“And it bothers you that your instinct was to protect a kid.”

Hawk stared out the window, his eyes fixed beyond Linnaean Street and out to the horizon. I had a feeling wherever he was looking, he was seeing himself at age eleven, a scared kid alone on the streets at Christmas.

“Not who I am, Spenser,” he said. “That be you. Can’t be you. Can’t do what I do, thinking ’bout somebody else.”

“You and I go in,” I said, “I know you got my back.”

“I got your back, you got mine.” Hawk shook his head. “This feels different.”

“You kept Slide from being hurt,” I said. “It doesn’t mean you have to adopt him. He and Carmen don’t expect a thing from you.”

“Feel responsible for him somehow. And I can’t do that. Can’t be responsible for no one but me.”

“You do what you can do.”

“And what’s that?”

“You saved his life. That’s probably enough.”

We looked out at Slide. He was terrorizing squirrels, throwing snowballs at them in the now-bare maple tree in Susan’s front yard.

“I’ll be checking on him,” I said. “Maybe go down to Street Business and show those kids how to box. You can join me or not.”

Hawk exhaled and walked back to the sofa. Pearl ambled over and jumped up beside him.

“You did a good thing, Hawk,” I said. “And that’s enough.”

He nodded.

I looked out the window. Carmen and Slide were laughing in the fading light.

“Merry Christmas, Hawk,” I said.

“Amani, Spenser,” Hawk said. “Peace.”

When I left the room, Hawk had his head tilted back on the sofa and his legs extended on the coffee table. Pearl had stretched out and lay with her front paws and head in his lap. He patted her softly with his free hand while he watched the game.

I WENT TO SUSAN’S BEDROOM to wake her. For a moment I just watched her from the doorway. Even in repose, the sight of her always struck me like electricity. In all our years together, that had never changed.

She stirred.

“Where are our guests?”

I told her about the basketball, and the snowball fight, and gave her the score of the game.

“And Pearl?”

“Pearl’s watching Hawk, in case he starts rooting for the Lakers,” I said.

She smiled and sat up. She was still wearing her red Christmas dress. I sat down next to her on the bed.

“Have you come to unwrap your present?”

“I have,” I said. “And perhaps ignite some holiday fireworks.”

Susan pursed her lips.

“Fireworks sounds more like New Year’s,” she said. “I was contemplating something more reverent and sacred.”

“‘O Holy Night’?” I said.

Susan smiled.

“That’s the spirit,” she said. She leaned forward and kissed me lightly on the lips. Then she pulled back slightly and met my gaze. A playful smile was on her face, and her eyes were brightly shining.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

There are people in your life, if you are very fortunate, who bring along with them untold gifts of laughter, love, and wisdom. Joan and Bob Parker entered my life in 1978, when they came to my New York office (then in my apartment because I couldn’t afford a real office) to audition me to become, if I passed muster, Bob’s literary agent. That day we formed a three-way friendship that gave me those gifts and much more.

Very soon after Bob’s death, Joan and I were talking on the phone, trying to maintain our avoidance of anything approaching sentimentality or the maudlin, still suffering from shock at the suddenness of Bob’s departure and our shared and separate grief, and Joan brought up that the morning he died he had been working on the Christmas Spenser. “I wonder what will happen to it now?”

Without thinking, I heard myself say, “Maybe I should try to finish it. Could I? Should I? What do you think?”

“I can’t think of a reason not to try. Bob would want you to,” Joan said. “Go for it!”

And I did.