“Blessed is the season that engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love.”

— Hamilton Wright Mabie

The Maine Mall, Dec. 28, 2015. Early day.

The beautiful madness has ended. The madding crowd has thinned to a few wandering bodies. They come through the doors, two and three, a few singles, moving slowly like survivors of an alien attack, nervously peering around to assess the damage.

Any changes?

These are the regulars, the older crowd who come each day to perform their exercise walks, to get a coffee and sit on the fake leather chairs outside the Apple Store and Victoria’s Secret.

They then have a snack or light lunch in the food court, or, like my mall friend Jo — a lovely, slender, gray-haired lady who brings her own lunch — establish a spot and hold court with other regulars. They’ve been coming here for years, but Christmas is too hectic for them.

They bought their gifts in July, and when Santa sets up shop and the madness begins, they stay away until it’s over. I’m kind of a twice monthly mall rat, and I’ve come to recognize them, but it’s only Jo with whom we have come to chat.

The kiosks that ran along this corridor of shops now sit like abandoned parade floats in patches of light from the overhead skylights.

All are, but for one, unattended. That one, full of shawls and sweaters, is watched over by a young woman with the features of a sweet ancient Mayan princess. She perches on her stool, thumbing her iPhone. She’ll be gone soon, back to school or another low-pay job in the city.

Only a day or hours ago, she was selling these woolen garments, all from Chile and Ecuador, at a fast pace. Now the beautiful madness, the frantic rush that was Christmas, has suddenly vanished like a fever that peaked and blessedly fell, leaving us all slightly stunned.

All up and down this and the other winding corridors, the scene is the same. Where once there were flocks of adults pulling children along all the corridors, there’s an eerie silence. It’s early now, late on a Monday morning, so it may pick up again, but probably not with the same intensity. Quick-paced steps, jogging, trotting, will be replaced now with strolling.

Earlier in the day I passed two kiosk tenders. At one, a handsome Indian boy was trying to sell sunglasses. At another stand, a few yards away, a girl selling framed sports pictures watched him as I watched them. He was polishing his wares. She pretended to be reading a paperback, but I could see where her eyes floated to. It’s a trick I learned in the school library.

We’re here because our daughters and their mates are gone now, safely out of storm danger, flown away to the burning West, leaving She, who is still bravely swallowing tears, and myself, to seek some kind of activity, a distraction to fill that empty space in our stomachs, the sour taste in our mouths. The sudden departure of loved ones who have come for too short a time leaves a sour taste in the mouth like old milk.

This is no new experience. This is, as the saying goes, not our first rodeo, and, I’m sure not one for most of you. Your children grow up and decisions are made that pull you all apart, send you flying off in different directions; and once or twice, or if you’re lucky, more often, they come back to the nest to replenish the soul, and then fly away again.

Once our lives, and yours, were full of daily decisions that had to be made together, problems solved together, meals planned and eaten together. Then came a day when an eerie silence descended on empty corridors like these, in the rooms of your life.

There will come a time when we will spend too much time in bus stations, airports and parking lots, saying goodbye more than good morning, kissing and hugging, fumbling in pockets for old pieces of Kleenex, making jokes, lists, last-minute plans, snapping shots on the smartphone cameras.

Now, She, who has been looking for last-minute after-Christmas gifts for the girls, decides we are healed now, and it’s time to face that empty house with braver hearts.

On the way out I pass by the sunglass kiosk and the teenage girl, who is now standing very close to the Indian boy. Romance? It would be pretty to think so.

Why not? I met a beautiful shopper in a department store corridor, far away and many, many Christmases ago.

Happy New Year.

J.P. Devine is a Waterville writer and author of “Will Write for Food,” a collection of his best Morning Sentinel columns.

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