Chapter 23: Christmas in Liberty

Quentin looked at his phone.

"Now?"

"He's at the hotel. Twentieth floor. He's probably ordering the pastor a third cheeseburger."

Quentin dialed.

He put it on speaker and set it on the kitchen island between us.

Gage picked up on the fourth ring with his mouth full.

"Yeah?"

"Gage. It's Quentin Talcott."

A long pause. Chewing.

"Okay."

"I'd like to ask you something." Quentin swallowed. "Could I come to Liberty for Christmas?"

The pause was longer this time.

The movers went by with a box marked Shoes.

"Can you peel a potato?" Gage said.

Quentin looked at me.

"I've never tried."

"You will," Gage said, and hung up.

Quentin stood there holding the phone.

"Was that a yes?"

"That was a yes," I said.

He drove down on the twenty-third, by himself, in the gray rental sedan again.

He had two suitcases and a garment bag.

Gage looked at the garment bag on the porch and said, "Who died?"

Quentin left it in the car.

Simon came on the twenty-fourth, in the green Volvo, with a toolbox in the back.

"You drove eleven hours," I said.

"Twelve. There was a tractor."

"There's always a tractor."

He kissed me on the porch in front of God and the whole of Pine Street, and the deacon's wife waved from her mailbox.

The porch light had been broken since the summer Mama died.

Gage had meant to fix it for nine years.

Simon looked at it, went back to the Volvo for his toolbox, and had it on in twenty minutes.

Gage stood in the yard with his arms crossed and watched the light come on.

"Show-off," he said.

"I wired a thirty-four-story hotel."

"Yeah, well. Can you play spades?"

"No."

Gage's whole face lit up.

On Christmas morning the house smelled like coffee and cinnamon rolls from a can.

That was what Mama made, and nobody was allowed to change it.

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