The Christmas Strike. Nikki Rivers

from her last outburst. “I’m glad you’re here. I need help with my bags. If you’ll follow me—”

      “You bet, princess,” Jeremy said as he rolled his eyes at us before following her.

      “Look at that,” Nat muttered. “She’s taking over already.”

      “Nat, come on. Gwen is hurting.”

      “I’ll tell you what Gwen is doing. She’s finding a new way to make Christmas all about her. Like the time she had the chicken pox. Or the time she broke up with that guy she thought she was so in love with. She spent the entire holiday season crying her eyes out and refusing to eat. By the time Christmas break was over, she had a new boyfriend and claimed she’d never been so in love in her life. She does this kind of stuff on holidays, Ma. Haven’t you noticed?”

      Did she? I knew Gwen could be manipulative and maybe just a touch narcissistic. But chicken pox? “Nat, I don’t think even Gwen could will herself to get the chicken pox.”

      “Don’t be so sure,” Nat said as she headed for the front hall. Seconds later she yelled, “Hey, Ma! You gotta come and see this!”

      There turned out to be ten pieces of luggage. All matched. Pink crocodile. It made quite an impressive pile in the hallway. I was a little impressed to see Jeremy actually breaking a sweat for a change, too, as he hauled it all in.

      “Last one,” he said as he rolled in a suitcase big enough to hold a drum set.

      “Mother, which room will be mine?” Gwen asked.

      “Well, the only room free is the guest room off the kitchen.”

      “That’ll never do,” Gwen said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “It’s barely big enough for my clothes.”

      “Well, you’re not getting our room,” Natalie said.

      I totally agreed. It would really be starting off on the wrong foot to kick Nat and Jeremy out of the second largest bedroom in the house to give it to Gwen. And we certainly couldn’t have any of the children sleeping downstairs by themselves. So that left—

      Me.

      “I’ll take the guest room, Gwen. You can have my room.”

      Gwen took it like it was her due. “Jeremy?” she said, then picked up the smallest case and started up the stairs.

      “If she offers me a tip,” Jeremy muttered, “I’ll kick her in her bony ass.”

      “Let’s all help with the luggage,” I hastened to suggest, grabbing a suitcase and starting up before anyone could argue with me.

      Later that night, as I lay in the narrow single bed in what my mother had always referred to as the maid’s room even though we’d never had a maid, I could hear Nat and Gwen bickering over the bathroom and, just like that, fifteen years peeled back. It was worse than déjà vu. I mean, I was actually going through it for the second time. But I had been younger the first time, I said to myself as I rolled over and pulled a pillow over my head.

      I was feeling a little used and abused. And a whole lot sorry for myself. So Nat felt stuck. How did she think I felt? Did she think this was the life I’d planned to be living when I reached my present age? And Gwen was acting like a child throwing a tantrum. And even though I felt like kicking her in her bony ass myself, I had to be supportive, didn’t I? Wasn’t that part of the deal that came with motherhood?

      Frankly, I wasn’t feeling all that supportive of either of my daughters right now. I’d been a widow already by the time I was Gwen’s age. At least she still had a husband who would eventually take her on a cruise. And Nat had Jeremy and the kids. I flopped onto my back again and tossed the pillow aside. The problem was, I wasn’t supposed to be alone in this bed mulling over all this stuff by myself. Charlie was supposed to be here with me. To talk to. To hold me if I cried. To laugh with me over the absurdity of life. Was the restlessness I’d been feeling just a newly resurrected anger at the injustice of it all?

      Charlie, always a careful driver, had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. He’d been on his way home to us from a conference in Green Bay when a semi had gone over the center line. It had happened too fast for Charlie to even react, the police had told me. I could hear the words like they were said just yesterday. “It’s likely he never knew what hit him, ma’am,” the cop had assured me.

      Well, I knew what had hit me. Widowhood. Single motherhood. It was as if my life as me, Abby, had just stopped. By now, at the age of fifty-two, I’d thought I’d have Abby back again. But as I listened to the girls still squabbling overhead I knew that my time wasn’t arriving anytime soon. In fact, I was pretty sure the train hadn’t even left the station yet.

      “Look,” I said the next morning after listening to my daughters complain about the house having only one bathroom, “we’re just going to have to start making a schedule for the bathroom in the morning and at night.”

      “We were here first,” Natalie said tightly. “Let her go to a hotel. She can afford it.”

      “That’s not fair! My marriage is crumbling and you want me to go to a hotel? Why shouldn’t Mother be here for me, too?”

      “Yeah, your marriage is crumbling because your husband put off a trip to the Bahamas to make another million. Excuse me while I don’t cry.”

      “You are such a bitch!”

      “Hey—little pitchers,” Nat said sternly as she nodded toward her trio of minors. They were watching the sisters with their mouths dropped open nearly to the table.

      Suddenly, Ashley jumped from her chair and ran up to me to clutch my leg. “Why are they yelling?” she whispered as she peered anxiously up at me. “Do Mommy and Auntie Gwen hate each other?”

      I smoothed her hair back from her little concerned face. “Do you hate your brothers when you yell at them?”

      Ashley solemnly shook her head. “Not really.”

      “Then I guess your mommy and your auntie are just acting like children.”

      “Would it kill anyone to try to see my side of things, here?” Gwen demanded before she flounced out of the room.

      By now the kitchen table was a mess of cereal, spilled milk and whatever other chaos grade school children can cause in a kitchen on a Saturday morning. I went over to the sink and turned on the faucet, waiting for the water in the old pipes to get hot. The kids must have sensed more trouble brewing because they soon drifted off to wreak havoc in the living room.

      I shot Nat a look. “You know, you’re not helping matters any.”

      She had the grace to look shamefaced, something that always raised patches of bright red on her pale cheeks. “I’m sorry. I guess it’s just that after losing your house it’s a little hard to have sympathy for someone who has to postpone a cruise.”

      I put my arm around her shoulders. “Honey, I know. But this is still real to her. She feels let down by her husband. She feels—”

      “Abandoned,” Natalie finished for me. “I know. But she’s not the only one who lost her father, you know.”

      I squeezed her shoulder. “We all deal with things differently, Nat.” Was now the time to reminded her of her overprotective-ness of Jeremy? Probably not, I decided.

      “Mother?”

      Gwen had quietly come back into the kitchen. In her long rose-sprigged flannel nightgown with matching robe, her hair in a tangled mess and her eyes red from crying, she looked so much like the girl she’d once been. So when she asked in a small, plaintive voice, “Would you make me some pancakes?” I, naturally, said yes.

      She smiled weakly. “I’ll have them in my room.”

      “Oh, brother,” said Natalie.

      “So you’re late for the Prisoners of