“Less than twenty-four hours ago I had a whole married life, with a husband and a house and a freezer full of food, and now all I do is sit in other people’s kitchens and drink coffee,” said Sally.

Aunt Ethel sat, a little, hard stump of a woman, gripping her coffee cup in both hands while Sally told it again, quicker this time: the peaceful Thanksgiving evening, then out of nowhere Dave wanting a divorce, the snake at the Java Hut, the sleepless night remembering Elvis Presley at the Ship Ahoy, and then in the morning Alice busy with Lauren’s wedding, and Bryan coming, and the house so full of magi—“So that’s why I’m here with you, Aunt Ethel, for no telling how long.”

“What kind of snake was it?” asked Ethel.

“No, no, no. It’s not about snakes, it’s about feelings. We’re supposed to be thinking about feelings. And maybe Dave is right. Thirty-three years ago it was Elvis Presley at the Ship Ahoy, and now it’s just a turkey carcass left too long on simmer.”

Ethel sat, her eyes little slits of concentration, thinking. Then she said, “Life is like work and consists of motions in sequence. You must use the momentum built up doing one operation to power the next.”

There didn’t seem to be any need to discuss it further after that, so they started to decorate the Christmas tree. Ethel set the timer.

“It used to take me nearly thirty-five minutes to decorate the tree,” she said, “but then I came up with this.” It was a block of wood with an eighteen-penny nail driven through it. Ethel laid the Christmas tree on its side, and with a couple of whacks she punched the tip of the nail into the butt end of the tree trunk. She stood the tree up at the edge of the porch, climbed the steps, and clipped the end of a string of lights to the top of the tree with a clothespin. “Watch this. This takes ten minutes off the total decorating time.” She gave the tree a little shove, and it spun slowly on the nail, twirling the string of lights evenly from top to bottom. “Open the door.” Ethel stood the tree up in the corner, plugged in the lights, and stood back. The tree leaned a little to the right. “Now that is just beautiful.” She checked the time and noted it down. “I’ve got Christmas down to about forty-five minutes, total time.”