Chapter 9: The Morning After Christmas
Carol stayed through Christmas Day and the day after.
She slept in the guest room off the kitchen and was up before the girls each morning, and Nathan would come downstairs to find coffee already made and Carol at the table with her notebook, not writing in it anymore, just present, the way certain people are present when they have been worried about something for a long time and can finally stop.
On the morning of the twenty-sixth, Nathan sat across from her with his coffee and said, "I want to offer you your position back.
Formally.
With a contract this time, not an informal arrangement."
Carol looked at her mug.
"The girls need consistency."
"They do."
"And you're going to be here."
"I'm restructuring my schedule.
Reeves is taking over the Singapore expansion.
I'll be based in Aspen through spring at minimum."
Carol nodded slowly.
"Then yes," she said.
"I'll stay."
They shook hands across the kitchen table.
That afternoon, Patricia Wren called with an update on the child welfare filing.
The county had assigned a family services case worker who would conduct a home visit in January.
Patricia said it was routine given the circumstances, and that the visit was likely to be straightforward given the evidence already on record and Nathan's demonstrated presence in the home.
"Emma will want to talk," Patricia said.
"Let her.
She has things she needs to say to someone official, and it will be good for her."
"She's five," Nathan said.
"She is also the child who called Carol for help when she needed it, organized her sisters through months of a frightening situation, and told you about the locked door the first night you were home." Patricia paused.
"She is going to be formidable, Mr.
Caldwell.
Make sure she knows that's a good thing."
Nathan looked through the kitchen doorway to where Emma was at the dining room table, carefully cutting wrapping paper into strips with the small safety scissors from her craft kit, making something that appeared to be a chain.
"She's making a paper chain," he said.
"What color?"
"Gold."
"For the tree?"
"I think so."
Patricia made a soft sound that was almost a laugh.
"Let her put it up herself," she said.
"Don't help unless she asks."
He didn't.
He watched from the doorway while Emma stood on a chair and looped the gold chain through the branches of the tree Claire had always insisted go in the front window, the one visible from the road.
Emma worked with her tongue between her teeth, adjusting each loop until it hung the way she wanted.
When she finished she climbed down and stood back and looked at it.
"Daddy," she said.
"Yeah."
"Mama used to put the chain up."
Nathan walked to the window and stood beside her.
"I know," he said.
Emma looked at the tree for another moment.
"I made it gold because she liked gold."
"She did."
Emma leaned against his arm.
Not a hug, just a lean, the way someone stands beside a person they have decided to trust again.
"Okay," she said.
"Can we have hot chocolate now?"
Nathan put his arm around her shoulders.
May you like
"Yeah," he said.
"We can have hot chocolate."
