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"Why can't we go with you, Papa?" Olivia Goren asked plaintively from behind him as her mother pulled into the drop-off line at the New Haven Amtrak station. She was bundled in a puffy jacket with a hood, a fleece-lined purple toque, and zigzag-patterned mittens, for it was only in the 20s with a sharp, bitter wind blowing. Only the heater in the Honda Pilot had made the car habitable.
Alexandra Eames Goren, looking like a turtle in her black leather jacket with fur collar turned up and woolen watch cap pulled down over her forehead and ears, turned her head slightly toward her husband, who was hunched in his heaviest, hooded grey parka and wore a matching grey watch cap, a blue-and-grey plaid woolen scarf peeping from his collar, with an inquiring expression. Under his arm, he had the faithful but now rather worn leather binder that had carried him through eleven years at the Major Case Squad of the NYPD. Instead of handwritten notes on murder cases, it now contained his Kindle and the e-ink tablet on which he had combined both his handwritten and typed notes--and a book, because Robert Goren seldom went anywhere without emergency reading material, anything from myths and legends to theses on abnormal psychology. He still kept notepaper in it as well, plus pen and mechanical pencil, for his one fear was being stranded with nothing to do.
Since Olivia's unhappy encounter with Callandra Benoit at school during the autumn, Bobby found it difficult not to tell her everything--her trust had been sorely tested by the older girl, in addition to the disturbing information she'd discovered on the Internet about her birth mother in mid-September. He sighed.
"I haven't said much because I'm still working on the concept, it's a different type of project for me, and it's not something Hastings House usually publishes. That's the purpose of the trip to Boston today, to talk to Zes about it."
"But Hastings House already published Mom's book," Randall Shaw objected, peering out from under his own woolen cap, which still revealed wisps of his unruly dark hair underneath, huddling in his blue parka and clapping his hands together. "Why wouldn't they publish your memoirs, too? You were with the police and with the FBI! That should make people want to read it, too, and we could learn more about what your cases with Agent Siler and Agent Hirahara were like, and about Agent Saltonstall...Mrs. Hogarth now..."
"And Mr. Cavanaugh," interrupted Olivia, "and Agent Fornell-"
"Who said," Bobby asked with mock severity as he gathered up his binder and thrust his gloves into his pocket, exchanging them temporarily for his smartphone on which he had his ticketing information, "that I was working on my memoirs?"
Randall sagged in disappointment. "So it's not that?"
"No," he said kindly, looking backward at their rosy but chagrined faces.
"All ashore before I get ticketed," Alex announced as she pulled up at the check station where a security officer and an Amtrak employee waited.
Bobby reached out to touch her cheek. "Watch for the crazies, Eames," using her last name, as always, with affection.
"I will," and she made a brief puckered mouth motion. "You stay safe, too."
He winked at Olivia. "Pinky swear," he answered, making the gesture, which made the child giggle, then emerged from the car with his phone open and slammed the door of the Pilot behind him to confer with the Amtrak employee. The guard waved her on, and she drove away from the drop-off point.
Alex heard Olivia sigh deeply.
"I know we planned to stop at Joelle on the way home," she suggested hopefully, "but there's one about 20 miles from here, right off our route. Would you rather stop there? There might be some different things."
Olivia thrived on creativity, and she brightened at the mention of the craft store. "Yes, please!" Then she looked at Randall. "We can finish buying what we need for our project. They have what we need; I looked online."
"And cheer up," Alex revealed. "We'll be in Boston next weekend. They're doing a re-enactment of the Boston Tea Party."
"Brill!" breathed Olivia.
"Sick!" Randall crowed.
Alex shivered in her jacket. "I hope it's not this cold, though, or it will end up being iced tea." And she smiled to herself as the children laughed.
. . . . .
Bobby emerged from the Park Street MBTA Station to hurrying pedestrians, Christmas wreaths with red bows, bumper-to-bumper traffic, and the tolling of church bells on the hour. He had about an hour before he met with their publisher, and he immediately heeded the call of the Brattle Book Store, located on West Street between Tremont and Washington Streets. Knowing his tendency to get lost among the stacks, he set a timer on his phone.
By the time the hour was up he'd found something for everyone: a used paperback of the Hoover-authorized The FBI Story for himself (profound propaganda from the old days), a Gladys Taber book he knew wasn't in Alex's collection, The Elephant War for Olivia (historical and British, with John Verney illustrations), and a mystery he remembered from his childhood, The Riddle of the Kabuki Mask, for Randall. The latter had, inside, a scribbled Post-It note: "Stereotypical Japanese character! Gender issues! Beware!"
He remembered. The Japanese boy protagonist was stereotyped, but not offensively so, and the younger sister character played with dolls and tea sets, deferring to the boy leads. But it was a good mystery, with many traditional Japanese customs accurately portrayed within the 50s mores, and he wanted the children to be aware that there had been racial, ethnic, and gender stereotypes in the past. He used them as teaching moments. Certainly Olivia and Randall were freer of them than other children he'd encountered, thinking ruefully of Callandra.
At the cash register, he noted a woman of about seventy bundled in so much warm clothing he could hardly see her face, waiting for someone in line. As he approached the cash register, she stepped forward hesitantly.
"Excuse me, are you Mr. Goren, who edited They Called Me 'Conchie'?" she asked. "You look very like the photo on the end flap of the book cover."
Bobby confessed that he was, and the woman chatted to him about her husband's father, who had served in the Korean War, until she left with the customer who had checked out in front of him.
Feeling pleased that she had enjoyed his contributions to Bruno Volpe's journals, he strode off through the crowded downtown streets, glad for the scarf under his heavy jacket and hood drawn up despite the watch cap, for it was down in the teens this close to the Atlantic, with a keen wind off Boston Harbor, down Tremont to Government Center, pausing briefly to stare upward at the steeple of the Old South Church and read the plaque outside, past Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market and the Paul Revere House, then finally making his way across the Rose Kennedy Greenway into the North End. He had mentioned to Zes his conversation with Alex about the Italian restaurant he'd worked in during his teen years and the old-fashioned dishes he craved, and Zes had invited him to what he described as a hole-in-the-wall little place called Nonna's Cucina. Bobby found it tucked in between a new, high-end boutique and a bakery.
The place was cheek-by-jowl with diners, but Quentin Hastings VI was already waiting for him at a little bistro table set for two, scrolling on an iPad, in less '60s sartorial splendor than usual because of the cold. He'd taken off his LL Bean fur-lined down parka and fleece-lined toboggan hat, placing it on the empty third chair, but even in the frigid weather he still wore his favorite classic Chelsea boots, along with heavyweight jeans and a Nordic-patterned fisherman's-style sweater in a blue-and-white snowflake design that brought out the dark blue of his eyes, with his favorite red jasper pendant around his neck and his shoulder-blade length brown hair tied back with red and green rawhide thongs. The watermelon-stone earring in his left ear, which he'd not gone without since being engaged to Donna Hogarth, had a dangling clip on it with a tiny Rudolph with an even tinier red nose.
"What?" Zes said when Bobby chuckled at his outfit as he shoved his hat in his pocket and unzipped the down jacket, as the restaurant was blissfully warm with oven heat and Christmas shoppers. "You couldn't have managed at least an ugly Christmas sweater?"
"Eames only buys things that flatter me," Bobby joked, and it was true that day, as he had worn the Fair Isle knockoff she liked best, cream color with an ombre blue Nordic design at the collar. Alex, smoothing the fabric after he donned it, had said with a satisfied air that it set off the silver in his hair.
"Maybe she's planning to surprise you when you get home," Zes teased, waggling his eyebrows suggestively as he picked up the menu. He was almost always a positive person, but today he seemed more animated than usual.
"It'll need to wait until later...the kids are home today; it's the Immaculate Conception."
"Speaking of kids..." and Zes pushed his iPad toward Bobby with at least two dozen new photos of 18-month-old Penny, her curly hair tied back in a Christmas bow, first sitting under a Christmas tree, wide-eyed and reaching up for the colorful ornaments, then posed with a reindeer at the zoo, and finally in Santa's lap. Bobby's smile broadened at the final photo, because, far from being intimidated by Santa Claus, Penny was tugging on the man's luxuriant beard. But Santa was laughing, too.
"Takes after her grandmother," Zes said mischievously, and Bobby knew immediately which one he meant, because implacable Penelope Saltonstall Hogarth had been his FBI supervisor for eight years.
An elderly woman in a short-sleeved poinsettia-print dress and an oversized white chef's apron emblazoned with "Nonna's Cucina" approached the table; she had black hair shot with silver, bundled up in a snood, a round face with a Roman nose, and very brown eyes in a beaming face.
"I told you I'd take you to a place that served real Italian food instead of the gourmet kind," Zes grinned, then addressed the woman. "And this is 'Nonna.' Buon pomeriggio, Nina! Questo è il mio caro amico Robert Goren, che ha voglia di vera cucina italiana, non di quella roba pretenziosa. L'ho portato da te, ovviamente!" [Good afternoon, Nina! This is my good friend Robert Goren, who wants some real Italian food, not that swank Michelin stuff. I brought him to you, of course!]
Nina laughed. "Benvenuto, Signor Goren! Cercherò di accontentarla. Ha qualche preferenza in particolare?" [Welcome, Mr. Goren! I shall try to make you happy. Do you have any favorites?]
Bobby grinned, having quickly surveyed the menu. "Che ne direste di un buon pollo alla cacciatora preparato con vino rosso?" [A good chicken cacciatore made with red wine, perhaps?]
She seemed tickled that Bobby could speak Italian and held her head up proudly. "È una delle nostre specialità, signore." [One of our specialties, sir.]
Bobby countered, "Roberto, per favore. Prenderò quello." [Robert, please. I will have that.]
"E le tue verdure?" Nina didn't seem to need an order form. [And your vegetable?]
"Zucchini," he replied.
"Eccellente!" And then she smiled and continued, "And then of course the Italian bread for you to zoop in our wicked good sauce."
Bobby laughed when she spoke English with a very Boston accent, and she turned to Zes, combining thumb, forefinger, and middle finger and bobbing them in front of his face, "And you, you Svizzero hippie, you haven't come to see me in two months. How are your mamma and pappa?"
"Blooming as always," Zes smiled. "They would send their regards if they knew I was here."
"And you? Your usual?" Nina asked with exasperation. "Twenty entrees on our menu, but you always have the same thing? Perché non godersi un po' la vita? Osso buco, veal and pork lasagna…" [Why not live a little?]
"But, Nina," Zes protested, grinning, "your spaghetti with boneless pork ribs and pepperoni in the sauce is perfection. Why mess with it?"
Nina rolled her eyes. "And the salad. No iceberg, I know. Romaine and endive. Balsamic."
"Va bene," smiled Zes. "Don't forget the grappa."
She patted his hand. "I always remember, Signor Sei."
. . . . .
Olivia sighed. "We don't have enough money."
"But it's perfect," Randall argued.
Olivia looked at the two-foot-tall silver "tinsel" display tree in front of her, each bristly straight branch ending in a blue bead. "I know." She had both her and Randall's saved allowances in her phone wallet, which dangled at her wrist, and knew the total of the currency to the penny. "If we had a coupon..."
"We don't."
Alex's idea of taking the pair to a different Joelle had worked out well. She was of the minimalist school of holiday decorating--a little touch of Christmas in each room, like a bouquet on the kitchen and dining tables, made from Christmas picks and the cereal-bowl sized metal containers Olivia had glittered the previous year, or the jadeite reindeer on the front parlor mantel paired with the ever-breeding bittersweet from the back yard of the smaller house that Abbi and her grandchildren rented, tied with satin green ribbon bows--satisfied her. But Olivia was artistic and, if she'd had her way, there would be Christmas greens and painted clothespin reindeer and gingerbread figures and peppermint sticks tucked in every corner, so on this trip Alex had bought discounted holly garland and red bows for the two mantels, and to wind around the bannister of the staircase, plus two marked-down boxes of Bob's candy canes to tuck among the garlands and the little bouquets of holly and mistletoe. After Christmas, they could be used to stir hot chocolate through the winter.
She had left the children alone with their "project."
I have no idea what it is, she'd told Bobby. It had started on the inadvertent snow day they'd had the day after arriving home from their annual Thanksgiving visit with Bobby's family in Michigan, the Frys. St. Gregory's had sent some classwork, which Olivia and Randall finished up in the morning, then went out to play in the snow with Carlos and Ana next door for a couple of hours. Calvin O'Leary had plowed their driveway and Abbi's with his riding snowblower, as well as the front walks. After cleaning up near the porches, the adults had retreated into the house, followed by the two thawing 12-year-olds.
Even after soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, the pair were still antsy, so Alex requested that they might help her tidy up a few things. Olivia had clearly had reading on her mind, but Randall had itchy feet.
"Besides, we might start getting ready for Christmas," Alex said slyly, prompting a charge down to the basement to open the storage closet where the decorations lived. Olivia also helped her clean out the drawers of the Welsh dresser and discovered something Alex had forgotten.
"Mama, are we keeping the gift cards from last year?" Olivia asked.
Alex recalled the blizzard of blue Visa gift cards the previous Christmas after she and Bobby had lost their jobs, but had forgotten they were in the kitchen dresser. She had marked every one of them, on the back, in a corner, who they were from, and, one Saturday in January, the four of them had sat down at the kitchen table and written twenty-six thank you notes based on the back of the cards. As they were used up at stores during the winter and spring, Alex had asked for them back.
"You can reload that, ma'am," one clerk had told her helpfully.
"Yes," she'd said, having no intention of reloading any of them, but feeling odd about throwing them away. They were stacked up in a small plastic basket in the right-hand drawer.
"Leave it. I'll probably toss them by New Year's," she said carelessly, and Olivia had gone on to the next drawer.
A few days later, Olivia had asked if she and Randall could use something for a project if nobody wanted the item.
"You said you were going to throw it away," Olivia told her.
Absorbed in the family finances, Alex told her, "Go ahead."
"What's wrong?" Alex asked, coming behind them with her cart full of holly garland, red bows, candy canes, a half-dozen small glossy red and green metal containers that looked like washtubs, dotted with clearance tags, and small poinsettia picks to go in them.
Olivia eyed the latter with interest--she knew Alex had picked them because Frances Goren had favored poinsettias--but sighed. "We want this tree, Mama, for our project, and the seed lights, but it's five dollars more than we have."
Randall asked, "Can we borrow on our allowance? Please?"
Olivia protested, "But I have a couple of gifts more to buy-" and Randall's shoulders sagged. "Me, too. Could we borrow on our allowance in January? Olivia can write you out an IOU. Her handwriting's neater."
Alex looked at the tabletop tree and the seed lights. She remembered the Poudrier children, now separated at Christmas, and the truth in the thesis papers Olivia had found online, then wondered how Callandra Benoit had felt when she discovered her mother would never again be the fun-loving person she had adored.
I'm as soft-hearted as Bobby, she thought to herself as she picked up the box with the tree and two boxes of the seed lights. "My treat," she said.
. . . . .
Lunch finished, Zes pored over the documents on Bobby's e-ink tablet, flicking back and forth between the pages, his face noncommittal. The longer he considered, the more restless Bobby had become.
The grappa had been strong, so he had only sipped his way through one glass, the bountiful portions of chicken cacciatore having offset its alcoholic contents. Zes had given him a forkful of spaghetti, and the fall-apart tender pork truly was perfection. He would have to bring Alex and the kids here on Saturday. Alex, especially, would get a kick out of it: here were the netted wine-bottle candle holders and the red checked tablecloths and bistro chairs and tables just as he had described to her back in October.
"You realize," said Zes slowly, "this is in a direction Hastings House has never gone before."
Bobby nodded.
"I thought for certain this would be the companion piece to Ice Blue."
"Well, I disappointed the kids, too," Bobby admitted. "I'm just not ready to write about that part of my life yet. Especially the year of my suspension. And I don't want it to be only 'tales of twisted criminals.' There's already enough true crime out there to float Titanic."
"I agree," nodded Zes, then waved his hand at the tablet, "but this...this is way different. I thought you were resistant to change."
"I was. But...the last four years have been all about change...and the greatest happiness I've ever known. So maybe there's a positive side to it."
Zes smiled suddenly, leaning back in his chair. "May I tell you a secret?"
"Mum's the word," Bobby promised.
"As a kid, I didn't want this job," said Zes frankly. "I was going to backpack around the world--hell, do Kon-Tiki if I had to. Anything not to work with books. Something I don't share readily: I'm dyslexic. I hated books." He smiled when Bobby blinked. "Reading was so hard for me, and I didn't get them. Dad was...unhappy, but he didn't blame me for it. I have a cousin, Simon, who might have taken over the Hastings House reins--although his goal was to be an accountant.
"Then something happened. I was dating at fourteen--a girl in my class, Louise Caplan. She was a little like Donna, outgoing, outspoken, and she loved to read and couldn't figure out how 'a smart guy' like me didn't. I really dug her, enough to let her quiz me about my avoidance of reading. I told her it was hard for me, how the letters didn't behave. Her dad was a neurologist. She told him, he talked to me, then went to my dad. Even in the 90s, in some circles, they still talked about dyslexia as "laziness." But my dad listened. He brought me to a specialist, and she taught me how to cope. And then I saw the magic in books." He grinned. "Simon thanks God for that every day, I think. He heads up our financial department.
"And hey," he finished jauntily, raising his glass of grappa, "without this job, without Ice Blue, no Donna...no Penny...no happy life in Maine. So this toast is for Alex. Pröschtli!"
"Always to Alex," said Bobby with soft eyes. He and Zes clinked glasses together and sipped. Then Zes added, "So you know what, Bobby? Write your story, the opening chapters, and we'll take them and your outline and ideas. I'll give it to Enid Holt. Holly can fill you in on Enid. She's tough but true. She'll tell me if it's viable. Is that a deal?"
"I'll shake on it," said Bobby, and held out his hand.
. . . . .
Rebundled against the cold, both of them walked down to Christ Church, forever now known to history as "the Old North Church." They stopped at the foot of it, staring up at the brick structure and the snow-white steeple looming above.
"'One if by land, and two if by sea,
And I on the opposite shore shall be
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through ev'ry Middlesex village and farm,'" recited Zes, then chuckled.
"Longfellow gave Revere the best press ever. He never made it, Billy Dawes did."
"And Samuel Prescott. Fake news, all the way back then. All right, man. I'm heading back to Government Center. I want to stop at one of the souvenir shops, get some ornaments for the Christmas tree."
"North Station and the Downeaster home for me. Hey-" And Zes rummaged in the LL Bean coat and came out with a square envelope. "Christmas card. Open it when you get home, though. And we'll see you on Christmas Eve! Tell Abbi I'm dreaming of her lechóns already. And stay warm!"
Bobby tucked the card into his leather binder. "Thanks. And...um...I'll think about the other project. Maybe it's time to exorcise more ghosts."
"Fair enough." Zes clapped him on the back, then waved and plodded on toward the T station while Bobby reversed course, head down against the wind, and retraced his steps to Government Center, stopping in Faneuil Hall to buy himself a cup of hot coffee.
Once he had thawed a bit, he found the little souvenir shop they had popped in last time and bought items he thought would please everyone at home: of all things, an ornament adorned with Jessica Fletcher from Murder She Wrote for Randall (he had watched the series with his mother), a "wicked smaht" glass bauble for Alex, and another glass ornament for himself, this a stack of books with Massachusetts authors inscribed on the spines: Emerson's essays, Over the Teacups by Oliver Wendell Holmes Senior, Poems by Emily Dickinson, Work by Louisa May Alcott, Thoreau's Walden. He paused at a Make Way for Ducklings ornament for Olivia, then spied a cream-colored sphere with a familiar red-headed child on it. The quote next to the Hannah Dale-like portrait of Anne Shirley said, "Tomorrow is a new day, with no mistakes in it." Definitely the choice.
He read his book on the way home, not permitting the train to take him into somnolence. It was an engaging read about the history of Santa Claus and other midwinter gift-givers, all the way back to the Norse gods, but he had a peek at the Christmas card first, unable to resist the temptation.
It was just Alex and the Pilot at New Haven. "They were finishing their project," she explained. "Abbi's got her eye on the house. They're twelve now, and I think they can spend a little time on their own. And Sam's there. Don't keep me in suspense!"
"He said to write it," Bobby said briefly, warming his hands over the car heater. "Be glad you didn't come. It was an icebox there today. Hope it's warmer on Saturday."
"When do I get to find out what you're writing?" Alex asked, only half-teasingly, pulling out into traffic.
"You're as impatient as the kids," he returned. "So what's this project?"
"I'm as impatient as the kids?" she retorted, then laughed. "Seriously, Bobby, I don't know, but they said it would be finished when you got home."
It wasn't until they were just south of Woodbridge, admiring the quickly-blossoming Christmas decorations on the homes along the two-lane highway, that he said casually, "I told Zes I'd give the other book consideration."
"I thought you might," Alex answered serenely.
"Reading my mind, Princess Ozma?" he asked, amused, using her alias at Saturday and Tuesday night trivia at the Dark Crystal.
"I don't need to, Oscar Diggs," she answered as she made the left turn on Rimmon Road, Connecticut Route 313. "I know by heart."
. . . . .
Two child-sized tornadoes and a bouncing tri-color collie met them at the back door.
"What did Zes say?" "Is he going to publish the book...and when do we get to know what it is?" exclaimed Olivia and then Randall in quick succession as Sam snuffled around Bobby's pocket, evidently having picked up the scent of tomato-laced chicken and pork from Nonna's Cucina.
"Let him get his coat off, at least," Alex laughed, and the children plopped into two kitchen chairs. They were in flannel shirts and pajama pants, stocking feet wiggling as they waited for Bobby to lay the leather binder and his shopping bags on the table and then remove his outerwear and hang it on the hooks next to the basement door.
Randall eyed the bags. "Is there anything in there for us?"
"What do you think?" Bobby said with a smile. His cheeks were windburned from the cold, and when he looked down at Alex, she stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the roughened portion.
"Can...may we look?" Olivia asked, biting her lower lip.
Bobby distributed the largess instead, with Olivia exclaiming, "Oh!" when she saw the Anne of Green Gables ornament, and Randall started to page through the book.
"We might need to talk about that one," Bobby warned, and Randall nodded. He was as enamored now of Bobby's "annotations" as Olivia.
"'Wicked smaht,' huh?" Alex teased, then paged through the Taber book, Reveries at Stillmeadow. "You realize this is a rare one, don't you?"
"I do," he said with a grin.
"We decorated the whole house while you were gone," Olivia bragged, "except for the tree, of course."
"I can see that," Bobby said, making a move to sit down, noting the new poinsettia decoration in the middle of the Welsh dresser, flanked by two candy canes.
"Don't!" Randall said, jumping to his feet.
"We made a decoration for your library," added Olivia, bouncing from her chair. "Come see it!"
Randall had already dashed through the swinging door with Sam hot on his heels. Olivia grabbed Bobby by the arm just as he was picking up the leather binder. "Come on."
Randall shifted from one foot to the other at the library door. "'Livia made most of it."
"You helped," Olivia said sternly. "And Mama..."
"Stop explaining!" Randall said in agony. "Show them!"
Alex rescued them both and opened the door to the library, the lamps already lighted to reveal, on his desk, the two-foot-tall silver tinsel tree strung with battery-powered seed lights, one string multicolor, one warm white. The tree itself was solely decorated with two-dimensional blue stars, including one clipped to the top whose bottom two appendages were longer than the other three. They had a surface pattern Bobby couldn't quite make out.
"We got the idea sorta from Aunt Agnes," Randall bragged. "We were talking about last Christmas, when I thought I would have to be a chore boy like Ben Pepper.
"Remember the gift cards? Mom kept them all year, then said she was going to toss them!" Alex's mouth opened in surprise, and Bobby realized what the stars were made from. "Mom made a notation on the bottom of all the gift cards, who sent them, and every time we finished one, she asked for it back." Bobby remembered. It was Alex's idea, and he had just gone along with it, although he didn't see why. "After we found them, 'Livia got the idea. She asked Mom if we could have them. Last Friday night, when I was in her room, she made a star pattern and drew it on the cards, and then we cut them out. She's got the best handwriting, too, so from Mom's note of who sent it, she wrote the names on the back-" He ran the few steps to the desk, then flipped a star over and "Jim and Angie Deakins" was indeed printed neatly on the back in red Sharpie. "We didn't know what to do for the holes, though, because a hole puncher wouldn't go through," and he flipped the star back over.
Olivia interrupted, "We asked TJ Saturday night at trivia, and he said we needed something like an awl. Remember when we asked if we could walk to the Dark Crystal and back yesterday?" Bobby nodded and Alex smiled, because the pair had worn them down with excuses to go--TJ collected vintage Shiny Brite ornaments, and they wanted to see their Christmas tree, and Olivia loved the eclectic look of Shard and TJ's apartment, with its combination of vintage woodwork and furniture coupled with mid-century modern touches, which, oddly, all worked together--and promised they would go straight there and back, and, besides, they would be safe with Sam with them and Olivia's phone with the GPS app.
Randall, breathless, finished, "And TJ had this tiny drill bit and made holes in them, and 'Livia already had the silver cord to hang them, and she found the tree online, and when we got to Joelle today, it was perfect, and we got it and the lights with our allowance." He grinned at Alex. "Mom had to help out there, though. Isn't it totally sick?"
He had done it almost in one breath.
"I guess you'd call it a friendship tree," Alex said, winding her arm around Bobby's waist. He could tell from her voice that she was a little misty, like his eyes right now.
"I love it," he said, "but not for the library. Let's put it in the dining room, where everyone can see it."
"But it's...kind of crafty," Olivia said, troubled.
"That's what makes it beautiful," he said truthfully.
"Alex, would you take this?" and he handed her the binder, then, as if it were a Faberge egg, he lifted the tree along with the battery packs from his desk, and they made a procession of it to the dining room. His eyes flashed immediately to the pretty Queen Anne side table, a moving gift from historian Henry Catteneo.
Alex understood immediately. She moved the photos of Frances Goren and Johnny and Elizabeth Eames to either end of the long table, then rummaged in Frances's old highboy dresser and found an openwork ivory-white bureau scarf with gold and silver threads woven into the stitches around the cutwork. Brushing imaginary specks of dust away with her fingers, she set the scarf down, and Bobby placed the tree, with the star at the top facing toward the archway entrance, at the center.
"Shut the light, someone," he bade, and Randall did.
"Wow," the latter said, "almost like the Christmas star."
Bobby remembered his aunt's speech to him a week earlier, and the "lapsed altar boy" slipped out. "Because it's made from and with love." Then he squatted down before Olivia as Randall switched the light back on, realizing he didn't have to bend his knees as much as before. "Thank you both for the gift. It's the fourth best gift I've ever been given."
"What are the other three?" she asked, surprised.
"Your mother...and you...and Randall, of course," and he tapped her on the tip of her nose.
It made her dimple, but then she had to explain, "After Callandra, and Paulette...and other things, I wanted it to be more like last year."
"New Year's coming," and then he smiled, recalling the ornament from Boston. "A brand new year, with no mistakes in it."
"And then we try our best," Alex finished softly.
"And get Randall adopted," said Olivia staunchly.
"Two weeks until Olivia Adoption Day!" said Randall in anticipation, for the Gorens celebrated it as festively as the December holidays, as well as a "New Year" on October 21.
Bobby straightened up, a smile that could not be restrained appearing on his face. "Other things coming up, too. Alex, why don't you open that Christmas card in my binder? It's from Zes and Donna."
"You dog," she said, for the secret was almost given away by his face. "What-" and with slender fingers she unzipped the case and drew out the card, which portrayed four fat English robins on a holly branch, with a banner above declaring "Happy Christmas."
Inside was a printout, and Alex began to laugh.
"Mama, what is it?"
Unable to speak from laughter, she handed the photo printout to Olivia, who squealed.
"What is that?" Randall asked, looking over his sister's shoulder, unable to make heads or tails of the black-and-white image, vaguely in the shape of a pie, with a thin white line of ink pointing in one direction and a smiley face drawn at the opposite end.
"A sonogram," said Alex, with a final chuckle.
"And if I read that white line correctly, it's pointing to an important appendage," replied Bobby, amused.
"You've never seen one?" Olivia asked, taking pity on Randall. "It's a sonogram, a picture of a baby inside a mother."
"Donna's having another baby?" Randall stared in wonder.
"Yes," Alex said, retrieving the printout from Olivia and tracing the shape on it with her finger. "See? There's the head, and the back. Here's a hand--see the fingers?"
"And that little bit tells us it's a boy," Bobby indicated. "Four birds, four Hogarth-Hastings in the new year "
"Four Gorens, too," Olivia vowed, hugging Randall.
A knock came at the back door, and Sam bounded from the room, barking, pads skidding on the wood floor, and through the swinging door. Bobby answered the door a few seconds later to find a Gina's deliveryman at the door with two boxes of fragrant wood-fired pizza.
"I already paid!" Alex called as she headed for the cupboard for plates, but Bobby slipped him another tip anyway.
"Mmmm, bacon and ham!" Randall crowed, opening the first box. The second had pepperoni and ground beef, and Bobby joked that he'd be an honorary Italian by day's end.
It wasn't until each of them was into a second slice that Olivia ventured, "Are you sure you can't tell us why you talked to Zes, Papa?"
Bobby sighed, and Alex tilted her head at him. "You know, I'd like to know that myself."
He laughed, took a sip at his coffee, then began, "As I recall, one of you--I believe it was a certain young Mr. Shaw," and Randall dropped his slice of pizza, "said I should write a book. 'A proper book, like Sherlock Holmes.'"
Randall blushed, and Olivia ducked her head, because she had initiated the conversation.
"It's a rough outline right now, with a brief prologue that introduces a very bright, but very shy seven-year-old sent to live with a retired police detective in his late forties--he's taken early retirement because of an injury--living in an old mill cottage in western Maine-"
"Detective? You mean it's a myster-" and Randall perked at once, his face glowing.
"Shhhh!" Olivia commanded.
"-in western Maine. His younger sister has died, a single mom. Our detective likes children, but has never raised one. Nevertheless, he becomes the child’s guardian. Over the years, Uncle Francis-" and Alex quirked an eyebrow at him, "-teaches the child to observe everything..."
"Like Shaun on Psych!" interrupted Randall.
"Something like that. The actual story opens five years later."
"Is it a boy or a girl, Papa? The child."
"That's something I haven't decided. All I have is a last name: Quicksilver."
Alex remembered the scribbled notes on his desk, smiling now.
"So, like the Hardy Boys or the Three Investigators?" Randall had completely forgotten about his pizza.
"Maybe a little more complex, but in that vein," Bobby admitted.
"Brill!" enthused Olivia. "May we help you with it?"
"I suppose," Bobby returned noncommittally, but his grin was teasing as were his eyes.
"Yes!" said Randall with a fist pump. "'Livia--we can make a list of all the things we'd like to see in a mystery..."
"And without mentioning it's for a book, I could ask at school what tropes everyone thought were overused, so everyone will like it," Olivia offered.
Randall hissed, "Where's your phone? We can start the list now."
"Here," and Bobby slid the e-ink tablet and its stylus to them, "you can read my notes, too," and the blonde head and the black met over it. For a few minutes, Alex and Bobby had time to eat their pizza in peace while watching the children whisper, and Olivia set down ideas in a fine cursive hand.
Finally, Alex tilted her body to the right and burrowed her right hand under the table, where she found Bobby's left waiting for her. The clasp of his hand was warm and firm as she whispered, "Whose book is this again?"
"Ours," and bowed his head over hers. "For our future, Princess Ozma."
"Always, Oscar Diggs."
"They're doing it again," Randall whispered after a moment.
Olivia shrugged, then grinned. "6 7. So what shall we put down next?"