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Lincoln’s is probably the oldest shop in town and, without question, the most visited. Labeling it a “general store” does not give enough credit to the long, wide building that has been a staple in the Maple Hills community since 1886. It still has one section devoted to movie rentals, Blockbuster-style, for the folks around town who never stopped using DVDs and VCRs. There’s a section for farmers (and, in spring, all the rest of us who want to see the newly hatched chicks scurrying around beneath heat lamps). There’s a tire section, and there are hair perming supplies, and inspirational crossword puzzles, and fishing rods of every size and color possible. And boots, of course.

And clothes.

The old cowbell on the door clatters as we dust off the snow from our feet and step inside. The place is crowded, and this time, not just with stuff. The typically tight aisles overloaded with every variety of thing are now swamped with customers drifting from row to row, seeking out odds and ends to meet their needs. An old and in no way coordinating mass of lights drapes across the aisles from above—some white, some multicolored, some snowflake shaped, some big, some tiny and twinkling. Christmas music plays from a small, old portable radio on the counter in the center of the store.

It’s a claustrophobic person’s nightmare and a hoarder’s dream.

“Wow,” James says simply, and I nod. It’s a lot to take in.

I point us in the direction of the clothes section and together we weave our way through the crowd. It’s a pretty handy first stop, actually. Within five aisles I pick up a ceramic chicken that purposes itself as both a candle warmer and a belated birthday present for Genie.

“Got anyone you have to shop for left on your list?” I say, finding a discarded empty cart and making it my own. “This is about as good as it’ll get for last-minute gifts in town. And I saw your suitcase. It doesn’t seem to me like you could have fit a three-foot-tall Barbie princess in your carry-on.”

“I got gift cards,” James says.

And . . . I know I’m not supposed to judge another person’s gift giving. It’s the thought that counts. Yada yada.

But his nieces are three and six.

He sees the emotion playing traitorously on my face and slows. “Because then they can shop for exactly what they want.”

“Mm,” I murmur, my mouth clamped tight.

We walk a few more steps in silence.

“It’s practical,” he says.

I nod.

“It allows them to shop online. For anything in the world.”

I turn the cart in the direction of the greeting cards. Tilt my head away and pick up a cheap Christmas card. Glitter sprinkles over my hands. I put it back. Pick up another.

James has never looked so completely and innocently clueless.

I mean, to be fair, I’ve also only known him a whopping twenty-four hours.

“Do you think . . .” James says, as though this is actually challenging to consider, “that maybe they would rather have something . . . immediately on Christmas morning? Like, in their hands? Even if it’s subpar in every way conceivable?”

“Do I think preschoolers aren’t mentally at the point where they can grasp the value of delayed satisfaction? Yes, James. I think your nieces would take a bag of Skittles with more enthusiasm than a bicycle on a screen they have to wait for.”

It takes him enough time for me to pick out two more Christmas cards before he can respond.

“Huh.” He scratches the back of his neck. Looks at the cards in my basket as if seeing them for the first time. “And . . . do you think people might like a Christmas card in the mail even though we live in the twenty-first century with access to high-speed internet and can easily send an email with the exact same sentiment both instantaneously and for free?”

“Depends. Are you planning to send a card to your dentist?”

“No.”

“Your leasing management company?”

“No.”

“Your girlfriend?”

“Nonexistent.”

I sniff, feeling silently bolstered. “Then who?”