The Christmas Strike. Nikki Rivers

ambled over to the jukebox.

      “Oh, oh,” Jo said, “I’m feeling some Patsy Cline comin’ on.”

      But it wasn’t Patsy Cline that came out after he’d stuck in his dollar.

      “Hey, wasn’t that our junior prom theme?” Iris asked as a song by the pop group Bread began to play.

      But I was already there. I couldn’t even see the face of the boy I went with or remember the color of the dress. But the same feeling I’d had then washed over me now. Excitement. Possibilities. A world at our feet.

      I should have known after the evening’s infamous punch incident that things weren’t going to turn out as I’d planned.

      I’d learned that the only thing you could really count on was getting old. Sure, fifty-two isn’t old. But it’s a lot older than forty-two, which is a lot older than thirty-two, which is a lot older than twenty-two. What if you didn’t feel that old inside though? Lately I’d been wondering if my insides were keeping pace with my outsides. Like sometimes, inside, I’m still twenty-two. And then I pass a mirror or a plate-glass window and am shocked at the person looking back at me. Not that I look all that bad. My skin is still decent, although, like I said, those laugh lines are getting deeper. My hair is still more blond than silver. I weigh only a few pounds more than I did when I married Charlie. But I sure didn’t look like the kind of woman who had something bubbling inside of me, still waiting to break free. And I sure didn’t look like the kid I was feeling like right now, half buzzed from a couple of margaritas and the beat of a song that, until this moment, I’d forgotten all about.

      When I got home that night, sure enough, the first question I got asked was what was for supper. It was nearly seven o’clock and it hadn’t occurred to any of the other adults in the house to fix something.

      “I’ve already eaten,” I said.

      They all looked shocked.

      “But what about us?” Ashley asked.

      I squatted down in front of her. “You know what, Ash? Your mom knows how to cook, too. Don’t you remember?”

      Ashley nodded enthusiastically. “She makes the best tuna casserole.”

      “Oh, yum,” Gwen commented from where she was half reclined on one of the sofas. “Why don’t we just open a can of SPAM?”

      “Yes. Why don’t you?” I suggested. “I’ve got some work to do.”

      I refused to look back to see what kind of impact my statement had on them. I just kept walking until I’d crossed the living room and opened the door to my office, careful to shut it quietly behind me.

      My office was in a small second parlor off the back of the living room. It had a bow window that looked out onto the backyard and an old oak desk and chair I’d found at an estate sale and refinished. There were two small upholstered chairs for clients, a wall lined with file cabinets and an oval braided rug on the floor. I didn’t want to be too cutesy—after all I did people’s tax returns, kept their books, made out payrolls for some of the small businesses around town—so I’d replaced my mother’s lace curtains with miniblinds and the needlepoint on the walls with pieces done by regional artists.

      Numbers were one of the things that had saved my sanity after Charlie had been killed. I’d had to focus on something. And we’d needed money. Charlie’s business had barely begun. He’d left me with more bills than anything. I knew that part of the reason that Gwen was so self-absorbed and Natalie was so defiant was because there had never seemed to be enough of me to go around when they’d needed me the most. I’d never claimed to be the perfect mother. But I’d given what I could. Done as much as I could. And I have ever since.

      I sat down in my desk chair and leaned back. I felt drained. As if soon there wouldn’t be anything left to give.

      There was the sound of a skirmish outside my office door. Matt and Tyler, fighting again. I started to stand up but forced myself to sit. There were three adults out there. They could handle it. I looked nervously at the door. Couldn’t they?

      I turned on my computer and logged in to Ivan Mueller’s account. Ivan insisted on keeping old-fashioned ledgers with handwritten entries. So once a month, I stopped by his jewelry store, picked up his ledgers and transferred everything into a spreadsheet on my computer. I hoped that the familiar comfort of the numbers would keep my butt in the chair.

      I didn’t leave my office that night until I was fairly certain, from the sound of things, that everyone had gone to bed for the night. Then I crept into the kitchen, grabbed a hunk of cheese from the refrigerator to stave off hunger pangs and went to bed in the maid’s room.

      Believe me, the irony of the name my mother had dubbed it all those years ago was not lost on me.

      The next day, I had become Gwen’s personal maid, spending a good portion of my time fielding phone messages between her and David.

      “Did you tell her what I said?” he asked me anxiously during our latest chat.

      “Yes, David. I told her exactly what you said. That you were sorry and were going to make it up to her.”

      “What was her reaction?”

      Was I really supposed to tell him that she’d opened up the latest copy of Vanity Fair and hadn’t said a word? “She’s upset, David. Why don’t you just let it go for today?”

      It was his sixth call and I was, frankly, worn out. Gwen refused to take her husband’s calls but as soon as I hung up the phone she’d call me from her bedroom upstairs, wanting to know what he’d said. I’d been up and down the stairs so many times I was getting jet lag.

      “All right.” The poor guy sounded both defeated and deflated. “If you’re sure that’s what she wants.”

      I assured him it was, told him to hang in there and hung up.

      “Mother!”

      It was uncanny how Gwen always knew the minute I hung up the phone. I ran up the stairs and arrived at her room, breathless.

      “What did you tell him?”

      “I told him to give up for the day.”

      She sat up straighter in bed. “What? You mean you told him to stop calling?”

      I leaned against the door jam. “Basically, yeah. I mean, you don’t want to speak to him anyway. So what’s the point in his continuing to call?”

      “But how can I make him suffer if he doesn’t keep calling so I can refuse to speak to him?”

      “Gwen, he’s suffering enough already. And if that’s what this is about—”

      She shrank back into the covers and got a pouty look on her face. “No—of course not. I’m just not happy with him. Not like I thought I’d be.”

      “Life sucks sometimes, baby. What can I say?”

      She slid her gaze in my direction, then immediately looked away. “You could say that I deserve to be happy.”

      I walked from the door frame to sit at the foot of the bed, patting her ankle over the covers. “Of course you deserve to be happy, Gwen. But maybe you need to adjust what your idea of happiness is.”

      “Oh, I should have known you’d take his side,” she said, rolling so that her back was to me.

      I raised my eyes to the ceiling and asked the floral wallpaper border to give me the strength to resist the urge to tell her she was acting like a baby. The room was still decorated with the blue-and-white striped wallpaper I’d hung when Charlie and I had taken over the room after my mother’s death. The same white tieback curtains hung at the windows.

      “I’m not taking sides,” I said. “But I think taking David’s calls would be the…ah…mature thing to do, don’t you?”

      Her back still to me, she shook