“I’ll carry the suitcase, Mom. You take Sara’s hand. I don’t want her running around in the parking lot. Elizabeth, Toby, stay with me and watch out for cars, okay?”

Lucy had the sudden feeling that now instead of having three children, she had four. She was going to have to take care of her mother as well as her children. The realization absolutely overwhelmed her.

As she led her little cortege out of the terminal, Lucy noticed a taxi pulling up. She was surprised to see Marcia Miller and little Sam IV climbing out of the backseat. As she loaded her mother’s suitcase into the Subaru and waited for the kids to pile in, she watched the cab driver unload suitcase after suitcase. Lucy couldn’t help but notice that these were not the canvas bags sold in the Country Cousins catalog; these bore the distinctive gold logo of Louis Vuitton. A long trip to someplace warm, thought Lucy as she put the key in the ignition. Not a bad idea at all. She wondered if she could stow away on their flight.

Arriving home, Lucy installed her mother on a corner of the couch, switched on the TV for her, and sent Bill in to keep her company.

“How’s the knee?” she asked as he hobbled past her.

“The ice helped, but it still hurts. If it’s not better tomorrow, I’ll go and see the doctor.”

Lucy sighed and went upstairs to get the kids ready for bed. Toby and Elizabeth could change into pajamas themselves, but Sara needed help. It was way past her bedtime, and she burst into tears when Lucy told her it was too late for a story. Bending down to kiss her good night, Lucy noticed that her forehead was awfully warm. A quick check with the thermometer revealed a temperature of a hundred and one. As Lucy counted out the cherry-flavored tablets, she wondered idly what else could go wrong this week.

That night she ran her bath as hot as she could stand and in a fit of self-indulgence poured in the last of her treasured Vitabath. As she leaned back in the delicious suds, she sighed and felt tears prick her eyes.

This was going to be an awful Christmas. It had been terrible to lose her father just a few months earlier. He had died suddenly of a heart attack. He had left for work as usual one morning, and by dinnertime he was lying in the intensive care unit of the hospital.