The mood was somber as they packed up the cars the next morning, keenly aware of the fact that they had made no plans.

Bebe found Jude gazing out the sunroom windows at the horizon and the ocean below, and came to stand beside her.

“When we get back, I’m making arrangements for a cremation. When the time comes, I want you all to scatter my ashes.”

Bebe watched a gull dive out of sight below and rise again. “If that’s what you want. Any preference where?”

“San Francisco Bay. It just seems like a natural thing to do.”

Bebe felt sadness at the thought of Jude’s death. What must it feel like to be at the end of one’s life, and be confronted with so many mistakes and bad choices? Would they overshadow the good? Would Jude remember the single moms for whom she helped to find housing or jobs, or to escape from domestic violence, or would she dwell on her past mistakes?

“We’re all packed,” Toni called from the kitchen. “I left a nice tip on the counter for the cleaning service people.”

They loaded up the cars and headed out, locking the gate behind them. Before they left town, Bebe pulled over for gas and they waved as Mare and Jude passed them by.

Once on the freeway, Bebe found a radio station to fill the quiet. Toni sat in the front passenger seat, and Bebe resisted the urge to glance back at Rain in the passenger seat behind her. They dropped Toni off at her house and continued on in silence.

Bebe and Rain stopped in Stockton for lunch and got home in the early afternoon. She didn’t ask about Jude or comment on anything that took place over the weekend. Bebe hated to leave her alone at her house without giving her a chance to debrief.

When she got home, Bebe called Neil at the clinic and told him she’d gotten back safely. He asked how the weekend went, and she said it went about as expected.

Neil was late getting home again. They had advertised for another large animal veterinarian to share the load but the field wasn’t quite as lucrative as it was for small animal vets, and they’d had no response.

They caught up over Chinese takeout that evening, and Neil’s only comment was that he was glad he hadn’t been invited. He told her that he’d been able to meet with Hayden for coffee while they were gone, and he agreed that Hayden’s reasons for leaving were complicated. His decision to move out hadn’t been an easy one, and Neil felt it would take divine intervention to change Hayden’s mind. One ray of hope, however, was that Hayden mentioned that he’d started occasionally attending his brother’s church.

He also said that he’d spoken to Scott about the graduation on Friday.

“We’ll just fly down and back the same day. Apparently the ceremony is not quite the production as the first one. I don’t know if he’ll be able to catch the same flight back with us or not.”

“Did he have anything else to say?” she asked.

“He’s ready to come home. It doesn’t seem like the Christmas season to him.”

“He didn’t mention the clipping?”

“Nope. Honey, I wouldn’t worry about it.”

Bebe unpacked and climbed into bed with a book to unwind, but found it impossible to focus on the story. The weekend had been mentally and emotionally exhausting, and portions of it played over and over in her mind, refusing to let her go.

The worst of it had been in finding that Rain had had an abortion because of her example. Bebe’s silence had done that. All those years she’d prided herself on being a better mother to Rain than Jude had been, but that lie, that omission, that untruth had caused Rain to make a choice that led to guilt and pain. Bebe had ultimately failed her.

In some ways, the weekend had been doomed from the start. At the best of times, the dynamics between the roommates had been unpredictable—a tangle of personalities and problems, expectations and disappointments—with Jude at the core.

Bebe wondered if Jude was truly unaware of the stress she’d caused Bebe and Neil over the years as they walked a tightrope strung across Rain’s childhood and adolescence, trying to plant themselves firmly in Rain’s life while avoiding anything that would offend Jude and cause her to deny them contact. It was tricky, sometimes boggy ground to cross, and Bebe sensed that Jude enjoyed watching them try to navigate it. Bebe felt that, to a lesser degree, the same went for Mare and Toni. If it hadn’t been for Rain, they all might have given up contact with Jude years before.

When Bebe reflected on the weekend, she wondered if Jude had been fully aware of the potential for turmoil and had set herself up. Perhaps she wanted to feel something—anything—at the end of her life.

The things Jude had said about Bobby, were they true? Bebe couldn’t deny that she had depended on him growing up, even deferred to him at times. And then, suddenly, he wasn’t there anymore. Did she move away, or did he?

On impulse, Rain pulled back the covers and went to the jewelry box on her dresser. She dug around amid her earrings and bracelets until she found her silver chain with the cross that Neil had given to her when Scotty was born. She dug further beneath her grandmother’s pearl necklace and found the small ring with the amethyst stone. It caught the light and splintered into shades of purple. Sometimes it was the color of table grapes—sometimes the color of the sun through a bottle of merlot.

She had removed it from her finger on the day that her brother Rudy called to tell her that Bobby had come home to the Oakland Terminal to a crowd of bloodthirsty protestors and that he didn’t want to see her. But she was his sister, and Rudy thought she deserved to know that Bobby had gotten home safely, and was being discharged from the army.

She unfastened the clasp on the necklace and threaded the chain through the ring. Then she slipped the chain over her head and tucked the cross and ring into the front of her nightgown. She crawled into bed and fell into an exhausted sleep.

Dylan had to work over the weekend, and would drive home for Christmas break on Monday. She had time to throw together some of their favorite Christmas goodies before then.

On Friday, she and Neil flew down early to San Diego and rented a car to drive to Camp Pendleton. She was torn between wanting to see Scotty so badly, and fearing that he might act differently toward her. The ceremony was inspiring, but more abbreviated than the one in October with fewer attendees, and they were only able to speak briefly with him before he had to rejoin his platoon. He looked so handsome in his service bravos. He hugged her tightly and on the surface seemed to be his old self, except that he hesitated to meet her eyes. He said his flight wasn’t leaving until early evening and would get in about ten o’clock. They took down his flight information and said they would meet him in Sacramento.

They flew home, did some Christmas shopping, and had dinner before going back to the airport to wait for his flight. He arrived hungry, so they picked up his gear and ran through a fast-food restaurant on the way home.

He said the house and the Christmas tree looked great, and dropped off his bag in his room. He came out to the living room and slouched in the recliner as though he’d only been gone for an afternoon, slipping off his shoes and grabbing the remote. Bebe felt like she was walking on eggshells, but she decided to give him some time to come around on his own.

They went to church together on Sunday. Bebe was hoping that Rain would go along, but she declined. Bebe invited her to come with them to her parents’ house as usual for Christmas dinner, but Rain surprised her by saying that William had invited her over for dinner, and she thought she should go.

“Does he know how the weekend went?” Bebe asked her.

“As much as Mom would tell him. He wants me to fill him in sometime.”

“Have you spoken to her yet?”

“No, and I have no doubt that it will be awkward.” She hesitated. “I don’t think he knows about the house, either. She’s probably leaving it up to me to tell him.”

The sadness and hurt in Rain’s voice was palpable. “Are you doing okay?” Bebe asked.

“It’s the holidays and Hayden’s gone and I’m not pregnant and my mother is dying. I don’t think I’m okay.”

Bebe felt stung, and realized how insensitive her question had been. “I’m sorry, Rain. I just don’t know what else to say, except that I love you and I want you to be happy again.”

She was silent for a moment. “I’m sorry. None of it’s your fault.”

Bebe was about to say good-bye, when Rain asked, “Did I tell you I was offered a job promotion?”

“That’s good news,” Bebe said.

“It was offered to me because I’m passive-aggressive, but in a good way. They want me to bully people to do what they want, because I’m good at it.”

“That’s not true, Rain. Surely they didn’t mean it that way.”

“That’s my paraphrase, but that was the feeling I got.”

“Are you going to take it?”

“I don’t know yet. It involves longer hours and travel twice a month. That doesn’t exactly work in with my plans—if my plans even have a chance.” She cleared her throat and rushed ahead. “I have to go. I promised Lisa I’d go Christmas shopping with her. She thinks I need some cheering up.”

“How much does she know?”

“She knows Hayden’s gone, and she knows about Mom. That’s all.”

They both signed off and Bebe went back to her holiday preparations. She couldn’t shake off the feeling of disappointment about the past weekend, and the fact that it was a failure, as far as Jude was concerned. She called Toni and expressed her concerns.

“I think we did what she asked,” Toni said, raising her voice to be heard over background noise. “We tried to agree on something, but it just didn’t work.”

“I wish we could leave it at that, Toni, but you know we can’t. For Rain’s sake. And the truth is that I don’t want Jude to leave this world feeling unloved and unappreciated.”

The noise level on Toni’s end droned on, but she didn’t respond.

“Where are you?” Bebe shouted.

“Tahoe. Right now, I’m in the lounge waiting for Lawrence. I promised to let him play in the casino for a while after we shopped.”

“So, what can we do?”

“I’m really drawing a blank, Bebe, but maybe something will come to me.”

Bebe frowned. “Call me after Christmas. I don’t think we have much time left.”

Next she called Mare, who was taking care of her grandchildren.

“I know, the weekend was a total fiasco,” Mare said. “Jude was a bear on the way back.”

“I felt bad that you got stuck taking her home. But I didn’t feel like the weekend was a total waste.”

Bebe could hear the smile in Mare’s voice. “No, it was fun. At least the parts when Jude stayed in her room.”

“We have to do something, and I feel like time is running out. Will you promise to think about it?”

“Sure. I’ll call you after Christmas when Autumn’s kids have a week with their dad.”

Bebe prayed about what to do for Jude, but her own problems kept interfering. She ruminated on them when she wrapped gifts, and when she shopped for her Christmas dinner contributions, and when she wrote Christmas cards.

She resolved to let it go until after the holidays, and they all sat down one night to watch a Christmas movie together. In the middle of the movie, she heard a beep, and Scott checked his cell phone.

“Who is it?” Dylan asked.

“Uncle Bobby. He’s coming Thursday.” He texted back. “He’s bringing Angie.”

“From San Diego?” Dylan asked, with his mouth full of popcorn.

“Yeah,” Scotty answered, slipping his phone back into his pocket.

She stole glances at Scotty during the movie. He looked so grown up with his face etched and his hair in its military high and tight buzz. She yearned to know what his response was to her letter, but loathed ruining Christmas if his answer was not what she wanted to hear. Now, she had the additional worry about Bobby showing up at her mom’s on Christmas Day.

She had taken the week off from the clinic to bake and shop and relax, which was impossible, and before she knew it, Christmas Eve had arrived. She had tried to meet Rain for coffee, but she begged off, which wasn’t like her. She left a message for her to come over on Christmas Eve, but got no response. Bebe wondered if Rain had done some thinking about the weekend and was disappointed in them all.

On Christmas morning, they finally had to force the boys out of bed at nine to open gifts and get going for the day. What a change from the 4:00 a.m. wake-up calls the boys used to give them when they were little, Bebe thought.

Neil read the nativity story from the Bible and they opened their gifts. It was a pleasant morning, and it seemed almost normal to Bebe. They got ready and packed up the dessert and squash casserole she’d made, and headed out.

Her parents’ house smelled like turkey and buzzed with activity and people. After hugging her mom, she headed to the kitchen where Karen peeled potatoes at the sink.

“It’s about time you showed up,” she said, giving Bebe an affectionate hug without touching her with her wet hands. “The work’s almost done.”

“We had trouble getting the boys up.”

“Tell me about it,” she said. “We almost left without Brandon and Eric.”

Her mother bustled in and adjusted the temperature on the oven. To Bebe, she said, “Help me get the turkey out of the oven.”

Bebe grabbed a pot holder and together they lifted the huge turkey onto hot pads placed on the countertop. It looked perfectly browned and relaxed, with its legs and wings slack like it had been given an epidural. Overcooked, as usual. Steam curled from the dressing-filled cavity.

“We’ll let it sit for a while, and then you can make the gravy. Put in that pan of rolls behind you.”

Bebe slid the rolls into the oven and set the timer for twenty-five minutes, and then followed her mother into the dining room to help her set the table. She was setting out her best set of china with the fading platinum ring around the edge and her grandmother’s crystal goblets, which usually only went to the adults. Bebe wondered what she would do now that all of the cousins were grown and there weren’t enough to go around. Bebe followed her around the table, setting out the silver and the napkins on either side of the plates. After setting out the last plate, her mother came along behind her, straightening each utensil and napkin that Bebe laid out. Bebe felt a bit irritated, until she realized that this was her mother’s tangible way of showing love to her family. She was never happier than when she was in charge of the kitchen cooking her best dishes or making an occasion special for them all.

“Get out those candlesticks, the ones on the top shelf,” she directed Bebe. “The candles are in the top drawer.”

The crystal candlesticks had also been handed down from her grandmother, and the German crystal was probably worth more than her mother realized. Her mother set them in the center, positioned the candles in firmly, and stepped back to admire them.

“Those serving dishes on the second shelf are for the potato salad and the beans,” she told her. Bebe took them from the hutch and followed her back into the kitchen. “I need you girls to chop onions and cook up some bacon for the potato salad.”

Bebe was grateful to be among family and to keep her mind off of her problems, but every time the door opened, she glanced up to see if it was Bobby. At last, she heard the front door open and someone greeted him and his guest. Bebe felt her pulse skip. She hoped that his friend would keep him occupied for the day.

She heard them making their way through the house and her chest tightened. She tried to be nonchalant, but knew that her smile looked forced when he introduced Angie to them. Angie seemed like a nice woman and greeted everyone with a smile, but Bebe wondered how much she knew.

The dinner was finally on the table and eaten too quickly to do justice to the amount of time and preparation that had gone into preparing it. The food in Bebe’s stomach turned leaden from the anxiety she felt, with Scotty beside her talking to Bobby directly across from her. They sat around talking for only a few moments before her mother started gathering dirty plates. Karen looked resignedly at Bebe, and they got up to help. Bebe heard the conversation veer toward Scott’s recent graduation, and she was glad to be busy in the kitchen again.

The day turned out to be beautifully sunny and a warm 65 degrees, and the family drifted outside after dinner. Bebe washed dishes while Karen dried, and half-listened to her talk about their recent cruise to Ensenada. She had so much on her mind, but the most pressing problem was her relationship with Bobby and Scott.

Watching Bobby head back through the vineyard with Angie, she realized that Jude had been right about one thing. She had looked up to Bobby as her protector during her childhood. After all, it was what her father expected of him in his position as the oldest son in the family, and he’d taken it seriously. There was nothing so wrong with that. The world was a dangerous place, and the vineyard was expansive and alluring to a young child. A memory tickled in the back of her mind, an uncomfortable one that pricked, and she pushed it aside without considering.

“Some of the vines still have their leaves,” she said, pulling aside the curtain.

“We haven’t had a hard frost yet, like we usually do,” her mother answered from the dining room where she replaced her china in the hutch. “It’s been this way for the last few years.”

The back door opened and Angie came into the kitchen, offering to help. Bebe’s mom tried to get her to sit and visit while they worked, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She grabbed a dish towel and helped Karen with the turkey roaster. Karen turned to Bebe and gave her a secret thumbs-up.

Angie seemed to be a likeable, ordinary person, but Bebe kept her remarks vague when the conversation drifted to her boys. Her mom asked about Jude and Rain, and she said very little about their situations. Bebe didn’t like to seem evasive, but it was necessary.

When the last pot was washed and the counters wiped down, Bebe went outside to greet Max and Bandit. They followed her as she walked out into the vineyard, and then raced ahead to investigate some movement in the grass. Clover grew mingled with the ankle-high grass between the rows of spent vines, and the younger vines still grasped yellowed leaves. The pruning would begin after the holidays, when the workers returned from Mexico. Then the clover would be disked under to replenish the soil with nutrients, and the growth cycle would begin again. The vines would unfold into a chaos of leaves and tendrils and grapes, creating a place in which Bebe had always loved to spend time, even though her father had cautioned her about the dangers.

She heard voices and laughter coming from the house and looked back. Scott had overthrown a football and Dylan jogged toward it. His cousins were giving him a hard time about losing his touch while he was away.

She had an odd feeling of déjà vu. She tried again to shake it off, but that niggling memory forced its way to the front, and she could almost feel the heat rising from lush vines and hear insects buzzing around her as they would on a hot August day of her childhood.

Once again, she was eight years old and playing at the edge of the vineyard within earshot of the house in case her mother called her. It was a sultry, slow-moving kind of day that allowed for hours of freedom and make-believe. She had taken a spoon from the wooden box lined with dark purple felt in her mother’s hutch and used it to dig her riverbed deep. Her village grew on either side of the riverbank. When she was finished, she would fill it with a pail of water from the garden hose.

The silence was broken by Bobby shouting her name. She didn’t want her mother to know she had taken the spoon, so she ignored him, but his voice pitched, growing breathy and frantic. She stood up, and as she did, a movement nearby startled her, and she jumped. A man stood not far down the row from her, looking disheveled with a scruffy blond beard and dirty clothes and hands, and a look in his eyes that made her squirm. For a moment, she stood transfixed, unable to move. She heard Bobby shout for her to run. The man took his eyes from her to glance briefly at Bobby. Bobby shouted again, and the man took a step toward her. She spun on her heels and darted, clutching the spoon and scattering the small houses she had built with sticks in the black soil at her feet. She barreled down the straight row without stopping until she ran full bore into Bobby. He grabbed her by the hand and half-dragged her back to the house with their legs pumping and aching, Bobby pulling her up when she stumbled and stealing anxious glances over his shoulder.

They burst into the house and collapsed. Bobby clutched her until her mother came and pried her out of his arms, demanding to know what was wrong. Bebe saw him turn away and wipe his eyes. She’d never seen him cry before. And although she didn’t completely understand the danger at the time, she knew how the man had made her feel, and the fear it had struck in her family. And she felt beyond a doubt the depth of Bobby’s love for her. She realized now that the anger her father displayed when he found out wasn’t directed at her as she’d thought at the time, but was simply his reaction to fear. Somehow, her guilt over taking the spoon had blended into accepting a childish responsibility for the turmoil and the unspoken implications of the man’s intentions.

Bebe gazed back toward the house at the boys tossing the football. Bobby had joined them, and the sun was beginning to dull and fade in the mauve horizon. The temperature dipped and the air grew chilly, just as it had always been out on the periphery of her family where she had lived most of her life.

She felt acutely her need for reconciliation—to prune the regret from her life, and to disk the undergrowth of guilt into the nourishing soil of forgiveness. Did she truly believe that God could heal her broken heart and that He wanted to dress her wounds? She’d held this healing at arm’s length for too long, knowing she was forgiven, but refusing to allow Him access to her pain. It would feel so nice to let it go.

She slipped into the house to grab a jacket and came back out to where they were playing. Bobby noticed her standing on the sidelines, and surprisingly, gave her a small nod. After a few more passes, he excused himself from the game and came over to her. They stood looking directly at each other for the first time in years.