Christmas day is a brown meat product and instant mashed potatoes on a Styrofoam plate. I close my eyes and pretend Jello is cranberry sauce, crackers are crescent rolls, and the water, a cup of mulled cider... and I try to remember exactly what put me in this stinking cell in the first place...

December 23, 2001... My business partner Carol, called. She asked if I'd help her paint a widow lady's bedroom for free. I thought about the weather--ten degrees and three feet of snow--and my own plans--hot chocolate, a blazing fire, A White Christmas with Bing Crosby--and I almost said no.

"Please, Gracie," Carol said. "Miss Betty's lived with those dingy walls for years now. She needs a cheery shade of buttercup to wake up to come Christmas morning."

My old cat, Buster, meowed at the smell of milk warming on the stove and kneaded his paws into my snuggly slippers. It was noon on a Saturday. I had not dressed and I planned on wearing flannel jammies all day--all weekend for that matter. But Carol droned on about how poor Miss Betty was practically crying this morning when she took her a paper, how poor Miss Betty was tiny and frail. I turned off the TV, put away the chocolate and the milk, and changed into work clothes.

Carol was one of those people you'd share your last meal with, because you just assume she'd do the same. Before we ever dreamed up "Two Friends," the interior painting business we had, we were neighbors, raising kids and selling hot-dogs at baseball games side-by-side--and there was that huge favor she'd done for me--She had an affair with my husband, Joe, just so I'd know what a low-life he was.

But that was all water under the bridge, you know.

Years before the day I'm talking about, our husbands and grown kids had gone on down the road looking for greener pastures. Carol and I worked smart and hard and thanks to her giving nature, we spent most of our extra time caring for strays and needy folks. When Carol asked you to help her out you did it, because everybody loved Carol and people would kill for a friend like her.

Half the water I poured on my iced-over windshield splashed my jacket. Wet and cold, I cursed and turned toward my house. A thousand and one times I've wished I'd gone back in. Here's where I have to stop and admit there was some resentment down deep inside me toward Carol, but that don't mean I would've done anything drastic about it. I mean, we were partners and long-time friends. Once there was even a rumor we were lovers. The things folks talk about in Turnerville...

When I re-live what happened that day, I go back to pulling off Highway 19 and onto a shoveled drive on Whippoorwill Street. I parked my pick-up under a big oak and went in to meet Miss Betty. Carol hadn't arrived yet, but I carried in paint buckets, the ladder, and a brush, so I could get started.

When I put my stuff down inside the house, Miss Betty set a plate of fresh oatmeal raisin cookies and a mug of coffee on the table, so I sat down to be friendly. I remember how crumpled over she looked. I wondered how in the world she'd mustered the energy to bake such delicious homemade cookies. The cinnamon was just right.

That's when she said it wasn't her that baked those cookies. No, her handsome son Anthony had done all that.

"Really?" I said.

"Oh, yes, honey." Miss Betty smiled big and pulled a worn photo from her pocket. "Keep him with me all the time. He's my sweetheart."

Anthony Holcomb.

How could I ever forget him? He was the only man I fell for after Joe left. Anthony was not just lovely to look at, but gentle. He was a real man... not many of those in this Podunk town...but he turned my world upside down and left it like that, all in the space of a couple months. Past romantic notions glazed my eyes and I turned two shades of red remembering nights curled up with this woman's son--who I hadn't even known was her son.

Miss Betty interrupted my daydream. "It was Anthony's idea for you girls to paint the bedroom for me. His treat for Christmas, but dear sweet Carol wouldn't take money from him...such a good girl."

I was confused. Carol had not mentioned Anthony to me that morning. She knew all about him breaking my heart; how I mourned for weeks after he disappeared.

"Where is your son now?"

Miss Betty leans in close. She puts a bony finger up to her thin lips, winks, and smiles. "It's going on between the two of em, you know. She stays over half the time, but don't tell. That's a secret." She says it just like the world's gonna go on spinning...

Carol and Anthony come bouncing up the front porch, him two steps to her tail and a big ole possum grin on his face... and it don't seem at all like Christmas no more... this is where memory escapes me, cause on my daddy's grave, I swear there's no way I could've

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