They kissed first by the jukebox, which Jack plugged in long enough to play one Motown side that made the paper turkeys tremble in time. The kiss was warm and careful and tasted faintly of coffee and Mae's pumpkin pie and the copper penny thrill of choosing. Claire's glossy peachy-nude lips left no mark she cared about; Jack's stubble scratched softly; the loose strand of his hair tickled her forehead until she laughed into his mouth. Mae, who was supposed to be asleep, dropped a pan in the kitchen by what she later called "an accident related to gravity and grandchildren" and shouted, "If you're going to romance on my linoleum, don't knock over my napkin holder! That napkin holder was Walter's!"
They did not knock over the napkin holder. They did check on Mae, who pretended to be furious and then gave Claire a look that said approval was a spice she rationed and Claire had earned a pinch.
On Sunday evening Claire called Albany from the restored phone line, standing in the office where Jack's cot still held the dent of storm-sleep. Her mother sniffed, scolded, asked about Peter in a voice like a filed nail, and finally, after a long pause filled with static and unspoken ledgers, asked if Claire had been warm enough. Claire looked through the office doorway at Jack wiping the chrome counter in slow circles, at Mae humming over soup stock that would become Monday's special, at the paper turkeys still taped to the pass-through with determined tape, and said yes. She said she had been more than warm. She said she might not come home for Christmas, and that this was not a punishment aimed at anyone—it was a beginning aimed at herself. Her mother did not understand. Claire decided understanding could take the long road through the mountains, same as she had.
She left for Montreal on Monday under a sky scrubbed clean and painfully blue, the kind of blue that made snow look boastful. Jack stood in the lot with his apron on and his breath clouding in gentle ghosts. Mae stood beside him with a tin of leftover pie and a jar of gravy Claire had been instructed to taste "with an educated tongue this time" and report back on by postcard, properly stamped.