Somewhere Safe With Somebody Good (46 page)

He counted the back steps. Two were missing, buried beneath the snow—he didn’t have to put the stick in to know he had predicted wrong. Plus he’d said tomorrow afternoon was the cutoff, and here the precip had already shut down, so he was off on th’ whole deal. He gazed up to the sky, which was clearing to reveal a waxing moon. He looked out to the white field behind his house which reflected light into the untroubled heavens. He listened to the muffled silence that comes only with snow, and then a dog barking somewhere.

Bein’ right was good, no two ways about it, but bein’ alive was better.

‘Thank you,’ he said, and went in the house without knowing exactly how far off his prediction had been, and crawled back in bed and put his arm around his wife and woke her up, which he figured was as fine a consolation as any man could wish for.

At six a.m., the TV weatherman admitted that he was only human. Fifteen inches of powder lay solemnly over the town and in the valley, and upon the ancient ridges to the west.

•   •   •

W
HILE
BUILDING
THE
FIRE
on Christmas morning, he came across an old copy of the
Muse
.

Does Mitford Still Take Care of Its Own?

He tore off the cover page and folded and twisted it and struck a match and the page caught fire and he warmed the flue with its slight
heat. Then he touched the blaze to the paper beneath the kindling, and the whole question of whether people are sufficiently kind to one another went up in smoke and flame. He thought they had stumbled, but not fallen; the town had answered the query in the affirmative, and Vanita was to be thanked for asking.

Truman rubbed against his leg. Violet peered down at such nonsense from the throne of Cynthia’s wing chair. Barnabas gave a small yelp in his sleep.

His wife would be late to rise, and he would be early to start the roast in the slow cooker. In the afternoon they would gather in the study for a family service with Sammy and Kenny, whose flight home was delayed, then they’d break bread together at the kitchen counter.

Their celebration would be simple but good, quiet but merry, and afterward, all the pool Sammy and Kenny and Harley could shoot.

He stood away from the fireplace and glanced up to the portrait. The wisdom of the T-shirt might well be scribed over the mantel of every household.

Love is an act of endless forgiveness

He looked into the eyes of the subject. The painter had captured something steady and resolved; something wise and believing.

Dooley was their hope—a door opening to all that could be healing and genuine.

‘Take it from here, buddy,’ he said. ‘Take it from here.

‘And God be with
you.’