"Maybe it got stolen. People steal packages off porches."
"Maybe." Her grandmother reached out and took Claire's hand, turning it over to look at the small burns along the side of her palm from the bakery ovens. She ran her thumb over them gently. "Go to bed, sweetheart. It's Christmas tomorrow."
Claire went. But she lay awake a long time, listening to the house settle, and somewhere around midnight she heard the guest room door open and the slow, uneven tap of a cane going down the hall toward the stairs, and then, faintly, the rustle of wrapping paper in the living room below.
In the Hollis house, Christmas morning had a choreography, and everyone knew their part.
Madison came down first, at seven, because she always came down first. Diane followed with her coffee and her phone, ready to take pictures. Greg came last, in his robe, and sat in the armchair nearest the kitchen, where he could refill his mug without missing anything. And Claire sat on the far end of the couch, close to the window, and handed out presents when her mother told her to, because that had become her job somewhere around the age of ten.
This year Grandma Ruth was in the good armchair by the fire, a blanket over her knees and her cane propped against the side table. She had a cup of tea. She had, Claire noticed, put on lipstick. She looked like a woman who had come to watch a play she had already read.
"Okay, Claire, start with the big one by the stairs," Diane said. "That's for Madison."
Claire carried the big one by the stairs to Madison. It was a new laptop. Madison screamed. Diane took a picture. Greg said, "Careful, it's not a football," which he said every year about something.
Then there was a ring light, and a pair of boots, and a leather jacket from a store in the city that Claire had walked past once and not gone into. There were earrings and a gift card to a spa and a set of expensive skin creams in a box with a satin bow. There were sweaters and books Madison would not read and a framed photograph of Madison at the winter formal last year. There was an envelope with printed confirmation for the ski trip. There was a stack of boxes that seemed to keep going, silver and white, silver and white, until the rug was a sea of torn paper and Madison was laughing and breathless and wearing three of her presents at once.
"Mom," she said, "this is literally the best Christmas ever."
"You deserve it, baby."
Claire handed over the last box from the left side of the tree and sat back down. Her two flat rectangles were in her lap. She had been told to wait to open them until the end. She was used to waiting.
"Claire's turn," Greg said, a little too heartily, as if he had just remembered she was there.