Merry Christmas, Alex Cross

CHAPTER 6

Damon stood on tiptoes on a wobbly kitchen chair. He was sweating and trying very hard to hook a delicate antique angel to the top of the Christmas tree.

“I’ll get a stepladder, get up there myself,” Nana Mama said.

“I don’t need a stepladder and I’m certainly not letting my ninety-year-old great-grandmother use one,” Damon shot back.

“You’re just lazy,” Nana Mama declared. “Your father raise you like that, or are you majoring in that subject at that fancy prep school you go to?”

Damon didn’t know whether to be angry or start laughing at the fact that she was busting his chops like this. At last his fingers secured the angel to the tree with a piece of ancient white lace Nana Mama said had belonged to her grandmother.

“There,” he said, jumping off the chair and looking at the old woman. “A little applause?”

“For what?” his great-grandmother asked.

“For getting the angel up there?”

“Oh, that,” she said. “You’d have gotten me that stepladder, I’d have done it myself a lot quicker.”

“And broken your hip,” Bree said as she began packing up the ornaments and lights that had not made the tree this year. “Thank you, Damon. She looks beautiful up there.”

Nana Mama sighed, said, “I don’t understand why the top of the tree is always the last thing we decorate. It should be the first, so the angel can look down on us while we decorate the tree. That makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?”

Damon didn’t reply. No one replied. No one except Nana Mama had felt much like talking since Alex left.

But Nana just kept going. “Jannie, what do you think?” she asked.

“With all due respect, Nana,” Jannie said, “I think that you think that if you keep talking, we’ll forget Dad is out on a case and might get hurt on Christmas.”

Nana walked to Jannie and hugged her tightly. “You are one smart girl, Jannie. Smart women run in this family.”

Damon rolled his eyes. Bree smiled slightly, and Nana tried her hardest to snap back into her sensible self. She said, “That Alex. He’s my fault. I admit it: I didn’t raise that boy right. If I had, he’d never be foolish enough to go out on a nasty case on Christmas.”

Again, nobody said a word.

Then Bree looked up from her packing and said, “Listen. It’s pretty obvious that Alex won’t be home for a while. Maybe quite a while. So let’s just make the best of it. Merry Christmas to all.”

Ava added, “And to all a good night.”

Nana tried to smile, but her eyes filled with tears. “Yes,” she choked out. “A good night. Please, dear Lord, let it be a good night.”

Damon melted, went to his great-grandmother, hugged her, and said, “It will be, Nana. I promise you, it will be.”