LITMIR.BIZ

      Christmas dinner in the Burroughs household finished with their peculiar version of grace: It was said after the meal.

      “Dear Lord, for all that we have received and eaten at Your table . . . ,” Matt intoned.

      Stephanie, sitting halfway down the long table, once asked her father why they didn’t say grace before a meal like everyone else. Matt told her that he always thought that giving thanks for something you hadn’t yet received was somehow presumptuous, whereas giving gratitude afterward was perfectly acceptable.

      Sitting around the Christmas table, along with her four brothers and two sisters and their extended families, was a trial. The children were eating in the kitchen, but they were in and out of the dining room every five minutes, or one or the other of the parents kept hopping up to check on a particularly loud scream or bang from the other room. Stephanie came roughly in the middle of the Burroughs clan, but there was only a twelve-year difference between Billy, the eldest, and Joan, the youngest. The family remained remarkably close, with the exception of Stephanie, who had left home early and rarely returned. She felt slightly out of place—almost a stranger—sitting here surrounded by her Midwestern family. But it was better, infinitely better, than sitting at home in Boston in an empty, lonely house, she reminded herself.

      After dinner, Stephanie and Joan found themselves in the kitchen, loading the dishwasher. The four boys and CJ, who’d always been a tomboy, were ferrying the dirty dishes in from the dining room, while Toni and Matt and the various spouses and partners played with the children. The kitchen still smelled wonderful—rich and warm with the aromas of meat and spices, herbs and liquors.

      “God, I feel like I’m about ten again,” Stephanie said. She breathed deeply. “These Christmas smells are the defining scents of my childhood.”

      “Mine was always the smell of tree sap,” Joan said. “Remember when Dad would top the trees in the backyard, and the boys would drag the cut wood across the garden?”

      “And the smell of burning leaves.” Stephanie smiled. “The smell of autumn.”

      She looked out through the kitchen window. Most of the trees were long gone now. They’d simply grown too large for Matt to handle. Five years ago, the four boys had come over late in the summer with their chainsaws and cut down the larger ones. They’d then sliced the trunks into fire-sized pieces, and the dry shed beside the double garage was still packed with the circular and semi-circular sections. There was probably enough wood to last for another three years at least.

      “I could get used to living here again,” Joan said suddenly.

      “Have you spoken to Eddie?”

      “I had CJ talk to him for me. Told him where I was.”

      “Guess he had a lonely Christmas without you,” Stephanie suggested, carefully stacking side plates in the dishwasher.

      “Look, I missed him too. But he lied to me, Stef. And once a man starts lying to you, it’s over. And when it’s over, it’s over.”

      “Maybe. Maybe not. Sometimes circumstances throw you right back at someone you’ve left,” she said grimly. She looked up and caught her sister looking quizzically at her. “Did you ask Eddie why he lied to you in the first place?” she asked quickly, trying to forestall an inevitable question.

      “He was ashamed that he’d lost his job and didn’t want to worry me.”

      “That’s fair.”

      Joan blinked in surprise. “You’re taking his side.”

      “I’m not taking anyone’s side; I’m just commenting. He was stupid, he lost his job. But he didn’t want to worry you, so he got up every morning, got dressed, and went out and spent the day doing . . . What did he do?”

      “Looked for a job, he said.”

      “So he spent the day looking for a job, because he loved you.”

      “And I forgave him that,” Joan protested. “When I eventually discovered the truth, we had a huge fight. . . . Well, I screamed and he listened and finally admitted that he’d lost his job because they were laying crew off. But that was another lie. He was fired because he was claiming overtime he hadn’t done.”

      “And you’ve never done that?” Stephanie wondered. “You’ve never padded an invoice, claimed for an extra hour, or slipped in a couple of additional expenses?” Before her sister could answer, she continued quickly, “Was he keeping this extra money for himself?”

      “No, he wouldn’t do that. It went into the joint account with everything else.” Joan bent down to the dishwasher and loaded knives and forks into their little plastic container, before looking up at Stephanie. “Oh. I see what you mean. I never thought of it that way. Everyone here’s telling me to ditch him.”

      “Everyone here doesn’t know what happens behind closed doors. They just hear what they want to hear. See what they want to see. Besides, I’m not telling you to do or not do anything. I’m just giving you a different perspective.”

      “You were always so smart,” Joan said. “Gosh, I look around this family and wonder how bizarrely we’ve turned out. Mom and Dad have been married forever, but . . . Jack, who’s gay, is probably in the most functional relationship of everyone. There’s Bill, who’s now on his third wife; Little Matt and that strange older woman; Chris with his Thai wife, whose name I can’t even pronounce; and CJ, who brought that woman with her today. At least I think it’s a woman,” she added, then fell silent as the very masculine-looking female appeared in the doorway at that moment, carrying the last of the plates. She nodded, smiled, and left the kitchen without saying a word. “That leaves just you and me,” Joan continued. “And I’m married to a man who lies to me. . . .”

      “Because he loves you and didn’t want to upset you.”

      “And

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