Supper that night was the leftovers from Christmas Eve dinner. Flora was chewing the last bite of a teeny roast beef sandwich when the phone rang. Ruby made a dash for it and answered, saying, “Merry Christmas! This is Ruby!” She listened for a moment, then grinned and said, “Flora, it’s Nikki. Pick up the other phone.”
“Hi, you guys,” said Nikki. “We had the best day.”
“So did we,” said Flora.
“I was wondering — would you and Olivia like to come over tomorrow? You know, just to see everything. Mae’s having so much fun with all the presents. And Tobias made a jewelry box for me, and we both made a toy chest for Mae. And I don’t know. Do you want to come over?”
Flora drew in her breath. Apart from the previous night’s visit, she and Ruby and Olivia had never once been to Nikki’s house, and she had been their friend since the summer.
“Yes!” said Flora. “Yes! We’ll be there.”
And that was how Flora’s first Christmas in Camden Falls drew to a close. That night, she slept a deep and satisfied sleep with King Comma.
Olivia, too, was fully satisfied with Christmas. She was sorry it was over, of course, and that she’d have to wait an entire year for it to come again, but she had to admit that the holiday, which her parents described as the reduced-fat version, had been one of the best ever. Among the remarkable homemade gifts she received was a set of bookends painted with glorious butterflies from her father and a scrapbook of the Walters’ summer carefully decorated by her mother. Henry gave her a coupon worth one cleaning out of Olivia’s bedroom, and Jack (with the help of Flora, Olivia suspected) had made her a beaded ring. There were other gifts, too, including a promise from her father to take her to the zoo in Barrington, where a butterfly garden was to open in the spring. So all in all, despite her parents’ altered finances, it was a fine holiday (although Olivia realized that the finest aspect was knowing that her family aimed to stay in Camden Falls).
The week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve was a busy one for Olivia. On Wednesday, the day after Christmas, she and Ruby and Flora visited Nikki at her house.
“I’m just a teensy bit nervous,” Olivia whispered after Flora and Ruby’s aunt had dropped them off at the Shermans’.
“Me, too,” said Flora.
“Why?” asked Ruby. “Nikki’s father isn’t here.”
“What if he comes back?”
“He didn’t come back for Christmas,” Ruby pointed out. “Why would he come back now?”
“Ruby’s right. He won’t come back,” said Olivia with more confidence than she felt.
The girls stood uncertainly in a line on Nikki’s front stoop.
“The house looks different now than it did on Christmas Eve,” said Flora.
“Everything was magic on Christmas Eve,” said Olivia.
The door was flung open then, and Nikki, grinning, exclaimed, “Are you going to stand there all morning?”
Mae appeared behind her. “Hi!” she cried. “Oh, goody, you can see what Santa brought! You only saw the piano. But he brought books, too, and a doll and clothes for her. I named the doll Chesapeake,” she added. “Oh, and Nikki and Tobias made a chest for my toys. Come in. You have to see everything.” Mae grabbed Olivia and Flora and hauled them through the doorway. “Come on, Ruby,” she called over her shoulder. “Come with us.”
Olivia looked around the living room, which seemed somewhat less festive than it had when Santa Claus was standing in the middle of it.
“Hi, girls,” said Mrs. Sherman, wiping her hands on a paper towel and turning off the kitchen light before she joined them.
Olivia regarded Nikki’s mother. She saw hard lines around her mouth, and she noted that her hair had probably been dyed, given the color of the roots (black) versus the rest of the hair (reddish brown). Olivia’s own mother was not partial to dyed hair, but Olivia refrained from drawing any conclusions based on the hair alone.
“Hi,” chorused Olivia, Flora, and Ruby.
For a moment after that, no one seemed to know what to say. Flora gazed out the window, and Ruby watched Mae dress Chesapeake. Luckily, Paw-Paw entered the room then. Olivia knelt on the floor to pat him.
“He likes to be scratched behind his ears,” said Nikki. So Olivia scratched his ears, and Paw-Paw squinted his eyes in rapture and finally extended his paw.
Mae, glancing at him, said, “That’s how he got his name.”
“Mom, we’re going to go to my room for a while,” said Nikki, standing.
“Me, too! I’m going with them,” announced Mae.
“Nope,” said Mrs. Sherman gently. “You’re going to help me in the kitchen. We’ll make lunch. Let Nikki have the room to herself.”
Olivia followed the others up a dim staircase and into the small bedroom Nikki shared with Mae.
“This is my room,” said Nikki. “I know it isn’t anything like your rooms, but —”
“Oh, no, it’s wonderful!” cried Flora. “I’ve tried to picture it, and just like I imagined, you put some of your artwork on the walls.”
“And, um,” said Ruby, casting about for something to add, “you sure have a colorful bedspread.”
“The most important thing about your room,” said Olivia, “is that it’s yours. Now we know another little piece of you — and when I talk to you on the phone, I’ll be able to imagine you sitting in that chair by that window in this room.”
The four girls crowded onto Nikki’s bed.
“So,” said Nikki, “tell me about your Christmases.”
And they did. Nikki showed off the jewelry box and the toy chest, both already carefully placed in the bedroom. Then Olivia, her mind on her own family’s troubles, said, “Nikki? Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“And if it’s too personal, just say so. You don’t have to answer.”
“Okay.”
“Well, I’ve been wondering — how are you doing since your father left? I mean, you know, with money and everything?”
Olivia saw the slightest frown crease Nikki’s forehead, but then it disappeared, and Nikki replied, “We’re all right, but just barely. We had a little bit of money before Dad left. Now it’s gone, though, and Dad hasn’t sent any money, of course, so Mom needs to find a full-time job. She’s already started looking for one, but, well, it’s going to be hard to find one that pays enough to support four people. And Mae will need day care when she’s not in school. That’s another expense. Also,” said Nikki, and she began to pick at the edge of her bedspread, “I never told you this, but you probably heard it, you know, around. My mom is an alcoholic. But the good thing is that she hasn’t had one single drink since my father left. She says she plans to keep it that way, and I believe her. She also said it won’t be easy. I believe that, too.”
Olivia was just going to say that she wasn’t entirely clear what an alcoholic was, when she heard a robust knock at the door and Mae yelled, “Lunch is ready! Come and get it!”
All during the rest of her visit to Nikki’s house, Olivia pondered the word “alcoholic,” and at lunchtime, she glanced discreetly at Mrs. Sherman for clues. She knew it had something to do with drinking alcoholic beverages, of course, but except for the unfortunately dyed hair, Olivia didn’t see many differences between Mrs. Sherman and her own mother. Mrs. Sherman smiled often. She spoke gently to Mae, who tended to be loud and energetic. She joined the girls for lunch and asked them about school and their families, and she didn’t refrain from asking Ruby and Flora about the accident and about how they were adjusting to Camden Falls. Later, when Nikki said she wanted to take Paw-Paw on a walk and show her friends the yard and the countryside (which Olivia appreciated, being a town girl with a small backyard), Mrs. Sherman again occupied Mae, even when Mae threw a small tantrum, claiming that she was one of the big girls and ought to be allowed to go along.
The day passed comfortably, and when Allie returned to pick up Olivia and Flora and Ruby, the girls were reluctant to lea
ve.
“But I’ll see you tomorrow,” said Nikki. “I’ll come to the store, okay?”
And she did. In fact, Nikki was sitting in Needle and Thread with Olivia, Flora, and Ruby late the next afternoon when Olivia’s world came crashing down once again (as Olivia would say in later retellings of the story). Darkness had already fallen and Nikki was waiting for Tobias to pick her up. She and Ruby were sitting together on one of the chat-and-stitch couches, using colored pencils to design outfits they would like to wear, and Olivia and Flora were sitting on the other couch reading Half Magic together, which was a bit difficult since Olivia was a faster reader than Flora. (Olivia was a faster reader than most people.) But Olivia didn’t mind. Every time she finished a page before Flora did, she would simply lean back and look around the store and think how cozy it was and how wonderful her life was, while she waited for Flora to catch up.
She was doing just that when the bell over the door rang and in walked her mother from another day at Stuff ’n’ Nonsense.
“What’s wrong?” asked Olivia immediately.
Her mother gave her a tired smile. “Not much, really.”
“Something happened, though, didn’t it?”
“Yes, but it’s a good thing for Mrs. Grindle.”
Min thanked the last customer of the day, closed the door behind him, and put the CLOSED sign in the window. She and Gigi perched on one of the couches.
Olivia, who had been so happy just moments earlier, now felt the familiar sinking in her stomach.
“What is it?” asked Gigi.
“Mrs. Grindle has decided not to sell Stuff ’n’ Nonsense after all.”
“What? Why?” cried Olivia.
“She didn’t really want to sell the store in the first place,” her mother answered.
“But she said it was hard to keep it going!” Olivia protested.
“I know. She had some time to think things over, though, and she’s going to take some of our suggestions. She’s going to hire more help, and she decided to close the store one more day each week.”
“Well, that’s wonderful,” said Min. “I mean for Gina. Selling the store would have been an enormous change for her.”
“But what about us?” said Olivia, who was close to tears.
Nikki, Flora, and Ruby looked puzzled. Then Flora said, “Your parents will find another place.”
“They already had found another place,” said Olivia. “Two, actually. And they were far away and we were going to have to move!”
“What?!” cried Ruby, and she made a great display of clapping her hand to her face.
But Mrs. Walter only said mildly, “Girls, nothing was definite.”
“It was definite enough!” said Olivia. “You talked to us about leaving Camden Falls and —”
Mrs. Walter sat down next to Olivia. She put her arm around her shoulders. “But it wasn’t definite, not entirely, and we put everything on hold when we thought we were going to buy Stuff ’n’ Nonsense. I know you don’t want to move, Olivia, but can you please not jump to conclusions? Let’s just see how things play out.”
Olivia mumbled that this was easy for her mother to say, and then she burst into tears and ran into the storeroom, slamming the door behind her.
For a few moments, Olivia leaned against a stack of packing cartons, trying to control her breathing and put a stop to her sobs. From the other side of the closed door she heard a jumble of voices and then her mother saying softly, “No, leave her alone. Let her work this out.”
Olivia slid to the floor. She dried her eyes. And then, for no reason she could explain, her mind jumped to the evening Mrs. Grindle had sat, exhausted, on the couch at Needle and Thread and said how tired she was. After that, thought Olivia, she had said something else, something about Ma Grand-mère. What was it? Olivia closed her eyes and concentrated. Ellen and Carol had told Mrs. Grindle that their business was beginning to feel like a burden. A burden and not a pleasure.
Olivia wondered whether this was still true. And she pictured Ma Grand-mère with its lovely professional kitchen. Then she tiptoed to the back door of Needle and Thread, slipped outside, and made her way up the block.
On the Sunday after Christmas, Nikki was standing in her mother’s bedroom, studying herself before the full-length mirror. Thin, but not too thin, she thought, and she realized she was starting to fill out just a little in a few key places. She was scrutinizing her hair (straight and plain brown) when she heard a car turn onto the lane to her house. Tobias and her mother were home, so who had arrived? Mrs. DuVane? If so, Nikki planned to thank her profusely for the clothing and art supplies Mrs. DuVane had given her for Christmas.
Nikki abandoned the mirror and crossed the room to the window. She peered down and saw a truck pull to a stop at the end of the drive. And she let out a shriek.
“Mom! Mom!” she called. She thundered down the stairs. “Mom!”
Mrs. Sherman hurried out of the kitchen. “Nikki? What’s wrong, honey? What is it?”
“Dad’s back! I swear it. He’s back. He’s getting out of the truck right now. I just saw him from the window.”
Tobias rose from the couch, where he’d been watching a football game on TV. He strode to the front door and flung it open, surprising Mr. Sherman, who already had his hand on the knob and nearly fell inside.
“What are you doing here?” asked Tobias.
“Well, that’s a nice greeting,” Mr. Sherman replied. He looked at his wife, at Nikki, at Tobias, all standing warily in the living room. Mae was there, too, dressing Chesapeake. After a moment, she got to her feet and said, “Hi, Daddy.”
“Don’t you have a hug for your dad?” said Mr. Sherman.
Mae glanced sideways at Nikki, then stepped forward and put her arms stiffly around her father’s waist. He patted her head.
“Nice coming home for Christmas,” said Tobias.
“I never said I’d be back for Christmas.”
“Nice sending us money while you were away. Nice keeping your ‘promises.’”
“Tobias,” said Mrs. Sherman.
“Well, he can’t just walk in here like nothing happened.”
“Look, I came back. For a surprise visit. What more do you want?” said Mr. Sherman.
“Lots of things. For starters, how about an explanation —” said Tobias.
“Tobias, this is between your father and me,” Mrs. Sherman interrupted.
“No, it’s not. What he does” (Tobias stuck his thumb in the direction of Mr. Sherman) “affects all of us.”
Nikki looked at her father, still standing in the doorway; at her mother, backing toward the kitchen; at Mae, following her mother; at Tobias, who had crossed his arms and was standing opposite Mr. Sherman. And then she looked behind Tobias and saw Paw-Paw in the living room. Paw-Paw had been asleep on the couch next to Tobias. Ordinarily, when someone came to the door, Paw-Paw greeted the visitor with noisy and affronted barking. But he had remained silent during Mr. Sherman’s entrance, and now Nikki watched him try to slink unnoticed into the kitchen.
Mr. Sherman frowned. “What’s that?” he said sharply. “What is that, and why is it in the house?” He took a step forward.
Mae turned to see Paw-Paw, tail between his legs, eyes averted from Mr. Sherman as he inched forward. She opened her mouth, then closed it.
“That is our dog,” said Tobias.
“Yeah, and he’s a boy, not an it,” said Mae.
Mr. Sherman glared around at his family. “What have I said — what have I always said — about having filth like that in the house?” In a flash, so quickly that even Tobias couldn’t stop him, Mr. Sherman lunged into the living room, grabbed Paw-Paw by one leg, and yanked him toward the door.
Paw-Paw let out a yelp of pain and surprise, and Mae screamed.
“Dad! Don’t!” cried Nikki. “Let him go! Please let him go! I’ll take him outside. I’ll — I’ll get rid of him.” Nikki reached for Paw-Paw, and Mr. Sherman let go of him and grabbed Nik
ki instead.
Later, when Nikki tried to tell her friends what had happened, she found that she couldn’t quite remember the next few moments. All she knew was that eventually she was sitting on the floor, holding a struggling Paw-Paw, and Tobias had tackled her father. He was straddling him like a cop on TV, and Nikki realized how big Tobias had gotten. He wrestled Mr. Sherman’s arms behind his back.
Mae was still screaming and Paw-Paw was whimpering, and when Tobias let go of one of his father’s hands and took hold of his hair instead, jerking his head back, Mrs. Sherman started to scream, too.
“Tobias! Get off him!”
“No!” Tobias slammed his father’s forehead onto the floor. “He’s going to hurt Nikki. He’s going to hurt Paw-Paw. He’ll hurt all of us.”
“Let … me … go,” said Mr. Sherman, gasping, and Nikki could see blood on his face.
“No,” said Tobias again.
“I won’t hurt anyone.”
“No.”
“Howie, you have to leave,” Mrs. Sherman said to her husband.
Tobias loosened his grip on his father’s hair.
“If I leave now,” sputtered Mr. Sherman, and Nikki realized she could see blood oozing from his mouth, too, “I won’t come back.”
“Good,” said Tobias.
Mr. Sherman coughed. “I mean it.”
“Good.”
To Nikki’s surprise, that was the last word that was spoken for more than a minute. In silence, Tobias slid off his father and hauled him to his feet. In silence, Mr. Sherman looked around at his family. (Nikki couldn’t read anything in the look, anything at all.) In silence, Mrs. Sherman held the front door open and Tobias shoved his father toward it. And in silence, Mrs. Sherman watched her husband stagger to his truck, climb inside, and drive away. Only when he had reached the end of their lane and turned onto the road did Mrs. Sherman close the door. And then everybody began to cry, even Tobias.