Auberon
Almost Christmas Day

Boone came back downstairs from her working space on the Georgian brick’s upper story without making a sound, as the big house was silent now and its silence seemed too peaceful to disturb with bustle or carelessness. As she suspected, Terry and their daughter remained in the living room … on the sofa and biggest chair. Both were wrapped in fleece throws and asleep across from the embers of the fire that he, as always, hated to leave unattended while the hearth still shed its warmth.

She lowered the lighting to further the ambiance of the family room. The blessing of it manifested again, for they had made it so. The old if updated house was again a home, with the people here a family. Love is what did this, Boone thought with satisfaction.

With the lights dimmed, Boone was drawn to a window now traced with frost, for this Christmas Eve had brought with it a rare snowfall. Perhaps one in twenty Christmases whitened the Virginia horse country, but in this year such had arrived right on time, making the season even more special. Afterward the sky had cleared, and now there was time for the stars to shine over the scene. It would be a shame to waste it.

Boone glided to the entry and slipped into her winter boots, donning her coat and raising its fur-lined hood over her blaze of auburn hair, only now mingling with a strand or two of mother’s gray. She just as quietly undid the door and slipped outside, where brisk air–refreshing as it was–provided a stark contrast to the warmth inside. Drawing her outwear close, she stepped out onto the fresh snow, looking up at the display above her.

The dark sky sent down its glory on this night, unimpeded by a sliver of waning moon. The Milky Way wound across it, and Boone stared back in time in appreciation of the stars there. Turning to regard the scene above the house, she noticed a faint wisp of light extinguish behind the window of Elena’s upper room. Of course. I’ve tickled the perimeter security. I’m sorry, dear. Her housekeeper and daughter’s ever-protective nanny would be returning to sleep now, after confirming via her smartphone that it was Auberon’s sometimes-nocturnal mistress on the grounds in the night.

Boone turned again, wheeling, taking it all in, reveling in the blessings of her present life. She could not now see it otherwise, as the temptation to take pride in her achievements, education, finances, … her work, her marriage were part of an old mind, one that had its course corrected by faith. And only just in time, she knew without doubt.

Such was what they remembered at Christmastime. Boone’s intelligence career and her ongoing efforts for her father’s private firm dealt in things that were real. Information, sifted against other information, produced the patterns of a cross-verifying framework where she and so many like her in the field determined the given moment’s state of actuality. Those enabled solid decisions keeping those deciding on an even keel of wisdom. So it goes everywhere.

The night was so quiet. The Virginia countryside was asleep and the stars had the dark to themselves. Boone barely felt like breathing, much less moving. This is more than nature. It is testimony.

It was part of her makeup now, her perspective, though it sadly had not always been so. “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands,” the psalmist has written, and the apostle Paul had expounded on His will: being understood from what has been made. That’s what it was always about, wasn’t it?

Boone has been outside some minutes already; long enough, as the chill in the air reminded. It was Christmas Day now, she knew. Her coat pulled close as she wrapped her arms around herself, knowing it was so but unwilling to depart from the lingering moment.

“Emmanuel. God with us,” she whispered, her breath visible in the frosty air. The smile that followed was an upwelling of gratitude from her soul emerging into the world, as faith was wont to do.

*****

Merry Christmas! Choose to love. -DA