Comfort & Joy

I show Bobby how to roll the list into a cylinder and wrap it in the pretty red foil paper, then to coil ribbons on each end. When we’re finished, the clock reads 8:25. “Time for you to go. ”

He grumbles in protest but heads dutifully for the stairs.

After he’s gone, I sit on the hearth, listening to the last strains of the fading fire.

I have one more gift to place beneath the tree for Christmas morning—if I can find what I am looking for.

I go to my room and retrieve the still damp sweater I wore to town. Shrugging into it, I head outside.

The night is quiet and cold. A slushy layer of newly fallen snow covers the ground. Already it is beginning to melt. The green lawn shows through in big, irregular patches. Water drips from the eaves and branches, makes tiny dark holes in the melting snow.

I walk down the uneven path toward the lake.

As if on cue, the cloud overhead drifts on, revealing a nearly full moon. Shimmery blue light falls on me, on the lake and the clock, and the dark ground. It is almost eerie, this light, vaguely impossible. A shiver runs through me. Although it can’t happen, I know it can’t, I hear a woman’s voice. It is quiet, barely above a whisper, but I hear it nonetheless, hear her say, “There. ”

I look down. There, lying all alone on top of a bed of shiny black stones, is a bright white arrowhead. Moonlight hits it and reflects it back at me, turning it for a second into a fallen star.

I spin around, but there is no woman around me.

Of course there isn’t.

I bend down for the arrowhead. It fits perfectly in my palm, feels as smooth as silk and as cold as a snowflake. I tuck it into my pocket and walk back to the lodge, through a night that is both silvery light and jet black.

By the time I get to the door, I’ve told myself in no uncertain terms that nothing unusual happened by the lake. I merely went in search of an arrowhead and found one.

But as I step onto the deck, hear it creak beneath my feet, I say softly, “Thanks, Maggie. ”

Then I go inside.

B y morning, the snow is almost gone. I stand at my window, staring out at the green, sunlit backyard. I can see a corner of one of the cabins. The roof shingles are furred with thick moss. Come spring, I imagine that tiny flowers will sprout up from the mossy patches.

I should have added power

-wash roofs to my list. And advertising in more in-flight magazines. I’ll have to tell Daniel those things face-to-face.

Outside, on this Christmas Eve, the day is both sunlit and gray. A light rain is falling; the drops are so thin and tiny they’re almost imaginary, like tears.

And suddenly I am thinking of Stacey.

I remember that last night in Bakersfield when she asked me to come to her wedding. And showed me her pregnant stomach.

I’m sorry, she’d said.

I remember her on television, crying for me, believing in the miracle of my return, hoping for it.

And Thom. The man I vowed to love forever, who now loves my sister.

The thought makes me sad, but doesn’t ruin me anymore. I can actually think of them together without wincing.

If nothing else, this pause has given me that: a lens through which to view my previous life. It’s not forgiveness. Not even near that yet, but it is . . . acceptance, and that’s better than nothing.

I’m not sure how long I stand at my window, staring out, thinking about my life Before and what will happen tomorrow. Time is odd in this place, more fluid than I’m used to somehow. When I finally take my shower, get dressed in my borrowed skirt and sweater, and go out to the lobby, Bobby is by the tree, shaking presents. Daniel is behind him, laughing.

I pause at the corner, watching them. All it takes is a look at Bobby and Daniel, a moment in their presence, and the bitter aftertaste of my previous life is gone. A smile comes easily; I feel it deep inside, too, not just a curving of my lips, but a lifting of my spirit. In some small way, I have given them this moment. Without the tree, they wouldn’t have been able to slide back in time, to recapture one of those ordinary moments that becomes extraordinary from a distance. I only hope I can do the same for myself. Stacey and I need to see ourselves more clearly. Maybe then we can find our way back.

At the sound of my footsteps, Bobby looks up. “Joy!” He is shaking a present, but pauses long enough to say, “Are you gonna go see the old people with us?”

“What do you mean?”