Paul was a two-story colonial with green shutters and a wreath on the door that his sister Dana had put up two weekends ago. The porch lights were on and through the front window, Gavin could see the glow of the Christmas tree and moving shadows of people already inside. Maryanne Brooks opened the door before they reached the top step. She was 64 with silver hair and the particular energy of a woman who had never once turned away a person who needed a meal. "Well, come in," she said, looking at Elise with uncomplicated warmth.
"You must be freezing. Give me that coat." Inside the smell of roasting turkey, a wooden table set for six, now quickly rearranged for seven. Christmas music playing from a small Bluetooth speaker on the kitchen counter. Dana's husband, Paul, was trying to keep their 8-year-old daughter, Lucy, from opening one present before dinner. He was losing.
Elise stood in the doorway for a moment, just a moment. Something moved through her expression, quick, unguarded, and gone before anyone else caught it. Then she stepped inside. She was good at adapting. Within 20 minutes, she was in the kitchen with Maryanne, helping with the Brussels sprouts without being asked.
She listened more than she talked, but when she did talk, she was sharp and funny in the precise, understated way of someone who didn't need the room's attention to feel comfortable. Lucy decided immediately that she was interesting. "Do you have any kids?" Lucy asked, sitting on the counter while Elise chopped. No, Elise said. Do you have a dog?
No. Do you have a cat? Also, no, Lucy considered this. What do you have? Elise paused, knife hovering over a carrot.
A very good coffee machine, she said seriously. Lucy nodded, apparently satisfied. Later after dinner, Lucy dragged out a 500piece puzzle, a winter forest scene, and demanded that Elise help. Elise sat cross-legged on the rug next to an 8-year-old and sorted edge pieces with complete seriousness. Gavin watched from the couch and felt something he couldn't quite name.
Not attraction exactly. Or not only that, something about the way she was present, like she was somewhere she hadn't expected to be, paying close attention. His mother caught his eye from across the room and said nothing, but she smiled in a way that meant she had noticed, too. In the kitchen, while Elise and Maryanne cleaned up after dinner, Maryanne told a story about the Christmas after Gavin's father passed. Just her and Dana and a pot of soup and the radio.
Small but present. Elise went quiet. "Have you ever spent Christmas alone?" she asked. Maryanne smiled gently. "No, sweetheart.
Not once." Elise nodded and went back to drying dishes. She didn't say anything else, but the look on her face, brief and unguarded, was not the look of someone making small talk. Gavin burned a batch of Christmas cookies at 9:30. He'd been distracted, half watching the timer, half listening to Elise and Dana debate the best method for wrapping oddly shaped gifts. And by the time the smell hit him, it was already done.
I told you to set two timers, Maryanne said without looking up from her book. I set one timer. That is the problem. Elise leaned over from the floor where she'd been wrapping a small wooden toy car in paper that was clearly too large for it. How bad?