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"You used to love this."

"I used to be eight."

"And charming. Look what happened."

So I bundle the babies up and we go. She’s been back in Holly Ridge for less than three months and it’s like she never left. Maybe this will help her bring Christmas back into her life.

Lights are strung across the grounds. There's a tree stand, cider I can smell from the gate, an angel tree, a brass band working its way through Joy to the World with more bells than it needs.

At the back sits the livestock barn. I've walked past it every December of my life. She wants to take Graham and Hildie in, and I don't have the heart to tell her that four-month-old babies are not going to get excited like she thinks they will.

When we walk in, I see him before he sees me.

He's in a barn coat and his cowboy hat, standing in a straw ring with a cane in his hand next to a hog the size of a coffee table.

He looks leaner than he did in August, and harder, as if the fall took something off him and left only what he needed.

The barn coat is open over a flannel shirt, his jeans are worn pale at the knees, and a piece of straw is stuck to one sleeve. None of it should do a thing to me. I've spent three months training myself to watch him on a phone screen without feeling anything. One look at him in person, with his hat tipped back and his cheeks red from the cold, undoes every minute of it.

Heat climbs my throat under my scarf, and I'm grateful for the cold air, because it gives me something to blame. He hasn't seen me yet. I have enough time to turn the stroller around and walk back through the door before he does.

But I hold my chin up and keep walking.

An older man beside him claps Carson on the shoulder. His coat says BARNES over one pocket.

Carson looks up. His eyes find mine, and he takes off his hat.

"Mackie."

I stop at the edge of the ring. "You have a pig?"

"Technically it's a hog."

The older man laughs. "Came with the place."

I look at Carson. He rubs a hand over the back of his neck. "Dell sold me some property out past Marshall, and it came with this prize hog. He asked me to bring him."

"Entry was already paid," Dell says, shrugging his shoulders. "Seemed a shame to waste it."

"So naturally you ended up showing a pig at a Christmas market in Holly Ridge."

"It appears so. I didn't have anything else to do this weekend."

Dell looks at Carson. "Did all right for a cow man."

Then he heads off toward the cider stand. Beside me, Mom has taken the stroller handle to talk to one of her old neighbors, Ms. Moroska, and she rocks it back and forth while they talk.

"Can I hold them?" Carson nods at the children.

"You don't have to ask me that."

"I do, though, technically.”

"Sure, of course."

He takes Graham, then reaches for Hildie without putting Graham down. Graham settles against one side of his chest and Hildie against the other, contrary to what Mom said about him not being able to hold them both.

My mother pushes the empty stroller, following Ms. Moroska, making a beeline toward a table of wreaths she has no intention of buying.