On the morning of September 11, Frankie had been in the NICU examining Mrs. Caesar’s “preemie” baby. Mrs. Caesar had developed preeclampsia at twenty-eight weeks and delivered her two-pound son, Clayton, in May. Over the summer Frankie had dropped by the NICU to visit the baby, and when Clayton reached four pounds Frankie took over from the neonatologist as the child’s ongoing pediatrician.

When the news of the planes flying into the World Trade Center came into the NICU, Dr. Borstman, the unit’s director, immediately activated the alternative generator. If the preemies were removed from their incubators or detached from their lung and heart monitors, they’d have been the youngest and tiniest casualties of terrorism.

Before Frankie left the NICU on Christmas Day she stopped by the nurses’ station to drop off some Zabar’s holiday cookies.

“Thank you, Dr. Weissman.” Juan, the gay nurse wearing a Santa hat behind the desk, got up to kiss her. “Merry Christmas.”

“You, too, Juan. Merry Christmas.” He was, in fact, one of her favorites.

“Got any hot plans for today?” Juan asked.

“I’ve got a few patients to see here and then I might visit my dad. Guess that doesn’t sound too hot, does it?”

“Well, if you’re not doing anything later, I’m going clubbing with most of the babies here.”

“Really!” Frankie recognized the NICU sense of humor and went along with it.

“Oh sure, we’re hitting my favorite bar, Hell, and then I thought a place I know in the East Village called ‘Cock.’”

Frankie laughed out loud. “Oh, the parents will like that.”

“Yes, and I think Dr. Borstman in particular will like that.”

Suddenly the heart-monitor bells on the Jiménez baby began beeping. Juan stood up and took Frankie’s hand. “Dr. Weissman, you know I don’t like to quote Judy Garland, but ‘have yourself a merry little Christmas.’”

“Thank you, Juan, thank you. You, too.” She squeezed his hand. The lights from all the incubator heart monitors were twinkling alongside the holiday ones. Frankie felt a tear welling in her eye. She hated when she became sentimental. She thought her professionally trained distance had cured her of that. But what the hell, it was Christmas.

As long as Frankie could remember, Christmas in New York was generally unseasonably mild with a misty autumn rain. As she walked down Madison Avenue from the hospital she tried to recall if the enormous red velvet bows draping the streetlights had been there when she was in high school. Of course she remembered the Christmas trees dotting Park Avenue, and, oddly enough, the garland winding around the staircase at the Colony Club where Samantha Acton’s mother invited their entire ninth-grade class for a holiday party.

Before Frankie moved into Manhattan, she had hardly noticed Christmas. She certainly never had a tree in her childhood home in Queens, and her father took the family to Miami for the holidays. Passing by a Madison Avenue window display of white Christmas bikinis, Frankie flashed back to her father standing on Miami Beach at sunset on Christmas Eve, flapping his arms like a seagull so the birds would make a massive formation. Every holiday Frankie’s mother would say, “Abraham, people are watching.” And he would answer, “That’s nice! Maybe they should join me.”