The doorbell rang at exactly 6:15 on Christmas Eve, slicing through the warm hum of conversation in our dining room like a knife through butter. I was in the middle of fussing over the last details of the holiday table—straightening the burgundy napkins I’d ironed twice, nudging a pinecone centerpiece a fraction of an inch—when that sound pierced the comfortable bubble I’d spent all day building. “Are you expecting someone else?” Damian asked from his spot at the head of the table, barely looking up from his phone.
At seventy-one, my husband had perfected the art of appearing busy while doing absolutely nothing. His salt-and-pepper hair was slicked back the way he’d worn it for forty years, and his reading glasses perched low on his nose gave him the kind of faux-professorial air he loved. Distinguished, he called it.
I called it theatrical. “No one I know of,” I replied, wiping my hands on my apron. The scent of rosemary and garlic from our Christmas roast filled the air, mingling with the piney fragrance from the tree in the corner and the faint wax smell of the candles I’d lit along the buffet.
Outside, Portland’s winter twilight pressed against the windows, all cold blue shadows and the promise of snow that hadn’t quite committed. Everything was perfect. Or at least, it looked that way.
Alina, my daughter-in-law, looked up from her wine glass with that carefully curated expression of mild annoyance she’d perfected in the five years since she married my son, James. “Probably carolers,” she said, her voice edged with boredom. “Just ignore them.
They’ll go away.”
At thirty-four, Alina had the kind of sharp, camera-ready beauty that photographs well but feels cold in person. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a sleek twist, not a strand out of place. The deep red dress she wore probably cost more than I spent on groceries in two months.
She’d been checking her reflection in the stainless steel of my serving spoons all evening, angling them just so to use as a mirror. The doorbell rang again, longer this time. More insistent.
Whoever it was, they weren’t giving up. “I’ll get it,” I said, already moving toward the hallway. James, my forty-three-year-old son, was deep in conversation with his father about some investment opportunity I didn’t understand and probably couldn’t afford.
An apartment flip in Beaverton? Crypto? Another miracle fund that never seemed to pay off?
I’d stopped trying to keep track. Neither of them seemed to notice the interruption. When I opened the front door, the December cold hit me in the face, sharp and immediate, carrying with it that particular wet-metal smell of Portland air just before it snows.
Standing on my porch was a young woman, maybe twenty years old, with long brown hair hanging in damp waves around her shoulders. She was pregnant—visibly, heavily pregnant—seven or eight months at least, her belly round beneath a thin, faded coat that had absolutely no business being outside in Oregon in December. Her cheeks were red from the cold, her lips chapped.
She was shivering. “Excuse me,” she said, her voice soft but steady. “Do you have any water?
I’ve been walking for hours, and I’m so thirsty.”
Behind me, I heard chair legs scrape back against hardwood. Damian’s voice boomed from the dining room, loud enough to be sure the girl heard every word. “We’re not a shelter.
Tell whoever it is to get lost. This is Christmas Eve, for crying out loud.”
Heat rushed into my face so fast I felt dizzy. In forty-five years of marriage, Damian’s capacity for casual cruelty still managed to surprise me at the worst possible moments.
I looked at the young woman. Really looked at her. Her eyes were dark brown, almost black, framed by lashes clumped together from the cold.
There was something in them that caught at me—a stubborn pride sitting right alongside exhaustion and fear. Not the features exactly. The expression.
The way she stood as if she was daring the world to knock her down one more time. Pride, wrapped around desperation like a thin coat. “Of course, sweetheart,” I said, stepping aside.
“Come in out of the cold.”
“Mom, what are you doing?” James appeared in the hallway, his face creased with concern. He’d inherited his father’s height but, thankfully, more of my softer features. At forty-three, he was successful at his accounting firm downtown, married to a woman who looked good on paper, and apparently completely lacking in the compassion I’d tried to raise him with.
Alina appeared beside him, her stemmed glass still in hand, a smudge of dark lipstick perfect against the rim. When she saw the girl, her face twisted into a look of pure, unfiltered disgust. “Are you insane, Muriel?” she demanded.
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