Everyone went to their rooms for a while after breakfast. All of them had friends they wanted to call. Ted closed the door to his room while he called Pattie, and she finally picked up this time, although she still sounded very upset. He wished her a merry Christmas.

“You should be here with me and the kids,” she said mournfully, and a moment later she was in tears again.

“I have to be with my family today,” he explained again. She just didn’t seem to get it, or didn’t want to. There was no way he would have been anywhere but here today. And after only four weeks it wasn’t fair of Pattie to expect him to ditch his family for her. He was upset that she had made such a fuss about it, but he offered to come to see her late that afternoon. He had presents he wanted to give them. He promised to call Pattie as soon as he thought he could get away.

“Have a nice day,” she said, still sounding hurt and disappointed, and he didn’t apologize to her again. She had to understand that his family was important to him. “I love you, Ted,” Pattie said sadly. She sounded as though she had lost her best friend.

“I’ll see you later,” Ted responded. He still wasn’t ready to tell her that he loved her, and surely not as an apology for spending Christmas with his sisters and aunt. He was upset but not feeling guilty, and it bothered him that Pattie was so possessive of him.

Ted looked more relaxed when he came out of his room again. At least this time Pattie had talked to him.

“Love troubles?” Liz asked him with a raised eyebrow, and he shook his head, surprised that she had guessed and not anxious to open up to her.

“Why would you say that?” Ted commented to his older sister.

“You never close your door when you’re on the phone, unless you’re fighting with a girl. Someone new?” she asked with interest, and he shook his head.

“No, just someone I’ve gone out with a few times.” He could just imagine the look on her face if he told his older sister she was thirty-six years old and had two kids. “I might go see her this afternoon,” he volunteered, and Liz nodded. It didn’t sound unusual to her, and she had to go back to her place and pick up a few things for her trip too.

While they were talking, Annie had wandered into Katie’s room to thank her for the beautiful portraits again. She truly loved them. She noticed a book on Katie’s desk, about Muslim culture and customs. It wasn’t the sort of thing that Katie usually read. She had never been much of a reader, and her taste ran more to biographies of contemporary artists and rock stars. And she’d never had an interest in other religions before, or even her own.

“That looks interesting,” Annie said, picking it up. “Are you taking a class in Eastern religions? It might actually help us to understand some of the conflicts in the world today.”

“I borrowed it from a friend,” Katie said, and turned away. Annie went back to the living room to join the others then. They had all dressed nicely for lunch, and Ted was wearing a coat and tie as he always did for family events. She had always insisted that they dress properly for the holidays when they were children.

Liz was wearing a simple little black wool dress, although it barely reached her thighs. Annie was wearing her favorite red Christmas dress, and Katie appeared a moment later in a red leather skirt, Raggedy Ann stockings, red combat boots, a fuzzy white sweater, and Christmas balls hanging from her ears as earrings. She was definitely her own person, but she had just proved to all of them again what a talented artist she was. And Annie was impressed by the book she had seen in her room. She liked to see that Kate was interested in different things and cultures. Kate was a freethinker and never borrowed anyone’s ideas without checking them out for herself first. She was a totally independent individual. Annie had tried to open as many doors to them as she could. She had never wanted them to live in a narrow, limited world. And she loved the fact that each of them was so different. Of the three, Ted was the most traditional, and Katie the least. She thought that Jane and Bill would have been proud of them too.

The conversation was lively at their Christmas lunch table, and Annie poured them each champagne. They were all old enough to drink, and rarely did to excess, although Ted had had his occasional sophomoric moments during his first two years in college, but now they were all adults, and reasonable about how much they drank.

Liz said she was excited about going to Paris and spending time with Jean-Louis. The shoot she was doing in the first week of January was an important one and was being done by a famous French photographer, with important jewels from all over Europe. The Queen of England had even lent them a piece, which Lizzie was planning to put on the cover. She talked animatedly about it. Only Ted was a little quieter than usual, and Annie could sense that something was bothering him, but whatever it was, he didn’t want to share it with them.

He watched a little football after the meal, and then he stood up and said vaguely that he was going out for a while to see friends. He waited to see if anyone objected, and when they didn’t, he went to his room and picked up the wrapped gifts for Pattie’s kids. He had bought each of them a game. He wasn’t sure what kids liked at that age. He had already given Pattie her gift, in case he hadn’t been able to get out on Christmas Day.

He put on his coat and bent to kiss Annie while she chatted with Kate and Liz, and he looked very serious. He had left the gifts for Jessica and Justin at the front door, so as not to draw attention to them.

“I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” he promised, picked up his keys on the hall table, and the gifts for Pattie’s kids, and left.

“What’s eating him?” Liz asked the others, and Katie said she had no idea. He hadn’t said anything to her, although she had heard him arguing with someone on the phone in his room.

“Sounds like a girl to me,” Annie suggested calmly. “He’s being very quiet about it.”

“He always is,” Liz volunteered, and they all agreed that he seemed to be unusually so this time.

“If he keeps seeing her, she’ll show up eventually. Maybe she’s funny looking or weird or something,” Kate suggested.

“Yeah, like with a lot of pierces and tattoos,” Liz teased her, and they all laughed. Whatever Ted was up to, they all assumed correctly that he would tell them about it when he was ready to. For now it was a mystery, and he wanted it that way. And Annie respected them all too much to try and pry it out of him.

Ted ran up the stairs in Pattie’s building as fast as he could. He had promised her he’d try to be there by five, and it was nearly six. But he hadn’t been able to get away before that. He hadn’t wanted to run out on Annie and his sisters on Christmas. Their traditions were important to all of them, and to him too.

He rang the doorbell, and for a long moment she didn’t answer, and Ted was worried that she might not let him in. She had said she’d be there. He felt suddenly like a very young boy who was in trouble. It was an unfamiliar sensation to him. He had always been responsible and well behaved. Annie had very rarely been angry at him, and when she was, it was hot, clear, and direct. She gave a short blast, and it was over. She had never dragged it out, held a grudge, or been passive-aggressive with any of them. Pattie seemed to be punishing him for spending Christmas with his family. And then finally she opened the door to him with a pained look. It was obvious that she’d been crying, and she burst into tears and threw herself into his arms the moment he walked into the room. Ted was stunned.

“How could you leave me alone today?” she said accusingly, and he looked around and didn’t see her kids.

“Where are Jessica and Justin?” he asked, looking baffled.

“I sent them to the movies with Mrs. Pacheco. I wanted to be alone with you when you came.”

“I brought some little presents for them,” he said, setting the gift-wrapped boxes down on the table. “And I didn’t leave you alone, Pattie. You were with your kids, and I was with my family. I couldn’t just walk out on them.” He sounded calm and reasonable, but her hysteria and demands on him concerned him. It was too soon in the relationship for her to expect so much.

“So you walked out on me instead,” she said softly.

“I didn’t walk out on you,” he corrected firmly. “And we’ve only been dating for four weeks.”

“I’m in love with you, Ted.” He would have been more convinced if she hadn’t said it to him the first night. For him, love was something that grew slowly over time, not something that burst into full bloom on the first night. He was growing more and more attached to her, but he still wanted to be sure that it was love and not just fabulous sex.

He was pleased to see that she was wearing the sweater he had given her, although she hadn’t seemed excited about his gift and wanted something else from him. She forgot that he was twenty-four years old and a student, and a white cashmere sweater was a big gift for him. Annie had been thrilled with the cashmere shawl he had gotten from the same place. But Pattie had made it clear she wanted a promise ring. The very idea of that had stunned him. It wasn’t appropriate after only four weeks. She was going much too fast for him, and it made him uncomfortable. Even a man her own age wouldn’t have been ready to move that quickly.

As he looked at her tenderly, she handed him his gift. And as he took off the wrapping, he was ill at ease to see that it was some kind of jewelry box. He gasped when he opened it—it was a beautiful old gold man’s watch, and not at all the kind of thing he would wear. He was wearing the Cartier diver’s watch from his sister, which was much more age appropriate. And he was even more uncomfortable seeing that Pattie’s was an expensive gift.