On impulse I pulled into a lot of West Cary where an old man was selling wreaths and Christmas trees. He looked like a lumberjack from a fable as he sat on a stool in the midst of his small forest, the cold air fragrant with evergreen. Perhaps my shunning of the Christmas spirit finally had gotten to me. Or maybe I simply wanted a distraction. At this late date, there wasn’t much of a selection, those trees passed over, misshapen or dying, each destined to sit out the season, I suspected, except for the one I chose. It would have been lovely were it not scoliotic. Decorating it proved more an orthopedic challenge than a festive ritual, but with ornaments and strands of lights strategically hung and wire straightening the problem places, it stood proudly in my living room.

“There,” I said to Lucy as I stepped back to admire my work. “What do you think?”

“I think it’s weird that you suddenly decided to get a tree on Christmas Eve. When was the last time you had one? “I suppose when I was married.”

“Is that where the ornaments came from?”

“Back then I went to a lot of trouble at Christmas.”

“Which is why you don’t anymore.”

“I’m much busier than I was back then,” I said.

Lucy opened the fireplace screen and rearranged logs with the poker. “Did you and Mark ever spend Christmas together?”

“Don’t you remember? We came down to see you last Christmas.”

“No, you didn’t. You came for three days after Christmas and flew home on New Year’s Day.”

“He was with his family on Christmas Day.”

“You weren’t invited?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Mark came from an old Boston family. They had certain ways of doing things. What did you decide about this evening? Did my jacket with the black velvet collar fit?”

“I haven’t tried anything. Why do we have to go to all these places?”

Lucy sail. “I won’t know anybody.”

“It’s not that bad. I simply have to drop off a present to someone who’s pregnant and probably not coming back to work. And I need to show the flag at a neighborhood party. I accepted the invitation before I knew you were going to be visiting. You certainly don’t have to come with me.”

“I’d rather stay here,” she said. “I wish I could get started on AFIS.”

“Patience,” I told her, though I did not feel patient at all.