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By Root 726 0

she couldn't. She was too busy with the paper and her family. This is the last thing on earth she should be doing now, but this time Father Grewley persisted. In the beginning he had more volunteers than he needed, but too many would come once or twice, then call at the last minute to say they couldn't keep their appointments. He finds it bewildering that the same people who believe enough in the mission to give money won't give as generously of their time. It's difficult, Nora tried to explain last time he called. They might not show it, but most people have so many of their own problems, it's hard taking on someone else's. She meant herself.

“Nobody knows that better than me,” Father Grewley said so tersely she knew he felt slighted. But he doesn't understand, not really. Because he is so sincerely and totally driven, Sojourn House is his whole life, an extension of himself A danger, but that's what great projects require, hubris and zeal.

“And I'm sure some people feel way in over their heads, Father Tom. I mean, that's what I keep thinking. I'm no counselor. I don't have any training for this.” When what she wanted to say was, How can I help another wounded woman when I can't even help myself?

“Living, that's all it takes!” the priest exclaimed. “All your wisdom and experience, that's what our ladies need. Someone they can talk to. It's more than counseling. We've got therapists, but it's that woman-to-woman thing. Girlfriends. A pal. Most of them don't know how to reach out anymore. Confide. Ask for help. Or tell the truth. It's been shamed and beaten out of them. A friend, Nora, that's all I'm asking. A once-a-week friend.” She can't even confide in her own friend, but here she is, going through the motions.

Alice is showing her a picture of her family. Three children, two boys and baby girl, husband, herself, all in bathrobes, in front of a Christmas tree.

“That's the most lights we ever had. Twenty-six strings,” she says.

“Lovely,” Nora says of the somber children.

“Every year I buy a few more,” Alice says.

Nora looks up, puzzled.

“The kids like them to blink, but Luke says they use more electricity that way. Off and on, all the stopping and starting.”

“Oh. Really. I didn't know that. Pretty tree, though,” she says weakly, fighting impatience, struggling to seem interested in the suddenly animated description of her painted dough ornaments, glittery stars sprinkled with raw sugar and reindeer with red jelly bean noses, and the popcorn-and-cranberry garland she and the kids strung with clear fishing line, Luke's, but she didn't dare tell him, and, see, that angel at the top, they made that, too, with cotton balls and tin foil, and, for wings, netting stiff with hair spray. “Really?” Nora pretends to study the picture, thoughts racing with memories of Robin's rum-soaked fruitcakes and personalized gingerbread men, and, every year, the hand-painted glass ornaments dated and signed with her cute robin logo, each card and letter stamped with the little brown red-breasted bird on stick legs, and did they exchange gifts these last three Christmases, Robin and Ken, or was it four, she wonders, this suspicion, new among the constellation of clues and betrayals to be probed, and no matter how distant, the pain, like light from a long-ago star, is just as vivid, even now, trying to retrieve details of their dinner together the Christmas before last, recalling only how happy they all were, or seemed, or thought they were, two of them, anyway, the fool and the cuckold, the other two wishing it could be just them …

The now dismal rote continues, “A few minutes later, he dragged the tree outside and put all the kids' presents in trash bags.”

Nora blinks, looks at the photograph. Luke, the bland-faced man in the plaid bathrobe, slightly built, hair cropped like a marine. Everyone in the picture has red eyes, but with Alice's story his seems a baleful glare. Money, she says again. Pressure. Weeks go by with everything fine, then the least little thing makes him snap. He even made pancakes for them all that morning, but