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“We got the tree,” Larry said, his eyes shining. He noticed Zoe and Amanda still standing in the entryway. “Oh, hey, Zoe, Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas, Larry,” Zoe said quietly. “And this must be Anthony.” The baby put his head down on Larry’s shoulder and wouldn’t look at Zoe and Amanda.

“He won’t let me put him down,” Larry said. “Last night I tried to go to the bathroom without him, and he sat outside the bathroom door and screamed. I finally gave up and let him come in with me. He slept in our bed last night. There was no way he was going to sleep anywhere else.” The cupboard doors in the kitchen slammed shut. The situation with Mary suddenly became clear.

“Larry this is Amanda. She’s our new worker, and she’s going to be the worker for these guys.” Larry smiled at her, and switched the baby over to his other side so he could shake Amanda’s hand.

“Nice to meet you,” Larry said. He looked like he could have been Mary’s brother, with dark-blonde hair and a smile that made him look like a news anchor. “You’re gonna love these kids. We just cut down a tree in the backyard, and they just had a blast. They’ve never had a real Christmas tree before, so I said we had to get one. Then I realized that we don’t have a tree stand for a real tree, so I need to run down to Target and get one. Do you have extra car seats or should I pick those up too?” The cupboard doors slammed again.

Larry turned around and looked at his wife. He walked over to where she was standing in the kitchen, put his arm around her waist and gave her a squeeze. Amanda could see him whisper in her ear. She put her head down in response. Anthony reached out and grabbed her hair, and Mary immediately recoiled. Larry grabbed Anthony’s hand and pretended to gobble it up.

“Let’s go and check on your brothers and sister,” Larry said, flying Anthony through the air, making the fat little boy guffaw. “They’ve probably found a way to set that tree up by now. Come on down and meet the kids, ladies.”

Amanda looked at Zoe, and Zoe motioned her to follow Larry. Zoe looked like she wasn’t sure if she should try to talk to Mary or go downstairs. Mary was pulling things out of the refrigerator, ignoring everyone else in the house. Zoe followed Amanda down the stairs.

They could hear the kids before they could see them.

“Blaze and Justice! That’s enough!” The nine-year-old daughter, eldest of the four, was standing in the corner of the room holding the enormous tree up against the wall. She was dark complected like Anthony with round brown eyes, a high forehead, and long mousy-brown hair. The boys looked like they had peeled off their wet shoes and socks and were running around the basement. The room was large and decorated in traditional Minnesota north woods style with knotty pine wall boards and Terry Redlin prints on every wall. There was a beautiful gas fireplace on one wall surrounded by a large denim sectional sofa. The boys raced across the sectional, bouncing on each cushion, until the cushions fell off the couch.

“Hey, let’s make a fort!” the older boy yelled.

“Dudes! Slow down a sec,” Larry shouted. “Come here and meet Zoe and Amanda.”

“No, we’re making a fort!” The five-year-old didn’t look up, but the four-year-old obediently stood up and came over to Larry.

“Thanks, dude,” Larry said, rubbing the boy’s dark shaggy hair. “Ladies, this is Justice. He has been my worker man today.” Justice stared up at them with the same brown eyes as his sister. His gap-toothed smile revealed he was missing both of his front teeth, and Amanda could see that several of his teeth were capped silver. He was still a gorgeous little boy.

“Blaze, buddy, stand up and come say hello to the ladies. Now.” Larry didn’t sound angry, just serious. Blaze flew up from under the cushions and raced over to stand by Larry. “And this is Blaze.” Blaze waved at Amanda and Zoe, and he seemed to have so much energy he was quivering. He had the family brown eyes, but his lids seemed to droop, making him look sleepy. His skin was dark and the bridge of his nose was flattened. Actually, his whole face seemed to be flat.

“Hi, boys,” Zoe said. “You look like you’re having lots of fun with Larry.”

Blaze jumped up and down and nodded his head wildly. Justice batted his eyes that showed his joy.

“Okay, guys, go play.” They bolted away again, climbed on the back of the couch, and dove onto the cushions on the floor. Larry was unfazed by their energy or by the havoc they had wreaked on the furniture.

“Wow,” Zoe said. “That is a lot of energy.”

Larry nodded happily. “You can’t imagine. They’re just great though. We had such a great time cutting down the … tree!” Larry suddenly veered around to the corner where the boys’ older sister had been standing, silently holding the tree propped against the wall. “Oh, crap, Angel, I’m sorry.” Angel rolled her eyes and shrugged. Larry gently allowed the tree to rest on the floor, still awkwardly holding Anthony, who refused to be put down.

“We’re sorry, too, Angel,” Zoe said. “We’ve been standing here babbling while you were holding that prickly thing against the wall.”

Angel went to a recliner closest to the fireplace and sat down. She was indifferent to them, aloof.

Larry looked nervous for the first time as he knelt next to Angel’s chair. “I’m really sorry we didn’t notice you right away.” Angel shrugged again and wouldn’t look at Larry. “You were a big help getting the tree.” He looked up at Amanda and Zoe. “Angel is going to be a great mother some day. She had those boys under control out there. She could teach me a few things.” Angel turned her body away from Larry and stared out the patio doors. Larry squeezed her knee, got up and stood next to Zoe. “Can we talk for a few minutes?” he said under his breath.

“Sure,” Zoe said. “Amanda, how about if you get to know the kids a little bit?”

Zoe and Larry went back upstairs, Anthony still on Larry’s hip, beginning to look like he was attached. Amanda stared at the kids, no clue what to do next. The boys were on the floor building their fort. Blaze was jumping from the cushionless couch to their pile of cushions and blankets. Justice patiently set the cushions back up every time Blaze knocked them down. Angel continued to stare out the window, but when Amanda sat on the floor by the fireplace, Angel turned slightly toward her.

“Hi, guys, I’m Amanda.” She wasn’t sure if they knew or cared who she was. “I’m going to be working with you for a while.”

“Doing what?” Angel asked, not moving.

“I, um, I’ll be helping your mom, with her, uh …”

“When are we going home?” Angel interrupted angrily.

“Yeah yeah yeah!” Blaze bounced on the cushions and then draped himself over Amanda’s back and wrapped his arms around her neck. “I wanna go home now!” Amanda almost tipped over.

“Whoa, careful, Blaze.” He ignored her and kept bouncing.

“Home home home.” Amanda felt herself getting frustrated as Blaze kept knocking her in the head with his head. She unwrapped him from her neck and tried to push him back to the couch where Justice was still setting up cushions. Angel stared at the fireplace, angry and braced for the response.

“We’re not going, are we? We’re never gonna see our mom again.” Angel spat the words, trying not to cry.

“Oh, no, Angel, you’ll see her. It’s just going to take some time to get things figured out.”

Angel’s chin started to quiver slightly. “How long?” she said.

“I don’t know,” Amanda stammered. “Cases usually last six months but …” At that point, Angel started to cry. She fought valiantly to hold her tears back, but the situation was too much for her nine-year-old mind to handle. She covered her face with a hand and turned her chair toward the patio door.

Suddenly she heard a wail. Amanda turned to find Justice burying his face in the cushion, sobbing.

“Whatsamatter, Dustish,” Blaze asked from his perch on the arm of the couch. “Angel, Dustish is sad.” Justice jumped up and ran to Angel, burying his head in her lap and sobbing. Angel was still crying silently, but she held Justice’s head and rubbed his back.

Amanda gulped back her own sobs. She didn’t know who was supposed to tell the kids what was going on, but somehow she had just told them. Knowing that she had screwed up, she wanted to fix it for them, but many of the problems seemed unfixable.

“Don’t you like it here?” Amanda asked. “I think Larry is really great. Didn’t you have fun cutting down the tree?”

“I wuv dis house,” Blaze said. “I want dis a be my house.”

Amanda relaxed slightly.

Angel turned to Amanda with a vicious stare. “This isn’t our house. We don’t live here.
She
doesn’t even want us here.” Her voice broke again as she said the last sentence, but this time Angel stared straight at Amanda as tears rolled down her face. Amanda wondered if the hurt was more about being away from home or feeling rejected by Mary.

“I don’t think that’s true …”Amanda attempted.

“You KNOW it’s true. She’s trying to get rid of us for CHRISTMAS! I HEARD her say it. She HATES us.” Angel put her head down and sobbed. This made Justice cry harder. Blaze froze when he heard Angel yell. He jumped off the couch, ran to Angel and started to cry, burying his head in her lap next to Justice’s tiny wailing head.

Seeing the three of them clutch each other and sob pushed Amanda over the edge. The stress of the day, and seeing these families struggle through a holiday that everyone else seemed to treasure, was all too familiar. She tried to wipe the tears from her cheeks before the kids noticed. “I’m so sorry guys,” was all she could muster.

At that point, Zoe and Larry pounded back down the stairs. “Is everybody okay down here,” Larry asked, “we heard …” Zoe and Larry both stopped when they saw the kids huddled together and stared at Amanda.

“What happened?” Larry asked.

Zoe looked at Amanda questioningly.

Amanda stood up quickly shaking her head. “I was just trying to talk to them, but they wanted to know …” She stopped, afraid she would cry again. Zoe nodded knowingly.

“Had you talked to them about how long they would be staying?” Zoe asked Larry under her breath.

“No,” Larry said. “We didn’t know what was going on.”

“Now they know,” Zoe said. Larry crouched next to them, putting his hand on Blaze’s back.

“Hey, guys, don’t you like it here?” Larry asked. “We’ve been having fun, right?”

Zoe shook her head. “I’m sure it’s just really hard because they miss their mom.”

At that, Justice started to wail all over again. Larry snapped his head back and looked pointedly at Zoe.

Angel sat up and looked at Larry. “Where are we going to be for Christmas?”

Larry looked nervous.

“Angel,” Zoe began, rescuing Larry. “Do you have any relatives that you usually spend Christmas with?”

Angel was wise beyond her years. The look on her face showed that she knew exactly what that question meant. She squared her jaw. “No. We don’t have any grandmas or cousins or anything. Nobody in my mom’s family talks to her.”

“Okay. I got it,” Zoe said with a sigh. She looked at Larry again. “Guys, I think we have to get some things figured out …”

“You’ll be here,” Larry interrupted. “We’re all going to have Christmas here.”

Zoe turned to Larry, her face showing that this was a change from what they had decided upstairs. Larry looked determined. Amanda wanted to hug him.

“Is Santa gonna come?” Blaze asked, hopping up, grabbing Larry’s hands, and trying to flip himself over.

“That depends,” Larry said. “Have you been naughty or nice?” Larry tickled Blaze’s tummy and he dropped to the floor in hysterics.

As Angel watched Larry play with Blaze, her face softened a bit.

Chapter Fourteen

Amanda laid out her gifts one last time before packing them into bags to bring to Rosie’s house. She felt good about everything she had purchased, and was proud to be able to give something nice to all the girls. She checked the clock. It was 11:15. She gathered her relishes and a new relish tray she bought at the Rochester Super Target, an extra special treat that was worth the drive. Then she carefully packed the gifts in a large shopping bag and carried them out to the car in two trips. The second time, Amanda locked the door, almost dropping the relish tray down the slippery stairs.

Amanda pulled away to Bruce Springsteen’s version of “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town” on her car radio. This was her third year spending Christmas with Rosie’s family, so she was starting to feel like she knew the routine, starting to feel like she had a place at the table, and if she wasn’t there they would miss her.

This was also the first year she didn’t feel much of the leftover pain from all the years of sad and pathetic holidays. Seeing Angel sob about spending the holiday away from her mother was gut wrenchingly familiar, but somehow Amanda was able to separate herself from Angel and keep her own past in the past. Visiting with Gracie and Lars had actually been harder, she supposed because Gracie was so maternal. Amanda had learned that she was drawn to the rare souls who were natural mothers. Gracie was one of those moms who could get away with pinching just about anyone’s cheeks. But even though there was a part of her that ached because she never had someone like Gracie in her life, that feeling didn’t sit like a cloud over her today. It was still in the past.

The drive passed quickly, and Amanda arrived at Rosie’s before noon. She was whistling as she pulled into the driveway, but slowed down as there were several unfamiliar cars. Usually Christmas Eve was spent with the immediate family, and they didn’t see the rest of the family until midnight mass. Amanda parked in the street, gathered her packages, and went to the door. Hesitating for a second, she remembered what Rosie had always told her to do and let herself in.

From the second she walked in the door, Amanda could feel the tension. A young Hispanic male, no older than sixteen, sat on one side of the sofa, staring uncomfortably at his hands. He looked up when Amanda arrived, but neither of them knew what to say because they didn’t know each other, and no one was in the room to introduce them.

Then Amanda could hear the yelling.