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how she, with her store of sympathy and grace, might have thought that in the Maciver household there was in fact a need equal to her love. If I'd said so to Figgy, she would have laughed me off the porch, repeating my sentence as if it were a punch line.

    Chapter Three
    IT'S A CURIOUS THING ABOUT WOMEN, THE WAY THEY EXTEND themselves to each other for no particular reason. This is a behavior Buddy neglected to tell me about when we were boys. My wife, Diana, and Buddy's wife, years before they met, faithfully exchanged Christmas cards. Every December there came in the mail the studio photo of Buddy, Joelle, and the five children, not any of them looking the least bit sullen or inconvenienced in their church clothes, and all of them, according to the accompanying letter, noble citizens. The picture Diana sent of us was also studied, but we were outside, squinting into the camera, the missus and the doctor and the three daughters on a ski slope or a beach, somewhere far away, in expensive sunlight.
    My wife has a dynasty of her own to occupy her, eight siblings, two parents, two sets of grandparents, all of whom live near us, as well as seventeen nieces and nephews and, farther afield, thirty-two first cousins. Over dinner one night a few years ago, when I was mulling over the phenomenon of the holiday communications, and especially those to strangers, Tessa, our middle child, explained that Christmas cards are the goods of the braggart. She had come home from college for winter break a day or two before, and still had her initial enthusiasm for us after the months of separation.
    "The goods of the braggart," I repeated with fatherly pride.
    "And also a way to mark territory, the single-spaced two-page letter exactly like a dog pissing on a hydrant."
    There is not very often a wounded silence from Diana. It is even unusual for her to pause, as she did just then, for a fortifying breath, which is after all necessary for sustained speech. "You go," she said to Tessa, "and spend November at the printer. You take a picture that's good of everyone--Katie doesn't have her mouth open, Lyddie 's not blinking, your head's not in a book, your father fora moment is not staring out at the Andromeda who-knows-what. I don't think you understand how demanding family is and how important. You have no idea."
    Since we live on one long country road, every driveway for three-quarters of a mile an entry into property owned by one of Diana's brothers and their wives, I'd wager that Tessa does know a thing or two about the diplomacy required to keep the close family in a loving circle. Although the girls were at first astonished, it was no mystery to them why Diana once cut up the evil sister-in-law's cast-off Oriental rugs. She shredded the jewel-colored wool into strips with a box cutter and laid them down to make paths between the flower beds. As I heard tell, the rugs had been given to her in a great show of generosity, a blaze Diana interpreted as hostility. I'm quite sure that the Queen of England does not have such expensive mulch. Because there is no end of excitement in our neighborhood, when it came time for college Tessa chose a scruffy liberal-arts school in North Carolina, hundreds of miles from Wisconsin.
    "Oh gosh, Mom!" Tessa said, hands to her head, the pads of her fingers hard into her skull. "Those Christmas cards must be so much work!" She had the right tone and pace, rushing in to comfort with a sincere mix of reverence, and exhaustion, too, at the very idea of letter writing. "It's fabulous you keep in touch with everyone, even people you don't really know. Someday it would be fantastic to have a huge reunion and meet all of Dad's relatives. I'd love that. And it would be easy, because you've connected with them, because you know so many of the addresses."
    Tessa flashed a look across the table at me, eyes widening, lips firm together, an instant you can miss if you're not waiting. I don't admit to being gratified by that