Liddy purses her lips. “Don’t think I haven’t considered it,” she says.
The biggest knock-down fight I ever had with Zoe was after Christmas Eve at Reid and Liddy’s house. We’d been married about five years by then and had already had our share of fertility nightmares. Anyway, it’s not a secret that Zoe wasn’t a big fan of my brother and his wife. She had been watching the Weather Channel all day, hoping to convince me that the snow we were going to be getting that night was enough to keep us from driving from our place to theirs.
Liddy loved Christmas. She decorated—not in a cheesy inflatable Santa way but with real garlands wrapped around the banister and mistletoe hanging from the chandeliers. She had a collection of antique wooden St. Nicholas dolls, which were propped up on windowsills and tables. She switched out her everyday dishes for a set with holly around the edges. Reid told me it took her an entire day to prepare the house for the holidays, and looking around, I totally believed it.
“Wow,” Zoe murmured, as we waited in the foyer for Liddy to take our coats and hang them up in the closet. “It’s like we’ve fallen into a Thomas Kinkade painting.”
That’s when Reid appeared, holding mugs of hot cider. He never drank when I was around. “Merry Christmas,” he said, clapping me on the back and kissing Zoe on the cheek. “How are the roads?”
“Nasty,” I told him. “Getting worse.”
“We may not be able to stay long,” Zoe added.
“We saw a car slide off the road on the way back from church,” Reid said. “Luckily, no one got hurt.”
Every Christmas Eve, Liddy directed the children’s Nativity play. “So how did it go?” I asked her. “You guys taking it to Broadway?”
“It was pretty unforgettable,” Reid said, and Liddy swatted him.
“We had an animal control issue,” she said. “One of the little girls in Sunday School has an uncle who runs a petting zoo, and he loaned us a donkey.”
“A donkey,” I repeated. “A real one?”
“He was very tame. He didn’t even move when the girl playing Mary climbed onto his back. But then”—she shuddered—“he stopped halfway down the aisle and . . . did his business.”
I burst out laughing. “He took a dump?”
“In front of Pastor Clive’s wife,” Liddy said.
“What did you do?”
“I had a shepherd clean it up, and the mother of one of the angels ran out to get carpet cleaner. I mean, what was Isupposedto do? I never officially got approval from the school to bring in livestock.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time an ass went to church,” Zoe said, straight-faced.
I grabbed her elbow. “Zoe, come help me in the kitchen.” I dragged her through the swinging door. It smelled delicious, like gingerbread and vanilla. “No politics. You promised me.”
“I’m not going to sit back while he—”
“While he does what?” I argued. “He hasn’t done anything. You’re the one who made the snide comment!”
She looked away from me, petulant. Her gaze landed on the refrigerator, on a magnet printed with a fetus sucking its thumb.I’M A CHILD, said the caption.NOT A CHOICE.
I put my hands on her arms. “Reid is my only family. He may be conservative, but he’s still my brother, and it’sChristmas.All I’m asking is that, for an hour, you smile and nod your head and you don’t bring up current events.”
“What if he brings them up first?”
“Zoe,” I begged, “please.”
And for about an hour, it seemed as if we might get through dinner without a major incident. Liddy served ham and roasted potatoes and a green bean casserole. She told us about the ornaments on her Christmas tree, a collection of antique ones that had come from her grandma. She asked Zoe if she liked to bake, and Zoe talked about some lemon refrigerator pie that her mother used to make when she was a kid. Reid and I talked college football.
When “Angels We Have Heard on High” played on the CD in the background, Liddy hummed along. “I taught this one to the kids this year for the pageant. Some of them had never heard it before.”
“The Christmas concert at the elementary school is apparently theholiday concertnow,” Reid said. “A bunch of parents got together and complained, and now they won’t sing anything that has even faintly religious overtones.”
“That’s because it’s a public school,” Zoe said.
Reid cut a neat little triangle of his ham. “Freedom of worship. It’s right there in the Constitution.”
