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I get Hildie into the passenger seat, run the belt across her, and shut the door.

The drive isn't long, and she narrates all of it. The church with the blue roof. The pond where she saw an alligator one time. Same two landmarks going and coming, and she gets them fresh every trip.

The carport lights are already burning when we pull under. I put that timer in for her years ago because it goes dark under there long before the sun's done with the rest of the day. I walk her inside.

She gets one step into the front room and stops cold. Her hand comes up over her mouth, and she starts to cry.

I stand there and let her have it. I've never had the words people want in a moment like this one, so I don't go hunting for them.

When she steadies, she moves in on the tree and starts pointing.

"That one. Hand me that one."

I lift down a red ball and put it in her hands.

"Gulf Coast Mall, 1979. Dollar twenty-five for a box of six." She turns it over in her fingers. "Now the bird."

I pull the glass cardinal, and she cups it in both hands. "My mother mailed me that the year she was sick. She never mailed a thing in her life. That year she mailed me a bird. Now, whenever I see a cardinal, I think it is her visiting.”

I keep handing them down, and she is right about every one of them. The year, the store, what she paid.

She saves the angel for last.

Her face changes when it touches her palm. "Mrs. Pruitt, third grade." Her thumb moves over the tea-colored doily. "You made this for me, and I have treasured it. That was a good Christmas, Carson."

Best minute of my day and the worst one, and they're the same minute.

I heat up what Rudy stocked and have to read the microwave buttons twice before the thing starts. She eats. I set the oval pill beside her plate and watch it go down with a forkful of chicken, middle of the meal, exactly like he said.

"When did you get in? How was your flight?"

“About two. It was fine once I was on it. I was supposed to be here last night, but they canceled out of Denver, and I slept in the airport."

"Oh, I wish I'd known you were coming. I'd have had my hair done."

She can price a glass ball from 1979 to the quarter and pull Mrs. Pruitt out of forty years back, and she can't hold a phone call from Tuesday.

"Wanted to surprise you."

"You're the only surprise I like. You know I don’t like surprises.”

She puts her head on my shoulder, and we sit there watching the lights. For the first time since I landed, there isn't one thing in front of me that needs fixing.

THREE

Mackie

Love and joy come to you / And to you your wassail too

The paper snowflakes on the windows are cut by hands that shook doing it, uneven and taped up crooked, and they're the best thing in the room. Somebody's grandkid, probably.

I plate another square of sheet cake and slide it in front of a man named Earl who has told me twice now that he doesn't want cake despite the fact that he's on his second piece.

The punch bowl has a brick of lime sherbet melting into it in slow green swirls. I ladle a cup and carry it to a woman by the window, who is sitting alone and watching the parking lot.

She takes it with both hands and smiles up at me. "Thank you, sweetheart."

"You're welcome. Tip your waitress."