Snow Falling: A Christmas Eve Excerpt

The promised snow is out there, falling, and I am feeling melancholy. This morning, before a long corporate-work weekend kicks in, I read the novel for adults through one last time. It is going, now, to Amy Rennert, my agent. Come the new year, we shall see what we shall see.

In the meantime, this from a final scene in the asylum. The year is 1955.

Someone had brought in a Collaro hi-fi and plugged it in with Christmas blues and we sat there, the crazy and the no inch short of sane, while Jimmy Butler sang “Trim your Tree” and Felix Gross sang “Love for Christmas,” and when Sugar Chile Robinson sang “Christmas Boogie,” Wolfie took up Virgin Mary’s hand in hers and a space was cleared on the table top and the two of them danced, Virgin Mary’s eyes a million miles away, but something close and near on her lips, something like a blessing, with Wolfie just laughing, Wolfie hollering a good time, and no more giggling, for that single minute, from Liesel, who wore holiday trim in the rolls of her hair and teeth in the pink of her gums. I kept Autumn near all dinner long. I suffered in my thinking about Baby.