Page 5

Once in royal David's city / Stood a lowly cattle shed

The seat's racked back as far as the rails allow and my knees still ride too high, like the whole car was built for somebody folded into fourths. I shift my weight and give up on it.

I left Hildie at Sabal Point twenty minutes ago. Lis Larkin and her daughter had been gone maybe ten minutes, and Hildie was still riding the tail of all that company when I stood up to go.

The daughter is the one I haven't managed to get out of my mind. She came through Hildie's door in a tank top and snow boots, as if half of her had landed in Florida while the other half was getting ready for a snowstorm. I can appreciate the contradiction.

She's small, and the top of her head wouldn't clear my chin, but she has a mouth that was already building a joke before she opened it. The horse line was a good one. I didn't laugh because I was busy taking in the shape of her bare shoulders and the warm brown of her eyes. By the time I caught up, she had moved on to another quip.

Hildie asked me twice where I was headed.

"Your house," I told her the second time.

That got me a smile. Then she caught my wrist. "You're coming back?"

"Course I am. Get your things together, and I'll be back inside the hour to bring you home."

"For me?"

"I came two thousand miles for you, Hildie."

She laughed and told me I was dramatic, which is what I was after. I kissed the top of her head and got out of there before she could ask a third time.

Now the Sentra rolls south through town with the borrowed feel of every rental I've ever driven. I reserved a full-size truck in Tampa this morning. By the time I got to the counter, they had a sedan built for small people and an apology.

I thumb the phone on the passenger seat and put Wade on speaker.

He picks up on the second ring and skips hello. "Cold coming Christmas Day. Single digits. Tanks'll need chopping twice."

"Can you handle it?"

"No problem. That bred heifer's still off her feed. I'm watching her." Wind shoves across his end of the line. "Glow plugs are going on the tractor. Been plugging it in overnight so she turns over."

"Buy the plugs. Put them on the account."

"Already priced 'em."

Of course he did. That's the whole reason I can be two thousand miles from my own gate and still sleep at night.

"Anything else?"

"Nope."

He doesn't ask when I'm back. He already knows I fly out of here the day after Christmas, same as every year, and he'll feed twice a day in the dark until I do.

"I appreciate you holding it down."

"Sounds good, boss. Enjoy your aunt."

The line's dead before I get anything else out.

Every Christmas before this one, I flew in, and she met me at her own front door. This is the first year I have to go open the house myself before I've got anywhere to take her.

Her street comes up on the right, and I ease over.

The double carport swallows the Sentra with room left over for the truck Walt Ashby sold me for a dollar when I was sixteen. It’s no longer here, of course, but I think of it every time I pull in here.

I cut the engine and sit a second, because the house is wrong. There's no television through the wall, or cabinet doors shutting in the kitchen. When I used to get home, she'd have the screen door open before I got the brake set, calling my name like the sound of my tires wasn't announcement enough.