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satisfy Leona Thayer.
    “They all go to Sears and Kmart,” Ruby said aggrievedly. Leona persisted, and the church billowed in a froth of pink, accented
     with fragrant evergreen boughs and garlands of smilax. Before the altar great crystal vases held huge, blooming magnolia boughs,
     their green leaves shining in the light of hundreds of flickering white tapers. (“And if you think it’s easy to find blooming
     magnolias in December…,” Ruby huffed.)
    As a nod to the festivity of the season, Leona had tucked sprays of holly here and there in the greenery and woven tiny twinkling
     white lights through the altar magnolias.
    “Where’s the goddamn Santa Claus?” Big Finch groused in Caroline’s ear, none too softly.
    But the church glowed in the winter dimness and smelled of candle smoke and cedar, a really lovely smell, and Gladys Abbott
     on the ancient organ did not produce a single wheeze or squeal. When Crystal swept into the sanctuary on her father’s arm
     in many yards of pearl-seeded white satin, carrying calla lilies with a few chaste holly berry stems, a great sigh rose to
     the eaves and hung there like a cloud. She looked, Finch thought, truly angelic, a vision of Raphael or Fra Angelico. Crystal
     had been born for this moment. In her chaste bridal glory she had moved even herself to tears, before the full-length mirror
     in the dressing room. They floated down the aisle on white rose petals strewn by her sister’s youngest child, finger in nose,
     and ten bridesmaids—fellow cheerleaders and her two married sisters, one vastly pregnant—turned incandescent faces to her.
     Their holly-green velvet gowns drifted just so. Beside and behind Finch, his best man andgroomsmen, most of them prep school friends, looked black and white and elegant, and stunned. The tiny tuxedoed ring bearer,
     looking like a grotesque munchkin, dropped the ring and wailed, but it was retrieved in one neat swipe by the best man and
     slipped onto Crystal’s finger as if fitted for her, which of course it was. The Reverend Lively did not snort when he pronounced
     them man and wife, and when Gladys Abbott boomed out Mendelssohn the church bells pealed as if to salute a new millennium.
    And so they were married.
    There was no reception.
    “Let us give you one when you get back,” Caroline Wentworth said. “You’re both worn out and you really don’t have much honeymoon
     time. I promise we’ll pull out all the stops.”
    “Where?” Crystal asked, envisioning once more the Piedmont Driving Club, with flowers and candles, all eyes on her.
    “Surprise,” Caroline said, smiling.
    So it was that when they drove over the small, rattling bridge that spanned the inlet and into Burnt Cove, Crystal was still
     in satin and Finch in his tuxedo. In their bags, in the trunk of Finch’s father’s Mercedes, there were only jeans and slacks
     and sweaters and boots, because, Finch said, Burnt Cove gave new luster to the word “casual” and it would be cold. Crystal,
     however, had tucked in some velvet pants and a long wool skirt, for the club. Just in case.
    But there was no club. In fact, there was no sign of life in any of the rambling old houses that crowned the ridge nestled
     next to the long meadow that ran down to War WomanLake. They were faded board and batten or age-scummed stone, and the trees leaning close in around them lifted straggling
     bare fingers to the steely sky. No chimney spouted sweet wood smoke. There were no cars.
    Crystal looked over at her husband. Husband…? He was grinning with pleasure. She composed her face into a smile of anticipation.
    “Is it just us?” she said.
    “Probably. Nobody much comes for Christmas. But there’ll be some people up afterwards, over New Year’s. There’s always a holiday
     hunt. Are you sure you really don’t want to spend this Christmas with your folks? I know what we said, but…”
    “Oh no,” she said, squeezing his arm. “I want this Christmas to be just