Blue Christmas

That came as rather a revelation to Christopher. Mae Manning was definitely old school and one of the more judgmental grand dames in this neighborhood. She obviously hadn’t approved of the whole situation before and he would have thought she’d just avoid talking about it. But she hadn’t. She was showing sensitivity and giving support. “Coming here and making myself useful was better than sitting at home and brooding,” he said.

“Still, I think it was really unfortunate about the issue you had to deal with this evening. But you handled it admirably.”

The first thing that came to mind was him having it on with Jamal in the preschool area, and he had a flash of fear that she’d seen them. He’d had a sense that someone had, but it hadn’t been more than a fear they would he assumed. “Oh, the young man with the gun. We do have some unusual experiences with this program, don’t we? And, don’t worry about the gun. There were no bullets and it wasn’t capable of firing anyway.”

“I didn’t see that young man again . . . after you’d talked to him,” she said.

“Neither did I. I went looking for him, but I didn’t find him. I certainly hope he didn’t go out into the night again.” That brought Jamal into his mind. Jamal had gone out again. Getting drunk was probably the worst thing Jamal could do on a night like this out there. He could go to sleep drunk and not even realize he was freezing. Maybe he should drive around a bit and see if he could find him.

But when he exited the church he found that the young man, Evan, had gone back out into the snow and finding that out completely knocked the thought of Jamal being in danger out of his mind. Evan was huddled in the shadows at the end of the portico just outside the church door, shivering, in a coat not quite heavy enough for this weather and crouched over a duffel bag not quite big enough to be carrying what a homeless man needed to survive.