Chapter 176 Christmas Eve

• Valerie's Parents lived in a brownstone in Brooklyn.
• Not the fashionable part. The part that had been the same for forty years and intended to stay that way. Tree lined street. Narrow front stoops. The particular settled quality of a neighbourhood that had decided what it was and wasn't interested in renegotiating.
• Xavier stood outside it on Christmas Eve at six in the evening with Valerie beside him and a bottle of wine in his hand that Gerald had selected because Xavier had asked him to and Gerald had very strong opinions about wine.