Matt was astonished to be in the Kitchells’ house—this house with so much room, and so little heart—for the second real Christmas of his life.
Mr. and Mrs. Kitchell were excellent hosts, and the food was wonderful and the rooms beautiful. But for Matt, Mr. Kitchell would always be a man who had torn a Christmas wish twice.
Matt stood high on the stairs, safe from the gathering guests, and the lighthearted chatter, and the flashes of cameras, and watched the rest have a party.
The Rowens wandered, awestruck by the Christmas trees. Tall and thin for the upstairs hall was a tree done only in lace and silver. Short and plump for the tabletop in the dining room was a tree covered with stars in gold and silver; on the cold and glittery glassed-in porch stood a real tree, roots wrapped in burlap, branches delicately twined with the smallest twinkling lights Matt had ever seen. And in the living room stood an immense tree, so covered with balls and swags and ornaments that its beautiful branches hardly showed. Mr. and Mrs. Rowen held their cups of punch uncomfortably, wondering when the evening would end.
On a soft crimson sofa sat the new family: Katie; her father, Daniel; her mother, Allison; and her aunt, Liz, squished together, cuddling.
Matt had gone with them to the pageant in the church next door, and they were a whole pew of beginners, new to the pageant thing. Katie loved the parade of kings and shepherds and sheep. She liked sitting on the pew between her parents, and she liked getting tired of sitting between them, and sitting on her father’s lap instead. Katie had come to the other side of hope: she didn’t need hope; she possessed her family.
Last year, the pageant had not taken place on a stage. There were no costumes. There was no music. But the roles were filled. Liz and Tack and Matt had been swept by the calendar as once three kings were swept by the stars toward Bethlehem. And Katie on the hillside had waited for angels, and Allison had gone to the town of her birth.
And I, thought Matt, who was I? Was I a shepherd? A wise man?
The Rowens, more than ready to leave, were waving to him. He nodded silently and headed down the stairs; stairs that were a work of Christmas art, twined with holly.
Christmas was only a chance: you could take the chance, or you could ignore it. You could offer your heart, or just deck the halls with boughs of holly.
Katie scrambled off the couch and ran to hug Matt good-bye. She was wearing a green velvet dress, with a hundred tiny buttons down the front, like a child from another century, and her hair had been curled and caught back with a shimmering ribbon.
The eyes of her family followed her.
She twirled joyfully, showing off. “Merry Christmas, Matt.”
It wasn’t the dress she wanted him to admire, but her place in a family who adored her.
“You look beautiful,” he said.
She lifted her arms to be held. “I heard you were a star at the math meet.”
A star.
Not a shepherd, not a wise man, but a star.
He laughed suddenly, and swept Katie up, and swung her in the air, and the weight of her was perfect. He had never done anything quite so wonderful as lift up somebody he loved.
“Merry Christmas, Katie,” he said, and the words caught in his throat, and he had to say them a second time.
Merry Christmas.