“Well, whatever you call it, it’s still rooms over a store,” Theo said. “And it’s handy for me because it’s close to the courthouse.” He gave Zack a conspiratorial wink. “You know how important that is.”
“I do,” Zack said. “Have a pleasant evening.” He opened the door and wheeled out into the wild weather.
With Noah’s help we made it to our car, but the weather was growing increasingly ugly. It is a truth universally acknowledged that the first snowfall means that everybody in town forgets how to drive. When the first snowfall is a blizzard, the potential for skids, fishtails, and rear-end collisions rises exponentially. Our trip to the school was a white-knuckler. Zack was driving. Steering the car through the drifts on Leopold Crescent demanded strength and attention, and we didn’t exchange a word until we hit Albert Street. City crews were on the job there; Zack’s shoulders relaxed and he shot me a quick glance. “Wouldn’t want to do that every day,” he said.
I reached over and rubbed the back of his neck. “Better?”
“Thanks. What do you think is going on with Theo Brokaw?”
“Whatever it is,” I said, “it explains his sudden retirement from the bench.”
“He’s not exactly
“Yet the e-mail exchanges we had were perfectly lucid,” I said. “Myra must take care of their correspondence.”
“Promise me something,” Zack said.
“What?”
“If I ever get like Theo, tip me into the nearest snowbank.”
By the time we pulled up in front of the school, we were late. Gracie and Taylor were sanguine but Isobel, whose standards for herself were high, bolted from our vehicle before Zack had come to a full stop.
The parking lots at Luther were chaos. Everybody was in a hurry, but nobody was getting anywhere. Seemingly every parking space but the one with the handicapped sign was taken. We had a disabled persons’ ID parking card, but unless a client’s needs were urgent, Zack never used it. My husband and I glanced at the seductive space and then at one another. Handbells were waiting to be rung. I rummaged through the glove compartment, found the card, and propped it on the dashboard. Desperate times called for desperate measures.
Gracie and Taylor dashed through the snow towards the gym, and Zack and I followed behind. It was tough sledding, but we made it. As we stood inside, brushing off the snow and checking out seating possibilities, a good- looking boy with blond dreadlocks and a tentative smile approached us. His manner was breezily confident, but his voice was uncertain. “Hey Zack. How’s it going?”
“No complaints,” Zack said. He gestured towards me. “This is my wife, Joanne. Jo, this is Declan Hunter.”
The boy extended his hand. “I recognized you from the picture in Zack’s office. Nice to meet you, Ms. Shreve.” His eyes darted past us towards the door. “You didn’t happen to see my mother in the parking lot, did you? She might need some help getting in.”
Zack’s voice was gentle. “She decided to come tomorrow, Declan. I guess she didn’t have a chance to let you know.”
Declan’s face tightened. “The big news would have been if she showed up.”
Zack wheeled his chair closer. “Your mother really did want to come today.”
“Right.” Declan gave us a small wave and turned away. “See you,” he said and started towards the crowd.
“Wait.” Zack didn’t have to raise his voice to get a response. Declan pivoted and took a step towards my husband. “If you’ve got some free time during the holidays, how about an evening at the Broken Rack,” Zack said. “When we went there on your birthday, I thought you showed definite promise.”
This time, Declan’s smile was open. “I beat you,” he said.
“I had an off night,” Zack said. “So are you in?”
“I’m in,” Declan said.
“Good, I’ll call you and we’ll set up a time.”
“Cool.”
I watched Declan sprint down the hall towards the gym. “You will call him, won’t you?” I said.
“You know me – can’t stand to lose, and this time the evening will be on our dime.”
“The last time wasn’t?”
“Nope. The last time was strictly business. It was Declan’s sixteenth birthday and his father, whom you have no doubt deduced is Leland Hunter, decided his son needed a man-to-man talk.”
“Doesn’t a father usually do that himself?”
“It wasn’t that kind of talk. Leland thought Declan needed a clearer understanding of the Youth Criminal Justice Act. So we shot some pool. I told Declan that while Section 3 says the Act is to be liberally construed, it doesn’t mean sixteen-year-olds get a free pass, and I sent his father the bill. Hell of a note for a kid’s birthday, eh?”
“It is a hell of a note,” I agreed. “So did Declan need reminding?”
“He did,” Zack said. “Jo, you know the drill about confidentiality. That’s all I can say about that.”
Every effort had been made to transform the gym for the carol service. The shining wooden floor on which so many heart-stopping basketball championships had been played was safe under protective floor covers; giant sparkly snow-flakes were suspended from the rafters by lengths of fishing line that would, in theory, cease to be discernible when the lights were extinguished; artificial trees twinkled in every available space, and silvery garlands were looped and duct-taped along the sides of the bleachers.
My husband took in the decor. “You can’t say they didn’t try,” he said, and began wheeling towards what quickly became the last spot in the room to be occupied.
“Shit,” he said.
The expletive conjured up a student usher. “We have special seating at the front,” he said. “Just follow me.”
As he always did when he was singled out because of his paraplegia, Zack bristled. I touched his shoulder. “This place is already packed. We can stay here and stare at the back of people’s heads, and I can stand for the whole concert, or you can swallow your pride and we’ll have the best seats in the house.” Zack gave me a sharp look but he wheeled off after the young man.
We had just reached our places when the lights dimmed and the processional began. As the student orchestra played the familiar opening of “Adeste Fideles,” the audience rose and the choirs entered, wearing academic gowns with satin yokes in the school colours, black and gold. The choirs sang in Latin, and their young voices stirred memories of my own school days. The service of lessons and carols was a familiar one to me, but Luther College had a large number of international students and so the selections from the Gospels were read in the first languages of students from Germany, Poland, China, France, Japan, Nigeria, and Korea, and the carols sung were those that had been sung for generations by celebrators of Christmas in those countries. When the bell-ringers moved into place on stage, Zack took my hand.
Gracie rang with ebullient loose-limbed grace; Taylor was surprisingly focused; but Isobel, her mother’s daughter, shook her bell with furrowed brow and tight lips, bent on a perfect performance. As they finished, Zack whipped out his camera and snapped three forbidden photographs before I batted down his arm.
“Against the rules,” I said.
“I’ve only been a father for two years. I have to make up for lost time.” He snapped a couple more pictures, then returned the camera to his pocket.
The service ended. Students began moving down the aisle with baskets of candles, which they asked the person at the end of each row to distribute. The students then lit the candles of the people with aisle seats and invited them to light the candle of the person next to them. Faces softened by candlelight, the audience joined the choirs in the recessional “Joy to the World.” It was a transcendent moment but, as Robert Frost knew, nothing golden can stay. The last line of the carol was sung; the candles were extinguished; the gym lights were flicked back on, and we were, once again, fragmented into our separate selves.
Despite the blizzard, no one seemed in a rush to leave. The adults were chatting; students were clinging to one another with the desperation of those who knew it might be five minutes before they could start texting again. Finally, I spotted Isobel, Taylor, and Gracie. They’d changed back into their street clothes and were standing near an exit, laughing and surrounded by friends. I pointed them out to Zack. “Now there’s the picture I want.”
“Let me get a little closer,” he said. He pushed his wheelchair forward and began snapping. He was just in time to capture a disturbing tableau. The woman we’d seen that afternoon on the Wainbergs’ front path approached the girls. She had the baby seat with her; she appeared to say something to Isobel, then she handed her the baby seat
