“No.”
“How come?”
“Because it’s our Christmas. Just us.”
Cody accepted that with a shrug that meant he did not accept it so much as file it. “Uncle Ben said Dad’s going to love the PlayStation when he sees it.”
Laura’s hand stopped on the counter. “Uncle Ben shouldn’t have said that.”
“How come?”
“Because Dad’s been busy. We’ll handle it.”
Handle it. The phrase had done a lot of work in that house. It had handled the printer and the gutter and the quiet hours and the second coffee cup. It would not handle a nine-year-old with a new box in his lap and a memory of an old box in his room. Laura knew that by Friday. Knowing on Friday and changing Christmas by Sunday are different muscles. She exercised the first. She let the second sleep.
On Christmas Eve after Cody was in bed, after the hallway lean, Tom went back to the living room and plugged in the tree and stood there like a man inspecting a job. The multicolor lights made his tired face look briefly unfinished, then warm. Laura watched from the kitchen doorway.
“You good?” he asked without turning.