The Christmas Sisters (4 page)

No wonder they all looked like she'd scared the daylights out of them.

“Oh, Nicolette!”
Mother tossed her head back in a display of high drama that few women, short of Nic and
Petie
and Collier’s aunts, could have surpassed. “Oh, my...my... Just listen to the way you talk to your family! I'm having a dizzy spell, I swear I am.”

“Scott, if Grandma faints,
do
catch her.”
Petie
propelled Nic straight through the melee of the kitchen toward the sliding glass door that led out back. “Everyone else go on about your business.”

“What about me?” Collier slapped her oven mitt down on the butcher-block.

“
You
might want to turn down the heat on that turkey. Nicolette and I are stepping out onto the back deck for...a chat.”

“Turn the heat down?” Collier cranked the knob on the oven even as she protested. “Do you have any idea how hard I've worked to time everything out to perfection?”

The glass door slid open with a whoosh! Crisp fall air flooded into the warm, damp kitchen.

Collier stepped forward. “Can't this wait until after dinner when we can sit down and discuss it calmly and rationally?”

Petie
escorted Nic right on by without batting an eye.

Their youngest sister hurried to catch up to them. “Don't think you're going to leave me out of this, then.”

“Me, too!
I want to come, too.” Willa leaped in the air.

“Stay and help Jessica watch the dinner,” Nic ordered over her shoulder as
Petie
gestured for her to go through the door first.

“Mom,
it's
November in Chicago.” Sweet, practical Jessica already had Willa by the hand. “You don't really plan to go outside now, do you?”

“This is between me and my sisters, sugar.”
Petie
did not look back at her daughter.

Everyone, even the closest kin, knew that no one but the three of them had any say in what went on between the Dorsey sisters.

Wally blurted out an ugly belly laugh. “Is this what you Southern folk call getting taken to the woodshed?”

Petie
and Nic stopped in their tracks.

Collier whipped her head around so fast she risked a sprained neck. She pulled up short. Save for a last minute side step, she would have collided with her
sisters.They
stood in the open doorway for no more than a few seconds, giving old Wally boy the deadeye.

The room went silent again, except for the crackle of Willa's paper flowers as she bounced up and down beside Jessica.

Then, without so much as a huff to acknowledge the absolute and utter out-and-out rudeness of Wally s intrusive remark, the three sisters made their exit onto the cold porch.

“What about the call?” Park dared to stick his head out the sliding glass door.

Nic couldn't help but liken the sight to a man voluntarily putting his head in the guillotine.

“What about the call?”
Petie
let go of Nic, folded her arms, and narrowed her eyes.

He looked at his watch. “Well, it's nearly
time
.”

Ever since they'd begun the tradition of sharing Thanksgiving at
Petie's
a decade ago, The Duets had called at twelve-thirty on the dot. Collier had gone so far as to plan to serve the meal at one o'clock to give everyone a chance to say their hellos before they ate. Nic's announcement had shot that plan straight out of the water.

A bracing wind blasted against their backs.

“What should I tell your aunts?” Park frowned.

“Just hand the phone to Mother.”
Petie
rolled her eyes. “Might as well let them get all their fussing at one another out of the way right off the bat.”

“Okay, but—”

“And do let us know when they call, won't you, sweetheart? Tap on the door or something.”
Petie
waved her husband back into the house. “We won't be long out here.”

“We'd better not be.” Nic wrapped her arms around herself. “It's cold.”

“Just like my debut at making Thanksgiving dinner will be if we—if you two—go on and on about this.” Collier brushed her hand back through the short layers of her new haircut, the one she had made sure everyone knew some New York hairstylist assured her gave off the aura of power and confidence. Then she looked toward her cooling culinary efforts with a pout on her face worthy of a spoiled three-year-old.

The glass door rumbled along its track then clunked shut.

Petie
folded her arms, like Mother warming up to a full-fledged hissy fit, and turned on Nic. “Have you completely taken leave of your ever-
lovin
' mind?”

“Before you get all in
a lather
over this, at least do me the courtesy of hearing me out.”

“
Courtesy
?
You have the nerve to stand there and throw the word
courtesy
in my face?
After you've ruined my Thanksgiving dinner?”

“It's
my
dinner.” Collier glanced back at the activity inside the house. “We're just having it at your house because no one in this family would ever bring themselves to come to New York City.”

“That's not the issue now.”
Petie
slashed her hand through the air to cut off Collier,
then
laced her arms tight again. “The issue is—

“I did it for Willa.”

Collier focused on Nic.

The rigid knot of
Petie's
arms relaxed, just a bit.
“How so?”

“There's this program. I can get her into it, but it won't be cheap. I've already used the money I'd saved for the trip home as a deposit. That's why I can’t go this year.”

“What kind of a program?” Collier stepped forward. “You're not going to send our baby away are you?”

“It's a residential program, yes.” Nic lowered her gaze.

“But...” Collier strangled on the next word then held up her hands in a sign of resignation.

Collier had only been fifteen when Nic brought the little cherub of a child, Willa, to live with Mother and Daddy and her in the house in Persuasion. Nic's youngest sister had loved that little girl from the moment she laid eyes on her.

And when the trouble came a couple years later, when they knew things were not as they should be with the baby, Collier had loved her even more. Because she had instinctively seemed to know even then that sweet Willa would need more love than an ordinary child.

Petie
gave a tight shiver. “I know you're trying to do what's best for Willa—”

“I
am
doing what's best for her.” Nic moved her gaze from one sister to the other then back, her eyes clear and unblinking. “Public school is not working for her. They are overburdened and understaffed for kids with special needs. I have to think about her future. I have to think about how she will survive in this world should anything happen to me—”

“It won't,” Collier insisted.

“And if, heaven forbid, it should, there are plenty of people who love her and would be ready to step in and—”

“And what?”
Nic raised her head. Even when the wind tossed the long coils of her brown hair, laced now with threads of palest silver, she felt
a stillness
about her resolve that defied the November chill.

Neither
Petie
nor Collier said a word.

Behind them, Park appeared at the glass door, pantomiming talking on the phone.

Petie
both acknowledged him and kept him at bay with her raised hand.

Nic sighed. She shuffled a few steps inward, closing the circle of intimacy between the three sisters. “
Petie
, Willa is a full-time commitment now. She may well be one for the rest of her life. Much as I love my family, I can't assume that y all would be ready, willing, and able to do whatever it takes to care for her forever.”

“I would,” Collier said softly

Nic put her hand on her sister's wrist, giving a gentle but firm squeeze. “I know you would, Collier. Or at least, in your heart, you think you would, but—”

“I would.” She
slid
her hand into Nic's and returned the squeeze.

“Me, too.
In fact, with my kids gone now I—” A light came over
Petie's
face,
then
just as quickly faded. She took both of her sisters' hands. “I'm here for you always, Nic, you know that.”

Park tapped on the door, making everyone jump or tense up. No one made a move to go inside.

“For Willa's sake, I have to say this,” Collier whispered. “Can it really be best for Willa to be away from her family this Christmas, the last holiday before you send her off to—?”

“Don't make it sound like I'm packing her off to an institution.”

“I wasn't! I wouldn't!” Apology rang in her tone. “I only meant, well, isn't there some way you two can still come down for Christmas and New Year's at least?”

“Can't afford it, sugar.
Not now.”

Park's rapping on the glass turned to a resounding thump- thump-thump.

“Well, if it's just money you need...” Collier held her hands up.

Just money?
Nic smiled at the simplicity of the younger woman's perception.
“Just money?
Like you have gobs to throw away on a sentimental whim?”

Petie
gave Nic a hard look. “You could always—”

“Spare me Mother's speech about tracking down Willa's no- account biological father and wringing child support out of him. You two know what it would cost me financially, emotionally, mentally, and even spiritually to drag myself and my precious daughter through a situation with no good outcome. Even if I could find the man, what are the chances he would help? What kind of mess might I be inviting into my child's life?”

“Then Park and I will pay for the trip.”

Collier let her breath out in a long whoosh that formed a moist cloud in the air.

“I can't let you do that. Willa and I will just have a quiet holiday at home.”

“Alabama is your home.” Collier sounded wistful. “You love that house, Nic, as much or more than any of us.”

If Nic had an answer to that, she never got the chance to share it.

The back door came screeching
open,
and Park thrust his head, shoulder, and even ventured a foot outside. “Y'all better get in here. I can only gather so much from this cockeyed, one-sided conversation, but from this end of things, seems your aunts have got your mother all worked up over something to do with the house. And the big picture is not a pretty one.”

“Where is she?”
Petie
led the charge into the house.

“Upstairs on the extension in our room.”
His profile to his wife, he kept one ear toward the TV droning in the den. “This won’t take long will it?”

“I'll try to keep your inconvenience to a minimum.”

Now there were some words
Petie
ought to paint on a board and tack up over her doorway, Nic thought, as the motto of her life, or what her life had become these last few years.

Petie
stepped around her husband and started for the stairs.

Her sisters fell in line behind her.

“Collier, why don't you go on and tend to your dinner?”

“But I—”

Petie
gave her baby sister a pat on the cheek that ended any argument, then faced Nic. “And you know what you could do that would really help about now?”

“Call ahead and see if there is a group discount at the nut house in case we all need to check in by day's end?”

“Tempting an idea as that is...”
Petie
pressed her hand to Nic's back and gave her a gentle shove. “Why don't you get the girls around and make sure the table is set proper. Silver in the right place, ice in the tea glasses, that kind of thing.”

“What about—”

“And tell the men to wash up. That'll keep them busy while I'm going to try to salvage what's left: of...this lovely family gathering.”

“I still think—”

“You want to handle The Duets
and
Mother at the same time?”

“Ice in the tea glasses, you said?
Anything else?”

“You know any prayers for making this family behave like God's beloved children and not like the refugees in the last lifeboat from the ship of big fools?”

“I'll improvise.” Nic winked then laughed.

Petie
trudged up the carpeted stairs, her voice trailing behind her. “To think, I had looked forward to this day like a child waiting for Christmas morning. What a fool I was to hope this celebration would unfold as beautifully as I'd imagined.”