The answer: Nothing.
Pray.
Don’t use Bart’s disappearance as a springboard to air your personal views about Al Qaeda, the Taliban, or ISIS, or to disparage either the Bush administration or the Obama administration.
Don’t generalize about Arab countries or Muslims.
Pray.
Nothing.
Nothing isn’t quite accurate in Margaret’s case. She, alone among the people Kelley knows, has offered practical action. As the anchor of the CBS Evening News, she is one of the most influential people in America, and has a direct line to everyone—including the president of the United States. The Oval Office assured Margaret that “every possible step” was being taken to find the missing soldiers. Margaret also has a press contact in Afghanistan named Neville Grey, who first turned up the information about the Bely, whom no one in America had ever heard of.
When Margaret asked Neville for his gut feeling on the missing convoy, Neville responded: Most likely Bely. They’re an unknown quantity. All anyone here knows is that they’re kids who have been ripped from their families and trained in a culture of extreme brutality. The DoD has sent three recon missions into the surrounding region that turned up nothing. It’s like these kids vanished off the face of the earth. The vehicle was unharmed, the fuel siphoned, all rucksacks and supplies taken. This kind of kidnapping is highly unusual—why not just blow them sky-high with an IED? My gut is that the troops are alive, and being held somewhere to be used as bargaining chips later. The Pentagon will get to the bottom of this. You just don’t lose forty-five marines.
Margaret shared this with Kelley. But not knowing for sure is like living in purgatory—it’s hell but not quite as bad as actual hell because there is still hope.
Hope.
In response to everyone’s queries, Kelley decides, on the Friday afternoon of Stroll weekend, to compose a letter he will send out in lieu of the usual Winter Street Inn Christmas card. The card—which in years past has featured a collage of happy inn-related photos taken over the course of the year—would be inappropriate. A letter is a better idea. Kelley’s mother, Frances Quinn, used to write a letter and include it with the cards she sent each Christmas—a practice that, quite frankly, Kelley found mortifying. In present-day terms, Frances Quinn might have been described as having no filter. In her own words, she was an Irish-American matriarch “telling it like it is,” and “speaking from the heart.” Frances had her predilections and prejudices and made them known in this letter, the most glaring of which was her favoritism of Kelley’s brother, Avery. Every year in the Christmas letter, Avery got the first paragraph (even though he was younger than Kelley by eighteen months) and he received longer, more glowing praise. Avery is a straight-A student. Avery is a starting guard on the freshman basketball team. Avery is president of the National Honor Society, bestowing pride on the family name.
Kelley’s paragraph always tended toward the negative. For example, one year, Frances wrote: Kelley got a B-minus in biology this past term. It has been a challenge for Richard and me to see someone so talented not living up to his full potential. Kelley is often sullen and has become quite proficient at stomping up stairs and slamming bedroom doors. At least once a week, Richard and I consider putting him up for adoption, or encouraging him to become an exchange student in Timbuktu.
Kelley can remember being outraged by this. Adoption? He’d said. Timbuktu?
Don’t be sensitive, Frances said. I was only kidding.
Frances would never make such a joke about Avery, however. She was so proud of him when he announced he was gay during his senior year at Oberlin, and when he decided to move in with his boyfriend, Marcus, after graduating. Avery and Marcus are cohabitating in a gorgeous brownstone on West Fourth Street in Greenwich Village, and they enjoy socializing on the weekends. Richard and I don’t judge; we simply want Avery to be happy—although I do worry about the hours he keeps!
Kelley and Avery had joked about Frances’s annual Christmas letter even as Avery lay dying of AIDS in his gorgeous brownstone on West Fourth Street. It was the last thing they had laughed about together.
Mom loved me more, Avery said.
No question, Kelley said.
The Christmas letter, Avery said.
The Christmas letter, Kelley concurred. I couldn’t even get top billing when I got accepted to Columbia Business School because that was the same year you were nominated for a Tony.
Tough luck, Avery said.
Kelley vows he will give all four of his children equal billing and he will go in order of age, which puts Bart last.
Dear Family and Friends,
Happy Holidays 2015! [Kelley spends a few minutes pondering the exclamation point. It feels too celebratory considering Quinn Family Circumstances, but using a period makes the sentence seem flat and pointless. Happy Holidays 2015. He decides to leave the exclamation point, for now.]
It has been a rough year for the Quinns, but I would like to start by saying thank you for all of the well-wishes and positive missives sent our way. Hearing from so many of you during this difficult time means more than you know.
For those of you who haven’t heard, Mitzi and I have split after twenty-one years of marriage. [Kelley wonders if it will seem self-centered that he’s starting with his own news. But it’s basic information that “family and friends” need to know. Most of the emails and Facebook messages he’s received are addressed to Kelley-and-Mitzi as a couple, and he feels compelled to end the misconception. They’ve been separated for nearly a year!] Mitzi has moved to Lenox, Massachusetts, with a man named George Umbrau, whom some of you will remember as our Winter Street Inn Santa Claus. [Kelley pauses and rereads. He’ll let friends and family draw their own conclusions.] The silver lining to Mitzi’s departure has been the return of Margaret Quinn to my life (yes, the Margaret Quinn: CBS Evening News anchor, my first wife, mother of my three older children). Margaret has been a frequent visitor to the Winter Street Inn this past year, and she has offered much-needed emotional and financial support. [He strikes “and financial.” He feels shades of Frances Quinn creeping in; nobody needs to know about the million dollars.] Margaret is the face and voice of our nation, but she is also a loving mother and my treasured friend.
Patrick was indicted in January of this year on charges of insider trading in his capacity as vice president of private equity for Everlast Investments. He’s serving eighteen months at a minimum-security facility in Shirley, Mass., and is scheduled to be released in June. His lovely wife, Jennifer, continues to hold down the fort in his absence, running a successful interior design business and raising their three boys, Barrett, Pierce, and Jaime, ages eleven, nine, and seven, all of whom play lacrosse. Their other obsessions include their PS4 and Fantasy Football, a phenomenon I still do not understand.
Kevin became a father this year! He and his girlfriend, Isabelle, gave birth to a daughter, Genevieve Helene Quinn, on August 27th, an event that made Margaret and me very happy. Our first granddaughter! [Kelley wonders if he should delete that last bit. It was exciting to have a granddaughter after three grandsons, but he certainly doesn’t want to offend Jennifer. After all, Kelley adores the boys and is thrilled at the continuity of the Quinn name. Neither does he want to offend Kevin. Kelley and Margaret would have been just as happy with a fourth grandson. But then again, a girl is exciting, especially for Margaret, who talks about things like taking Genevieve to see The Nutcracker and to the café on the seventh floor of Bergdorf Goodman for hot chocolate when she is older. He decides to leave it, for now.] Kevin and Isabelle have been instrumental in helping me run the inn now that Mitzi has sought greener pastures with George, our former Santa Claus. [Oh, how he would love to keep that line in, but he’s too nice of a guy. He strikes it.] Genevieve Helene Quinn will be baptized this Sunday at Our Lady of the Island. Both Margaret and I are looking forward to this joyous occasion. [Kelley wonders if this line makes it sound like he and Margaret are a couple. He considers adding a line informing friends and family that Dr. Drake Carroll, Margaret’s boyfriend, will also be attending the baptism. But that seems like extraneous information and Drake’s presence is a Christmas surprise for Margaret anyway, so Kelley just leaves the line be. People can think what they want.]