‘But I feel she’s cheated me out of it or into it. I can’t even figure out which.’

‘Should you be living in this house?’ David asked.

‘I sometimes think I couldn’t manage without it,’ Mary confessed. ‘I know all its hiding places. And you’re as good as a shrink, better. You know them, too.’

Mary had taken the Kleenex David offered her, and while she mopped herself up he went back to his wrapping. He felt the burden of her need like an anchor. It dragged at a heart he could wish freer.

David was glad he had involved himself so much in Christmas shopping. He felt much more in the spirit of the growing excitement. He was easily persuaded to go with Ted and the children to pick out a tree.

‘Not the Salvation Army lot this year,’ David said to Ted before they left. ‘Let’s support the Boy Scouts.’

If he had been with Jack, David would have explained that the Salvation Army had been waging a battle against a homosexual rights bill in New Zealand, a piece of information David had picked up from reading a copy of The Body Politic, a gay newspaper from Toronto, which he discovered he could read, bit by bit, if he made the effort.

Grandfather and father gave the children the run of the lot to pick the tree for themselves, refusing to get caught up in each call of ‘What about this one?’ Three were enough to quarrel and decide, a harmless way to expend some of the season’s tense excitement.

‘I’m a bit worried about Mary,’ Ted had the opportunity to say. ‘I finally told her the other night I thought it was time she pulled herself together over her mother’s death and got back to ordinary living. And she decided that was grounds for divorce. God knows, I don’t want to be insensitive, but don’t you think she’s beginning to overdo it?’

‘Yes,’ David said, ‘but I’m not sure she’s got herself to a place where she can help it. She did speak to me about going to a psychiatrist.’

‘Do you think she should?’

‘I don’t have much confidence in them,’ David said.

‘Dad, I don’t think I can handle much more of it,’ Ted said.

‘Let’s help her all we can with Christmas. I think she may be better when she’s got through it.’

‘I used to like Christmas,’ Ted said miserably.

‘You will again,’ David said, more sure of his ground than he would have been a year ago.

When the children had narrowed the choice to two, Patsy’s and Tyler’s, the men stepped in to help. Both trees qualified for realistic size, a first for that family. Tyler’s was more symmetrical. Patsy’s had more branches. Christine, who was hanging back from childish involvement, was assigned to choose.