The Christmas List: A Novel

The storm arrived early as Kier drove his arctic white BMW up the canyon toward Park City, his wipers flipping frantically to keep up with the snowfall. On both sides of him the canyon walls rose jagged and white, plastered with ice and snow. The traffic around him had slowed to a crawl and cars, covered in snow, moved slowly, like a herd of mobile igloos. It bothered him that he couldn’t get Sara off his mind. How she looked. Her fall. Her last words to him—I’m not your problem anymore. He realized that he had never really confronted the reality of her dying.

Christmas Day would have been their silver anniversary: a quarter of a century. Kier hadn’t much experience with death. His mother had died when he was two; he didn’t remember her or her passing. His father had died six years ago, but they hadn’t spoken for years and he didn’t even attend the funeral. But Sara was different. He wondered how long she had left and how her death would affect him.

He took a drink from his bottle of water and set it on the seat next to him. He couldn’t figure out why Sara had delayed their divorce for so long. It clearly wasn’t about money; she asked for much less than she was entitled to and they both knew it. He was still puzzling over this when he arrived at the Park City junction. In another ten minutes he turned off the highway to the Snowed Inn bed-and-breakfast. Traci would be up in a few hours. He could worry about Sara later.