Page 67 of Carry on Wayward Son

“Where does the disco ball go?” I asked.

“Wherever it wants,” Willa said. “That’s the whole point.”

Jace, up a ladder adjusting the lights on the upper third of the tree, looked down at the disco ball and then at his sister with an expression of complete affection. “Granddaddy is laughing from his grave.”

“Good,” Willa said cheerfully. “Hand me the pickle.”

Roy had positioned himself directly in front of the fireplace with the absolute commitment of a dog who had assessed the situation and determined his participation was not required. Koa had stationed himself three feet from the ornament boxes and was monitoring proceedings with focused attention, clearly unconvinced that a sequined lobster was structurally sound.

“It’s not going to fall over,” I told my dog.

Koa gave me a look that communicated he would be the judge of that.

I unwrapped an ornament and found a small sand dollar painted gold, a date written on the back in faded permanent marker. I turned it over in my hands. “What’s this one?”

Willa glanced over. “Oh, that one I found at a yard sale the first summer I was back on island. I liked it.” She shrugged. “Not everything has to mean something. Some things are just pretty or fun.”

I liked that answer. I hung it on a branch near the middle of the tree where it caught the light and turned slowly.

Sawyer appeared from the kitchen with mugs of cider and joined us, taking up one end of a length of garland while Willa decided how it needed to drape across the mantle. Jace came down from the ladder and settled into unwinding a second strand of lights that had developed opinions about themselves, working through the knot with a patient, methodical attention. Standing near the window, the lights pooled in his hands, he glanced up once and caught me watching before going back to the knot with the faintest shift at the corner of his mouth.

The cider was warm and tasted like cinnamon and cloves. The fire had settled into the comfortable rhythm of a fire that had been going long enough to know what it was doing. Outside, the Atlantic did what it always did, indifferent and constant and silver-gray under the December cloud cover.

“I love this,” Willa said. She was standing back, looking at the tree with its lobster and pickle and disco ball and lighthouse and the gold sand dollar turning slowly in the draft from the fireplace. “It looks absolutely nothing like any Christmas tree I grew up with, and it’s perfect.”

“It looks like someone let a child loose in a holiday store,” Jace said.

“Yes,” Willa agreed. “Exactly.” She turned to me with a warm smile. “Last year was the first Christmas I ever got to do it entirely my way. Before that, I spent the holidays with Bree and her grandfather or with the Carreras, and that was wonderful. But this—” She looked at the tree. “Sawyer and I getting to build our own version with the people we care about? Messier. Better.” She looked back at me. “I’m glad you’re here for it. It feels right to have you here.”

I had a cover story and secrets that would pull everything in this room apart if they surfaced, and Willa Sutter—because she’d changed her name when she returned to the island at eighteen—was standing in front of me telling me it felt right to have me here. I thought about what she would feel if she knew the truth of who I was and what I’d come here carrying. Then I made myself stop thinking about it, because that road ran nowhere useful from inside this moment.

My truth would put her in danger. Would put all of these people I’d come to care for in danger. So it would stay hidden, because I wouldn’t bring that hell down upon them for anything. Not even answers.

“Thank you.” My words came out quieter than I’d intended.

Willa smiled and pointed at the top of the tree. “Star goes up there. Jace gets that job. He’s the tallest.”

“Heard that,” Jace said without looking up from the lights.

“You were meant to.”

Sawyer’s laugh rolled out, and we kept going. The four of us had found a rhythm by now, working in the warm room with the comfortable ease of people who had figured out how to occupy the same space together. More ornaments were added to the tree. The garland got arranged along the mantel. Willa added tinsel to several branches in defiance of conventional wisdom and stood back, looking satisfied. I kept picking up my cider and setting it down and picking it up again, the warmth of the mug something to hold while my hands weren’t otherwise occupied.

I was still here.

Not as a miscalculation or a missed deadline. Just as a true thing. I was still here, and the tree had a sequined lobster on it, and the cider was good, and Koa had finally accepted that the ornaments posed no threat and relocated to the vicinity of the fireplace, arranging himself near Roy with the casual air of a dog who had simply decided to change his position for no particular reason.

The knock at the front door came about twenty minutes later.

Willa went to answer it. I heard the door, voices in the entryway, something in the register of them landing differently than an ordinary arrival. When she came back, Rios was with her, in full uniform. I registered the look on his face and stiffened. I knew that look. Something had happened, and he was here to notify us before we heard it from somewhere else first. My father had a similar version I’d seen far too often over my lifetime.

“Miles Busby is dead.” Rios kept his voice even, the professional tone of a man who understood that delivery mattered. “He was killed in prison last night. Official report says he was involved in an altercation.”

Willa sat down on the arm of the sofa. Not a collapse, just a small, controlled sit. Sawyer immediately crossed to her, laying his hand on her shoulder. She covered it with hers without looking up.

Jace stood near the window with the lights still looped through his hands.

I stayed where I was beside the ornament boxes with a ceramic cat tangled in Christmas lights in my hand and let the news settle into me, keeping my face neutral.