I’d learned to agree with her a long time before, and not to make anything harder. Thankfully she liked the kids even though they weren’t really hers and she had never cared for Trish. I did most of the work anyway. We’d been on our own for months now, the four of us, and it was going okay. I had been allowed to cook from the time I was five or six and never had an accident or even burned a finger.

“You’re a good helper,” my mom said every once in a while, and when she did, it felt like the sun coming out from behind a large dark cloud.

—

That morning, I dragged a chair over to the stove to scramble eggs, pushing them back and forth in the pan with the wooden spoon until they cooked all the way through. Amy wouldn’t eat them otherwise.

Amy had white-blond hair. When she was worried, she pulled the tips into her mouth and sucked on them at the same time as her thumb. She did it now. “Where’s Robin?” she asked again.

“I already told you, she’s helping Santa. Now drink your milk.”

“I’m still hungry,” Jason said. “Can I have a Pop-Tart?”

“You’re fine.” I had already looked at the food we had. Once, before the kids had started living with us, my mom had gone to the store for cigarettes and not come back for two days. I’d eaten cereal until I ran out of milk. For the kids, I would have to be more resourceful. “Here,” I said, giving Jason the rest of my eggs. “We’re going to get dressed and play a game outside.”

“Aren’t you going to school?” Amy asked.

“No, it’s a holiday, honey. Now stop asking questions.”

All that day we played in the courtyard of our apartment building, in the laundry room, which was perfect for hide-and-seek, and in the swimming pool, which had been drained at the end of the summer and wouldn’t be filled again for months. We ate cheese sandwiches under a camellia bush and then built a fairy garden with rocks and clothespins and anything else we could find. That was good because it took a long time. Whenever one of the kids would ask when we were going back inside, I would tell them to be patient. That Christmas was late this year because of an ice storm at the North Pole and that was why Robin had to help.

Everything was moving along smoothly as a dream until one of our neighbors, Phyllis, walked by with her Chihuahua, Bernard, and stopped, eyeing us as if we were doing something wrong just by breathing. “Where’s your mother?”

“Sleeping,” I said, shooting a look at the kids that meant they shouldn’t contradict me.

Jason nodded and then reached for Bernard, who skittered sideways, trembling.