Everything to gain and nothing to lose, my brother.

With love in Him Who loved us first,

Timothy

•   •   •

THE SNOW CONTINUED INTO THE NIGHT.

It undid the work of the snowplows and, in the wind that kicked up, laid a sixteen-foot drift against the north side of Happy Endings. It piled itself on the benches along Main Street, and covered Baxter Park so completely that it appeared as a white lake ringed by snow-burdened trees.

Something went haywire with the loudspeaker system at Town Hall and throughout the night, music played over the meadows of snow that were streets and parking lots on other days. ‘Above thy deep and dreamless sleep, the silent stars . . .’

During a number by Bing Crosby, two deer paused briefly in front of the Feel Good and moved on, plowing south. Though big cities never sleep, little towns do, and no one was out to see the brilliance of the snow blanket reflected in the eastern sky.

Four miles from town, at a spot where two major creeks converge, a light still shone in the window of a house with a fallen chicken coop at the rear and a neglected lot where a pony once grazed.

Coot Hendrick was starting to read his Christmas book all over again. It was a book he literally could not put down.

‘Mama,’ he said, ‘listen to this.’

He knew his mama wadn’t over in th’ bed, not a’tall, but he liked to think she was, for it helped to have somebody to read to.

‘“I . . . am . . . Sam.

‘“I am Sam!

‘“Sam . . . I . . . am . . .”’

In this book, he was gettin’ to be Sam and see what somebody named Sam was up to. He’d been a crazy cat in a hat, and here lately he’d been ol’ Saint Nick, hisself, with all manner of people trailin’ after him and askin’ questions, and now, just as he was ready to be Coot again, they give him this book for a present an’ he was gettin’ to be Sam. That was his favorite thing about books—they took you off to other people’s lives an’ places, but you could still set in your own chair by th’ oil heater, warm as a mouse in a churn.

•   •   •

HAMP FLOYD GOT OUT of a warm bed at four a.m., trying not to disturb his wife. He could feel it in his bones: his prediction this year was off, way off. He pulled on his socks, which he kept rolled up under the covers in case of a fire alarm, and padded into the kitchen and took his yardstick from the corner by the door. He slipped his sock feet into his old galoshes, which were cold as two trays of ice, and switched on the porch light and stepped out.

He counted the back steps. Two were missing, buried beneath the snow—he didn’t have to put the stick in to know he had predicted wrong. Plus he’d said tomorrow afternoon was the cutoff, and here the precip had already shut down, so he was off on th’ whole deal. He gazed up to the sky, which was clearing to reveal a waxing moon. He looked out to the white field behind his house which reflected light into the untroubled heavens. He listened to the muffled silence that comes only with snow, and then a dog barking somewhere.

Bein’ right was good, no two ways about it, but bein’ alive was better.

‘Thank you,’ he said, and went in the house without knowing exactly how far off his prediction had been, and crawled back in bed and put his arm around his wife and woke her up, which he figured was as fine a consolation as any man could wish for.

At six a.m., the TV weatherman admitted that he was only human. Fifteen inches of powder lay solemnly over the town and in the valley, and upon the ancient ridges to the west.

•   •   •

WHILE BUILDING THE FIRE on Christmas morning, he came across an old copy of the Muse.

Does Mitford Still Take Care of Its Own?

He tore off the cover page and folded and twisted it and struck a match and the page caught fire and he warmed the flue with its slight heat. Then he touched the blaze to the paper beneath the kindling, and the whole question of whether people are sufficiently kind to one another went up in smoke and flame. He thought they had stumbled, but not fallen; the town had answered the query in the affirmative, and Vanita was to be thanked for asking.

Truman rubbed against his leg. Violet peered down at such nonsense from the throne of Cynthia’s wing chair. Barnabas gave a small yelp in his sleep.

His wife would be late to rise, and he would be early to start the roast in the slow cooker. In the afternoon they would gather in the study for a family service with Sammy and Kenny, whose flight home was delayed, then they’d break bread together at the kitchen counter.

Their celebration would be simple but good, quiet but merry, and afterward, all the pool Sammy and Kenny and Harley could shoot.

He stood away from the fireplace and glanced up to the portrait. The wisdom of the T-shirt might well be scribed over the mantel of every household.

Love is an act of endless forgiveness

He looked into the eyes of the subject. The painter had captured something steady and resolved; something wise and believing.

Dooley was their hope—a door opening to all that could be healing and genuine.

‘Take it from here, buddy,’ he said. ‘Take it from here.

‘And God be with you.’