“Okay.”
I go over to the others. Levi gives me a wide smile over Aaron’s shoulder, whom he’s holding tightly from behind. They are sharing a baked apple on a paper plate right by the fire. Gwen comes over to me before I reach Knox. She jumps through the snow and stops herself by clawing her fingers into my upper arm. “I thought you’d taken off already.”
“Why would I do that?”
“No idea. You’ve got to try one of these apples. They aresogood.” She takes my empty glass of eggnog out of my hand, puts it down in the snow, and pulls me over to the fire. With two gloved fingers, she rolls an apple off the stones that have been arranged around the fire in a circle onto a paper plate, crushes the soft stuff with an already dangerously charcoaled plastic fork, and looks delighted when she hands it all to me. To be honest, it doesn’t really look that good, but it smells divine, so I try it and, no kidding, I melt. It is so good that I just can’t.
“What I wouldn’t give for you to look at me like you are that apple.” Knox hands me a flute of champagne. I quickly shovel another bite of the baked apple but manage to burn my tongue. All the same, it was worth it. I smile at Gwen. She takes a glass of champagne herself from the trolley next to the fire.
“Maybe you should invest in a bottle of baked-apple cologne. Then I’d look at you like that. Not to mention constantly sniff you.”
Knox laughs. “You’re constantly sniffing me the way it is.”
“Not in the least.”
He kisses my temple. “Okay. Try to convince yourself.”
William’s arm appears in front of us, and before I can understand what he’s doing, he’s pushing us with his back. He does that to everyone. He circles the fire with outstretched arms and pushes everyone back.
Aaron cocks an eyebrow. “What’s this all about, Will?”
William looks fantastically concentrated. The fire is lighting up every wrinkle on his face while he makes his rounds. I’ve got to say he really does look like the horror-movie version of Rumpelstiltskin a bit. “Don’t get any closer than around three feet, or you’ll get burned.”
Ruth sighs. “Will,please.”
He shakes his head, his expression severe. “No exceptions. It’s important,”—wheeze—“—that no one,”—wheeze—“gets hurt.”WHEEZE.
Wyatt lifts his leg with an amused gleam in his eye and pushes it back and forth, closer and closer to the fire. William sees it, hurries over, and then Wyatt stops. But as soon as Will creeps off, Wyatt starts up again. It drives the old man absolutely crazy, over and over he keeps running through the snow towards Wyatt, looking just like an Oompa Loompa, and I getsucha laughing fit that I have to bury my face in Knox’s jacket.
When I raise my head back up, my glance wanders over Knox’s shoulder and into Aria’s face. She’s still under the fir tree, looking like a ghost that is simply observing proceedings. For a second, my chest contracts when I see that she’s looking at Wyatt—at how he’s laughing, how he’s raising his hand and patting William’s shoulders—and her face is so distorted that I swear I am confronting pain in its purest, most open form. It hurts, it hurtsso much, because I know that all too soon I’ll be going through the same thing.
I don’t have any more time to think about it, because at preciselythat moment Gwen grabs my arm. I look at her, her lovely face lit up by the sparkler she’s holding in her hand, and then things go off:
“TEN.” William burns his bottom out of pure fright.
“NINE.” Jack is looking up to the sky, and I think I know why.
“EIGHT.” Levi is wiping Aaron’s face with a snowball.
“SEVEN.” Aaron laughs and pulls Levi’s hat off his head.
“SIX.” Kate hops through the snow over to Gwen, raises her arm, and waves a sparkler back and forth.
“FIVE.” Gwen laughs and lays her head on her mom’s shoulder, and I can feel a longing, just a little bit, but a little bit too much.
“FOUR.” Ruth drags Aria out from the shadow of her sadness-tree and over to the fire.
“THREE.” Wyatt looks at Aria as if he had never seen anything more beautiful in his life.
“TWO.” Aria’s jaw is clenched; I think she wants to cry.
“ONE.” I feel joy and think that everything I have is right now.
“HAPPY NEW YEAR!” Knox’s lips on mine, snow-drunk, the flash of fireworks behind my eyelids, laughing hearts all around me.
How beautiful life is.
How beautiful it would be if it could always be like this.
