Given the proximity of Santa’s sleigh, they fell silent.
I went over to the counter, where the boys were nearly collapsing in stifled laughter.
“Okay,” I said, “here’s the deal. Singing a song about butts is truly funny, but Santa can hear you.”
Max and then Luke pulled their thumbs across their closed lips like zippers and broke out in giggles all over again.
In a matter of just a few days it was finally Christmas Eve, and by then our whole house smelled and looked like the season in all its glory. The air was laced with the rich smells of glazed ham, apple bread, and minced meat pie, and of bayberry, cranberry, and citrus from the fat candles that burned in oversized hurricanes all over the house. In the bay window of the breakfast area, aromatic clove-studded oranges filled a hand-hewed antique wooden bread maker’s bowl lined with tiny branches of pine and colorful holly. One afternoon I sat for hours with my boys pushing the spikes of tiny cloves through the tough skin of oranges in decorative swirls and geometric designs. When we were finished, I rewarded them with steaming hot chocolate and marshmallows before moving on to their next project, which was to set up the old train set with Adam. Crank the cat had draped herself over the back of the sofa, curious about the train and its whistles and whirrs but not so curious that she would get involved.
“She’s gonna pounce,” Max predicted.
“No, she ain’t,” Luke said.
“Don’t say ‘ain’t,’” I said.
Miles of strung popcorn garland were carefully draped around the Christmas tree in dramatic loops. Our monogrammed stockings were hung across the thick oak mantel, which was covered with a parade of red candles in shining brass candleholders tied with red and green plaid ribbon bows. The crèche set of Adam’s childhood was carefully positioned across the sideboard in our dining room on a bed of pine needles interspersed with tiny pinecones. More red candles that smelled of cranberries were placed in glass hurricanes with gleaming silver bottoms. There were wreaths on all the doors and tiny white lights nestled into all the foundation shrubs around the front of our house. At five o’clock in the afternoon the yard came to life, and at ten o’clock it fell into darkness. Adam had installed the timer for all the holiday lighting, and he was pretty proud of that.
Even Rufus was wearing a special needlepointed holiday collar with a design of red Santa hats with tiny white pompoms on a background of deep green. Most days he lumbered around the house between dog beds, one of which was in almost every room.
“All right!” I said, draining a pound of pasta through a colander. I had prepared an early supper of spaghetti with tomato sauce and lots of grated Asiago cheese instead of Parmesan. I pulled two crusty loaves of garlic bread from the oven. “The candlelight service starts at six o’clock. I expect to see you boys for baths by four. I laid your clothes out. Do y’all hear me?”
“Yes, ma’am!”
There would be no resistance about baths. No. Not on Christmas Eve. I could have asked them to scrub the kitchen floor grout with a Q-Tip and they would have done it with a smile on their faces.
“Okay, good. Now go get your daddy and let’s eat.”
Later, in church, I caught Adam’s eye and smiled at him. We weren’t ardent churchgoers and not especially devout, but we gathered there that night and were touched by the spirit of the holiday. I found God in nature, and when I asked Adam, he said he felt the same way. The many cycles of life were always there right before your eyes. And it was just a fact of life that came from living in the Lowcountry of South Carolina. But we had started to go to church again for the first time since our college days because I really wanted our boys to have a religious foundation. And the boys were finally old enough to behave themselves throughout the service.
I felt deeply blessed to have the precious love of my husband, who worked so hard to give us such a wonderful life. Even after all these years, I still got excited when I heard his car come into the garage after work. Maybe that sounds silly, but the best part of my day was always when we were all together.
I looked down at the boys in their navy blazers and khaki pants, with their hair wet-combed into place. So innocent! Oh, I thought, this is the sweetest moment, this one, right now. It was so sweet that I had a thought of perhaps another baby. Maybe a girl would come to us?
chapter 5
adam’s merry christmas
I was on another planet, having unfortunate and inappropriate thoughts. In church, on Christmas Eve, of all places and times! I had not stopped thinking about Eve since Eliza read me excerpts of her newsletter. Thoughts of her had tormented me from the moment we said good-bye on the Isle of Palms last July all the way through Thanksgiving. Just when I was finally able to get through a day without obsessing over her, here came the Christmas card.
Earlier that afternoon, when Eliza put the boys in the bathtub, I’d hurried to the stack of holiday cards that were tumbled together in a sweetgrass basket. I found Eve’s card and brought it up to my face, inhaling deeply, hoping for a trace of her. It had no smell at all, and that was disappointing. I read the letter carefully, looking for clues about her state of mind. Was she really happy with Carl? How could she be? He could be such a competitive, arrogant asshole. But there wasn’t a hint of dissatisfaction or sarcasm in her writing that indicated anything less than a great year for them all. Was that really true?
I had always wondered, what if things had worked out differently? Could I have been happy with Eve today? Was it worth the risk of undermining and jeopardizing the stability of my family to find out? No! I told myself. Eliza was a one-in-a-million girl. She lived to make me happy in every single way. Beautifully kept home, gourmet cook, wild in the sheets! What else could I want?