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Misjudged? Was the tree too big? Was she just a hopeless cornball with no sense of restraint and elegance?
    She resisted hanging one last candy cane, plugged in the small multi-colored lights, and collapsed on the sofa to review her handiwork. It was quite an amazing sight, she thought, bright, joyful, playful … absentmindedly she chewed on the end of the candy cane. Oh! She was hungry! She’d worked right through lunch. No wonder she had misgivings about the tree. Her blood sugar was low.
    Or was the tree
too much
? Would Sebastian’s heart sink when he saw it, would he realize with horror that the woman he married lacked all sense of refinement? Nicole worriedly crunched the candy cane.
    “I’m home!” Sebastian’s voice boomed out as he came in the door, bringing a blast of cold winter air with him.
    Nicole glanced up nervously. “Did you have a nice lunch?”
    Sebastian strode across the room, pulled her to her feet, and kissed her soundly.
    “My,” she sighed. “What’s that for?”
    “That’s for the tree,” Sebastian told her. “You should come out and see it from the street. It’s great. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
    She laughed with pleasure. “It’s not too big for this room?”
    He studied it. “It’s big. It’s so big it reminds me of the trees my parents used to put up when I was a little boy.” His face softened. “So long ago.”
    “Oh, you’ve still got a bit of little boy in you,” Nicole teased him, nuzzling his neck.
    Sebastian grinned. “Don’t you mean big boy?” he joked.
    “Why, Sebastian.” She hugged him, turning her head sideways to gaze at the tree, feeling warm and loved and smug and absolutely brimming with holiday spirit.

8
    The ferry from Hyannis to Nantucket was like a game of bump-’em cars Maddox once had been on at a friend’s birthday party. The big boat raised up, then smashed down, and waves slammed into the giant boat’s hull, making it shudder. Maddox thought it was
awesome
.
    His mommy didn’t like it much, though. She lay on a bench, wrapped in her coat, hands clutching her belly.
    “Let’s go up top, Mad Man,” James said, taking his son by the hand.
    This was awesome, too. Maddox rarely got alone time with his daddy, who was always working. Maddox felt secure with his tiny hand tucked inside Daddy’s large warm hand. They went up the stairs, taking care because of the heaving boat, and stood by the high windows looking out at the water. His daddy lifted him up into his arms so Maddox could see better, and Maddox inhaled deeply of his daddy’s masculine scent, his aftershave lotion, his wool sweater, his cotton turtleneck. Maddox wrapped one arm around his father’s neck and leaned against him slightly, so he could feel the raspy skin on his face.
    “Maybe we’ll see a whale out here,” his daddy said.
    “How do they stay warm?” Maddox asked.
    James explained, “The animals and fish that live in the water have different bodies from human beings. They can breathe in the water, and they never get cold. But they can’t breathe in the air like we do, and our air is much too dry for them.”
    Maddox marveled at this thought. He gazed out into the waves, which were dark blue, crested with frothy white, rolling relentlessly toward the boat to crash into the sides, making the boat shiver and the waves explode into fizzy silver suds.
    He tightened his hold on his father. The world was so big, and this view of it on such a cold December day made him feel very small. In preschool, he’d seen a picture book depicting Santa Claus traveling to an island in his sleigh. The sleigh was drawn by porpoises, seals, walruses, and whales, and it skipped over the top of the waves while Santa held the reins.
    The book had made Maddox uneasy. Santa was supposed to fly through the air. Maddox had seen pictures of the sleigh in other books. What did Santa do with the reindeer when he used the porpoises? And if he crossed the water with the sea