Chapter 24: Christmas Eve, Again

The final decree came by courier at three-thirty on Christmas Eve, in a flat cardboard envelope with a tab on every page.

"Sign where the little yellow flags are," Zelda's cousin said on speaker. "Date it. Don't cry on the paper, they won't take it."

"I'm not going to cry."

"You're a first grade teacher. You cry at the class hamster."

"That was a very good hamster."

Zelda sat on the other side of the kitchen table, eating a cookie off Maddy's party plate.

It was Maddy's first birthday, and the whole yellow kitchen was full of paper streamers.

Doran stood at the counter in an apron, cutting a cake with a tiny number one on top.

His sister was in the living room, teaching Maddy to clap.

Outside, a cold rain tapped on the window, and the brick street was dark and shining.

I wore the good coat.

I'd bought it in January, a long camel one, with the first check my father's trust had ever sent me that I'd spent on myself.

It had been hanging by the door all day, because I kept putting it on and taking it off.

I sat down and picked up the pen.

"Where's Dean?" Zelda said, with her mouth full.

"In a studio apartment in Dublin, painting other people's fences."

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