Wilson tries to look at the crowd, or else at the steeple of the church before them, or down at the pavement, or at streetlamps casting light on them all, but his gaze returns again and again to Isabelle. She hasn’t worn a hat tonight, and her hair looks even wilder in the wind than it does inside, the short, uneven chunks of hair whipping around her face. He will get used to this short hair, he tells himself, and it will be better once Ruth has taken her to get it evened out; still, it unnerves him not to recognize his daughter; she looks like a stranger.

The voice leading them in song announces over the loudspeaker that next they will sing “It Came upon a Midnight Clear.” Ruth looks at Wilson; she knows it is his favorite carol. He smiles at her and opens his mouth to sing along as the music begins, but as soon as Ruth has turned her eyes forward again, he lets his mouth close; he does not feel much like singing. Ruth is singing wholeheartedly, it seems, though Wilson doubts that she’s singing with genuine enthusiasm as much as she is out of stubbornness, out of a need at times to ignore what isn’t right, to keep on going. He lets his gaze drop again to his daughter. She is not singing either, which is, of course, no surprise; she is not even mouthing the words. She has rolled the evening’s program into the shape of a pencil, and she holds it to her chin, looking thoughtful, but her eyes vacant, her hair in all directions.