Margot Early - A Spirit of Christmas p.04

Christmas Future

Chapter 10
This third phantom is wrapped within a deep black garment, which shrouds its head, its face, and its form, and leaves nothing visible but one outstretched hand.

Its presence fills Keti with dread, and Marley whimpers and leans against Keti’s pajama-clad legs.

“Do you represent Christmas Yet to Come?” Keti asks. It must be so, she imagines, as Dickens once described it. What happened, Keti wonders, to make these strange dreams come to her? Nothing has happened to her but the mirror. All Christmas Eve Day, she scarcely spoke to anyone about anything other than business. It had been a day much like any other.

Now she feels icy. Not her skin, not her flesh, but inside, everywhere, as if she is made of ice.

Keti tries once more, saying, “Will you show me things that haven’t happened yet but will happen?”

The ominous figure nods once.

It does not speak, and Keti finds she is too cold to shiver. When she tries to walk, her legs tremble, yet in a brittle way, and she begins to wonder if she has actually died and if this is death. She is so cold, so cold. The spirit pauses to wait.

Keti says, “Ghost of the Future, I fear you more than the ghosts of Edith and Amy. But I believe your purpose is to do me some good. Won’t you at least say something?”

Nothing. Its hand points straight before them.

Keti recognizes the mine office where she works. It’s daylight now, and a couple of her employees, one searching a file drawer, another seated at her computer, are working frantically as if they are trying to sort out something of critical importance. A woman, one of the women miners, stands in the office doorway and has just asked the others a question.

Keti’s employee at the computer never looks up from the screen. “I don’t know much about it either way. I only know she’s dead.”

“When did she die?” asks the woman.

“Last night, I believe.”

“What was the matter with her, anyhow?” asks the man who is rummaging through a filing cabinet. He is Keti’s personal assistant, Jason. “I thought she’d never die.”

“God knows.” The man at the computer yawns.

The woman miner leans on Keti’s desk—something that Keti would never allow. “So what’d she do with her money? That’s what I want to know. Does she have any heirs?”

“If so, I’m not one of them,” Jason replies. “But apparently there’s not going to be a funeral. I mean, who would go?”

The phantom glides on, into the gray day, over icy, snow-covered ground. Keti recognizes a familiar landmark. It’s the Palomino Palace sign.

But I don’t even own that place anymore.

She wants to point this out to the phantom, but clearly she’s supposed to observe rather than comment.

The women who work there are inside. It’s early morning, a lull between customers. A prostitute Keti remembers is named Jackie drags on her cigarette from her seat on a vinyl couch near the bar. “Guess who died?”

Blond Cindy, the smallest and youngest prostitute in the house, looks up.

Jackie starts singing, “Ding! Dong! The witch is dead!”

“No way!” gasps another of the girls.

But by then others have taken up the chorus. They link arms, then parade through the establishment, cheering and singing joyfully.

Keti gladly follows the phantom away from this, and her apprehension increases.

They are no longer in Nevada.

Now they are in New York and two women investors whom Keti knows well stand talking outside Saks. “How are you?” asks one.

“Oh, great. And you?”

“Well, the old bitch got her comeuppance at last.”

“So I heard. Oh, look at those fantastic pumps!” Together, the women head into the store.

Not another word.

Keti wonders why the phantom is showing her this trivial conversation. But finally it dawns on her, and she thinks back to the scene at the brothel. They’re all talking about me!

Ghastly.

Well, inevitably one day she would die.

She follows the phantom into darkness and fog, Marley close beside her. Yes, this looks like Bounty. Where are they?

Oh, beside the free box, which Keti would gladly have burned before now. The Bounty free box, where wealthier residents leave unneeded garments and belongings, simply attracts poor people like a magnet. Including people who have no business being poor. Like that young man out of college, white and undoubtedly from an upper middle-class background, but with a completely untrimmed beard, bare feet, and worst of all, dreadlocks. With him is a young woman wearing a giant tam covering all her hair, and they have children with them, too.

“What did you get?” asks the woman, peering over the man’s shoulder.

“A laptop.”

Keti recognizes her laptop, a model owned by no one else in Bounty.

The young woman retrieves a cashmere coat and pulls it on. “You know, they just tossed all this here. She doesn’t have a single heir, did you know that?”

“Doesn’t surprise me,” he answers. “No one liked her.”

Keti is chilled. It is me. I’m the one who died. Maybe I’m dead now.

She’s about to learn if that is true, too, because she well recognizes the next stop. Hadn’t she come here after Amy died, and after Mrs. Collins’s death, as well? It is the Holly Funeral Home.

The funeral director is nowhere in sight. Just…remains. An elderly man stretched out on one table. And on the other…

I don’t want to see! I don’t want to see!

It is Keti, middle-aged and dead. She doesn’t remember dying. But that is her. No makeup. Of course not. She’s to be cremated.

I’m dead. I’m dead!

“Is there any person,” she asks the ghost, “who is sorry I’m dead?”

There’s a whirl of fog, and then she is at Tiffany’s trailer.

She’s not sorry, Keti thinks.

The Collins family is assembled inside. Keti sees Martin standing staring out a window, toward the trailer next door. Keti searches the house and sees only Collins relatives.

Tiffany has a black eye under her makeup, and Tim, her husband, is in front of the television, paying no heed to the children. He is drinking, and Tiffany whispers to Bridget, “If Keti hadn’t seized the land the shop was on…He was never like this when he could work.”

Bridget nods solemnly.

Mr. Collins has heard them, and his mouth forms a grim line.

But nobody says—yet—that they are glad she is dead.

This is a nightmare, a horrible nightmare, Keti thinks.

Martin comes into the kitchen.

“We were just talking about your favorite person,” Tiffany says.

Martin swallows.

“You’re probably the only person in all of Bounty,” his niece continues, “who cares that she’s dead.”

“Unfortunately,” his father says, “she died a long time ago, while she was still walking this earth.”

“Yes,” Martin manages to say, and he walks into the other room and out into the darkness. No tears, no more words, yet Keti feels his grief for her, and feels the weight of all those disappointed hopes he had for her.

And then she is outside her house, which is up for sale.

For sale. Because I’m dead.

With no one to scatter her ashes.

With no tombstone that anyone would visit, if they could.

The phantom is still with her.

“Can’t I change this?” she asks. “Is it too late?”

No answer.

She finds herself begging. “Intercede for me. Help me, please. This isn’t who I ever meant to be, but I’ve never believed I could be different. It wasn’t safe to be like Martin—or that man who shoveled my walk. Like ordinary people. It was never safe! But safety isn’t the most important thing. You’ve proved that.” And Keti catches the spectral hand and will not let go. If this horrible creature is the only one who can help her…

Yet the phantom vanishes.



The spectral hand becomes a bedpost, in her darkened room. A furry head shifts to lean against her, and she feels a rough tongue on her face.

“Marley.” She hugs the dog.

Oh, thank God! This is her room, in her house, and she is alive, not dead.

And she has been given another chance.

Suddenly, there is no time. But not in the sense that there has been no time before this—no time for anything but work. Now, there’s no time to do all the things Keti wants to do before Christmas Day begins.


The Spirit of Christmas

Chapter 11
Christmas Day

Bounty

Martin awoke before it was light. Because the old family home had been sold, he’d spent Christmas Eve in his own house. Of course, his father had extra room in his trailer, and all the Collinses were used to camping out on the floors, occupying every inch of carpet in the two side-by-side trailers. But often Martin worked on Christmas, and on those occasions it was simply easier to be in his own home.

He thought of Keti in her huge, lonely mansion, her beautiful house, no doubt waking up alone on Christmas Day. Later on, he’d call her—and he’d answer the other call, which had been left on his machine the night before. “This is Melanie Grady. I’m visiting Bounty and staying at the Hot Springs Motel, and it’s imperative I speak with you. I’d rather wait to say what it’s about when I see you.”

Martin knew no Melanie Grady. Yet the phone call had convinced him to put off heading over to Tiffany’s until he’d spoken with this person. It could be someone wanting to know about the new low-income medical clinic he was trying to get started in Bounty.

When he’d approached Keti about the idea, she’d said, “I thought your practice was a low-income clinic.” So, he’d been trying to interest other regional philanthropists. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that Melanie Grady represented such a person.

His cell phone rang, startling him, and he reached for it.

He glanced at the screen and immediately answered. “Merry Christmas, Keti.”

“Hi. Merry Christmas to you!”

She sounded different, different than she’d sounded for years.

“I have a dog,” she told Martin.

“What?”

Keti was notorious for her determination not to live with anything that needed care to survive—not even a houseplant.

“That’s great. What kind?” He pictured an expensive breed imported from somewhere exotic. Still, taking care of something else alive, something outside herself, had to be a step in the right direction.

“Mmm. Well, he’s a mutt, I guess. He was stuck to the screen door last night with porcupine quills. Awful, wasn’t it, Marley, buddy?”

“Marley?” Keti must be talking to the dog.

“Yes. For my aunt. She won’t mind. I guess. I mean, she wasn’t much of a dog person herself.

“Anyhow, he’d been skunked, too, but now we’re good friends. Are you at Tiffany’s? I’m coming over later, and I wanted to find out the time. I mean, what time she wants us—her note didn’t say.”

“Probably one o’clock. I told her I’d be there by then. Does this mean you’re going to bury the hatchet?”

“What hatchet?” she asked nonchalantly.

“I think you and your employee, my niece, have had words recently.”

According to Tiffany, the subject had been the crowded condition of the trailer park. Why don’t you open another one? Tiffany had asked Keti. Or help us get one of those build-to-own programs here in Bounty? This place is becoming horrible.

And Keti had said, Why is it my problem? There are certainly cheaper places to live than Bounty. You don’t have to live here.

Well, that was Keti.

“She asked me to come for Christmas dinner,” Keti said, as if this was answer enough to the hatchet question. “Are you at home?” she asked. “Why aren’t you already at Tiffany’s. Are you on call?”

“No, I’m at home. I’ve got something to do here before I drive over, though.” A few things. Because he realized that he hadn’t expected Keti at this year’s celebration. Tiffany had told her uncle she didn’t expect Keti. For the first time he could remember since childhood, he had no gift planned for Keti Whitechapel. And he kicked himself for that, whether she’d planned to come to Tiffany’s or not. “Tell me again how you wound up with a dog.”

“I told you,” she said impatiently. “He was on my back porch and he wouldn’t leave, and he was stuck on the screen door.”

“And you didn’t call animal control?” Martin mused.

She cares about you, Martin. She always has.

The thought made him uncomfortable. If he had shown her love, love that was truly unconditional, couldn’t he have brought about the change he’d hoped to see in her?

Well, maybe this dog could do what Martin hadn’t been able to accomplish.

It was never your place to change her, Martin.

“I did call the marshal, but everyone was out on a call. Some accident. Anyhow, now Marley and I are friends, and he’s my dog. You can meet him today. I guess I’ll see you around one,” she added, sounding preoccupied.

“Yes.”



Keti hadn’t bought a single present this year. Ever since her friendship with Martin had fizzled out, there hadn’t been anyone she wanted to remember. Or so it had seemed.

But it was different now. There were people in Bounty who probably didn’t have money to buy presents for their families, and Keti could have helped them. In fact, she still could.

But first she must make a list. She started with everyone who was likely to be at Tiffany’s house.

She felt ashamed, as she realized how easy it would have been to have bought a toy for each of Tiffany’s children—and how selfish she’d been not to do so. She could give five hundred dollars to each member of the extended Collins family and never feel the lack herself.

Fortunately, her own house had almost limitless potential as a source of gifts. There were two picture-perfect children’s rooms, one equipped with a special “secret” hideaway that overlooked the staircase. And all the child-friendly spaces were packed with toys—the decorator’s idea. Keti had never seen the point, but she hadn’t cared enough to argue about it. Now, she would wrap up some of these and take them to Tiffany’s. Tiffany would know where they’d come from, but the children certainly wouldn’t care.

There was no wrapping paper, but Keti found copies of Architectural Digest and Dwell and tore out the prettier, more colorful pages to use. What should she give Tiffany? And what about that husband of hers, Tim? Tim loved motorcycles. Did she own anything that fit with that? And what about Martin’s father?

And what about Martin himself?

For so many years, Martin had wanted her to change, to become a more generous person, and now she was determined to do so. It had taken an extraordinary night to remind her that it is enjoyable to give.

I want to be different. I love the person I am, the person I’m capable of being. Martin didn’t matter.

Martin always matters to you, Keti.

She had tried, so many times, to stop herself from loving him. Again and again, she’d failed.

He never thought I was good enough, because I was so stingy.

Now that she was changing, was it possible he could love her? Would he want her? And how would she feel about that? About the fact that she’d had to become someone else in order to be accepted?

Keti didn’t like the answer to the last question.

She’d always wanted Martin to love her just as she was.

And because she’d known that he never would, she’d given up their child for adoption.

Stupid, stupid, selfish, selfish.



At 8:00 a.m., Martin called the Hot Springs Motel and asked them to ring Melanie Grady’s room.

On the first ring, someone picked up the phone. “Hello?”

“This is Martin Collins, returning your call.”

“Ah, thank you. Are you in Bounty?”

“Yes,” Martin answered slowly. “What’s this about?”

“Is there any chance you could meet me for a coffee or breakfast?”

Martin considered the request. The Bounty ski resort was open. So, there would be some place open to eat. “Where?” he asked.

“Well, there’s a breakfast room here. I’ll treat.”

“All right. Can you tell me what this is about?”

“I’d prefer to talk about that in person,” the woman replied.

“Right.”

“Can you make it by nine?”

He considered all the things that were undone—and the one gift he still had to produce somehow. “Make it ten.”



Martin hastily packed his truck with gifts he’d selected for his family and a batch of brownies he’d made the night before.

For so many years, Keti’s gift had been the one he’d thought about most of all. How could he have let it go this year? he wondered.

Maybe it was because she’d cried when he’d criticized her over the tin of cookies.

He wasn’t obligated to give Keti or anyone a present. But would Keti be receiving presents from anyone who truly cared about her this Christmas? Let alone anyone she actually loved?

There had never been a year when he hadn’t wanted to give her a gift.

Why had he just let the thought slip away this year?

Because he’d been hoping he could let her slip away, too.

That hadn’t happened. Yes, he’d resisted spending time with her, resisted raising her hopes that they might someday share any more than they did. But this year she’d also resisted him. When he’d talked to her about the clinic, one of their few recent conversations, she’d been especially snotty, making it abundantly clear that she didn’t care all that much about him or his projects.

What would you have gotten for her this year, Martin, if you’d known she was going to be at Tiffany’s?

Could he make her a gift? He could certainly make a card. How much time did he have before his meeting with Melanie Grady?

Inside, he went to his bedroom with its simple IKEA bed. In a shoe box in the closet, he kept many of his old photos.

Photos you never look at anymore, Martin.

What if he made a photo gift of the years they had known each other?

Why not? He had paper and glue somewhere.

He gathered supplies on the rough wooden table in the kitchen—the solid rustic table that was the centerpiece of his home.

He’d had dreams once of Keti sharing this home. And briefly, she had. What had gone wrong?

His own judgmental streak.

He had always judged Keti, and he knew it and didn’t like it in himself. How could he ever call her selfish after that one sacrifice she’d made, of her own child?

Of that child…

Did part of him judge her for not raising her daughter herself?

Who appointed you God, Martin Collins?



Keti’s desire to give was suddenly overwhelming, and she went through her closet weeding out everything she didn’t absolutely love. She would make it a true Bounty day at the free box.

Marley sniffed his way through the house. When he wanted to go outside, Keti faced the fact that he had no collar and she certainly had no leash. Using a piece of clothesline to serve as both, she took him out into her yard. Marley was not going to be allowed to roam and get hit by a car or worse.

Then she scrambled eggs for both of them for breakfast.

Usually, on every other day, she worked out for three hours in her private gym in the back of the Victorian. Today, she’d lift weights, because it would feel good. But maybe after that, instead of using the treadmill, she’d go for a run with Marley.

Like other people, she thought.

Why did the world feel so open today, as if every thing good was out there waiting for her?

And what could she give Martin?

She’d think about that on her run with Marley. Maybe she’d make something. Or write a poem. It wouldn’t have to be brilliant; it could just include some of the things she felt about him.

Oh, the world was so different—and so beautiful—this Christmas Day.



The woman who met Martin in the lobby of the Hot Springs Motel was no more than twenty-two, Martin decided when he saw her. Probably about five foot six, with wire-rimmed glasses, wearing a Patagonia jacket that looked as though it had seen many backpacking trips. Her reddish-blond hair was shoulder length, her skin freckled.

Martin said, “Melanie Grady?”

“Yes. You’re Martin Collins.”

“Merry Christmas,” Martin said.

“Likewise.”

They went into the motel’s small glassed-in pool area surrounding the indoor hot springs. A folding table against one wall contained a spread of rolls, coffee, hot water, tea bags and juice.

Martin and his companion filled plates and coffee cups, then went to sit at one of the tables near the pool.

Melanie gazed directly into Martin’s face. “Sixteen years ago, you accompanied a woman to the Bounty hospital when she gave birth to a child.”

Martin’s heart pounded once—hard.

His first thought was that this girl was Keti’s child. She didn’t look like Keti, but she wouldn’t necessarily.

Nor did she look anything like…

He cast that thought aside, but his guard was up—on Keti’s behalf. This was Keti’s business. It had to do with the adoption. He could reveal nothing without her permission. Her privacy was his foremost concern, and he would protect her. He could tell her what this person wanted, whoever she turned out to be, but he couldn’t say what he knew.

He asked instead, “How did you reach that conclusion?”

“Detective work. Some papers that came into her adoptive parents’ hands had you listed as the emergency contact for the mother. There was a man with the birth mother at the clinic. It turns out he was a physician, but not her physician. So, by the way, you can tell me what you know.”

In her opinion.

“Her adoptive parents knew these things,” Melanie continued. “So I came here to see you.”

Martin sat in silence. Silence was safe and would not betray Keti.

Melanie Grady seemed to wait a moment for Martin to speak. Then, realizing that wasn’t going to happen, she continued her own story. “The girl who was born here in Bounty is my sister. We’re both adopted. But she’s my sister, Charlotte. Two years ago, she assisted some motorists in a bad car accident over in Denver and she was exposed to—and contracted—hepatitis B. Now, her liver is failing. She needs a liver transplant. A blood relative would be the ideal donor. A living donor could give part of his or her liver and the donor’s liver would grow back, regenerate. It could save Charlotte’s life. She’s a pretty incredible person.”

“What are your parents doing?” Martin asked. Why aren’t they here pursuing this? Or were they with Charlotte?

“They were killed in the car accident. The same one…I was driving. Charlotte and I were unharmed. I’m her guardian now.”

“Good God,” Martin said. The guilt…But he couldn’t say anything. He couldn’t even admit to Melanie Grady that he knew Charlotte’s birth mother. Charlotte’s mother. As for Charlotte’s father…

Thoughtfully, he said, “I’d like a way to contact you. I know they’d like a blood relative as a donor, but I do know other people who would also be willing to do this. I would myself.” Yes. A blood relative would be best.

“But what I want…”

“I know what you want,” Martin interrupted. “I’m sorry. I don’t have anything else to say right now but that, myself, I’d be glad to help.”

Melanie’s eyes grew sharp. “Are you her father?”

Martin gave an internal ironic laugh, and he was surprised by his own succinct answer, by how swiftly it came. “No.”

Her eyes swiftly searched his face. Then, her expression suddenly grim, she reached for the Guatemalan bag she’d slung over the back of her chair and opened it. She picked through the contents and withdrew an envelope. “In the event you do happen to run into her birth mother—or just someone you think might be interested—you might give the person this.”

He had taken the envelope before he knew it. Already knowing the answer, he asked, “What is this?”

But he was opening the envelope now, and Melanie Grady did not answer.

He withdrew a photograph of a dark-haired young woman. She bore an uncanny resemblance to his own sister Amy.



Keti was running with Marley, and she had just waved to some skiers hiking to the gondola that would take them up the mountain. They’d called, “Merry Christmas!” and she had responded with the same.

Her cell phone chimed. A simple generic melody. Nothing fancy.

She slowed and Marley looked up at her with a happy dog smile, then sniffed a large rock near the trailhead they’d approached. As he lifted his leg, Keti looked down at the screen. Martin. She answered.

“Keti, I want to see you alone.”

“That’s new,” she responded immediately.

Silence. A silence that seemed a reprimand for her near flirtation.

You’re still so aloof, she thought with regret.

“A young woman contacted me last night. She wanted to see me. Keti, she’s from—” a breath-like hesitation “—your daughter’s adoptive family.”

Her dreams of the previous night rushed at her. “She’s not my daughter,” she whispered, wanting desperately to lean on something, anything.

“Well, you know who I mean. She has hepatitis B and she urgently needs a liver transplant. I didn’t tell this kid—her sister, also adopted—anything. That’s for you to do, if you want.” Then, he told her everything Melanie Grady had told him. His voice sounded strange, emotionless and flat, and yet it was also teeming with emotion.

Keti blinked. “I actually need my own liver.” Her daughter…flesh and blood…yet not hers.

Not hers and Martin’s. Oh, God. Oh, God. Why is this happening?

“Actually,” he said, “you can donate part of yours, and it regenerates. The risk to you is low.”

“Really?” She considered. “I could do that.” She would do that. Of course she would. And she could see this person, this child, the walking, talking creature to whom she’d given birth and who was now almost a grown woman.

Who had no parents now.

No parents but…me?

And Martin.

I can never tell him. He’ll hate me if he knows the truth.

He asked, “Would you like to call her yourself?”

I’m scared. I’m not her parent, whoever she is. Just a stranger who gave her away. She won’t like me.

“The sister,” Martin clarified. “Her name is Melanie. Your…They named her Charlotte. Charlotte Anne Grady.”

Charlotte.

As in her dream.

“I…” She didn’t know what to do, what to say. “Yes, I think. Or, maybe you should—call, I mean. Maybe that would be…”

“Why don’t I pick you up? To go to Tiffany’s. You can think about it in the meantime.”

“Yes. Yes.”



Keti had a Christmas wreath on the door when Martin came to pick her up. But maybe the wreath was Tiffany’s doing. Keti’s disinterest in Christmas had become legendary in Bounty over the years.

Martin’s knock was answered by sharp barks. When Keti opened the door, the animal darted out, barked once, and then jumped all over him.

“Marley, you can’t do that. Sorry, Martin, he doesn’t have a collar yet. Marley, get down! Is the grocery store open?” As it had been in her dream. “I could get him a collar there.”

“Let’s find out,” he said, crouching to pet the exuberant dog, stroking the one ear that bent forward at the tip. “You deserve a collar,” Martin said, admiring Marley’s pale blue eyes.

Keti was different. Martin recognized this at once, thinking to himself that she even looked somewhat different. Stepping inside, into a foyer crowded with bags full of Christmas presents, Martin glanced toward the arch where mistletoe had hung in other years. None there now.

Keti wore jeans—unusual for her—and a red hooded sweatshirt, and her blond hair looked slept-on and disheveled and soft. On her feet were running shoes that had been splattered with mud.

“You look…casual,” he found himself saying.

“Is that a problem?” she snapped.

He bit back a smile. “You are beautiful, always.”

Her expression was an appealing mixture of ruefulness, self-deprecation and gratitude.

His heart lurched. “Will you let me buy Marley’s collar?”

“I suppose. Should we measure him? I think I have a tape measure somewhere.”

The dog wriggled happily as the two of them crouched on the kitchen floor to determine the size of his neck.

“Want a coffee or anything?” Keti asked.

Martin eyed the gleaming restaurant-quality espresso maker, which probably received little use. “Sure. Thank you.”

He stood beside her as she prepared to make him a drink.

“Cappuccino?”

“Thanks.”

Marley sat and watched the process with interest.

Martin was thinking of Charlotte.

Of the picture he hadn’t told Keti he possessed. Though he would give it to her. And watch her face as she saw how much Charlotte Anne Grady looked like Amy.

“Is Marley housebroken?” Martin asked.

“Well, he hasn’t done anything indoors yet. He must have had a home at one point.”

When she steamed the milk for Martin’s drink, the dog tilted his head sideways.

“You are adorable,” Keti told Marley.

“Thank you,” Martin replied.

“I’ve always said that you are,” she answered.

When she handed him the steaming mug of coffee, Martin spontaneously leaned toward her and kissed her on the lips. The brief touch reminded him, as only Keti could make him remember, everything it was to be a man.

Keti said, “I think I’ll be in love with you till I die.”

She did not tell him that the one thing she feared, feared above all other things, was a time when he might be taken from her. She did not tell him that the only moments of happiness she’d ever known with a lover had been in his arms.

She remembered that the lesson of her dream was that the true joy in life came from giving.

Though that dream had come before the particular dilemmas of this day.

If she was to help Charlotte as she wanted to do, could she do so without telling Martin the complete truth?

And what if she turned out to be an unsatisfactory donor?

Then she’d have to tell Martin the truth, and damn the consequences.

As if she could ever take the consequences of angering Martin so lightly. Though, could it really make things worse? He had rejected her not once but many times.

Martin felt her withdraw slightly. “What is it?” he asked.

“Oh…nothing. Maybe I’m just tired of my own instincts. I find myself wanting to measure up to your expectations. I’ve never done it, and I wonder, if I did, I’d simply resent that you’d never loved me as I am.”

“I’ve always loved you,” Martin replied. “I’ve just never believed I could live with you. Peacefully, I mean. We’re so different.”

“But we did live peacefully for a while, after you came back from Vietnam. Unfortunately, at some point you began to judge who I am.”

Martin didn’t deny it.

“It was the brothels,” he said.

“Well, they’ve been sold for years, though not because of you.”

“I know. You never told me why.”

She gave an explanation. For years, she told him, she’d had no difficulty finding good managers, keeping up with health regulations and everything else that was involved in running the businesses. But the profit margin seemed to have shrunk, just as she’d begun to find her managers harder to deal with.

Her mind was only partially on the subject.

Charlotte. She’d dreamed about a girl named Charlotte, and now it turned out that the girl to whom she’d given birth was actually named Charlotte. And Charlotte, the real Charlotte, was dying, Martin had said, or in danger of dying.

“I think,” Keti said, “I’d like to call whatever number you have. For Charlotte’s sister.”

They sat at the table together, and Keti took out her address book to record the information Melanie Grady had given Martin. She set her cordless phone beside her, waiting.

He passed an envelope across the table to her.

Keti knew, could feel, that there was a photograph inside. “Do I want to see this?”

“Definitely,” he said, his eyes on her face.

So she took out the snapshot of a girl holding a snowboard and saw immediately what Martin had seen.

She barely looked at the picture, instead stole a glance at him. He watched her, his handsome face unreadable.

She set down the photo and picked up her pen. “The number,” she prompted and did not meet his eyes again.



“Keti!” exclaimed Bridget, throwing open the door to Tiffany’s trailer.

“Hi, Bridget.” Keti tried to focus on the moment, on this Christmas with the Collins family. She and Martin would leave together the next day for California to see her daughter—their daughter—and the young woman’s doctors.

Though she and Martin had not discussed what must be as obvious to him as it was to her, that Charlotte was his daughter as much as Keti’s.

Keti focused, instead, on the fear.

Charlotte Grady, Melanie had informed her, was extremely ill.

It had been decided that a telephone meeting was not the most appropriate way for Keti to reenter Charlotte’s life. Instead, Martin and Keti would meet Melanie the following day and follow her to California, where Charlotte was hospitalized.

Between themselves, they’d agreed not to discuss this at the Collins family gathering. The last thing Keti wanted to talk about was the experience of giving up her child up for adoption, and Martin had said with some irony that he thought there were other conversations they needed to have first. Which left Keti with the challenge of concealing from the Collinses the life-changing news she’d received earlier in the day.

What she thought about, instead, was the previous time she’d been to Tiffany’s house.

She’d brought that tin of cookies, saying to Martin, “I don’t really have energy for the Christmas thing.” What she’d meant was that she didn’t think Tiffany was particularly deserving, and Keti certainly couldn’t choose to give presents to some of the Collins family members but not to others.

Well, she was determined to make up for all of that on this occasion.

Martin helped her make two trips from the house with her bags of packages, the numerous gifts wrapped in pieces of magazine. Marley, led to the car and allowed into the backseat, immediately tried to climb up front, standing on the gearshift, wriggling ecstatically.

Keti said, “Marley, you can sit on my lap. Come on.”

Martin said, “What’s come over you?”

She blinked at him, her blue eyes guileless beneath her mascaraed lashes.

Then, she said, “Okay, it’s silly, but last night I had a dream. A bunch of dreams. Like Scrooge. And those dreams changed me in the same way. Though you notice I’m still wearing my Scrooge watch.”

He smiled.

Then she told him of the dream that included Charlotte. “And her name was Charlotte,” she concluded. “What do you think of all that?”

Martin said, “I think I want to know why you never told me the truth about her.”

And there it was.

She sighed. “You would have insisted on marrying me, and I didn’t want you to do that—not for that reason. I wanted to be loved for myself. And, yes, I did try to get pregnant and then I made this decision, all these decisions. I was so foolish. I’m sorry. I don’t have anything better to say.”

Silence.

Then, he started the car.

She said, “I think I should drive myself. This isn’t good for me, Martin, this thing that you and I have.” She gazed across the street at the lawn decorations in front of her neighbor’s home. A Santa Claus, a huge, inflatable snowman. The sky beyond the snow-covered trees and rooftops was blue, and she saw a family in their Sunday best walking together, enjoying Christmas Day.

Martin heard the pain in her voice.

He stopped thinking about Charlotte. But he couldn’t stop thinking about her. “I knew she was mine.”

Keti stared. “You did?”

“On some level. Not completely. But how could she have been anyone else’s?”

Keti didn’t answer this. How, indeed?

She started to open her door, to let herself out.

He reached over and touched her arm. “Keti, I didn’t believe I’d be a good parent.”

“You?” she said in disbelief. “You think you’re good in every way. I’m not buying this.”

He still didn’t want to talk about the war. He never spoke of it. But now he said, “After you kill people, things are different.”

Well, he’d certainly chosen a defense she couldn’t argue with, Keti thought. She knew, as well, that there would be no point in asking him to explain why having been a soldier ruled out fatherhood. He wouldn’t be able to put it into words. But she believed him. She sighed, sighed at herself, loving this man who could be so holier-than-thou to the rest of the world, then admit this was who he was inside.

“It’s no excuse,” he said. “It’s up to me, Keti. My shortcomings are my doing.” Then, “You didn’t want to keep her, either.”

“No,” she said. What she’d wanted was his love. With that, she would have wanted to raise Charlotte herself. Without him, her self-doubt had been too great.

Self-doubt fed by him, by his criticism of her?

His right hand closed over her left, and Marley tried to climb into his lap. Martin gently discouraged this. “Not in the driver’s seat, Marley.” He said, “I love you, Keti. I have always loved you.”

She waited for him to say more, to say something that would bring her peace.

“Yes, well,” she said at last, indistinctly, removing her hand from his. “As I said, perhaps I should take Marley in my car. I mean, there’s no reason to pretend…”

“We’re friends, Keti. We’ve always been friends. We’ll always be friends. We’re family, in a way, too.”

Abruptly, she reached for the door handle.

Again, he reached past her. Her wrist was small and delicate. “Keti, I’m no good at this.”

“You’re right,” she said abruptly. “I’ve never been good enough, and no one can be good enough. Look, why don’t you just take these gifts over to Tiffany’s. Marley and I can find something else to do today.”

“Keti, no. I’m the one who’s not good enough. Don’t you get it?”

“I get that. I just don’t believe you feel that way. It’s always been about how selfish and materialistic I am and how you have different values.”

“Keti, I have too much to make up for. I never will make up for it, but I can’t stop trying, and I couldn’t risk anything that might not make me a better person.”

“Good. Don’t risk it.”

“Don’t go,” he said. “Please. I’m going to buy Marley’s collar, and I want to spend this day with you. It matters to me to spend today with you.”

“Why?”

“Because I love you, which I’ve just told you.”

“Yes, you love me, the way you love your impoverished patients, as if I’m a project. I’ve always been a project with you, from the first time your parents made you ask me to spend Christmas with you. That’s not real love, Martin. It’s charity, like that. Giving just to make yourself feel good because you’ve been generous. Oh, people are grateful sometimes. But no one who simply wants to be loved will be grateful for that.”

He heard her and recognized her words for truth.

He also knew that he had loved Keti differently, and that he was afraid of that kind of love, the kind that needed a particular person.

He said, “Keti, I want to spend Christmas with you. In the selfish way you want me to feel.”

Chapter 12
At Tiffany’s, later that day

Tiffany looked at the snow leopard puppet Crazy Horse had just unwrapped. She squinted at Keti. “Is that the one from upstairs at your house?”

Keti blushed and cursed Tiffany’s bad manners. The snow leopard looked new, and it had lost fifty dollars when the interior decorator had purchased it for Keti’s house. “Yes, as a matter of fact,” she said. “I didn’t know what I was doing for Christmas until this morning, strange as that sounds.”

Hands closed on her shoulders, and she looked up from the couch where she was sitting beside Crazy Horse. The hands were Martin’s, and spontaneously he bent over, embracing her tightly, his head near hers. “And I, for one, am glad she decided to do this.”

Marley lay on the floor near one of the trailer’s heater vents. He’d been fed Christmas cookies by Tiffany’s oldest daughter, and he’d devoured the Christmas gifts that Martin and Keti had bought for him at the store—all that were edible. He wore his new red leather collar, and his head rested on a stuffed squeaky toy, a dog that looked a bit like him.

“She never got religion, but at least she got a dog,” Martin’s brother George had quipped as he greeted Keti and Marley.

“It’s lucky you had so many things around your house that you never use,” Tiffany pointed out.

“Yes,” Keti agreed, ignoring the barb.

“What did she give you?” Tiffany asked Martin.

“I haven’t given him his present yet,” Keti answered, knowing she didn’t want to give it to him in front of the rest of his family—and particularly not in the presence of Tiffany. Tiffany was demonstrating, Keti couldn’t help but think, exactly how much she valued her job as property manager of Keti’s Victorian. Keti also couldn’t help thinking, I should fire her.

The notion was at odds with every new resolution she’d made that morning.

Disappointment flowed through her at the possibility that life really hadn’t changed, that even the way she looked at it hadn’t shifted all that much.

But I won’t fire Tiffany, she thought.

And she probably never would have, even though Tiffany had been rude and cruel.

Keti wished she had a real present for Martin—that she’d bought her gifts in advance, rather than assembling them from what she’d had on hand. She recollected her trip to the free box earlier that morning and the eager residents waiting there, who were so thrilled as she’d unloaded her car.

She wished she felt the elation now that she’d felt at that moment. She wished the feeling had lasted.

Martin knelt behind the couch. Head near hers, he said, “I haven’t given you your gift, either.”

“Want to come back to the house later?” she asked.

“I do.”



They brewed cider on her stove and took it upstairs to her bedroom. Marley looked accusingly at Martin when he stretched out on Keti’s bed. Then, the dog jumped up beside him—between Martin and Keti.

“I don’t think he approves of me,” Martin remarked. “Maybe he’s holding the collar against me.”

Keti made no move either to shift or reprimand the dog. Instead, she put a small gift wrapped package in front of Martin. “It’s dumb,” she said. “And it really didn’t cost anything.”

He placed his package for her on the bed beside Keti. “Mine was last-minute, too.”

“You first,” Keti said.

She’d made him a wallet, out of a page from a calendar of Ancient Forests and cellophane tape. It had turned out nicely, and she knew from experience that such wallets—she’d made them for herself in the distant past—could hold up quite well.

“Thank you. I love it,” he said and kissed her.

Following Martin’s lead, Marley kissed her face, too, but then he moved toward the foot of the big bed, turned around in a circle twice and lay down.

Keti unwrapped her package. It was a small handmade book. On the front page was a photograph of Martin and Keti on either side of a snowman. She turned the pages and the pictures took her through all the years she’d known Martin. Childhood, adolescence, the Collins house, Martin after he returned from Vietnam, the two of them as adults in Bounty.

The most recent photo had been taken two years before, at Tiffany’s Christmas celebration.

“Thank you,” she said. “This is a wonderful present.” It looks like you care, she was thinking.

Or why would he have had all these photos?

On the other hand, he’d just given them to her.

“Did you give me all your photos?” she asked.

“Oh, I have some favorites tucked away.”

After a moment, she said, “You’ll never forgive me, will you? For not telling you.”

“There’s nothing to forgive. I didn’t make it easy for you. I didn’t…take care of you as I should have, Keti. I’m sorry. Do you understand and believe what I said? That I didn’t feel I’d be a good father?”

She supposed that in some way she did believe.

“And do you forgive me?” he asked.

She nodded. She nodded because there was no point in not forgiving him. She also nodded because she believed that he was saying that his reasons for rejecting her had more to do with himself than with her own shortcomings.

They set their gifts on the bedside table, and Martin reached for her.

Keti said suddenly, “Do you think it will work?”

“The liver transplant?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

How could she suddenly get back her daughter and possibly lose her, as well?

Maybe it would be better actually not to meet her. She told Martin this.

“Always err on the side of love, Keti.”

She gave a wry laugh. “Do you?”

“No.” He paused. “But I still know it’s the right way to be.”

“Will you tell her,” Keti asked, “that you’re her father?”

“I’d like to. I think,” he added softly.

“You’re unsure?”

“My doubts about myself haven’t evaporated. But I want to meet her. And I know that I’ll want her to know. She won’t understand,” he said. “She probably won’t understand any of this.”

“No. She’s too young.” And how could she, when I barely understand?

The subject of money had not raised its head this Christmas, and Keti didn’t want to address it.

She’d given thought over the years to Mrs. Collins’s suggestion that letting a woman support him would gall Martin. Perhaps the fact that she, Keti, was so much wealthier than he was had the same effect. She said, “I’ve never stopped being in love with you.”

“I think that’s safer for you,” he answered.

“Safer than what?”

“Than loving, well, any of a host of different people.”

There was some truth to what he said. “Safe, maybe,” she agreed. “But not always comfortable.”

Because Martin wasn’t a man who talked about his feelings. Other people’s feelings, sometimes. But not his. And he appeared, often, to believe that Keti should know his feelings for her—whatever they were—without his telling her. His actions, he thought, should demonstrate to her how he felt about her.

But his actions were ambiguous sometimes. And then, there was the fact that sometimes he wanted his actions to say something, and that he chose them for what he thought he was saying—which wasn’t necessarily what he felt. And what he’d decided to say was often what he’d decided was good for everyone involved, based on some obscure reasoning that made sense only to him.

Martin said, “This is such a comfortable bed.”

“It is,” she agreed. “Sometime you’ll have to try out the bathtub.”

“How big a hot water heater do you need to be able to fill that thing?”

“Large,” she said with a small smile.

“You know, it would have been good for my ego years ago,” he said, “if there’d been something I could have given you that you couldn’t give yourself.”

Just as his mother had said.

Interesting.

“There has always been plenty!” Keti exclaimed. “You know that perfectly well.”

“I mean, that you’re a little too good at taking care of yourself.”

“Well, it’s not as though, if I hadn’t been, you would have wanted to take care of me.”

“Keti, I always want to take care of you. But there’s not much left for me to do.”

“This,” she said, angry all at once. Here they were, two people leaving middle age, familiar with each other’s bodies, with every freckle, with every imperfection. And Martin was coming out with this nonsense.

But he smiled into her face with the expression of peaceful reverence that she always associated with him. As if, for him, she embodied all women.

As for her, he embodied all good men.



It was the best Christmas Keti could remember.

They watched Miracle on 34th Street on DVD on the big-screen television in the upstairs den, took a bath together and got back into bed again.

Nonetheless, Keti wanted to ask, So what happens now? What happens tomorrow? Will you be my lover again? Will we sleep in each other’s arms for a few nights and then lose each other once more?

And where would Charlotte fit into all of this?

She sighed involuntarily.

Martin did not ask the reason for the sigh. Instead, he drew her close to him, until her head lay against his chest, over the strong, steady beat of his heart.

Safe, Keti thought. I’m safe.

Chapter 13
One year into the future

It was a Christmas to begin new traditions. This was Keti’s first Christmas as Mrs. Martin Collins.

And it was Martin’s first Christmas married to one of the richest women in the country.

It was the first Christmas that they lived together in their new house, the rebuilt Old House—including its natural hot spring, the first place Keti and Martin had so much as kissed and the place they had found each other.

Perhaps most of all, it was Keti and Martin’s first Christmas with their daughter, Charlotte, and Charlotte’s sister, Melanie.

Keti awoke beside Martin in the master bedroom of the Old House. The house was full, not only with Charlotte and Melanie and Melanie’s boyfriend, but also with the entire Collins family. Martin had told his family that he hoped this would be the house where they would always gather in Christmases to come.

The first half year of marriage had not been entirely easy. Keti had learned that becoming generous with all she had was not a cure-all for Martin’s concerns about her income—or for the doubts he had about himself, the legacy of a long-ago war, almost never expressed in words. Only to her, who knew him best, were these doubts apparent.

Yet Keti feared the issues of wealth and want would always separate them in some way. She had become so extraordinarily good at making money and Martin would never be comfortable taking it from her—a good quality, actually. He worked and worked hard and would no doubt be a hard worker all his life. But he possessed an almost invisible chip on his shoulder when it came to financial questions. And they had found no comfortable way around the issue.

When it came to gifts for his family, he had trouble accepting her money as their money. There had been no prenuptial agreement. Keti trusted Martin. It was as simple as that. She’d known him for decades and knew that anger would not change his morals, would not allow him to justify wrongs.

Charlotte had made a remarkable recovery after her liver transplant, and Keti had healed in record time. And now she had the unexpected gift of knowing her seventeen-year-old daughter—seventeen today.

Now Charlotte was living in Bounty with Keti and Martin and finishing high school there. Melanie and her boyfriend had moved to Bounty, as well, where they worked in the ski industry in the winter and one of Bounty’s better restaurants in the summer.

There were sacrifices Keti made now that were not as comfortable as simple philanthropy. She’d always loved having a maid, but Martin disliked having household servants. He wouldn’t have vetoed a maid, and he certainly shared the housework.

In any event, it was no mean feat for two people who’d been single for more than fifty years to suddenly find themselves with a shared home and a shared life.

Keti hoped very much that Martin would like his main gift this year. It was an echo of what his parents had always done for each other at Christmas.

In this case, she’d given an anonymous gift of a thousand dollars to an impoverished family in Bounty. Since there was no receipt, she’d simply written a note to Martin to say what she’d done. This was to be her gift to him, to help someone else, just as his parents had done for each other every Christmas.

She’d given away other money, as well, and she’d asked Martin to help her make decisions, although he still wasn’t comfortable with the idea of her money being their money.

“Keti.” Sleepily, he reached for her, pulling her closer to him, and she felt the warmth of his skin and acknowledged the absolute trust she felt for him.

“Merry Christmas,” she said.

“Merry Christmas to you.”

Keti went into her “instantly awake” mode, getting up, showering, dressing and stepping out into the kitchen, all in record time.

Charlotte emerged from her room sleepily.

Charlotte was a tall girl, whose resemblance to Martin’s sister Amy remained astonishing.

“Hi, Keti,” Charlotte said. She had never called her Mom, and Keti accepted this. In her own mind, she didn’t deserve to be treated as a mother. She’d had so little to do with raising Charlotte. It was a gift to know her daughter now and to see the things they had in common.

Charlotte said she’d never had the warmest relationship with her adoptive parents. She’d always felt her differentness. It was with Melanie that she was closest. The adopted sisters were best friends and had been allies growing up, living under rules that had sometimes seemed too inflexible to them.

“Good morning, Charlotte,” Keti greeted her. “Happy birthday!” She embraced her daughter and kissed her cheek. “What do you say we have a big breakfast?”

Then a small figure emerged from the carpeted hallway.

“Tim!” Keti cried.

Tiffany’s youngest son walked toward her sleepily and lifted up his arms in a universal gesture that needed no translation.

Keti picked him up. Tiffany had taken him to France that summer, and the change since then in both mother and child was dramatic. Now Tiffany was taking French at the community college in the next town. As part of her Christmas gift to Tiffany, Keti planned to offer her a job at the mine office, with a chance to expand her responsibilities and oversee projects—including the reclamation of a small South African mine. Tiffany had been transformed by her new desire to see more of the world, and her husband’s work actually allowed her some freedom to be away from home. He could and often did have the children with him at his recently expanded shop, which now sold snowmobiles in addition to motorcycles.

Little Tim, Tiny Tim, had benefitted from his treatment by a French specialist. The physician there had shown Tiffany new ways to help her son with his learning, and Tiffany had shared these methods with the rest of the family.

Tim’s development seemed to become more “normal” every day. He loved to be read to, for example. Taking the idea from a parenting book she’d found at the library, Keti had printed the names of everyday household items on cards and taped the cards to various things. Yesterday, Charlotte had even found a way to tape a card that read Dog onto Marley’s collar.

Keti kissed the little boy and said, “Merry Christmas. Did you look under the tree to see if Santa came?”

Tim shook his head.

“Let’s go look!” Charlotte suggested.

Soon, others came into the kitchen, and Keti heard more voices in the living room as she took eggs from the refrigerator and a bag of pancake mix from the cupboard. Crazy Horse, Chaparral and Athena had not forgotten to check and see if Santa Claus had come.

Bridget’s younger daughter, Samantha, then came into the kitchen with the newest member of the Collins clan, Cameron, who was three weeks old.

Keti greeted her niece and great-nephew joyfully. She couldn’t believe there’d ever been a time when she’d turned away from the delight of an infant. Of course, after she’d given up Charlotte, her feelings had shut down temporarily. But truly, underneath, where she discussed it with no one, she had never ceased feeling the void left by Charlotte.

“Can you take him for a minute?” Samantha asked.

“Twist my arm,” said Keti, carefully taking the infant from his mother, marveling at his tiny fingernails, at his perfect features. “Actually, if you want to take time for a shower, I can watch him while you do.”

“Thanks be,” Samantha answered and hurried from the room.

Martin came in to find Keti at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and gazing in wonder at Cameron.

Smiling, he walked over, pushed back the blond hair now streaked with silver, and kissed his wife. “You glow when you hold that baby.”

“Who wouldn’t?” Then ruefully, she answered her own question silently. Me, a year ago. “I wish they didn’t live so far away.” Samantha, her husband and son had driven to Bounty from Las Vegas.

“You’re spoiled,” Martin told her. “What if they lived in Massachusetts?”

“Oh, I know.” Keti wanted to discuss something with Martin, but she felt foolish even bringing it up. She was less than a decade away from becoming a senior citizen. “Would it be silly…” She stopped herself. Martin wouldn’t tell her that she was silly. “I’ve been thinking of taking some nursing courses. I could do some online and some at the community college. Is this entirely pointless at my age?”

“It’s a wonderful idea,” he responded. “What’s wrong with your age?”

“Well, I’m fifty-six, Martin.”

“And?”

She rolled her eyes.

Cameron shifted and blew some bubbles.

“Oh, I love it when you blow bubbles,” Keti told him.

Cameron’s eyes flickered open and with a toothless mouth he yawned.

“I think your care would be a gift to any patient,” Martin said. “And good grief, Keti, you’re in better shape than many women half your age. Besides, you’ve had some difficult life experiences that make you…insightful and compassionate.”

“You’re hilarious,” Keti scoffed.

“Nonsense. I’ll never forget the birth at the brothel. You were so kind to that prostitute, the Somalian woman. You wouldn’t let anyone hurt her feelings.”

Keti didn’t answer. Since then Fatima had moved to Las Vegas, where she now had a career as a dancer. She’d written to Keti that Sammar and her daughter were doing well. Sammar had gotten out of the life eventually, and Fatima made enough money to support the three of them.

Marlene’s brothels closed after her death. Keti tried to find all the girls employment either in the mine offices or at the ski resort. However, most of them chose to seek the same work elsewhere because of the money. When Martin realized this, he was chagrined, but Keti wasn’t surprised.

She’d been amused to see him rack his brain trying to think of some form of employment that would pay the women as well as being legal brothel prostitutes did. But the work available to them, even to those who had university degrees, could never compare in terms of earnings.

“I’ve enjoyed those times when I’ve been there to help with births,” Keti admitted. “And I remember when you encouraged me to become a maternity nurse or even a midwife.” Years ago, now. She gazed down into Cameron’s face. “I don’t feel brave enough for midwifery. I don’t think I want the whole responsibility to rest on my shoulders.”

“Well, it never does, no matter who you are.”

“You mean, physicians aren’t God?” she teased him.

He ran his tongue along the inside of his mouth. “I’m afraid that’s exactly what I mean. I don’t suppose I could have a turn with my great-nephew.”

“I’ve only had him for five minutes,” she complained, and then they both laughed.

Martin said, “I love you, Keti.”

“Good. Why don’t you mix the pancake batter?”

“Then, I get Cameron.”

“Are you two squabbling over my son again?” asked Samantha’s husband, Mac, strolling into the kitchen. “Keti, you’re wanted in the living room to referee. The Cartoon Network team and the Football Watchers are in conflict.”

“There shouldn’t be any games on yet,” Keti said.

“Pregame prognostications?” Mac said. “Don’t ask me. Basketball’s my thing.”

Martin grinned triumphantly and reached out for Cameron.



At noon, Keti and Tiffany went for a walk alone, just the two of them, and Keti talked to her niece about the possibility of a more responsible position, with opportunities for travel. She watched Tiffany consider.

Tiffany said, “Don’t you also have mining concerns in Zaire?”

“The country is called the Democratic Republic of Congo now,” Keti replied with a smile, guessing where Tiffany’s question was directed.

“And that used to be the Belgian Congo, right?”

Keti just smiled again.

“Do they speak French there?”

“Indeed,” Keti said. “Other languages, too, but certainly, French is useful, and I’ve often wished mine were better. Before you got a job over there, though—if you want to work in the mining industry, that is—I’d want you to learn a bit more about mining, as well as improving your French.”

“I can take mining geology classes,” Tiffany said. “They have a big mining technologies department at the community college.”

“And you could learn on the job, as well,” Keti noted. “Now that I’m thinking of going back to school myself, it’s important for me to have some highly qualified assistants.”

Tiffany’s eyes rounded. A mix of expressions passed over her face in rapid succession. “Am I…”

“What?”

“I’m not sure I’m smart enough, Keti.”

“Tiffany, you’re talking to a woman who has made a fortune with only a high school education. Let’s not hear any more nonsense about you not being smart enough.”

“I have terrible English skills,” Tiffany pointed out. “And I’m having an awful time with French. It takes forever for all the parts of speech to make sense to me. Though it makes more sense than English, I have to admit.”

“You’re not the first person to make that observation,” Keti replied. “And your math grades have always been good, haven’t they?”

“Yes, but everyone says that calculus is harder than trigonometry. And I’m so old to be starting a new career.”

Keti put an arm around the younger woman’s shoulders. “Thirty-one? If you don’t have the courage at thirty-one, how am I supposed to find it at fifty-six?”

Tiffany cast her an anxious look, then blurted out, “I haven’t always been fair to you, Keti. I thought I knew you, but I really didn’t.”

“Don’t feel bad,” Keti said. I didn’t really know me, either.



Charlotte’s reaction to Keti’s announcement that afternoon that she planned to start nursing school, was different from Tiffany’s. She looked inexplicably depressed.

“What is it?” Keti asked. She and her daughter sat alone in the kitchen with Cameron, who was sleeping in his infant chair between them while his parents enjoyed a couple hours of cross-country skiing.

“It’s just…I’ve thought I wanted to be a nurse. And if you waited, we could take classes together. But I have to finish high school first.”

Keti thought about this. I don’t have time to wait. I have so little time. She said, “This is your senior year. Do you think the school could make arrangements for you to travel to the community college with me and take some classes there? I’m sure we could do some introductory courses together. Also, I’ll probably have to fulfill some additional requirements, since I wasn’t as good a student as you are.”

“But I’ve lost time because of illness. Still…do you think maybe they’d let me?”

“I think they might. We’ll just have to find out.” Her heart swelled with happiness. “And I’m so glad you want to take some classes with me. Most seventeen-year-old girls don’t want their mother around.”

Charlotte’s look was old beyond her years. “Well, most seventeen-year-old girls have always had their mother around.”

“I’m sorry you and your adoptive mother didn’t get along better,” Keti said truthfully. She’d believed she was putting her daughter into a situation where she would be loved and in which she would thrive. And both had been the case, to some degree. But Charlotte had emerged from that childhood, after her adoptive parents’ sudden deaths, shy and with curiously low self-esteem. And Keti couldn’t help wondering if their sternness and overprotectiveness had brought about this effect.

Now, Charlotte launched into the subject again. “I know I’m supposed to feel grateful that anyone adopted me…”

“No,” Keti hastened to interject.

“But there were times when they made me feel as if I could never be good enough. I can’t explain it, and I know it had to do with their religious values. They just seemed terrified that I might someday ‘fall into sin,’ as if it was my human nature to be bad. And maybe it is.”

“Never say that,” Keti jumped in. “Never believe it, Charlotte. It’s no one’s nature. People aren’t good or bad—they simply do good or bad things. And believe me, it’s easier for some people to be good than for others. I don’t know why this is, but I absolutely believe it. Some people just love other people. Martin is like this. He works hard, but he gets such a rush from being with other people, from helping them. I never understood that clearly until I married him. And I’m so thankful to be married to a person like that, because his enthusiasm is contagious. He makes me love people far more than I would on my own.”

“He’s pretty great,” Charlotte agreed. “Maybe it will rub off on me—or come out in my genes. I wish I looked more like either of you. I’d be prettier.”

“You look like both of us, Charlotte. And you’re much more beautiful than you realize.” Charlotte’s curly hair fell around her face from a center part. There was something Madonna-like in her looks, which was echoed in her unusually mature disposition.

“I’m so tall,” Charlotte complained.

“A million times, I’ve wished to be tall like you. You could be a model, you hold yourself so well.”

Charlotte shook her head. “I don’t want to be. Oh, no.”

Cameron was screwing up his face, preparing to howl.

Keti removed him from his seat and held him against her shoulder, supporting his head. “Are you wet, little guy?”

“Bet on it,” Charlotte said.

Together, they went into the room Samantha and Mac were using to change the baby, who complained vigorously throughout the procedure.

Keti was happy. She couldn’t remember feeling this way at Christmas ever before. Not in the same way.

Yes, it had pleased her when Martin had given her special gifts.

And, yes, she’d also been content, in some way, knowing that she had a place with the Collins family. But this year everything was different.

Martin entered the guest room. He carried an envelope in his hand, an envelope Keti recognized.

He said, “I recognize the writing of my beloved wife on this envelope. May I open it now?”

“Yes,” said Keti. “It’s your main present.”

“I’m going to get this guy to drink out of a bottle,” Charlotte said. “I don’t think it’s fair for Samantha to have to pump, pump, pump, and for Cameron to turn his nose up at the result.” She carried the infant from the room.

Martin slit the envelope and withdrew the handmade card. Keti had made many cards this year, using a block-printing method that Melanie had explained to her. The image was of an infant in a manger with a star shining overhead.

Martin opened the card and read.

Keti saw him swallow and blink.

He stepped forward and embraced her, then abruptly sank down on the edge of the bed.

“What is it?” Keti asked.

He shook his head without speaking.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes. Yes. Of course.” But he appeared preoccupied.

“Would you have rather had something else?” she asked. “Your parents always did this, and I thought you liked the tradition.”

“Keti, it’s the best present you’ve ever given me.”

That was all right, then. So why did he look so strange?

“I should have consulted you.” She tried again to get at the reason for his reaction, which she still could not read.

“I never seem to give you much help with that,” he said.

“With what?”

“I’m never eager to talk about money with you, or make financial decisions with you—no matter how often you try.”

Keti didn’t acknowledge how hurt she often was by the behavior he described. Instead, she said, “I’ve wondered if I set up a medical foundation, and you directed it…”

He shook his head again. “That would be even worse, Keti. Then I’d feel as if my employment was dependent upon you.”

“Surely you don’t want me to, well, donate my wealth, all of it? Look what we’ve been able to do with the clinic.” The low-income clinic, for which he’d sought a donation more than a year earlier. Now Keti was its main benefactor. “And I would, if you would help me decide what to do with the money.”

“No. I think it’s a good idea for your money to generate money. You’ve found so many good things to assist with, so many valuable contributions to make.” He changed the subject. “Do you remember when we were kids and you beat me at ice-skating? When we raced? It was when you chipped your tooth.”

She grinned. “As I recall, I tricked you, Martin. You wanted to make sure I was all right, and I got up and raced to the finish.”

“I didn’t see it that way,” he told her. “To my way of thinking, you won, fair and square. You were a faster skater. As you’re better at making money than I’ve ever been.”

“You’re good with money,” she exclaimed. “What nonsense. You don’t run through it, at any rate.”

“Well, I forgive plenty of debts and I’m not as hard-nosed as perhaps I should be with patients who don’t pay.”

“You’re not going to hell for that,” she said, though she knew that some of Martin’s nonpaying patients certainly had the wherewithal to pay. They blew their money on other things, and she’d seen them doing it. A little smile teased the corners of her mouth. “I could take over bill collection.”

He laughed. He neither agreed to this suggestion nor rejected it. Instead, he said, “I just can’t feel right helping you spend the money you’ve earned. I don’t know what to do about that. Also, I know this house is a lot of work for you and that you’re used to having help. I think you should have it.”

“Maybe you can think of someone who needs the work,” Keti suggested, jumping at the notion of a maid. “And I would appreciate it, especially if I’m going to be taking classes in addition to my other responsibilities.”

“I’ll think of someone,” he said slowly. “And directing the clinic is plenty of authority for me, where your philanthropic projects are concerned. In fact, it’s all I can do, in addition to my practice. I just…I wish I knew a way to be more gracious with you on this subject.”

And I wish, she thought, that I could somehow let go of the part of me that still makes life uncomfortable for you.

But she’d been so relieved when he’d spoken of the good things she was doing with her wealth, relieved that she didn’t have to relinquish her financial security.

She knew that she should be willing to live without such a huge cushion. And still she knew that, despite her marriage to Martin, she wasn’t quite prepared to do so.

Chapter 14
The next Christmas they kept

Fifty-seven. Keti was fifty-seven years old and a licensed practical nurse. She’d completed her training in record time, and Charlotte would complete hers the coming spring. They both planned to continue their studies and become registered nurses, but in the meantime Keti was already working part-time in Martin’s office.

The shared work environment brought a new closeness to their relationship. Though she devoted little time to regret, Keti often wished that she’d begun her training—and her work with Martin—earlier.

She also worked one day each week in the emergency room at the Bounty hospital. It was an exciting new life. She’d never imagined she would so enjoy nursing as a career.

On Christmas Eve she was scheduled to work the graveyard shift at the hospital. Martin promised to come in and visit her on her break, which eased the fact that she’d miss part of the family celebration.

At around 11:00 p.m., a mother came in with a boy who’d broken his arm—falling from a ladder, they both said.

But that wasn’t it, Keti knew and the doctor knew, and a report would need to be made to social services. Keti had already encountered the family through the low-income clinic, and she was fairly certain that the mother’s boyfriend was responsible for the boy’s injuries. She wanted to speak to the mother, whose name was Rhonda, to say, Why don’t you at least tell the truth about what happened?

She tried to remember the words Mrs. Collins had used to her years before, when she was in a difficult situation and considering going to live with Aunt Marlene.

The poverty in which she’d been raised had deeply affected her. Keti had been required to take some psychology courses as part of her training, and they’d prompted her to have some counseling. She’d suffered as a child, and that had made her yearn for money and security. She understood all this intellectually, but somehow she felt incapable of changing.

If only she could help this one woman leave the violent situation in which she lived. Keti gave Rhonda’s son, Darwin, some stickers while they waited for him to have his arm seen to. She looked into Rhonda’s eyes and silently tried to convey the message: Please, let me help. Let someone, anyone, help.

Well, social services was going to intervene on this one in any case, once they saw the report from the emergency room.

She asked gently, “How do you like Miss Yolanda?” The question was addressed to both of them. Miss Yolanda was Darwin’s kindergarten teacher.

“I like her,” Darwin said.

Rhonda nodded like someone accustomed to saying nothing. Keti suspected she’d been the boyfriend’s target, as well.

She bit her lip and said, “Rhonda, we’re all on your side here. You know that.”

“Reporting me to social services,” Rhonda said coolly, “isn’t my idea of someone being on my side.”

Keti was careful. There was only so much she could say in front of Darwin. And no one had yet told Rhonda that there would be a report to social services. She’d guessed about that.

Keti said nothing. It was her responsibility, the hospital’s responsibility, the community’s responsibility, to protect this child.

“You don’t have a clue how people like us live,” Rhonda said tightly, apparently not as unused to talking as Keti had assumed. “You can afford attorneys, anything you want, let alone food.”

“Do you need an attorney?” Keti asked.

Rhonda lowered her eyes. “I was just saying.”

Keti knew, especially from her experiences owning brothels, that a batterer might threaten to get custody of his victim’s children. She wanted to assure Rhonda that this wouldn’t happen. At the same time, she knew the truth of what the other woman had said. Wasn’t that the reason she’d clung so tenaciously to her own wealth for all these years? To avoid such vulnerability. Perhaps she could find a way to help this woman become safer, more independent. Might she even be a person to help Keti out in her home?

She wished Martin could be here to hear all this. But Martin knew as well as anyone the perils of poverty. And he’d become more comfortable with the whole issue of her wealth over the past year. He would not live on more money than he earned, but he expressed no disapproval at her spending what she liked on what she liked. Fortunately, their goals and desires were usually consistent, so why should he object?

It was 11:30 p.m. when a call came in for the ambulance. An eighty-three-year-old man had felt woozy, then collapsed as he was getting ready for bed. In shock, Keti heard her own address over the radio. “That’s Martin’s father,” she said to the emergency room doctor.

While they were preparing for Mr. Collins’s arrival, the police brought in a teenage boy with a serious stab wound. Keti assisted the emergency room physician immediately, while a specialist was paged. Part of the teenager’s bowel had been severed, so the first task was simply to save his life.

Mr. Collins was brought to the hospital with Martin, who had ridden along in the ambulance. But the older man had died en route of a massive stroke.

Keti embraced her husband and looked down on the lifeless face of her father-in-law, a man who had been so kind to her for so many years. There was such a difference in a body between life and death; such a change when the soul and spirit were no longer there.

Martin’s eyes were filled with tears, but he said calmly, “He had such a good life.”

Gradually, he paid attention to the activity elsewhere in the emergency room, and then he heard about the boy who’d just been brought in. “He’s in Johanna’s class.” Johanna was his brother Paul’s daughter. “They’ve dated.”

“Recently?” asked Keti.

“Yes.”

Martin found out from the police what he could about the knife fight. Then, he went into the waiting room to meet his family, who had just arrived from Keti’s house.

And at the same moment, the emergency room became extremely busy.

It occurred to Keti, as she worked, that she’d believed for so long that money could protect her from most catastrophes. But, in fact, money only gave the illusion of safety. Charlotte, for example, could have been killed in a motor vehicle accident, as her adoptive parents had been.

Keti hadn’t understood the fear of losing someone—other than Martin—before she’d come to know her daughter.

When she returned home Christmas morning, she expected to find everyone in bed.

Martin was outside, however, at the hot springs, where he and Keti had first made love when he returned from Vietnam. Keti was surprised to find him there, sitting alone, gazing at the sky.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“No. It’s nothing to mourn. The way my mother died—and how young she was—that was different. But to live eighty-three years and then die quickly of a stroke, rather than to fade slowly…In a way, I’m happy for him. He’ll still be with me.”

Keti slipped out of her clothes and lowered herself into the steaming pool. “I never thought we’d own this,” she said. The owner of the land where the Old House sat had never built or rebuilt there. He’d just held on to the property. It had been some of the most expensive undeveloped land in the county.

Martin didn’t reply. He had once thought of the hot springs as a sort of public treasure, even though it had been on privately owned land. But now it was clearly part of their home.

Why do you have to possess everything, Keti? he still wondered.

Then he let it go. Keti was not a selfish person.

“You’ll miss him,” Keti said.

But Martin was already reaching for her, ready to reaffirm life, their life together.

Four years later

Charlotte was home for Christmas with her husband, Jonah. She was five months pregnant, and Keti planned to attend the birth. In the intervening years, she had become a certified nurse-midwife. She had privileges at the Bounty hospital and an office at the low-income clinic. That Christmas, she had five clients who were expecting, none of them due sooner than three months from now.

The house was full, as usual, for the holidays.

On Christmas Eve, Charlotte and Keti sat near the hearth in the living room with Paul’s daughter Johanna. Johanna was reading Women’s Wear Daily. She had expensive tastes and a strong appreciation for money. Keti saw her younger self in Johanna, but she couldn’t remember ever being as ruthlessly ambitious as her niece was.

Johanna, who was five foot nine with straight black hair halfway down her back, had worked as a model while at the university in Las Vegas. She’d traveled widely and already had appeared in all of the major women’s magazines.

Johanna was investing her money in more than clothes. She wanted to open her own modeling agency, but not in Nevada. In New York. Keti couldn’t sit in judgment of her, and yet it was oddly painful to watch someone else close to her make decisions that were in some ways similar to ones she had made in her time.

But Johanna’s worst decision, in Keti’s opinion, was her engagement to her current boyfriend, a financier who was a jerk. Keti suspected that Johanna was marrying him for his wealth, and she wanted to help Johanna understand that she would pay for that choice in the end. But she would speak of none of it in front of Charlotte.

Keti waited until her daughter finally announced she was exhausted and headed for the bedroom to join her husband. Then Keti and Johanna were left alone by the fire.

Keti glanced toward the hall. Paul and his wife had turned in hours before. They always rose at 6:00 a.m. to run, rain or shine.

Marley, old now but still healthy, made his way into the living room and lay down near Keti.

She said, “So, you’re sure about Grant?”

Johanna blinked, then smiled suddenly. “I think you might be the one person in the family who can understand how sure I am.”

Keti didn’t know whether or not to be pleased by the statement. “Why?”

“Well, you know how it is to appreciate money. Building wealth. That’s what Grant does. I share his goals and he supports mine.”

Keti nodded slowly. If that was true, who was she to offer an opinion? “And he’s nice to you.”

“To be perfectly honest, I doubt he’ll be faithful. However, he’ll be married to me.”

Keti felt terror, now, lest Paul should somehow overhear his daughter’s confession. What was it that had led Johanna to make such a compromise?

But Keti knew.

The desire for money.

How did one come to love money so much? So much that she would do anything for it. Even marry for it; marry someone who would be unfaithful.

“Does he love you?” Keti asked, hesitantly.

“He wants me. And I want him. He wants me as a trophy, a beautiful wife. I want him for his wealth.”

Keti’s horror grew. She whispered, “Johanna, whatever you know or believe about my need for security—for money—believe me that I would never have married for it.” It astonished her to hear her own words. Yet they were true.

The girl shrugged, though she looked hurt. “Anyhow, I’m doing it.”

Keti didn’t reply. What could she say? She must tell Martin of this conversation—they kept no secrets from each other. Would he tell his brother? She was torn. Johanna’s blithe acceptance of her intended’s future infidelity, her admission that she was marrying without love, were personal revelations. Keti didn’t judge Johanna, but she was immeasurably saddened by what she had just been told.

Fidelity, long years together, children, love… None of these appeared to matter to Johanna. She sounded as if she’d been programmed. And Keti couldn’t believe that her niece was really like that inside.

Despite the evidence to the contrary.

Johanna was twenty years old, her values already developed in one particular direction. Torn, undecided, Keti said tentatively, “I think you’re making a mistake. And I don’t think I can keep this from Martin, Jo. And he may not be able to keep it from your father.”

Johanna shrugged. “Well, if my dad chooses to be unhappy about it, that’s his business.”

God, Keti thought.

“I don’t have secrets from Martin,” Keti repeated. “Has Grant said he’s going to fool around?”

“Well, the fact is, he already does. But I intend to keep him, when all is said and done.”

“But what about diseases, Johanna? You could end up with AIDS.”

“I don’t think Grant will let that happen.”

Right, Keti thought.

She considered her own life with Martin, the fact that neither of them would consider sharing the physical expression of their love with anyone outside their marriage. And there was so much more to their relationship—their deep love, which was based on long knowledge of each other, shared experiences, friendship. Didn’t Johanna want that kind of life? She certainly could have it. She could have a wonderful husband and children she would treasure.

Keti didn’t know what else to say.

“Well,” Johanna said, “it’s what I’m doing. There’s nothing my dad can do about it.”

Keti knew that was true. Although Paul Collins would certainly wish there was something he could do to stop it.



Martin awoke when Keti came to bed. He stirred and reached for her. “Are the girls in bed now?” he asked. No doubt he meant Charlotte and Johanna.

“Yes. Charlotte turned in quite some time ago.”

He said, “Did they find out the sex of the baby?”

“They asked the doctor not to tell them.”

“Jonah thinks he saw a penis,” Martin said, with some amusement.

Keti laughed. “Well, maybe he did. There’s no telling.”

In the moonlight, she pulled on a white flannel nightgown and climbed into bed.

“What do you think of Grant?” she asked.

Grant had favored them with his company for about four hours the previous day, before jetting back to Manhattan. He’d discouraged Johanna from accompanying him.

“Not impressed,” Martin said. Then, “Why?”

So she told him. She told him what Johanna had told her and felt sick uttering the words. “Martin, how did she become like that? She intimated…She thought I would approve of her decision. Because I’m wealthy.”

“What did you say?”

“I told her I thought she’d regret it. But mostly I was dumbfounded. Still, it’s her choice, and she’s an adult.”

“I can’t believe we’re going through this again,” Martin said.

Again?

Keti couldn’t believe it, either, if he meant what she thought he did. “Martin, I’m not contributing to her doing this. I tried to discourage her. And I don’t judge her. I just feel awful. Terribly sad.”

“I judge her,” Martin said flatly. “Keti, don’t you see how your lifestyle…There are people who would do anything for it. There have been times when I thought you would.”

“I think you should stop right now,” she advised, “before you say something you regret.”

But Martin couldn’t stop. “What if it was Charlotte making that kind of choice?”

The thought of it being Charlotte was ridiculous. Charlotte was not the type and Charlotte valued people more than just about anything, except God. “I’ve just told you that I’m sorry it’s Johanna. I think it’s dreadful, and I don’t want her to do it.”

Martin said after a moment, “You’re right. I’m so sorry—I apologize. Maybe I can just sympathize rather too well with how Paul is going to react.”

“You’re going to tell him.” The question was stated as fact.

“I have to. What if he finds out and learns that I knew but didn’t tell him?”

“Of course, it’s her business. A private thing.”

“But, Keti, I must give him the chance to try and stop her. Maybe he’ll know the right thing to say. Yes, I’m going to tell him.” Something seemed to occur to him. “You knew I would,” he mused.

“Yes,” she said. “I’d worked all that out. And I told her I would have to tell you—for much the same reason but also because you and I have no secrets from each other.”

“I think, though,” Martin said, “we can wait until after Christmas Day.”

Chapter 15
The following year

A smaller group met at Keti’s and Martin’s that Christmas. Johanna’s determination to marry Grant—in a wedding the following month—had caused a rift between Paul and Martin. Now it was Paul who felt that Keti’s example had given his daughter skewed values.

Keti had been surprised and pleased to hear Martin tell Paul, “Keti earned her money herself. She never tried to marry it. She’s loved me practically her whole life, just as I’ve loved her. Don’t look to Keti for a bad example of what marriage is.”

“The fact is, Johanna would never have thought that it was okay to do something like this for any amount of money, without exposure to Keti Whitechapel.”

And Martin had said, coolly, “You mean Mrs. Martin Collins?”

So now they were celebrating Christmas with Charlotte, Jonah and baby Nolan, Bridget, her husband and children and their children, as well as Tiffany’s family, but without Paul or George. George had become ardently religious and had sided with Paul in the feud. Paul’s wife wanted to be part of Johanna’s wedding preparations—her daughter was getting married, after all—but Paul wanted nothing to do with it and had said he wouldn’t attend the service, which was to be held at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York.

More than one person involved in the dispute had said this sort of union hardly belonged in a cathedral. Keti couldn’t help feeling that she’d somehow started the feud by telling Martin what Johanna had said.

Martin said little about his brother’s point of view. But he told Keti, “It’s easier for Paul to think you’re to blame than to wonder if he might be.”

“But he’s not,” Keti exclaimed. “The girl likes money and power. It’s that simple.”

Martin, with whom her relationship had never been better, said, “Paul’s her father. He’s going to blame himself no matter what. But this way at least he gets to blame you out loud.”

Keti knew that Martin was right.

They spent Christmas Eve holding and playing with the grandchildren—theirs and Bridget’s. Keti remembered other Christmases, Christmases long gone, when she’d focused on gifts. Of course, there were gifts this year. But what Keti wanted now was to cherish those people in her life whom she loved.

She and Martin quietly went out at midnight to leave gifts of clothing, toys and money for some of the poorer families of Bounty. Keti found this to be the best part of the holiday. She and Martin had done so for the past two years, and she loved the traditions.

In previous years, Marley had accompanied them, but the old dog had finally passed away. Keti and Martin visited the pound occasionally, considering other animals, but so far Keti hadn’t been able to stand the thought of a dog other than Marley in the house.

As they were walking up the path to the house quite late, Keti felt a strange tingling in her left arm. This wasn’t the first time she’d noticed the sensation, and as a nurse she had a good idea about what it meant. She didn’t understand where her skyrocketing blood pressure of the past few years had come from. She’d always been so healthy. Of course, since she’d gotten married she’d probably eaten richer foods than she had before. But maybe the blood pressure problem was simply genetic.

“Are you all right?” Martin asked, with uncanny awareness, as if he knew.

She decided to tell him about the pains. “But we don’t need to rush off to the emergency room tonight.”

“Actually,” he said, “I disagree.”



It was to be emergency surgery on Christmas Day, a quadruple bypass. As Keti lay in bed, not in the Bounty hospital but in the bigger facility in the next town, she felt gratitude that she’d suffered no heart attack before the surgery that would restore her to full health.

She would simply have to live differently now, and she was ready to do that. Things should never have come to this pass. Since Nolan’s birth she’d been so happy caring for her grandson that she hadn’t looked after herself as she’d previously done. Now, she would have to eat right again and insist that Martin do so, as well.

She saw none of the family but Martin before she was wheeled into surgery. The anesthesiologist smiled at her as he asked her to count backward from one hundred.



She awoke uncomfortably, aware of the tube that had assisted her breathing through the operation.

Martin was beside her, gazing down, his brown eyes dear and familiar. How strange that she, Keti Whitechapel, had ended up married to this man, having such a normal life.

“Paul’s been here,” he said. “He says he was wrong to blame you for Johanna’s choices. We’ve made up.”

“And George?” she managed to say.

“Not yet.” He smiled, and she felt his hand on hers, and she closed her eyes again.

The next Christmas

The following Christmas the whole family was together again, even Johanna and Grant, reconciled with her parents, mainly because Paul and his wife had finally agreed to take part in the wedding, which had been a huge social event.

Grant, Paul discovered on getting to know the son-in-law he hadn’t wanted, enjoyed chess. Their games at this family gathering had become something of a spectator event.

“I rather like him,” Keti admitted to Paul on Christmas Eve as they stood together in the kitchen washing supper dishes. Grant and Johanna had walked into Bounty to hear some madrigal singers in the park.

Paul said, “He’s growing on me. But I swear I’ll want to kill him if he hurts Johanna.”

“Me, too,” Keti said, and they smiled ruefully at each other.

Grant and Johanna returned at around ten, and the family gathered in the living room for Christmas carols before mass.

Keti sat beside Martin and sang beside him, too, as they always had done, and she was grateful for every moment of good health they had together. She watched her grandson play under the tree with a cousin, and she closed her eyes, thinking about her blessings.

She was sixty-three. She’d survived open-heart surgery. The irony of it all, she thought, when she’d sometimes believed she had no heart. But now she and her husband still had years to enjoy together, and distant Christmases of the past, lonely Christmases, were only a memory.

She remembered the strange year of the dreams and how she had changed then, and had continued to change ever since. Martin had never been like her. His views were more rigid, more set, and he seemed to have known how he felt about most things from a young age, and not to have changed too much since then.

But together…

Together they had become as good friends, as good employers and employees, as good citizens of the world, as they knew how to be. Some people had once laughed to see the alteration in Keti and they still laughed to remember the old Keti Whitechapel. But she let them laugh and didn’t give them much attention, for she was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened in life, even if it was for good, without some people somewhere finding reason to laugh, at least. Her own heart laughed with them, and she gently fingered the crystal snowflake that rested on its silver chain.

She had no further encounters with spirits, and it was said of Mr. and Mrs. Martin Collins that they knew how to keep Christmas well, if any couple alive possessed the knowledge