The Christmas Truce

Part II: Kingsley's Christmas Truce

Now playing... "All I Ever Get For Christmas is Blue" by Over the Rhine

Wakefield, Connecticut

It was twenty degrees and falling when they left Nora's house. Kingsley cinched his scarf tighter around his neck as he got into her car.

"I better win that money," was all he said as she took the highway to Wakefield.

"Kiss it goodbye, King," she said and turned up the heat and the radio. A velvet-throated jazz singer crooned "All I Ever Get For Christmas Is Blue" at him, and he was tempted to call the golden-voice singer and offer to cheer her up a little in his own particular way.

"You know, we could be fucking right now," Kingsley said. "Church versus fucking and we picked church?"

"Well, too late. We're here," she said as she pulled in across the street from the brightly-lit church. Even in the car, Kingsley could hear the music pouring through the doors, decorated with massive green and red-ribboned wreaths. "Shall we?"

Kingsley took a fortifying breath. "Once more unto the breach."

They walked into the church. Kingsley and Nora stood at the open sanctuary doors, toes touching but not crossing the threshold. The congregation finished singing and everyone sat. An air of expectation filled the room to the rafters. Breaths were held. Babies shushed. All eyes looked ahead.

Søren came to the pulpit.

Kingsley so rarely saw Søren in his vestments that it took his breath away to see his former lover wearing a snow-white chasuble and a silver and gold-embroidered stole. With his blond hair shining in the candlelight—and perfectly in place as always—he glowed like an angel. Which, Kingsley thought, perfectly demonstrated how deceptive appearances can be.

Nora leaned in, put her mouth to Kingsley's ear, and whispered two words.

"Lights, please?" Nora said.

Søren began to speak.

"Lights, please?" Søren said.

The congregation roared with laughter.

"Dammit," Kingsley sighed.

"Why does that always work for Linus?" Søren said, playfully peering up at the balcony as if searching for his missing spotlight. "Not once has it ever worked for me."

Kingsley pulled out his wallet and counted ten Benjamin Franklins, which Nora merrily pocketed in her coat.

"Merry Christmas," Søren said.

"Merry Christmas, Father," the congregation responded in unison. Nora was grinning, basking in her victory.

"It's wonderful to see so many of you here," he said. "And so many faces I haven't seen since Easter."

The church rippled with chuckles and groans. Clergy humor.

"I see Regina tapping her wristwatch to warn me to make this quick," Søren said. "I'm allowed twenty minutes, Regina. What was that?"

Søren leaned forward to listen to someone speaking from the front row.

"Ten? I only have ten minutes?" Søren sounded aghast. "But this is my moment, Regina. Why are you trying to kill my moment?"

The entire congregation laughed again. Kingsley felt it as much as heard it—the laughter of five-hundred people in a confined space could register on the Richter scale.

"Who is this man?" Kingsley whispered to Nora. "They adore him."

"Kingsley Edge, meet Father Marcus Stearns."