FIVE MONTHS LATER. Christmas 2020.
We took Archie to find a Christmas tree. A pop-up lot in Santa Barbara.
We bought one of the biggest spruces they had.
We brought it home, set it up in the living room. Magnificent. We stood back, admiring, counting our blessings. New home. Healthy boy. Plus, we’d signed several corporate partnerships, which would give us the chance to resume our work, to spotlight the causes we cared about, to tell the stories we felt were vital. And to pay for our security.
It was Christmas Eve. We FaceTimed with several friends, including a few in Britain. We watched Archie running around the tree.
And we opened presents. Keeping to the Windsor family tradition. One present was a little Christmas ornament of…the Queen!
I roared. What the—?
Meg had spotted it in a local store and thought I might like it.
I held it to the light. It was Granny’s face to a T. I hung it on an eye-level branch. It made me happy to see her there. It made Meg and me smile. But then Archie, playing around the tree, jostled the stand, shook the tree, and Granny fell.
I heard a smash and turned. Pieces lay all over the floor.
Archie ran and grabbed a spray bottle. For some reason he thought spraying water on the broken pieces would fix it.
Meg said: No, Archie, no—do not spray Gan-Gan! I grabbed a dustpan and swept up the pieces, all the while thinking: This is weird.
