Russ pumped his hand, and everybody cheered and the next thing he knew he was hugging Lyle, who was pounding him on the back and saying, "Don't ever scare me like that again," in Russ's ear.
They broke apart, Lyle shifting from foot to foot, Russ banging his cane on the floor. "One hug every eight years," Russ said. "That's my limit."
Then Harlene and Knox hugged him, and Kevin lugged in boxes of pastries from the Kreemie Kakes diner and he thought, I'm the luckiest sonofabitch in the world.
II
Hadley was helping Hudson and Genny decorate the tree when the doorbell rang. Well, maybe "refereeing" was a better word. Hudson had to place every ornament in a particular place, and God help them all if one of the frosted bulbs got too close to a flying reindeer. Genny, on the other hand, was free-form. Right now she was tossing handfuls of tinsel at her side of the tree. Some of it was even landing on the branches.
"Be good," Hadley told them, as she crossed to the door.
It was Kevin Flynn, taking a break from patrol. He was in uniform, his unit idling curbside. He took off his hat and beat away the snow that had fallen on the shoulders of his coat.
"Flynn?"
"Hi," he said. "I know you have the rest of the week off, so I wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas."
"Thanks. Uh, Merry Christmas to you, too."
"Would you like to join the Flynns for our traditional Christmas dinner?"
"Thanks, but we've already made plans."
He glanced past her to where the kids had fallen silent. Undoubtedly taking in every word. "Sledding?"
She stepped onto the porch and closed the door behind her. "No. Flynn, you have to stop asking me out."
"I will. If my feelings change. Until then?" He shrugged, his coat rising and falling.
She stared up at him. "What is it with you?"
He took a step toward her. Stop him, she told herself. He slid his hands along her jawline, her cheekbones. Do something, woman. He bent his head. Just say no. Oh. Oh, my God. He held her as if she were a breakable ornament and kissed her as if she were the only warm thing in winter. "Merry Christmas," he whispered. She was still catching her breath when he bounded down the stairs. She listened to the thump of his cruiser door. Watched his rear lights dwindle in the falling snow.
"Oh, Flynn." She wrapped her arms around herself. "What am I going to do with you?"
CHRISTMAS
December 25 Through January 5
I
She got the call she had been expecting on Christmas Day, at the Ellis house, after dinner but before the pie and cake had been cut. The kids had fled to the family room, leaving behind a litter of china and adults with elbows propped on the table, finishing off the wine.
Clare's cell rang, a number she didn't recognize. Maybe a wrong number. Maybe a parishioner who had bottomed out on the hardest holiday of the year. "I have to take this," she said, rising. Dr. Anne waved her away.
In the living room, she flipped open her phone. She listened to what the man on the other end of the line had to say. She said, "Yes, sir," and, "Thank you, sir," and hung up. She stood there a long time, staring at the Ellises' tall tree, heavy with children's homemade ornaments.
"Clare?" Gail Jones stuck her head in the door. "If you need to go somewhere, I can drive you."
Clare shook her head. She walked past Gail, back into the dining room. The chatter fell silent as they saw her face. "Are you all right?" Karen Burns stood up. "Is everything okay?"
"My Guard unit's being called up." Clare didn't know where to put her hands. She settled for wrapping them around her arms. "We're going to Iraq."
II
She refused all offers to drive her home, although she agreed to let Geoff Burns notify the rest of the vestry. She walked through the darkening streets of Millers Kill, past windows framing twinkling trees, past strings of fairy lights and illuminated plastic Santas, past closed-up houses whose inhabitants had fled to Florida or Arizona.
She walked past her own house, around the square, beneath fuzzy candy canes and reindeer hanging from the old-fashioned-looking streetlights. She walked past stores closed for the day and galleries closed for the season and old mills, closed for good. Walking is prayer, someone had told her, and she believed it.
Eventually, exhausted and numb from the cold, she turned around and headed back. Before she reached the rectory, she stopped at St. Alban's and let herself into the chilly, dim space. On the deep stone sill beneath the nativity window, she had set a retablo she had found with a single votive. She lit the candle, and Our Lady of Refuge sprang to life in hot pinks and blues, a motherly smile on her face, welcoming all into her sheltering arms. Clare thought Octavio Esfuentes might like it. She thought about him, dying terrified and alone in an alien land. Thought about herself doing the same thing. "Holy Mother," she whispered, "Be with us all when we're frightened and far from home."
The rectory was scarcely warmer than the church. She cranked up the thermostat and lit the fire she had laid this morning. Russ had told her a fire sucked heat out of a house, but you couldn't prove it by her. After she had gotten it going, she felt warm enough to shuck her parka and make some hot cocoa. She had just retrieved the pan and was assembling ingredients when a banging at the kitchen door nearly caused her to drop the milk carton on the floor.
The door opened before she could get to it. Russ came in, stomping his boots, clutching a hideous arrangement of red and green carnations and gold-painted holly. "I thought you were locking up nowadays." He shut the door behind him.
"What are you doing here?" She accepted the ugly flowers while he took off his parka. "I thought you were working all day."
"I asked Paul to finish up my shift. He only had his kids until noon. Then his ex got 'em." He nodded toward the carnations. "These are for you. Sorry. The only place open was the Stewart's out by 117, and they didn't have a big selection." He finished untying his boots and kicked them off. "I thought I ought to bring flowers when I asked you to marry me."