobby angled down the shore, letting the incoming waves swirl around his ankles and then recede, leaving the wet sand packed tight around his feet. Then another wave came in, and he could feel it wrap around his feet, pulling the sand, grain by grain, out from underneath him.

His Christmas had seemed doomed to disappointment. He had worked for four years to get his talented teammates to play together as a single unit with a common purpose, an effort which had resulted in the team being invited to play in the championship game in Miami, Florida at the beginning of the week. Unfortunately, his team had lost the game, which was the last game of Bobby’s collegiate football career, and quite likely the last game of his whole football career. He knew the likelihood of making a professional team was slim.

He had arrived at Miami International Airport the morning after their disappointing, but predictable, loss, with the rest of his teammates, many of whom had earlier flights than his. The group had dwindled as, one by one, they had to go through security and off to their gates. Bobby’s flight had been delayed from midafternoon to early evening because of a mechanical issue. Early evening had become late evening as thunderstorms rolled across the southern United States and snow began the coat the northeast, but Bobby was a patient traveler.

The salt in the air as he walked along the beach reminded his taste buds of the heavily salted fries he’d been snacking on that evening as he waited for his flight. Close to midnight, and more than twelve hours after he’d arrived at the airport, the flight was cancelled. The airline representative who had the thankless job of dealing with a planeful of tired, stranded passengers had had the unpleasant task of informing him that the snow in the northeast was a major blizzard and there would be no flights getting into New York until after Christmas.

He had been ready to declare Christmas a lost cause at that point, but his one teammate who lived in the Miami area had hung around the airport, waiting for his sister, who was returning home from her own university for the holidays and had faced similar flight delays. Zack had insisted Bobby could not spend Christmas at an airport hotel and, with that, Bobby’s Christmas had begun to improve.

His Christmas had definitely been improved by meeting Zack’s sister, Erica. She had gone out of her way to make him feel at home and included in the holiday celebrations; the entire family had. Erica always seemed to know just how to distract him when he started feeling homesick. Bobby hadn’t been able to decide whether he liked the way Zack got gruff and attempted to assert “bro code” rules to discourage Bobby’s interest in Erica, or the flowy sundress Erica had been wearing yesterday, because it was Miami and she could wear a summer dress in the dead of “winter”, more. Bobby suspected that meant he’d spent too much time in his formative years with Daniel Mangan.

And she was pretty. Like, really pretty. He loved the way that wavy dark brown hair cascaded down her shoulders and those deep blue eyes, the same color as the ocean was at this time of day, lit on him. Had he met her at some event (the most likely candidate being graduation), he’d have figured she was way out of his league. Tall, slim, gorgeous, fond of fashionable clothes, evidence of expensive tastes; she wouldn’t give a farm kid like him a second look, would she? Erica had proven to be very kind and down to earth, much like Di or Honey.

Bobby smiled, splashing as he continued down the coast. During his early teens, he’d made faces as his older siblings got mushy and ridiculous about the other perfectly fine Bob-Whites. His siblings had, each in their own way, told him he’d understand some day. At the time, he had doubted it. Now, as the waves continued to crash against the shore and his ankles, and the first rays of light were beginning to spread across the surface of the ocean, he knew they were right, just like they always were.

The sky was getting lighter; the white caps whiter, and the ocean was turning from deep blue-black to blue. In a few moments, the ball of the sun would emerge from the ocean out on the horizon. Bobby was still the only one out on the beach. He supposed, for those who lived here, the sunrise over the ocean was no big deal, but he couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.

Bobby paused to listen to the waves crash, flow, recede, crash, flow, and recede. He breathed in the tranquility of the peaceful scene. As the sun grew on the horizon, Bobby’s favorite carol came to his lips. No one was around this Christmas morning, not that it would have mattered. Bobby set aside his usual embarrassment at the idea of a big, tough football player singing some sentimental holiday tune and sang the sun into the sky.

Hark! The herald angels sing,

Glory to the newborn King!

Peace on earth and mercy mild.

God and sinners reconciled.

He smiled as the first rays of sunlight shimmered across the water. The sky turned a vibrant gold as the sun grew larger on the horizon. The ocean reflected back the light and the waves rolled gently.

“Something to be said for white sand beaches on Christmas,” Erica said softly, coming up beside him in the sand.

Bobby startled. He hadn’t heard her walking up in the soft sand. He smiled. “I’m used to snow.”

“I imagine it’s hard to be away from your family and everything familiar, especially today.”

“You know, when the airline woman told me they couldn’t get me home until after Christmas, I thought this was going to be the worst Christmas ever, but it hasn’t been. Even when Zack invited me to stay here, with all of you, I had doubts. He and I don’t come from the same worlds. We make it work for the teams, because someone had to. But even now, we’re never sure we’re actually friends outside of practice. He used to call me a poor little farm boy, and it’s true. I wake up at dawn because I expect to hear a rooster outside the window. Getting a scholarship from the athletic department was a huge deal for me. I’m the fourth child my parents had to send to college – and we just can’t afford it. But here I am, with Zack inviting me to his house for Christmas? I wasn’t sure I had the right clothes. I knew the food would be catered – or at least prepared by a paid cook. It’s not that I care all that much about Christmas dinner, but all of my memories of Christmas dinner are of a home-cooked, family meal. I expected to feel out of place. I am out of place. And then you, and your mother, and Zack have gone to so much effort to include me, and you guys have some fun traditions, too, like that carol-stocking-scavenger hunt. My sister would have loved that growing up. She probably still would, but I’m not sure Jim would be quite so thrilled about a ‘mystery’ for Christmas.” Bobby smiled at Erica. “And I’m really glad I got to meet you before graduation.”

“Me too.”

Once the sun was fully up, Erica admitted she should go get ready for church. Bobby waved for her to go ahead. He knew he still had a little time before he needed to get moving himself, and he had come out to the beach for something other than the sunrise, though he had enjoyed both the natural phenomenon and the company.

“Merry Christmas, Moms,” Bobby said when she answered the phone at the Farm.

Bobby knew she’d be awake with the sunrise, just like he was.

“Merry Christmas, Bobby! I’m so glad to hear from you.”

“I really wanted to be home for Christmas,” he admitted.

“We miss you, too. But I’m glad you are safe and weren’t in the air or trying to land in the weather we’ve been having. And I’m glad Zack invited you to stay with him, so you don’t have to be alone on Christmas.”

“His family has been really great. I made those mini peanut butter pies for them, so Zack’s happy with me, at least.”

“That was a kind gesture. Are you still expecting to be home tomorrow afternoon?”

“Weather gods willing, that’s the plan,” Bobby agreed.

“Stay in touch tomorrow. I’m not sure they’ve got the trains running the whole way from the city to White Plains yet, so we may need to come get you.”

“It’s just snow, isn’t it? They really haven’t gotten everything back up and running yet?”

“It’s Christmas, Bobby. They’ve got everyone who is still in town working as hard as they can to restore services, but most of the people who would be doing the work are on vacation. And we got a lot of snow. Peter said we’d gotten 32 inches by the time he last shoveled, when we got home from the service last night. You know the road crews aren’t prepared to deal with that much snow that fast. But enough about the blizzard. How is the weather where you are?”

“Not a snowflake in sight,” Bobby replied. “It’s hot. My phone says maybe 90° today. Erica’s very excited. She’d been going to school up in Michigan and said she hasn’t been warm all semester.”

“And Erica is?”

“Zack’s younger sister. She’s been really nice to me. Plus, she’s cute.”

Moms thought about her oldest son, who had been in love with the girl next door from the moment he met her. She thought about her middle son, who had been mooning over his eventual wife since her first day of kindergarten. She thought about her daughter, who had fallen for a gun-wielding stranger at first fond glance. And her baby boy was spending Christmas with a really nice, cute young woman. There was only one way this was likely to end.

Bobby heard his mother’s silence and could imagine what she was thinking. She always oscillated between not wanting her baby boy to grow up too fast and wanting for him the sort of happiness she thought he’d only find when he found and married his soulmate. “Moms, please don’t start planning a wedding yet. I barely know her.”

Moms laughed. “Okay, Bobby. Just remember, I want you to be happy—”

“And I’ll always be your baby,” Bobby finished for her. “I know, Moms. I love you. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas.”

Bobby tucked his phone back in his pocket and took one more look out across the ocean. The sun was fully above the horizon, turning the water to its normal bright blue and the whitecaps back to a dazzling bright white. Bobby smiled cheerfully. For a doomed Christmas, this one wasn’t turning out half-bad.