Jennifer Haigh by Condition Page B

behalf. A powerful urge to kick the shit out of an Avis clerk who couldn't handle a simple car rental, to tear out all his hoop earrings and grind them savagely under his heel. Frank had never failed to love his daughter. He wanted simply to help her, to give her the best life possible. Presumably Paulette wanted the same. Yet how to do that was a subject on which they'd never managed to agree.
    They climbed the stairs to the lab, Gwen leading the way, her sneakers squeaking on the steps. They reached the landing just as the elevator doors were opening.
    "Frank?" Cristina Spiliotes stepped out of the elevator, smiling warmly. She wore a green velvet pullover with a deep V neckline. A diamond hung in the soft hollow at the base of her throat. She seemed dressed for somewhere more festive than the lab—a Christmas party, perhaps.
    "How are you, Frank?" She touched his elbow. "Merry Christmas to you."
    He smiled uncertainly, bewildered by her friendliness. Most days they exchanged a perfunctory hello, or nothing at all.
    "Is this your little girl?" she asked.
    A sick feeling in his stomach. Jesus, no , he thought. But Gwen's back was to Cristina; from the rear, she certainly looked like a child. It occurred to him that the two women were about the same age.
    He laid a hand on Gwen's shoulder."Gwen, this is Cristina Spiliotes, one of my postdoctoral fellows. My daughter, Gwen McKotch."
    He willed her to step forward, to offer her hand in a confident way. But Gwen seemed to be hiding behind him. "Hi," she said, her voice small.
    For the first time he could remember, Cristina seemed genuinely rattled. She looked from Gwen to Frank, and back again.
    "I'm sorry," she stammered."My mistake. Please forgive me."
    "No problem," Gwen said for the second time in an hour. "It's not your fault."
     
    The snow was falling, falling on the house in Concord, and this more than anything else—more than gifts or garlands, more than the familiar old carols or the insipid new ones playing in the bank and hair salon and grocery store that afternoon—made December twentyfourth feel like a holiday. Her errands done, Paulette stood at the front door and stared out through the frosted glass. As a girl she'd loved the snow, its first appearance each year a thing to celebrate, Roy and Martine dragging their Flexible Flyers to the top of the hill behind their house, stopping periodically to wait for her, too little to keep up. Now her brother and sister lived in warmer climates—Martine in Taos, New Mexico; Roy and his new wife in Arizona—and only Paulette was left to witness the crystalline scratching at the windowpanes, the heavy blanket accruing on the front step.
    The house, on a wide tree-lined street at the edge of town, had seen many winters; one hundred ninety-nine, according to the town clerk. It had been the boyhood home of Josiah Hobhouse, a Unitarian minister and ardent abolitionist. Paulette cherished this history as though it belonged to her, as though it were her very own ancestor who'd fought at Harpers Ferry alongside John Brown. Perhaps because of this, she couldn't imagine selling the place, as the men in her family—Billy, her brother, Roy—periodically urged her to do.
    In financial terms, the house was a disaster. Like all the elderly, it had begun to break down.
    Walls, floors, nothing lasted forever. Paulette had not arrived at this insight on her own. For years she'd served on the local Patriots'
    Day committee, which planned the annual reenactment of the Battle of Concord; and last Patriots' Day, she'd met a young carpenter named Gilbert Pyle. He was a direct descendant of John Hawes Gilbert, a Concord Minuteman; each April, Pyle donned a tricorn and breeches and played the role of his ancestor in the skirmish at North Bridge.
    When not in costume, he specialized in historic restorations; in Concord his skills were much in demand. He had walked Paulette through the house, pointing out cracks in the foundation, the sagging