“It happened on Christmas Eve,” Nic said quietly. “That little, pathetic Christmas tree was on the table beside the TV. There were exactly two balls on it. They were blue. No lights. There were no gifts. Nothing. I often wonder why she bothered with it at all.” Nic’s fingers tightened around her own. “They were drinking early that day. By the afternoon, the yelling started. Sean and I went into his room. It was in the back of the house. It was where we went to most often when they were fighting.”

She turned to look at Abby. “It was raining. A cold, steady rain—one of those dreary days where you want to crawl under the covers and fade away. That’s what we wanted to do. Disappear.”

Abby said nothing. She simply sat and held Nic’s hand, letting her reminisce. Nic’s next words, however, made her gasp.

“I didn’t even know he owned a gun. Not sure she did either.” Nic took a deep breath before continuing. “He’d called in a pizza. It was almost dark, not quite, but almost. There hadn’t been any meals on the table that whole day and Sean and I were starving. When he called us to come out to eat, I knew something was wrong. Something was different. He had this crazed look in his eyes like he wasn’t all there. She was on the couch. She was holding a bottle—vodka, I think it was. She was crying, yet she was laughing, like she didn’t know which one to do. She said ‘merry fucking Christmas’ when Sean and I came out of his room.”

“Oh, Nic,” she whispered, leaning her head against her shoulder.

“He shot Sean first. Twice. Shot him twice. She screamed and threw the vodka bottle at him. He shot her.” Nic took a deep breath. “Shot her in the head. Then he turned the gun to me. I ran toward the back door. I don’t know that I even heard the shot. I just felt this burning in my back. I fell down. I heard him walk over, heard his shoes as he stepped on broken glass. I laid there. I didn’t move. I think part of me was just hoping he’d pull the trigger, get it over with.”

“Oh, honey, no.”

“There was one more shot, yes, but it wasn’t for me. I heard him fall. I opened my eyes, but I couldn’t get up. I thought I was going to die right there on that dirty kitchen floor.” Nic continued to stare at the Christmas tree. “From where I was, I could see Sean. I could see my mother’s arm hanging off the side of the couch, and I could see that damn little tree with the two blue balls. That’s all I remember. When I woke up, I was in the hospital. My uncle was there.”