"Can you delay?"
"I've already delayed twice. If I push it again, people are going to start leaving." She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes. "This is the first public event since the centennial. The first time the town has come together since everything fell apart. It has to be perfect."
"It doesn't have to be perfect."
"Ronan—"
"It has to be real. People don't need perfect. They need to see that life goes on. That the lights still come on eventually, even if they're late." He took the clipboard from her hands and set it on a nearby table. "What do the lights look like?"
"What?"
"The ones that work. What do they look like?"
She stared at him. "They look like lights. Half a tree's worth of lights."
"Then light half the tree."
"I can't light half a?—"
"Tell Patricia to make it mean something. She's a retired principal. She's given a thousand speeches to kids who weren't listening. She can figure out how to make half a tree sound intentional."
Lila was quiet for a moment. Then her eyes tightened.
"You're serious."
"I'm practical. There's a difference." He handed her back the clipboard. "Go. I'll find the electrician and see if I can speed things up."
She grabbed his arm before he could turn away. Pulled him close. Kissed him right there in the middle of Main Square, in front of half the town.
"What was that for?"
"For being practical." She was almost smiling now. "I'll go talk to Patricia."
Patricia Odom stood on the platform with the ceremonial switch in her hand and looked out at the crowd.
She cleared her throat. Glanced down at the switch. Back up at the crowd.
"So," she said. "I had a speech prepared. It was about resilience and community and all the things you're supposed to say at events like these." She paused. "But half our lights aren't working, and I'm told the electrician is stuck in traffic on Highway 42, and honestly, I think we've all had enough of things not going according to plan this year."
A ripple of laughter moved through the crowd.
"Here's what I know." Patricia's voice steadied. "This town has been through something hard. We trusted people we shouldn't have trusted. We lost people we shouldn't have lost. And we're still standing here, in the cold, waiting to see a tree light up. Because that's what we do. We show up. Even when half the lights are broken."
She looked at the switch in her hand.
"This is half a tree. The rest will come when the electrician gets here. I figure that's about right for where we are as a town." She flipped the switch. "We'll take what we can get and wait for the rest."
The lights came on. Half the tree blazed against the darkening sky, the empty branches stark beside the glowing ones.
For a moment, no one moved. Then someone started clapping. The applause spread, building, until the whole square was filled with it.
Ronan stood at the back of the crowd and watched. Around him, people hugged each other, wiped their eyes, lifted children onto their shoulders to see. An old man next to him was crying openly, not bothering to hide it.
This was what he'd never understood about small towns. The way they turned ordinary moments into something larger. The way a half-lit tree could mean something, not because anyone planned it, but because people needed it to.
The electrician arrived at 5:47.
By six o'clock, the whole tree was blazing. But people kept talking about the half-lit version. Someone had already posted a photo to the town's social media page with the caption: "We'll take what we can get."
