"I'm going to Tucson to see Carina over Christmas. She'll be there on vacation, with her folks-one of those huge extended Latino families. You come too."

Rob shook his head. "A reunion with your girl, and you want to drag me along? Don't be silly. Besides, do they have casino gambling in Arizona? I have to keep this up."

"Let me work on the problem," Edwin said thoughtfully.

Dismantling the Open Door Center's front porch took almost no time. Once Rob pried off the peeling roof shingles the rotten wood framing practically fell apart of its own weight. He had to rent a small dumpster to take the debris. When he was done only the stone steps and support piers were left.

The house looked odder than ever, and the shelter residents had to use the back door.

But then the fun could start. Rob had Hechinger's deliver a truckload of pressure-treated lumber, and began the framing. The Center had on hand only the simplest and cheapest tools, so Rob bought himself a square, a four-foot level, a D-handle drill, a worm-drive circular saw, and-an irresistibly enchanting toy-an electric hammer.

After the unusually chilly fall, December was mild. Rob was able to get by in just his old clothes and the blue toggle coat, saving his more decent outfit for casinos. It was enormously satisfying to be outdoors measuring and cutting two-by-sixes, hammering them into a sturdy framework to support the decking. He dragooned Jonathan into helping to hold beams while he nailed. If the weather held up, he hoped to get the roof framed and shingled before the new year. Then when winter really closed in, he could sit under cover and work on the floor and rails.

He was leveling and squaring a floor joist one morning, squinting in the sunshine at the bubble in the level, when a female voice said, "Excuse me-Mr. Lewis?" It wasn't Mrs. Ruppert, who still tapped Rob for the occasional sink stoppage or radiator adjustment, but an entirely different woman, fortyish and conservatively dressed. "I'm Pastor Amy Phillipson."

Rob straightened up and stared in surprise. But at least no impolite comment slipped out-women became clergy all the time these days. "Hi, I've heard about you." He wiped his hand on his faded and tattered jeans and took hers as she held it out.

"And I've heard a lot about you! Show me what you're doing here. This must be the new porch!"

Awkwardly Rob pointed out the new framing bolted to the old stone piers.

Was she checking up on him? It had been so much easier when he could just scope out people's minds. "Once I get some joists up, I can set up a temporary walkway with plywood. Then folks won't have to go around back."

She was like a brown sparrow, her eyes bright and bird-like as she assessed him. "Mrs. Ruppert says you've been a godsend. I'm sure you've had a very interesting life, Mr. Lewis. How did you ever come to be homeless?"

"There were things," Rob said evasively. "People have been nice to me, though. You know Edwin Barbarossa."

"Isn't he a sweetie? He mentioned to me that you'll be at loose ends over the holiday. So I came by to invite you to Christmas dinner."

"Umm ..." Acute embarrassment made him tongue-tied.

"Nobody much will be there-my family of course, Jeff and the children."

Rob felt his stomach tense. "How old are your kids?"

"Eleven and eight. Oh, and my husband's daughter and her family will be there too. Their baby was born in September."

Big kids and infants he could handle. If there had been toddlers Rob knew he'd decline. As it was, he ought to accept. "I appreciate it," he said slowly.

"The house is nearby, over on the other side of Colesville Road-here's the address and phone number. If it's raining, call and someone will give you a lift. Around three, all right?"

When she was gone Rob shook his head in amazement and picked up his hammer.

He was a reformed criminal, currently supporting himself on blackjack winnings. What was a nice lady minister doing inviting him to dinner? Edwin should have warned her.

Above him the front door opened a cautious crack. Rob had barricaded it with some boards to prevent accidents. Mrs. Ruppert looked out over the block, her small plump face puckered in dismay. "Oh Rob," she wailed. "All the lights have gone out upstairs in the women's dorm!"

"I'll look at it. It must be the circuit breaker." Rob put his hammer down again.

Christmas week was fully as bad as Rob had foreseen. He had learned to sleep anywhere, in a pile of leaves in the rain, or by a crowded freeway.

But now he couldn't sleep in his stuffy little basement room. He lay awake night after night, staring up into the dark. It was so stupid! He had total power, if he cared to exert it, over other people's heads and hearts. But his own were unmanageable. One morning he went into a Toys "R" Us and began toy shopping, torturing himself with speculations about what Angela and Davey might like. It wasn't too late-Federal Express could handle the delivery. But the thought of the note or card defeated him. He abandoned a heaping shopping cart in the middle of the aisle, and went to the homeless shelter to hammer plywood.

I could phone her and not talk, he thought as he worked. Just hear her say, "Hello." I could ride the Metro and the bus, and just look at the house as it goes by. The weather's so warm, the kids might be out in the yard.

Even changing diapers would be a pure delight. The palms of his hands recalled emphatically the heft of solid toddler bodies. Then, with an equal and frightful vividness, he remembered the last time he had touched them: the TV blaring out the Lehrer Report, the smell of apple juice, the treble voices speaking with preternatural clarity. No, he couldn't go back yet! It wasn't safe-and the hammer came down, wham! on his thumb. Rob dropped the hammer and gripped the throbbing finger with his other hand gratefully.

Here at least was a perfectly allowable reason for the tears rising to his eyes.

Early on Christmas Eve morning, he took the subway downtown and visited museums. The National Gallery and the Sackler would counterbalance the tackiness of Atlantic City, he thought. He looked at Renaissance paintings and toured a visiting exhibit of Mesopotamian sculptures, eerie colossal statues of big-eyed curly-haired kings. It was hard to picture these stiff smug figures as the Gilgamesh of the epic.

But the exhibits were full of families and kids in town for the holiday.

Their simple happiness oppressed him. At midday he gave up on culture and set out to walk. If I could just wear myself out I'd sleep, he told himself. Walk until I drop.

He went north up Connecticut Avenue towards Dupont Circle. The leafless trees were hung with glittery white lights, and red bows adorned the lamp posts. All the store windows were decorated for the holiday. Was Julianne going to have a birthday party for the kids? Had she set up a Christmas tree? He stopped to look at a menu hanging in a bar window. I could get drunk, he thought. Six or eight whiskies and out like a light. Or if I'm thinking lowlife chemical solutions, some dirtbag would sell me cocaine or heroin even on Christmas Eve.

But it was the runup to oblivion that scared him. Three drinks, maybe, and the trap door to the sub-basement would pop open. He'd just spent months working towards control- what was the point if he tossed all that progress away? Reflected in the dark glass he noticed his own face, a little haggard from lack of sleep but much more human than this summer. I am getting there, he told himself. No more selfdestructive craziness. And a haircut wouldn't hurt either, if I'm going out to dinner tomorrow.

He walked on and found a barber shop in the lobby of an upscale hotel. "Off with the ponytail," he told the girl. He felt he endured the touch of her fingers wielding the scissors and the clippers very calmly. When she held up the mirror he inspected the close-cropped fair hair and beard with mild surprise. I don't look like a derelict any more, he realized.

He still had the evening to get through. Up near the circle was a big bookstore. He went in and chose an armload of action-adventure paperbacks with titles like MIA Hunter or The Destroyer. On his way to the register he saw a new paperback edition of the Gilgamesh epic, and added it to the stack. There was a Metro station at Dupont Circle. He would ride back to the room and read, all night if necessary.

Still he couldn't sleep. After reading the night through, Rob's head was thick with cliff-hangers and blazing M-16 rifles when he arrived at the Phillipsons on Christmas Day. Their house was a suburban archetype, a split-level set in the center of a green lawn. Rob leaned on the picket fence and swallowed his envy. His life had looked like this once.

"Come on in!" Amy Phillipson waved from the front door. "Isn't it warm? It could be spring! This is my husband Jeff, my son Theo, and my daughter Janey. My father-in-law Buck is watching TV with Mark, and my stepdaughter Anne is upstairs nursing the baby."

The new names swirled around in Rob's head without hooking up to their proper faces. He stood dumb, acutely uncomfortable. Then the older kid, a brash carrot-topped girl in a blue soccer team shirt, said, "I love it when Mom brings home a hunk."

"Janey!" Both Phillipsons pounced on her. Rob laughed so hard at this picture of himself that he felt better right away.

"Girls," young Theo said in disgust. He had red hair like his father too.

"I got a new baseball mitt for Christmas. You wanna go out back and catch a few?"

"Sure, I'm in," Rob said.

The air was so mild the birds sang just as if it were April, and snowdrops showed bravely in the flowerbeds. Only the bare branches of the trees betrayed the season. Theo had ambitions to be a pitcher, so Rob undertook the batting. "You watch yourself," Jeff warned when he came out with some eggnog. "Theo's idea of a strike zone is loose at best."

"We could use a catcher and a fielder," Rob invited.

"I'm basting the turkey," Jeff said. "But I'll turf out the couch potatoes.

It's too nice a day to watch TV."

In the end almost the entire family joined the game. Amy Phillipson was astoundingly fleet chasing ground balls, and the old father-in-law could hit anything Theo pitched. The atmosphere was so comfortable and normal that Rob felt himself fitting right in, as if he were a cousin or a distant nephew in town for the holiday. I've rejoined the human race, he thought.

It's a miracle.

At dinner, Rob could have been eating turkey with these people all his life. Jeff had stuffed the bird with fresh oysters and breadcrumbs, a recipe of his own invention which he refined every year. "This year I put in brandy and mushrooms," Jeff said, chewing thoughtfully. "I don't know.

Maybe if it was Madeira instead ..."

Rob was fascinated. It was something he was sure he could do. After all, from carpentry to cooking was not so far a step-they were the same sort of creativity. He remembered his scant repertoire of two recipes at home.

"When this is all over," he confided, "I want to learn to cook."