The Mysterious Social Director

At the height of my drinking, I liked to play the grandiose host to my large extended family each Christmas Eve. After all the labor of preparing for the party, I could take the brakes off my drinking. Once my guests had bid adieu and with cleanup complete, I’d arrive at midnight mass, dolled up like Mrs. Astor’s pet horse, to bellow along, drunk and off-key, to “Welcome Baby Jesus.” But I was never so blitzed there that I didn’t notice an elegant woman who acted as a kind of social director to an elderly group from a nearby apartment complex. She would sit only after each person in her party was settled into a pew. I’d no idea who she was then, but I’d learn.