Russ moved forward with his eyes on the floor, stepping around blue-jeaned shins and sneakered feet. But as he approached his adversary’s office he could see, peripherally, that its door was halfway open; and then he heard her voice.
He stopped without having wanted to.
“It’s so great,” he heard Frances gush. “A year ago, I practically had to put a gun to his head to get him to church.”
Of Ambrose, through the doorway, only ragged denim cuffs and beat-up work boots were visible. But the chair Frances was sitting in faced the hallway. She saw Russ, waved to him, and said, “See you outside?”
God only knew what expression was on his face. He walked on, blindly overshot the main entrance, and found himself outside the function hall. He was taking on dark water through large holes in his hull. The stupidity of never once imagining that she could go to Ambrose. The clairvoyant certainty that Ambrose would take her away from him. The guilt of having hardened his heart against the wife he’d vowed to cherish. The vanity of believing that his sheepskin coat made him look like anything but a fatuous, obsolete, repellent clown. He wanted to tear off the coat and retrieve his regular wool one, but he was too much of a coward to walk back up the hallway, and he was afraid that if he took the detour and saw the dusty crèche steer, in the state he was in, he might cry.
Oh God, he prayed from within the loathsomeness of his coat. Please help me.
If God answered his prayer, it was by reminding him that the way to endure misery was to humble himself, think of the poor, and be of service. He went to the church secretary’s office and ferried cartons of toys and canned goods to the parking lot. Each passing minute deepened the late-dawning badness of the day. Why was she with Ambrose? What could they be discussing that was taking so long? The toys all appeared to be new or indestructible enough to pass as new, but Russ was able to survive further minutes by rooting through the food cartons, culling the lazy or thoughtless donations （cocktail onions, water chestnuts） and taking comfort in the weight of jumbo cans of pork and beans, of Chef Boyardee, of pear halves in syrup: the thought of how welcome each would be to a person who was genuinely hungry and not merely, like him, starved in spirit.
It was 2:52 when Frances came bounding up to him, like a boy, full of bounce. She was wearing the hunting cap and, today, a matching wool jacket. “Where’s Kitty?” she said brightly.
“Kitty was afraid she wouldn’t fit, with all the boxes.”
“She’s not coming?”
Unable to look Frances in the eye, he couldn’t tell if she was disappointed or, worse yet, suspicious. He shook his head.
“That’s silly,” she said. “I could have sat on her lap.”
“Do you mind?”
“Mind? It’s a privilege! I’m feeling very special today. I’ve turned a corner.”
She made an airy little ballet move, expressive of turning a corner. He wondered if her feeling had preceded or been caused by her visit with Ambrose.
“Good, then,” he said, slamming the Fury’s rear door. “We should probably get going.”
It was a subtle reference to her lateness, the only one he intended to permit himself, and she didn’t pick up on it. “Is there anything I need to bring?”
“No. Just yourself.”
“The one thing I never leave home without! Let me just make sure I locked my car.”
He watched her bounce over to her own, newer car. Her spirits seemed higher than his not only at this moment but possibly in his entire life. Certainly higher than he’d ever seen Marion’s.
“Ha!” Frances exulted from across the lot. “Locked!”
He gave her two thumbs up. He never gave anyone two thumbs up. It felt so strange he wasn’t sure he’d done it right. He looked around to see if anyone else, Perry in particular, had witnessed it. There was no one in sight but a pair of teenagers carrying guitar cases toward the church, not looking in his direction, perhaps intentionally. One was a boy he’d known since he was a second grader in Sunday school.
What would it be like to live with a person capable of joy?
As he was getting into the Fury, a single, floppy snowflake, the first of the multitude the sky had promised all day, came to rest on his forearm and dissolved in itself. Frances, climbing in from the other side, said, “That’s a great old coat. Where’d you get it?”
Resolved: that the soul is independent of the body and immutable. First affirmative speaker: Perry Hildebrandt, New Prospect Township High School.