“You shouldn’t be on the phone during an electrical storm,” I said to them. “We’ll call back later.”
“You’re so paranoid, Kay,” Dorothy chided. “You look at everything in terms of how it might kill somebody.”
“Lucy, tell me about your presents,” my mother interjected.
“Grans, we haven’t opened them yet.”
“Wow. That was really close,” Dorothy exclaimed above crackling static. “The lights just flickered.”
“Mom, I hope you don’t have a file open on your computer,” Lucy said. “Because if you do, you probably just lost whatever you were working on.”
“Dorothy, did you remember to bring butter?” my mother asked.
“Damn. I knew there was something…”
“I must have reminded you three times last night.”
“I’ve told you I can’t remember things when you call me while I’m writing, Mother.”
“Can you imagine? Christmas Eve and would you go to mass with me? No. You stay home working on that book and then forget to bring the butter.”
“Well go out and get some.”
“And just what do you think will be open on Christmas morning?”
“Something will be.”
I looked up as Lucy walked into the kitchen.
“I don’t believe it,” she whispered to me as my mother and sister continued to argue with each other.
After I hung up, Lucy and I went into my living room, where we were returned to a quiet winter morning in Virginia, bare trees still and patches of snow pristine in the shade. I did not think I could ever live in Miami again. The change of seasons was like the phases of the moon, a force that pulled me and shifted my point of view. I needed the full with the new and the nuances in between, days to be short and cold in order to appreciate spring mornings.
Lucy’s present from her grandmother was a check for fifty dollars. Dorothy gave money as well, and I felt rather ashamed when Lucy opened the envelope from me and added my check to the others.
“Money seems so impersonal,” I apologized.
“It’s not impersonal to me because it’s what I want. You just bought another meg of memory for my computer.”
She handed me a small, heavy gift wrapped in red-and-silver paper, and could not suppress her joy when she saw the look on my face as I opened the box and parted layers of tissue paper.
“I thought you could keep your court schedule in it,” she said. “It matches your motorcycle jacket.”
“Lucy, it’s gorgeous.”
I touched the black lambskin binding of the appointment book and smoothed open its creamy pages. I thought of the Sunday she had come to town, of how late she had stayed out when I’d let her take my car to the club. I bet the sneak had gone shopping.
“And this other present here is just refills for the address section and the next calendar year.”
She set a smaller gift in my lap as the telephone rang.
Marino wished me a Merry Christmas and said he wanted to drop by with my present.”
“Tell Lucy she’d better dress warmly and not to wear anything tight,” he said irritably.
“What are you talking about?”
I puzzled.
“No tight jeans or she won’t be able to get cartridges in and out of her pockets. You said she wanted to learn how to shoot. Lesson one is this morning before lunch. If she misses class, it’s her damn problem. What time are we eating?”
“Between one-thirty and two. I thought you were tied up”
“Yeah, well, I untied myself. I’ll be over in about twenty minutes. Tell the brat it’s cold as hell outside. You want to come with us?”
“Not this time. I’ll stay here and cook.”
Marino’s disposition was no more pleasant when he arrived at my door, and he made a great production of checking my spare revolver, a Ruger .38 with rubber grips. Depressing the thumb latch, he pushed open the cylinder and slowly spun it around, peering into each chamber. He pulled back the hammer, looked down the barrel, and then tried the trigger. While Lucy watched him in curious silence, he pontificated on the residue buildup left by the solvent I used and informed me that my Ruger probably had “spurs” that needed filing. Then he drove Lucy away in his Ford.