Good-bye, Maui; good-bye, Drake; good-bye, hot-stone massage.

Then Margaret chastises herself. Bart was most likely on that convoy and is now being held prisoner somewhere in Afghanistan. Kelley Kelley Kelley Kelley Kelley Kelley—his son, his baby. Margaret has to get to him.

Stuck.

In.

Traffic.

Where are all these souls going on Christmas Eve? Why aren’t they at home with their families?

Margaret digs into her luggage—the bikinis and cover-ups and sandals and straw hat have all been rendered useless—until she finds the zipped pocket where she stashed Ava’s paper angel. She lays the paper angel in her lap. She was raised Catholic and educated by the nuns, but her faith has morphed greatly over the years—it has both faltered and deepened. She is more certain now than ever that there is something bigger out there, but she is less sure what it is. God? Allah? Karma?

Holding the paper angel on her lap brings back the best memories, but only in snippets. The first Christmas with Patty, when he was just a newborn. Margaret set him under the tree in his Moses basket, and neither she nor Kelley bought each other any gifts that year, because what could be more perfect than the gift they had created together?

The year she and Kelley drove from Manhattan to Kelley’s mother’s house, in Perrysburg, Ohio, through a blinding snowstorm, with Patrick and Kevin strapped into car seats in the back. Margaret was convinced they’d get stranded; she made Kelley promise they would never again leave Manhattan at the holidays, and they never had.

The string of years in the brownstone. There were some good memories, before Margaret’s career took off, back when she actually had time for things. Margaret used to pick the kids up from school and ogle all the shopwindows and then take them up to the seventh floor of Bergdorf’s for hot chocolate. She made sugar cookies every year with Ava: colored icing, silver balls, green and red jimmies. Kelley’s firm used to throw a whopper of a holiday party at Le Cirque—oysters and champagne and a twenty-two-piece orchestra, everyone drunk, partners’ wives doing lines of cocaine in the bathroom while wearing their furs. That had been the last rush of big-time Reagan-era prosperity—life before cell phones and the Internet. Margaret had a certain nostalgia for that time, those parties, the big hair. Patrick and Kevin used to participate in the pageant at their church on Eighty-Eighth Street. They were usually shepherds, but one year Patrick was picked to be Joseph, and Kelley and Margaret were given seats in the front pew. Margaret loved the pageant, with its menagerie of barn animals and little children dressed as angels, and the whole sanctuary bathed in candlelight. The organist would play “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” and the church walls would practically swell with the voices, young and old.

Christmas Eve—always quiche lorraine and spinach salad with hot bacon dressing, and a viewing of the movie where the little boy wants a BB gun. Margaret and Kelley would drink Golden Dreams and get pleasantly mulled before putting the kids to bed and setting out the presents.

It had all been a golden dream, Margaret thought. If only they had realized it at the time.

Margaret’s phone rings. It’s Ned, who is in charge of the four network-owned jets.

“Margaret,” he says, “I have one plane with crew ready to go, but I have to remind you, it’s meant for urgent scenarios. You know, for news stories. Lee okayed it, so I’m going to let it slide tonight, but this can’t become a habit.”

“It won’t ever happen again,” Margaret says, wishing Lee had told Ned to spare her the lecture. “I promise.”

“Anyway, the problem is that Nantucket is closing its airport at nine. I can contact them, but I’m warning you, the likelihood that they’re going to stay open for you on Christmas Eve is pretty low.” He clears his throat. “People want to get home.”

I want to get home, Margaret thinks. By no stretch of the imagination is Nantucket Island her home, although she and Kelley started going there in the summer years when the kids were small. They used to rent a house on North Liberty Street that had a screened-in porch, a charcoal grill, and no TV. It had been the perfect place to unplug, unwind, and watch the boys and Ava play endless games of badminton in the side yard. When Margaret and Kelley split, Kelley “got” Nantucket; Margaret is now just a visitor. But her children are there, and this makes it the closest thing to a home that Margaret has.

“Please check, Ned,” Margaret says. “Please. Tell the tower that once I’m on the ground, I’ll sign autographs. I’ll do photos. I’ll write their kids college recommendations.”

“Okay,” Ned says, and he hangs up.

Raoul pops in Margaret’s favorite CD by the Vienna Boys’ Choir. She leans back and wonders briefly what Drake is doing. She assumes he’ll go to Hawaii alone. He will meet someone else—a young divorcée or one of the luscious college-dropout bartenders. He will lose the intellectual stimulation that Margaret brings, but he will gain youth and vigor in bed. She can’t even summon the energy to text him, though she wishes him well.

Her phone rings. It’s Ned. Bad news, she thinks. It’s a five-hour drive to Hyannis (does she even remember how to drive?). She will get to the DoubleTree at two a.m. If she’s lucky.

“You’re not going to believe this,” Ned says. “The secretary of state is flying in at midnight tonight from Israel, so Nantucket airspace is open until then!” He sounds truly joyous, as if nothing makes him happier than delivering Margaret this Christmas miracle. “When can you get here?”

Margaret feels the car surge forward. The traffic has just cleared, and Raoul steps on it.

“Half an hour,” she says. “I’m on my way.”

KELLEY

George was the one who always wore the red suit, but Kelley is the real Santa Claus at the Quinn household.

Despite everything that’s happened, Kelley stuffs the stockings—he even stuffs stockings for Patrick’s three boys, as if by some reverse Christmas magic, the presents will make them appear. He puts gifts for everyone under the tree.

He checks his phone, but there is no word from Bart.

It is Christmas morning in Afghanistan.

Kelley goes to bed.

DECEMBER 25

MARGARET

She wakes up with her daughter snuggled at her side. Margaret is filled with such joy, she nearly cries. Her career has come at an enormous cost, and the person who has suffered the most, she knows, is Ava. Ava was only six years old when Margaret and Kelley split and ten when Kelley moved to Nantucket. Margaret had considered keeping Ava with her in Manhattan—even at six, she demonstrated an exceptional musical talent, and the best place to develop that was in the city. But Ava would have been raised by housekeepers and nannies, whereas Kelley had given up everything to be a hands-on parent, and Margaret had reluctantly agreed that Ava would be better off with him. Still, six years old is a tender age for a girl to be separated from her mother. Margaret always told herself she was leading by example, building a legendary career. She had thought Ava would be a concert pianist or perhaps a rock star. But Ava likes teaching music on Nantucket, and Margaret is happy she is happy. Now she hopes that Ava will find true love, get married, have children, and be the mother that Margaret never was.