Gwen Russo pulled the Swiss dotted curtain aside to peek out the front window. Snow, falling thicker than ever, thicker than the fuzzy little dots on the sheer fabric in her hand.
She picked up her mug of hot water with lemon and took a sip. Just the right temperature, hot but not quite scalding. It wouldn’t do to burn her tongue before her solo.
But would she even get to sing if this snow continued?
She inhaled more of the sharp lemon scent, letting it soothe her nerves. Years of memories of drinking lemon water before performances bubbled up in her mind, crowding around like an appreciative audience after a perfect aria.
But snow.
She dropped the curtain and paced back across her tiny living-dining-kitchen space and stopped in front of the little white refrigerator. The apartment size fridge fit snugly in its two feet of space, and was short enough that Gwen could dust the top of it without a ladder. Nothing like the stainless steel monstrosity that had ruled the kitchen in Phillip’s San Diego house.
She took another sip of lemon water. It was not the time to think about Phillip, nor about her feelings of anger or betrayal. The past was the past. She still had songs in her future.
Tonight even, unless the snow ruined things. Gwen set her mug on the itty-bitty kitchen counter and paced back to the front window to look out again. The flakes fell as heavily as ever.
She took her phone out of her pocket and scrolled to the entry for Marcia, the volunteer leader of the Christmas caroling group. Finger over the call button, Gwen hesitated.
Marcia Whitcomb, with her stick-straight chin length silver bob and sense of constant motion, was the mobilizing force of the Piney Grove Retirement Village. Head of more committees and organizer of more groups than Gwen could imagine even joining, Marcia could be a tiny bit intimidating.
She didn’t mean to be, of course. Marcia was just one of those people born with more energy and drive than most. She made things happen. Bullied people into volunteering for tasks she deemed necessary. Energized the tired and prodded the lazy.
Gwen didn’t want Marcia to get the impression that she was lazy. Tired, maybe. Gwen was alarmed sometimes at how tired she was. The cold she’d been so accustomed to as a child took on a sinister new character as a retiree. Many a night she’d gone to bed as soon as the sun went down, even if the northern prairie sunset came before five pm.
Tonight was supposed to be different. It was her first Christmas at the retirement community, and when Marcia asked which groups she was joining, she said the choir.
Now they were supposed to go Christmas caroling from door to door all around Piney Grove. That would be easy enough in the building where the memory care unit was and the more elderly and frail residents who needed full-time care.
But the independent living units opened to the outdoors, facing each other around a commons. In June, when Gwen first arrived, the commons was full of flowers, an idyllic setting for residents to meet at the picnic tables and benches scattered here and there. Now the commons was a solid white, lumpy with snow drifted over the benches and tables.
Singing in the freezing cold would be a challenge, but Gwen hadn’t even imagined it would be snowing like this. She turned away from the window and told herself to get a grip. Marcia would have a plan.
She paced back to the kitchen to drink more hot lemon water and keep her vocal chords clear and limber. The telephone on the kitchen wall rang, its harsh jangle making her start. Had they all once used these old-fashioned things instead of the modern smart phones? They were part of the standard package at Piney Grove, and most residents used them for communication locally, saving the smart phones for grandchildren and the outside world.
The second loud ring brought her across the floor and she picked up the receiver.
“Russo residence, Gwen speaking.” Old training died hard.
“Have you heard from Marcia? I’ve been calling and calling and she’s not answering. I just don’t know where she could be,” a nervous alto voice said. “Oh, this is Patty by the way.”
Patty was also in the choir, and had a nice voice, though untrained, and a tendency to rush ahead a measure if the director didn’t keep an eye on her.
“No, I haven’t.”
“Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to see her at the cafeteria. Can you believe how much it’s snowed? Talk about a white Christmas. Oh someone’s on the other line. Maybe that’s her. I better go now. Bye.”
Patty hung up before Gwen could speak again. The woman reminded her of Phillip’s assistant Blake, a young man who had followed the director around like a puppy, always seeming nervous and eager to impress.
She frowned at the thought of Blake. His job as assistant to the opera company director gave him access to everything. Under his helpful exterior he kept a sharp eye out, secretly gathering every bit of gossip and dirt he could find. And look at how that had turned out.
She heated some more water and pulled out a fresh lemon wedge and a book. She would sip, read, and calm down before it was time to leave. She set the timer on the stove for an hour, so she would have time to bundle up in winter wear and walk down to the meeting hall for vocal warmups before caroling.
The timer beeped almost before she knew it. The well-loved pages of Hercule Poirot had made the hour fly by like a minute.
Gwen crossed to the coat closet by the front door. One thing that Piney Grove didn’t skimp on was spacious coat closets. She took out her long heavy tan wool coat and bright blue cashmere scarf.
The coat, something she would never have needed in San Diego, had been a gift from Phillip’s son. A going away present – or more properly a pointed send-off message – in place of the expected inheritance. They hadn’t married, but he’d always assured her he would take care of her. His will, leaving everything to the grown son he hadn’t seen in more than a decade, was an added shock on top of the shock of his heart attack.
She wound the scarf around her neck, pulled on a matching knitted hat, and dug the fur-lined gloves from her coat pocket. She let her long red hair, threaded with silver and tamed into its habitual braid, fall down the length of her back, under the coat.
Ready at last, she took a deep breath and opened the door. A swirl of snowflakes danced into the entryway before she could close the door behind her. She took out her key to lock the door, and wrinkled her brow at the slick sheet of paper she found on the doorknob. Who would leave a flier advertising a pizza parlor in this weather?
Not wanting to be late, she stuffed the flier in her pocket and left.
At nearly seven o’clock, the sun had been down for hours. But the carpet of snow and the blanket of clouds reflected the sodium orange light of the streetlamps, bouncing it back and forth, giving the world an eerie orange glow. Fat snowflakes floated through the tangerine gloom, lowering visibility even more.
Gwen followed the path to the meeting hall as it wound around the snow-filled commons. The fast-falling snow had already deposited a layer over the path, defying the rock salt the maintenance crew had spread on the cement. At least it kept it from immediately going icy. She shuddered, imagining herself slipping on ice, helpless and alone, slowly being buried in snow.
Reaching the double doors of the meeting hall, Gwen glanced back over her shoulder. Her footsteps were already disappearing under the onslaught of fat snowflakes, turning into shallow dimples in the glittering snow.
Once through the second set of doors, a cackle of voices surrounded her. The smell of coffee competed with the smell of wet wool. The meeting room’s dropped ceiling kept all smells effectively bottled up.
A pile of hats and gloves lay on the long folding table just past the foyer, too near the coffee urn for her taste. An empty creamer cup trailed dribbles of liquid, straining to soak into all the nearby knitwear. She scooped it up and deposited it and some of its brethren into the trash can.
The tidier surface let Gwen relax enough to pour herself a cup of coffee. Black of course. The idea that any member of the choir would drink dairy before singing baffled her. Didn’t anyone else have any training?
She took a sip of coffee – it tasted almost as weak as drinking hot water that had merely looked at coffee grounds – and looked around the room. The dozen members of the choir had assembled into their usual groups.
The three men stood together near the plastic Christmas tree. In San Diego, everyone was so afraid to offend anyone that they wouldn’t have dared put up an actual Christmas tree. But in Minnesota they shrugged off such qualms.
A pair of women with dyed hair and careful makeup stood a few yards from the men, pretending not to study them. In a retirement community, the skew of male to female population was such that if a woman wanted to replace a dead husband with a live one, she couldn’t afford to miss any opportunity.
The foursome nearest Gwen and the coffee urn all had their phones out and were showing off photos of grandchildren. Gwen knew from experience that she was welcome to join them, at the price of oohing and ahhing at their photos. But since she didn’t have grandchildren, there would be no reciprocity. The grannies were not interested in other types of conversation or photos. At least, not with a relative newcomer. Not with Gwen.
She sighed in relief when Patty and Marcia stepped out of the ladies’ room. Patty was in the middle of talking, as she typically was, but Marcia quelled her with a movement of her hand.
Marcia cleared her throat, and the room grew quiet as the choir members turned to their director. Patty sidled across the nubbly gray industrial carpet to stand beside Gwen.
“Thank you all for being here on time. We have a tight schedule this evening. We have agreed to sing one carol outside each individual living apartment, as well as four songs per hallway in the assisted living and memory care buildings, and finally our full lineup in the cafeteria.”
Marcia looked around the room, making sure every eye was on her. “Management agreed to pay the staff for their time if they choose to stay late enough to hear us sing in the cafeteria, but the offer is time limited. So we can’t dawdle our way through the rest of the village if we don’t want to play to an empty room.”
Patty leaned in to Gwen’s shoulder and whispered, “Can you believe Marcia got them to pay overtime so the staff can listen to us sing? I wish I knew how she did it. Why, I can hardly get my son’s dog to sit when I—”
Marcia’s glare made Patty cut off the rest of her story. Gwen privately thought that Patty might be more persuasive if she could bring herself to use the power of silence once in a while, the way Marcia did.
“The lineup will be just as we rehearsed. Carol of the Bells, then Hark the Herald Angels, and so on.” Marcia gave the members of her choir a long look. “Are we ready?”
There was a general muttering and murmuring of assent, punctuated by one of the men’s bass rumble of, “You bet.”
Gwen gulped down the last of her coffee and dabbed at her lips with a napkin, mingling the scents of coffee and lipstick. She threw away her trash and got her scarf, hat, and gloves back on. All around her the rest of the choir rushed to sort out their own hats, scarves, and dripping mittens.
The snow was still falling in a thick stream of fat white flakes when the group finally stepped outside. Gwen wondered if Marcia might call off the outdoor portion of their caroling, but she marched right through the snow and led the choir down the path to the first door.
Marcia rapped on the door and it was quickly opened by a short haired woman in a heavy sweater and corduroys. She stood in the open door, an eager smile on her face. Warm lamplight spilled out around her.
Marcia raised her hands to begin the song, and Gwen’s heart skipped as the old joy of singing welled up inside her. She opened her mouth and let rise the lovely voice she’d been blessed with, and that she’d spent so many years training.
When the song ended, their audience of one clapped her hands like she was trying to get every speck of flour off them after rolling out cookies.
Marcia kept the choir on schedule, moving them on to the next door, ignoring the woman’s call for an encore. Pinpricks of cold burst on Gwen’s face as the snowflakes continued to fall.
They walked two by two, keeping to the path. Marcia and the three men led the group, followed closely by the two women on the prowl. The grannies came next, while Gwen and Patty brought up the rear. Gwen was glad to be last in line, as all those tromping boots ahead of her made the path easier for her stylish caramel brown leather boots with their smooth soles. They kept her feet dry, but lacked the practical rubberized treads of northern style boots.
A smooth flowing cloud of condensation left her mouth as she continued to control her breathing. Over the years of singing, the practice had become second nature. Beside her, Patty’s breaths came out in little puffs with each step.
“I’m so glad Marcia let me join the caroling group,” Patty said. “I sang in church choir as a girl, but I know I don’t have the best voice. It’s so much fun going and singing for everyone, don’t you think?”
Gwen nodded, her mind only partly tracking Patty’s chatter. Her tongue had found a tiny bud of lemon pulp between molars, and prodded at it, releasing tiny bursts of tartness.
The nod was enough to keep Patty going. “It’s one of the more prestigious groups in Piney Grove. Anyone can join the knitting circle or sit in at bingo, but not everyone can be a singer. And people love to hear us. I got so many questions this past week about tonight’s schedule. Nobody would miss it, not even for a special episode of Jeopardy.”
With a low whoosh, a small blue spruce beside the path shed its coat of snow, leaving a ring of snowy lumps around it almost like a frozen circle of toadstools. Gwen shivered a little, glad the lumps of snow had missed the path.
Soon they reached the last unit on this side of the path. A pair of blue spruce in the yard matched the older grove of trees behind the building, giving it the illusion of being a secluded cabin in the woods. When Gwen had seen Carla Amundson, the woman who lived in the end unit, that impression was strengthened. Carla wore her salt and pepper hair in a long tangle, like a witch out of a fairy tale, and favored long tie-dyed broom skirts paired with looping strands of beads. The smell of patchouli clung to the woman, and her low voice bore the husky reminder of years of smoking.
Marcia rapped on the door. She pulled up the puffy red sleeve of her coat to look at her rubberized black digital watch. She rapped again, starting to frown. The choir, waiting to perform, stamped their feet and rubbed their hands together.
Marcia knocked a third time, then shook her head. “You snooze, you lose. Moving on.”
Patty clutched at Gwen’s arm. “This isn’t right. Carla was so excited about tonight. There’s no way she would miss it.”
The rest of the choir was already rounding the turn to bring them to the doors on the other side of the commons. Patty’s eyes darted back and forth between the departing choir and the closed door in front of them.
“Maybe she went to the cafeteria,” Gwen offered, hoping to catch up to the rest of the choir before Marcia noticed their tardiness.
Patty’s lips twitched into a frown. With a last look at the door, she joined Gwen and followed the choir down the path.
The holiday decorating committee, no doubt led by Marcia, had done their best to transform the Piney Grove cafeteria. Artificial pine garland, wound with red and gold ribbon and twinkle lights, looped across the walls about seven feet off the ground, or as high as a person on a single step stool could reach. With the overhead lights off, Gwen had to admit the large, normally impersonal room looked festive.
The round industrial eight-person tables were covered with red tablecloths. Each table had a scattering of paper snowflakes and a candle in the center. Like the garland, the candles were artificial, or electric in their case, as the real thing would be a fire hazard. Consequently, the cafeteria kept its usual smell of lemon cleaner and overcooked peas.
The choir was set up at one end of the room, in front of the food service windows. The windows had their metal shutters pulled down. A green velvet cloth hanging across the wall obscured the shutters and dampened the sound reverberation off the metal. A rectangle of masking tape on the green speckled tile floor marked off the designated stage area.
Marcia had somehow found a real spotlight for the show. The heat of the spotlight on her face brought Gwen back to her days singing in San Diego, where the insular world of local opera fans all knew her name. A bead of sweat formed above her lip and she swiped at the saltiness with her tongue.
The seats were filled with residents and staff. Every eye focused on Gwen as she began her solo. Her pure soprano voice rose into the first verse of “O Holy Night.” On the next verse, the rest of the choir joined in harmony.
By the end of the song, the show’s closer, all the staff were on their feet applauding. Many of the residents pushed themselves out of their seats as well. A wolf whistle from the back of the room brought Gwen back down to earth. She was singing in a cafeteria in a retirement home, not on stage at the opera. It still felt good.
As they filed out of the designated stage area, Patty’s fingers pinched at Gwen’s arm, tugging her sweater.
“I didn’t see her. She’s not here,” Patty hissed in Gwen’s ear. The scent of mentholated cherry cough drops accompanied her harsh whisper.
Gwen ran a hand over her arm, smoothing down the sleeve of her sweater. “Who’s not here?”
“Carla!”
Several people looked up at Patty’s exclamation. When they saw that it was just Patty, most turned back to their conversations.
Gwen wanted to turn away too, wanted to bask in the admiration of the audience. She wanted to go back to her warm cozy living room, drink the single glass of wine she allowed herself in the evenings, and read a chapter of her Hercule Poirot book before bed.
But a glance at Patty’s insistent face told her that she would have no peace until Patty was satisfied. Patty would pluck at her sleeve, call her phone, knock on her door. It was easier to just deal with her now.
“She’s probably asleep in bed, forgot what day it is.” Gwen knew her half-hearted protest would go nowhere.
“We have to check on her. What if she fell?” Patty invoked the horror that drove single seniors to live in places like Piney Grove. To fall, alone, and lie there unheard and unhelped. To end that way. Gwen shuddered.
“Fine. We can go knock on her door again.” Gwen let herself be led to the coats and out the door.
The snow had dwindled to a few sparse flakes here and there, but the temperature had dropped. Biting cold seared every inch of unprotected skin. The night wasn’t fit for man or beast, and Gwen wished once again that she was still in San Diego.
The snow on the ground had crusted over in the chill. Every footstep crunched and crackled. It was slippery, and Gwen hoped those years of martial arts courses Phillip had insisted she take would help her fall well if she had to fall.
She remembered the concern on Phillip’s smooth, handsome face after a series of break-ins in the parking lot of the opera’s rehearsal space had turned into muggings. She could still taste the piquancy of the bite of pecorino romano cheese she’d popped in her mouth a moment before he announced that she would be taking martial arts. She hadn’t needed the martial arts to protect herself from any muggers, and it had done nothing to protect her from Phillip’s own son stealing her expected future. There wasn’t a martial art for that.
Patty held Gwen’s arm as they picked their way back down the path to the far secluded corner of Piney Grove. For once the little woman was quiet, when Gwen wouldn’t have minded a little distracting chatter.
When they reached the door, Patty stepped forward and rapped on it, her rhythm an unconscious imitation of Marcia. She waited a few seconds before knocking again.
An icy wind rushed through the branches of the spruce in the yard, scattering snow and pelting Gwen’s face with stinging ice crystals. The temperature had dropped so low that she couldn’t smell pine any more, just cold.
She stomped her feet, trying to regain sensation. The smooth sole of her boot slid on the slick pavement, sending a shock of fear up her spine. A long-buried instinct made her bend her knees, which saved her from falling.
Patty turned to her with a defeated expression on her round face. “She’s not answering.”
The fear in Gwen’s gut heated into anger, and she pushed forward, brushing past Patty. Gwen banged on the door with the flats of both fists, pounding out a demanding crescendo.
A clanging noise inside made her stop. She leaned in and listened.
“Carla? Are you ok?” she called in her ringing voice.
No reply.
“Carla? Did you fall?”
Still no reply.
“Hang on, we’ll go get help. The manager has a key.”
A muffled voice from inside yelled, “No! I’m fine. Go away.”
A gust of wind howled down the commons and shushed through the spruce trees, forcing clumps of snow out of the branches. Nature’s snowballs hit the ground in a drumbeat accompaniment to the singing wind.
Patty hunched her shoulders and gave Gwen a helpless look. “I guess she didn’t want to hear the choir. We should go.”
She turned to leave but Gwen put a hand on her shoulder. “Something is wrong. I can hear it.”
Snow pelted her face as Patty turned watery blue eyes up to her. “How can you hear anything over this storm?”
“Training. I didn’t spend an entire career training my ear for nothing. We need the manager.”
“Why?”
“That wasn’t Carla.”
All the color drained out of Patty’s face, making her look like an under-baked sugar cookie. “It wasn’t?” she whispered.
Gwen shook her head. “Someone else is in there, and they don’t want us to know. We have to help her.”
“Should we go for the manager?”
“You go, and try to hurry. I’ll keep watch here.”
Patty gave a doubtful look to the snowy common, then nodded her head twice. “Wish me luck.”
As soon as Patty had gone, Gwen crouched down by the front door and felt around on the ground. The pavement was gritty with salt, but she soon found what she was looking for.
The welcome mat was frozen to the cement. Gwen pushed and pulled at it. It didn’t move. She took off a glove so she could use her nails to try to pry up a corner. She managed to tear a fingernail to the quick, but the rug didn’t budge. She stood up and kicked at the rug in frustration.
Her finger throbbed where the nailbed was exposed. She put it in her mouth for a second. The taste of blood only fueled her determination. She put her glove back on.
The wind howled some more, and she thought she heard voices inside Carla’s place. One voice sounded angry. One scared.
Gwen closed her eyes, filled her lungs, and focused on her breath. There had to be something she could do. After a moment she opened her eyes again. Of course. Carla wouldn’t put a spare key under the mat, not when the mat would freeze to the ground all winter. She probably had one of those fake rocks to hide her key inside.
Gwen crouched down again and started feeling around in the dormant flower bed next to the door. She prodded each mound of snow. The first two were a dead plant and a garden gnome, but the third surprised her.
A pile of slick paper rectangles with pictures of pizza and a hole on one end had been dropped in the garden. The blizzard had covered it like it covered everything else in its cold implacable embrace.
She pulled the doorhanger she’d found on her own door out of her pocket. It was the same.
She prodded at another pile of snow and found the fake rock she’d hoped for. A house key, the same brand and style as her own, lay cradled in the little plastic contraption.
Clutching in the key in her hand, Gwen stood. She took a long look over her shoulder, checking the commons for help. No one was there yet.
She drew herself up to her full height and repeated the breathing exercise that had steeled her for her stage entrance on many an opening night. In, hold, count, out. It was now or never.
Gwen slid the key into the lock and slowly turned it. The bolt slid back. She waited for a reaction from inside. Nothing.
It was time for her entrance. She pressed the handle down, swung the door open, and slipped inside. A flurry of snow gusted in behind her like confetti.
The layout of the room was the same as Gwen’s, with the living room in front, flowing into a dining area and kitchen. Gwen would have expected tie-dye and psychedelic décor, but the couch was an ordinary green and brown plaid and the coffee table dark brown with built-in shelves underneath. A faint sweetness in the air, reminiscent of fresh baked brownies, wrestled with the stink of sweat and fear.
Two shocked faces whipped around and stared at her from the dining area. Carla was tied to a chair. A pile of salt and pepper hair was puddled on the floor by her feet. The younger man sitting across from her held a pair of kitchen shears in one hand and a skein of Carla’s hair in the other.
The man looked to be about 50, too old for the acne that nested on his cheeks and forehead. He had dark circles under his eyes, and the lines around his mouth suggested a habitual bitter frown. He wore heavy boots, dark pants with fraying cuffs, and a faded sweatshirt.
Carla had a bright red streak of blood on her ear. The hair on one side of her head had been shorn off in choppy patches. In one spot there was a two-inch tuft of hair while in another the shears had been so close to the scalp they’d nicked the skin. She wore her usual tunic and broom skirt. Her feet were bare, and she clenched and unclenched the toes in a continuous rhythm.
For one long moment, everyone stared at each other. A fresh blast of arctic wind on her back shook Gwen out of her silence.
“Let her go!”
“Chris, it’s over,” Carla said, her low voice the whiskey rumble Gwen remembered.
Chris’s lip curled into a sneer. “Over? Just because some old lady arrived? It’s not over until I say it’s over.”
“Chris, be reasonable.”
Gwen scanned the room, looking for anything she might use to take Chris by surprise, get the shears away from him.
“Reasonable? You stole my inheritance, and I want it back!”
“I didn’t steal anything. Keith was my husband.”
“He was my father! And he left me nothing. All those years, working for him, waiting for him to get out of the way so I could turn the business into something real. And for what?”
“We thought you liked working with your father. And I know he enjoyed working with you. Didn’t you enjoy it?”
“Don’t pretend you know anything about my feelings. You’re not my mother,” Chris snapped.
The only thing in reach was a light green throw pillow with a purple peace sign embroidered on it. Gwen put a hand on it, taking a slow step forward. Chris didn’t seem to notice her movement. She would have to choose her moment. She took another step forward.
Carla tried again to talk sense to her stepson. Instead of calming down, his face reddened and he yanked on her hair and cut another hank off with the shears.
Carla was running out of hair. Gwen worried about what Chris would do when that happened.
He raised the shears again, a furious glint in his eye.
Gwen sprang forward and swatted at the shears with her pillow. The shears clattered to the floor. Chris moved to retrieve them.
Carla kicked out and grabbed the shears with her toes. She yanked them under the chair. Gwen hit him in the face with the pillow.
The distraction worked and he forgot about the shears, turning on Gwen instead. He rushed at her, arms out. She ducked to one side, put a leg out, and used his own momentum to flip him onto the floor.
Momentarily stunned, Chris gaped up at her. Then he growled and rolled over to get up to his feet.
Gwen couldn’t let him have another shot at her. She sat on his back, hard, and yanked one of his arms backward.
He cussed at her and squirmed around trying to throw her off. If she could only remember the exact hold that would keep him down.
Chris bucked, pulling his arm out of her grasp. He was going to get up. Cold panic clawed at her.
She surged forward, trying to get any kind of hold on him at all, but he was too strong. She was in trouble. The self-defense classes hadn’t been enough.
There was nothing for it. Only one other thing she knew how to do.
Gwen sang.
She let out a high C, mere inches from his head. Chris scrambled to cover his ears. Gwen filled her lungs again and sang like it was opening night, a shattering high note that reverberated around the room.
On the floor under her, Chris covered his ears and tried to pull into himself like a turtle into its shell.
When she let off her high note, applause sounded from the open front door. Patty was back. She clapped while the manager and a uniformed police officer rushed into the room to take charge.
Patty, Gwen, and Carla sat around Carla’s kitchen table. Carla had made a pot of watery Minnesota style coffee and insisted they stay and eat a brownie with her. The heater was working overtime to dispel the cold that Gwen had brought in when she left the front door open.
Carla had swept up her shorn hair and dumped it unceremoniously into the kitchen trash can. Gwen wasn’t sure she could have done the same thing, at least not so calmly, if it had been her own long red tresses that were lost.
“I can’t thank you enough,” Carla said again.
“Please, it was nothing.” Gwen took a sip of coffee to hide her face.
“And when you hit that high note? I thought you’d break every glass in the place.” Carla chuckled.
Patty leaned forward, face inquisitive. “Is that really possible? Breaking glass just by singing a high note?”
Gwen shrugged one shoulder. “That’s more of a sideshow trick, not really the kind of thing they encourage at the opera.”
She took another sip of coffee. She hadn’t understood why everyone up north made their coffee so weak. But maybe it was so they could drink it in the evening without worrying about getting to sleep. It was barely more than lightly flavored hot water.
“Do you think he would have killed you?” Patty asked.
Gwen rolled her eyes internally at Patty’s nosy question.
“Honestly, I don’t know. If you would’ve asked me last week, I’d say of course not. But I’ve never seen him so desperate before.”
“So that’s a maybe.”
“I just feel lucky you arrived when you did,” Carla said. “But I have to ask. How did you know to come?”
“Last week you said you wouldn’t miss the caroling for the world,” Patty said. “We were in the cafeteria waiting for them to refill the salad bar. I remembered thinking it was kind of funny, because I never think of hippie types as being religious, but caroling is definitely religious. Or at least it is to me. So many songs about the Savior’s birth.”
“I’m glad you remembered. Most people hardly listen, but you do.”
Gwen blinked. Carla was right. Patty was gossipy because she listened and cared. Maybe she had misjudged the round little woman.
Carla put her hand over Gwen’s, clasping it warmly. “I’m so lucky to have friends like you. I really can’t thank you enough.”
Gwen looked in her eyes. Carla had lost half her hair and been threatened by her own stepson, but was overflowing with gratitude. Maybe the old hippie was on to something.
Gwen smiled at her and clasped her hand, then took Patty’s hand as well. “I feel like the real lucky one tonight.”
“Me too,” Patty said. “Now who wants to sing some carols?”