Nov. 27

DEAREST ANNABEL,

Your letter big event for me. Excuse writing, hard to manage pen, but pain not bad now. Thanksgiving lovely, Echo cooked with all trimmings, so devoted I worry she may miss out on life of own. We play cards, she does my hair each Saturday, sits with me evenings, tries to read to me but is hard for her as has no literary bent. But is getting to be good mechanic, put new motor in her Dodge all by self, and so feminine never even gets clothes or hands dirty. Whod ever guess she’s strong as mule. Make good wife some day but meets nobody. Loves her mother and so patient with useless old woman. At night in bed with eyes closed I study you and family. Don’t worry, everything works out, law of nature. Your dream of old days makes me cry, you sweet thing. But smile and pray, everything okay in end. Forgive shortness, hand tired. Write soon to your loving friend

B—

P.S. I see your older boy and X-mas tree in same picture. Holiday visitor may surprise you. So smile and pray.

Christmas preparations began at once. Clinton knew that this postscript in Bernice O’Brien’s letter had lighted a fuse in Annabel. Though she scarcely mentioned Berry-berry at all, he knew she had accepted Bernice’s prophecy as fact. Clinton was afraid to share this belief himself. His experience had taught him that if you wanted a thing too much, you would not get it. You would only be doomed to wanting it all the more and your longing would be more painful than ever. He therefore worried about Annabel, who devoted all her powers to preparations. When she spoke of the holiday, he felt he saw an invisible jaw squared as she led her invisible armies across the days of December. “By heaven, we’re going to have a Christmas,” she said repeatedly, and each time with renewed intensity until the word “Christmas” contained all the guttural determination of a war cry. Indeed, “Christmas” had become the name of the archenemy that marched toward them. It would strike on the 25th of the month, and by all the gods of dime stores, mail-order catalogues and cookbooks, the Williamses—her actions seemed to serve notice on the enemy—the Williamses would have their larders stocked, their tree would blaze in the window like a torch. She brought out greeting cards received in other years and glued the prettiest hundred of them to the doorframes. She shopped each day and baked long into the nights. No other subject was worthy of discussion: “I have no time for that, don’t you see?” And pausing only long enough to retie an apron or to check her many “lists,” she pressed tirelessly forward in her strategy of cookies and candles and ornaments. Higher and higher grew the bulwarks of mincemeat, gift wrappings and holly, as Bing Crosby on the radio inspired the resistance forces with musical promises of snow. The newspapers each day kept the count in a front-page box: Twelve more shopping days till Christmas! it threatened; and then nine, eight, seven; the number diminished ominously. For a time things began to go haywire, a cake fell, a package refused to arrive, or the weatherman did not foresee snow. The footsteps of Christmas echoed in the distance, and there was every possibility that with some mistake in timing they would be unprepared for it.