It begins to rain on Toby's birthday and continues through Christmas
day. Rain everywhere, sifting from solid clouds to dull earth.
Dissolving old gray snow, running over the sidewalks into ankle-deep
puddles at every corner. Invisible from one angle, turn slightly
and the ambient light changes each drop to silver. The air is rich
with rain.

Toby sits on a couch in the surreal light of Andi's tree, watching
the rain blur her living room windows. It's not the room of either
of their dreams. She comes downstairs with a smile as warm and snug
as her quilted bathrobe, with two howling infants whom she places in
his arms.

"Breakfast," she says, and dashes into the kitchen for the formula
that's already warming.

He juggles their weight around on his knees. Heavy. They've grown
so fast. He knew they would, but it's startling. They take up so
much space. He has a handful of years before he can't balance them
both at the same time. He's forty-nine years old. A thought he
shoves aside, as Molly punches his chest with her bite-sized fist.
Huck's face is the healthy red of an apple. They understand more
than hunger, now. Six months and they have distinct emotions,
perceptions, and attention spans of nearly a minute. They recognize
faces. He can make them laugh.

Andi comes back, takes Molly, hands Toby a warm bottle. Side by
side, they feed their son and daughter. A Kodak moment, he thinks,
and thinking that almost ruins it. Huck's eyes half-close in simple
unthinking bliss. Nice.

"We can start them on finger foods, soon." Andi yawns. He hates
the look of the exhausted blue flesh under her eyes. It's supposed
to get easier once they start sleeping through the night.

"Was that in a book, or--"

"My mother suggested it."

He looks down, remembering to tilt the bottle up, to keep a check on
the airflow. The warm pressure of his son's head in his
palm. "Does your mother still have the Iron Maiden of Nuremberg in
her basement?"

She rolls her eyes and raises Molly to her shoulder, patting a
circle on her back. "She's never been *that* hostile to you."

"But for the intervention of Amnesty International."

"Anyway, she's good at raising children." She frees her hair from
Molly's fingers, smiling. "And I checked with the books, and they
said the same thing."

"Okay." He looks at the tree, at the ludicrously high pile of boxes
under the tree. Seven kinds of wrapping paper. It's not possible
to spoil children this small, is it? "Let's do this," he says, and
sets the bottle down.

Andi slides out of the recliner, onto her knees. "We have to sit on
the floor."

"Why?"

"Because that's how we do it." She turns Molly around in her lap.
Her voice goes up. "Isn't it, yes, it is."

"Did your mother raise her children in a house without chairs?"

"Toby, get down here."

He sighs, carries Huck around the edge of the coffee table, and
tries to get into a comfortable sitting position on the carpet.
Which is impossible. Huck grabs at the ribbon on a box easily twice
his size. "So, we just let them--"

"Yeah." Andi scoots a few inches toward him. "That one's his, go
ahead."

"I don't think it really matters yet." He closes his hands over
Huck's and helps pull the ribbon away, helps him grip the flap of
the bright red paper.

"But it will." Andi picks up a lumpy package for Molly to pluck
at. "And we don't want to pick up the habit of treating them like
we can't tell the difference, or don't care."

Vaguely, he remembers fighting with his brother over a toy train.
Holding a grudge. "Right."

Huck gets the paper off with a lot of help, and Toby pulls a large,
fluffy panda bear that comes out of the box. "Hey," Toby says,
bending close to him, "hey, how do you like this guy?" He waves the
panda bear's paw. Huck reaches up, gurgling, gleeful. "Apparently,
we're expressing gratitude through drool."

"He likes black and white," Andi says. "High contrast."

Wouldn't we all. He doesn't say it. That would be cynical. That
would be sad. Instead he moves the bear into Huck's arms--actually,
more like the other way around--and watches. Smiling. Everything
is so loaded, now, with significance and possibility: this could be
the toy that he has to pry from Huck's hands on his first day of
school. He can almost see it, this future full of give and take.

Molly has managed to tear the silver snowflake paper off a plastic
piano keyboard. She slaps one of the primary-colored keys. It lets
out a high note and she screams in delighted response. Andi nuzzles
the top of her head. "Oh, yes," she says. "I think Juilliard,
definitely."

"Who's that from?"

"Me. Us."

Lines cross his forehead. "You got her something that makes
noise?" Obligingly, Molly bangs the keys again. Huck turns toward
the sound, wiggling in Toby's lap so he can get a fix on his
sister. "Lots of noise," Toby adds.

"I can always take the batteries out. Besides, she likes noise."

"Shortest route to a headache, I guess."

"I have them so often I don't notice anymore."

He raises his chin. "You look tired."

But she's already moving things out of her way, gifts to one side
and rubbish to the other. She picks up a floppy package, something
soft. "What's this? This is from your aunt, I don't know what it
is. It's probably really ugly. Let's see..."

The babies are looking tired, too, full as they are. Before long
they're whimpering, rubbing at their eyes. Andi's got a playpen
with a soft floor, big enough for Huck and Molly to sleep side by
side on their stomachs, in mirror position. It's hard not to think
of them curled that way in the womb. He and Andi unwrap the rest of
the gifts. She's careful with the trimmings. He tears them to
pieces.

When the space under the tree is empty, and the rest of the floor is
buried, Andi stretches her arms over her head. Her robe falls open
a little in the front. He tries not to notice, notices
anyway. "Maybe I did take this a little over the top," she says.

"Maybe." It's something like lighting a menorah with a blowtorch.
He stands up.

"But it was fun." She gets up, too, yawning again, a hand to her
mouth. "Even if they won't remember it."

He takes a high step over a pile of new clothes, toward the
playpen. Watches them breathe. "They didn't really need more, more
stuff, in general."

"Oh, you can't really have too much."

"Little capitalists." He reaches down, touches each of them, just
once apiece. Warmth rises from them. "That's what we'll have."

"Happy little capitalists." Andi steps toward him. The corner of
her smile turns down as he glances back. "You didn't get me
anything."

"No." He'd almost bought her a necklace, single emerald on a fine
chain. The twins' birthstone. He'd had his money out, and then
he'd shaken his head. It was the wrong time. "Didn't we decide--"

"Right, it's better we didn't. We're less awkward now that you're
over the, ah, marriage thing."

Somehow, she sounds completely certain that he's over it. Certain
that it's over. He closes his hands loosely around the top of the
playpen and doesn't answer her.

"Are you going into work today?" she asks.

"I don't know." He could. Other people will. But no one's going
to begrudge him a day off, not this day. With the State of the
Union suspended above his head by a single strand.

"There's a brunch in Greenbelt. My staff wanted me to stop by." He
hears her yawn again. "I'm still winning them back, you know. It's
not just the Baptists and the La Leche League that are pissed at
me. There are a lot of important people who don't want to know me
now, and I only have a year..." She sighs. "I'm still winning them
back."

Toby turns around fully. "You want to go to the brunch," he says.

She shakes her head, pulling her hair back from her face. "There's
too much else to do. Look at this place. Look at me." He does.
And, yes, he can tell how little she sleeps. She's pale. She's not
thirty anymore.

"You could wipe the floor with the women of Greenbelt," he
says. "Take a shower. Go. Do your job."

For a moment longer she looks at him, testing his goodwill. Then
she puts a hand up to his cheek, rubs her thumb over the line of his
beard. "Thank you."

Don't thank me, he wants to tell her. Don't be sweet. Let's scream
at each other, have the anger and the acrimony, and then force
ourselves to be civil, for the children. Let's act like divorced
people.

He is a hypocrite with a ring on his finger. He nods, and she winds
her way to the stairs.

*

"No chewing on the tree," Toby says, tugging Molly toward
him. "Your foot, yeah, that's okay."

He has the cell phone pinned between his shoulder and his ear. It
laughs at him. "You sound nothing like Toby," Sam says. "I don't
know who you sound like. Maybe the guy from 'My Three Sons'."

"Shut up," Toby growls. Automatically, he puts his chin down to
hide his smile.

"That's better." Sam breathes easy, three thousand miles
away. "So, why'd you call me?"

"You called me."

"I called you three weeks ago."

That long. Toby knows he's let some things fall behind. "I'm
returning your call," he says. He's cleaned up most of the toys and
all of the trimmings; the babies grope at what's left around them.
Let's see what this does, how this tastes.

"Okay," Sam says. "So what are you doing? Apart from the twins, I
mean--I mean--well, what's happening in the office?"

Either he's asking about Josh, or he's asking about Will. Toby
doesn't really give a damn. He's not the newsboy around
here. "There was a hand bell choir," he says. "And a minor hassle
when somebody thought the President was endorsing opening a present
on Christmas Eve."

"Oh, God, do I miss a White House Christmas." Sam doesn't even
sound like he's joking. "You got snow."

"Some." He glances at the streaked window. Not much brighter at
noon than it was at dawn. "It's raining now."

"Should I tell you the temperature here?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"Yes."

"Then no."

"Seventy degrees and clear as a bell." Sam pauses. "Zoey looked
good on the tree-lighting thing."

Toby looks down. Molly's eyes are sort of a dark hazel. They were
blue when she was born, but one of the nurses had said they would
change. Huck's eyes were always dark. He'll probably never be able
to think of that day with unmixed pleasure, without the wrong things
getting into the memory. He says, "She's doing fine. Everybody's
doing fine."

Sam chuckles. "This is the eloquence I expect."

"'Clear as a bell'?"

"From the guy who's about to write his fifth State of the Union."

In a way, it's his first. *His,* first. The thought is new,
somewhat daunting. He bends to tickle Huck under the chin, and
murmurs to him, "Gotta set an agenda before we shape the message."

"Yeah, and--hey. So you're taking first chair on that?"

Toby watches the smile bloom on Huck's face like an out-of-season
sunflower. "Yeah."

"Well, that's great news." Sam's voice is slightly too
bright. "That's terrific."

Sam's never going to get elected to Congress, or even the Orange
County Wildlife Commission, if he can't fake enthusiasm more
convincingly than that. Toby's mouth is still coffee-soured. He
clears his throat loudly, says nothing. The silence draws out.

"It's just..." Sam begins, and stops again.

Here comes the question. What happened to Will, what's happening to
Josh, why is this White House less than Sam imagines it could be?
An argument they have been having since the start. An argument that
leaves them both defeated. "It's just what, damn it?"

"I'm worried," Sam says, the false light leaving his tone. "I don't
think you're the same guy who told the President that the era of big
government wasn't over. You've become--you're resigned, to things
changing by small increments, if at all." Sam sighs his heaviest
sigh. "I'm not saying the State of the Union should be unrealistic,
I'm saying... if we don't aspire to great things, Toby, we won't
achieve the small ones. That's what I'm worried about."

We. Toby grinds his teeth. He does not say, Sam, you're on the
other side of the country, or ask whether Sam's worry has gotten him
anywhere. Instead he reaches for the Kleenex box on the coffee
table, dabs at one tiny nose and then the other.

"Finger foods," he says. "Already."

Another sigh. The weight of the world. "Time gets away from us,"
Sam says.

Neither of them promises to call the other back.

*

He gives the twins another half a bottle apiece. Making a mess,
small puddles of milk all over Andi's kitchen. He is still not
efficient at these daily things, these things he doesn't do every
day.

Once they're changed and fed and kissed, he puts them into the
playpen again. First Huck and then Molly does the latest trick.
With only a little struggling, they can roll over, from back to
belly. Toby applauds. It seems to be the thing to do.

"When I was a kid, I used to go watch the girls on the ice at
Rockefeller Center." Molly blinks sleepily at him. "Yeah," Toby
says. "I don't know why I told you that, either."

He isn't thinking of his own childhood, exactly. A fairytale New
York childhood. Window-shopping, glittery snow-globe snow, teenage
girls in those skating skirts. Kids making snowballs out of what
was left on the hoods of cars. Kids taking cardboard sleds to the
park.

One December the pipes froze in their building and it was two weeks
before Toby's mother could bribe the super to call a plumber. Two
weeks of sleeping in their coats and mittens, of smuggling
themselves in to shower at the Y. In the frigid apartment, his
mother lit the candles, baked ruggelach, said the prayers. At night
she would weep and curse in the language her children did not know.

He isn't thinking of his childhood at all.

"Listen," he says. "I'm going to take you there someday and show
you, and take you out for pizza. You don't know what pizza is yet,
that's okay. You are both New Yorkers. Trust me."

He sits down on the couch, suddenly exhausted from the sheer energy
required to watch them. To be aware, always watching for what might
go wrong. His gaze drifts around the room, aimless over all this
space that is not home. Andi has a cigar box on the mantel, tied
with two ribbons, a pink and a blue. Would it make him a bad parent
to leave the babies in the playpen, go and smoke with the back door
open? Yes. No. Yes.

Huck fusses a little. Maybe he's cold. Toby comes over and picks
him up. Inhales the milky baby smell. Says, "You know something,
Sam Seaborn likes things black and white, too."

The small head drops against his shoulder. Huck is asleep before
Toby even gets back to the couch. He sits for a while. Holding.

Andi finds them that way when she sweeps in the front door, brushing
the rain from the shoulders of her winter coat. She smiles. Both
of the babies have her smile. "What have we been up to?"

Toby's getting to hate that pronoun. He shifts Huck from one arm to
the other--he's lost feeling in his shoulder--and suppresses a groan
as he stands up. "I told them there was no Santa Claus."

"Shh," Andi scolds. She takes Huck from him. "Hey, Mommy's home."

"Also, the Tooth Fairy," Toby mutters, going to the
playpen. "There'll be none of that." He reaches down to Molly.
Half awake, she hides her face in the corner of her blanket.

"We should enjoy telling them stories," Andi says. "Before they hit
the age where they don't believe anything we say."

He decides to pick Molly up anyway. She whines, squirming in his
arms. "When does that happen?"

"For you, it was probably around your second birthday." Andi smirks
at him. "We have to do more than enjoy them this way. We have to
defend it. We're responsible for making sure their capacity for
belief and wonder lasts as long as possible."

"We're also responsible for equipping them to live in the world,"
Toby says. The look Andi shoots at him, he could bite his tongue in
two. It's almost impossible to resolve the contradiction, to accept
that Andi is one of the leading progressives in the country and she
still believes in this Victorian myth of childhood. But she does.
He bounces Molly gently in his arms to settle her down. "How was
brunch?"

"Worth it." She manages to slip her coat off without putting Huck
down. "I know that it's not your favorite, but I like the one-on-
one."

"Schmoozing."

"You say 'schmoozing,' I say...reconnecting." She ruffles the down
on top of Huck's head. "Except, no, that sounds really stupid."

"Your point is, it was worth it."

"Yes. Thank you for--"

"I'm not the babysitter, you don't have to thank me."

Their eyes meet. Crimson rises under Andi's clear white
skin. "No. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to sound like that."

He nods, turning slightly away from her. The tree twinkles at him.

"I brought you a doughnut," she says. A note of something, maybe
nerves, just under her voice. "Blueberry. It's in my purse if you
want it."

Molly reaches out to grab a branch of the tree. Toby whirls her
away just in time. "I don't want anything," he says, as quietly as
he can. The babies look at each other. Toby doesn't meet Andi's
eyes.

*

By four o'clock the sky is black. He goes into the office, because
that's the behavior ingrained in his middle-aged, divorced
brainstem. Because he can think of nothing better to do. His eyes
sting from the heat and light when he walks into the West Wing.
Christmas lights strung up everywhere. They look a bit like barbed
wire.

He rubs the end of his sleeve across his face. Through the metal
detector and down the hall. As he rounds the corner, he narrowly
misses walking into Donna. She backs up. "Oh, hi."

Toby nods, starts to pass her, but she turns and falls into step
with him. "We've got rum and eggnog in the Mural Room, if you're
interested."

"We?"

"Josh, me, a Lauren, some other people who didn't make it out of
town this year." She smoothes her pale hair into place. "There
were some crackers, too. They might be gone."

"I'm not hungry." It's not entirely true, but he has no appetite
for this exercise in holiday spirit. Or team spirit. He comes to
work to work. And he's never liked eggnog.

"Did you--or maybe Andi--did you do the present-opening thing, with
the twins, or are they too little?"

"Both," he says. "They're too little, and we did it."

Donna clasps her hands under her chin. "So adorable!"

"Yeah." He wishes they'd taken pictures. So far, there is not a
single picture that includes both children and both of their
parents. Six months. Something is wrong with this. Donna is still
next to him, still talking. "What?"

"I know we go a little overboard with all this." She draws circles
in the air with her finger, taking in the lights, the garlands, the
glare. "And now that you've got the kids, and you're doing
Christmas with them at least some of the time...I just wondered if
it bothers you."

He wonders, too, backed into this pine-scented corner. If they
should be conditioning the twins to the commercial holiday. If he
should have refused to participate. Or ceded them entirely to
Andi's church; God knows lately he is not a man who takes solace
from his faith.

"I get them for Passover," he says, glancing at Donna. She looks
older than she used to, but she still looks too young. "Could,
could you do me a favor?"

She raises her eyebrows. "Don't tell everyone in the Mural Room
you're here?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah, no problem." Her fingers brush his sleeve. "Happy
Hanukkah."

Toby crosses the empty bullpen and ducks into his office. He turns
on the computer, takes off his coat. Leaves the lights off. There
are files and files of false starts, paragraphs stowed away in case
he needs them. He won't need them. All these beginnings and
endings that no one else will ever see. Vaguely, he wonders what's
left on the hard drive of Will's laptop. He does not look toward
the blinded window.

He opens a file that is just an unlabeled list. Even to title it
would be too official. These are the things he imagines working
into the State of the Union. Mostly little things, if little is
defined as 'under a billion dollars.' Mostly things that won't
happen, or things that don't play in primetime. A few that are just
too large to negotiate. His personal favorite is a Manhattan
Project for energy independence. Research grants, tax incentives to
car companies. It would cost as much, or more, than curing cancer.
It might save the country, if not the planet.

With a click of the mouse, he highlights that section. He deletes
it with one key and brings it back with another, watching the
possibility appear and disappear. He deletes it again and closes
the file without saving. Productivity.

His hand wanders to the phone, picks up the receiver. He doesn't
know who he's calling until the number flickers from his
fingertips. It rings at David's house. All right, Toby thinks,
rolling his knuckles against the flat of his desktop. He can do
this, play the good brother, the good son, though last year he could
have throttled Josh, and nearly did. It rings some more. He can
play forgiving.

At the fifth ring, he realizes no one is home. Or no one is
answering. The machine clicks on and plays a recording of his
nieces singing, atrociously, "let's have a party, we'll all dance
the hora." At least they don't sound happy about it.

"Happy holidays," he says, after the beep. His mouth hangs open as
he tries to think of something to add. He thinks of nothing, and
hangs up, equal parts relieved and annoyed that he's wasted the
gesture. The hell with heritage. He rests his forehead in the palm
of his hand and stares, blankly, at the blank screen.

*

When the size and inky darkness of the office become oppressive,
when he can't sit in his chair anymore, he leaves for a drink.
Somehow this is different from drinking to celebrate, or
commiserate. This is going out to drink alone, and seriously, in
the privacy of a bar he's never mentioned to his friends.

The rain and wind are sharper now, drawing harsh diagonals down his
windshield. He finds a place to park and walks the rest of the
block. Cold rain needles the top of his head. Someone's tied a
bell to the door of the Dark Horse. It jangles when Toby walks in.
Mostly empty, though there's a woman sitting at the bar. His eyes
adjust to the dim bourbon-colored light. They recognize each other
at the same time.

"Oh, God," C.J. says. She's wearing a brown jacket and a hat, a
man's fedora that he's never seen before. Left hand curled tight
around a glass of something clear. A look of utter disdain crossing
her face. "What'd you do, follow me here?"

He edges toward her, hands in his coat pockets. "I drink here
sometimes," he mumbles. "What are you--"

"I drink here sometimes." She arches her back, standing up. "I
guess, not anymore."

"C.J.--"

"Just don't, just let me..." She pulls her jacket tight across her
chest. "Forget it." She shoulders past him, elbow to his ribs and
out the door.

He looks at the empty barstool, the fingerprinted glass on the bar.
The smell of her cologne lingers, or maybe he imagines it. He rolls
his eyes at his own predictability, and then he turns to follow her.

A short way up the street, her hat's been blown into a puddle. Toby
catches up as she stoops to fish it out. "I have my car."

"Damn it." She throws the hat back on the ground. Her hair blows
theatrically around her face. "I just wanted to be. I don't know.
Alone."

"Yeah." He turns his collar up. Useless. The rain is a blur
between them; he can't read her face. "Car's the other way," he
says.

She ignores him, tucks her chin and keeps going. Long strides, into
the wind. "I didn't want to sit at home with the phone ringing.
With everyone calling and feeling sorry for me."

He's glad he didn't call her today. He hunches his shoulders
forward. "I didn't follow you."

"My brother called, my cousin, my sister-in-law..." She rubs her
hands quickly across her face. "They're all in California. They ask
how I'm doing, they try to make me jealous of their weather and then
they want to talk about how Dad is. And what am I supposed to do,
tell them I don't want to discuss it?"

She steps on a patch of sidewalk still frosted with black ice,
nearly falls on her ass. He catches her instinctively, a hand on
the small of her back. For a few seconds she forgets to pull
away. He says, "Tell them to call Dayton."

"If I don't want to discuss it they think I don't, they think I
don't care. I think I've been dealing really well. As long as I
don't have to talk about it I'm fine." She wipes at her face again,
vicious, and it occurs to him that she might be crying. He hopes
he's wrong. "There's no fucking privacy anymore. I don't know how
I can stand another year, another three years of..."

The unfinished sentence trails along behind them. He could say to
her: none of us know how to stand it, but we stand it. If the
President can stand it, we can. I don't know how to do better. He
could say: I'm sorry.

"This is my building," she says.

He never realized how close the Dark Horse is to her. Always coming
from the other direction. He watches her step up into the doorway,
combing the rain from her hair with her fingers. The yellow light
of the nearest streetlamp is not kind to her. Five years of this
city. The work, the schedule, the weather. Her face still gives
away too much of the truth about her.

"I don't feel sorry for you."

She pauses with her key in the lock, looks at him over her shoulder.

"You don't need it," he says. "And I didn't follow you. I never
expected you there."

He knows the twitch at the corner of her mouth, not a smile but near
a smile. Unlike anyone else's expression. He knows exactly why she
makes him wait a full minute in the rain. She throws up her
hands. "Come in."

He does. There are no pretenses. He's loosening his collar on the
way upstairs, watching her fingers on the buttons of her coat.
Inside her wet and clinging skirt, her legs shake slightly. Maybe
he does, too.

She lets them into her apartment, hangs up her coat carefully. He
switches on the light and sees the wrapping paper scattered across
half her living-room floor. The only sign in the place that
Christmas is anywhere close. C.J. follows his gaze. "I was
wrapping presents," she says. "I had to mail a lot of things out."

"When?"

"Last week. Ten days ago." She gives a cool chuckle. "Shut up."

Then she's against him, and then he's undressing her, warming his
cold hands on her skin. She is always warm to the touch. His coat
is thrown over the couch, her fingers on his belt buckle when she
leans back. "Hey," she says.

He hears himself groan. "I'm not, I'm not going back out to the
drugstore."

She hits his upper arm with the side of her fist, looks at him
sideways through wet lashes. "I was going to say, we--no strings,
all right?"

No strings attached. For the first time he realizes it applies to
both of them. She is promising him nothing. She never has. He
supposes he accepts it, not that it's his choice. Nothing here is
guaranteed, except perhaps their old and brittle friendship. "No
strings," he says. "Damn it." He kisses her once and pulls her
down on the carpet.

The rain lashes a regular rhythm against the outside walls. A hand
closed on her thigh, a hand under her head. The paper rustles under
the roll of her hips. He wants to keep his eyes open, to watch the
change on her face as she takes him in. Always so goddamned warm.
Rain everywhere and what sounds like thunder, rattling the glass in
the windows, pounding the roof. Her hands scrabble at the carpet
for something to hold onto--"No," he says, "hold me," and she does.
Fingernails in the back of his neck. Scraps of gold paper sticking
to their sweat.

C.J. hums through bitten lips, rises up to kiss him, unexpected and
almost sweet. That's all it takes. He's falling into her, crushed
against her. He can't move or breathe for a while. His pulse slows
at last, subsides; the pain at his heart is only metaphysical.
Metaphorical.

He rolls over beside her. They are quiet and still for what seems
like a long time. They both know what happens next.

"I'm getting old for this," she says, staring up at the ceiling.

Toby gets up from the floor. Again. His knees feel like
hell. "I'm six years older than that," he says.

"Hmm." She splays her hands over her stomach. "Happy birthday."

"Yeah, right." He feels like an idiot, getting his wet clothes back
on piece by piece. An idiot, still wearing a ring.

She reads his thoughts. One thought, at least. "Oh, get something
dry out of the closet."

"I don't think you're my size."

"I have one of your shirts, asshole."

All at once she seems to realize she's wet and naked. She stands
up, peels the wrapping paper off her skin, goes into the bedroom.
After a minute she comes back wearing a towel and hands him a white
dress shirt. It fits. The shirt, the fedora: C.J. probably keeps
pieces of everyone she's ever touched. She carries so much with
her. His throat is suddenly dry. He shifts his weight toward the
door.

"You want a drink?" he asks, because he knows she won't go with him.

"Right now I want a shower." She hugs herself. "I could sleep
until next year."

"I couldn't."

She turns her face away from him, staring out the window, at the
rain, as it gathers and scatters all the light that's out there.
Her shoulders rise and fall with a deep breath. "No," she
says. "Neither could I."

He doesn't say anything as he pulls his coat on, checks the pockets
for his keys. Not even 'goodnight.' Certainly not 'merry
Christmas.' Collar up. He's down and out and gone.

In the first cold blast he is already thinking about tomorrow
morning, about Monday morning. His head is full of ringing phones
and unused phrases. Possibilities. He is surprised to find his
hands turning into fists in his pockets, surprised that he is less
satisfied than he was when he woke up this morning, less content
than he was a year ago. Ready to fight. Sam's wrong in ways he
couldn't even count.

The weight of the world.

Toby stops on the sidewalk, finds C.J.'s lit window. He looks back
until he is certain, without seeing, that she is behind the glass.
Watching. He stares at the light, at where he knows she stands,
nods and turns away. He goes on walking into the slant of the rain,
unarmed against the cold, and unresigned.

*

End. Feedback is the greatest gift of all.
--luna
http://www.sparkgirls.com