“Is everyone ready?” Jo asked, and hit play without waiting for a reply.
As the movie started, I went back to thinking about how fast my daughters had grown. This could be the last year that we would all be together for Christmas. Next year, Meg would more than likely be with John Brooke’s family in Florida, or wherever their vacation home was. I couldn’t keep track sometimes. It wasn’t that Meg dated a ton, but she’d had a few boyfriends. Unlike my mom, I kept a close eye on my daughters and the guys they brought around, although so far that really just meant watching Meg. Frank minded more than me, but I knew firsthand that being too protective of our daughters could be worse than making sure they were educated about dating and relationships.
When Meg was sixteen, I took her to get on birth control, earning me an awkward lecture from my own mom.
She wasn’t one to give anyone advice: she had had two kids before she was twenty-one.
The house phone rang again, and Jo leaned over and shut it off.
Meg’s phone rang next, a pop song that Amy immediately started singing along to.
“Technology, man,” Jo commented from the floor.
“It’s Mrs. King.” Meg sighed, getting to her feet.
Jo grabbed the remote and paused the movie. Meg disappeared into the kitchen.
Amy lay down where Meg had been sitting, even though she would just have to get back up when her sister got back. “I’m too young to work, but when I’m old enough, I’ll work at a better place than a coffee shop or a makeup store.”
“You’re being obnoxious,” Jo said.
“You’re being obnoxious,” Amy mocked in a voice that sounded a lot like Jo’s.
Being the youngest, Amy liked to point out the flaws of her sisters any chance she could. I had a feeling that it took a heavy toll on Amy’s confidence to exist under her three sisters, who in her own way she looked up to. Sisterly love was tricky because she loved her sisters more than anything, but at the same time, she was jealous of nearly everything about each of them. Meg’s wide hips, Jo’s confidence, Beth’s ability to cook anything and everything . . .
When Meg returned to the living room, Jo started the movie again.
“Did she pay you yet?” Beth asked, mirroring my own thoughts.
I didn’t mind Meg working for Mrs. King, even if the woman intimidated me with her huge house and tiny purebred dogs. I had never met Mr. King, but I had met their three children on a few separate occasions. Meg had had a real thing for the boy, Shia, and I could see why. He was nice, with a big heart and a freight train of passion. I thought if there was a man who could keep up with Meg, it would be Shia King. I didn’t know much about what had happened between them, but I figured if Meg wanted me to know, I would.
Meg shrugged. “She just hasn’t yet. I don’t know why.”
Jo rolled her eyes and threw her hands into the air. Meg’s brown eyes bulged out of her head in response.
“Well, haven’t you asked her?” I said.
“Yes. She’s been so busy, though.”
“Doing what? Throwing parties?”
Meg sighed. “No.” She shook her head at me. “It’s the holidays—she’s busy.”
“I’m surprised you’re okay with this. I thought you were tougher than that,” Jo said.
“I am.”
“Yes, she is. You’re not tough as Jo, though—Jo’s as tough as a boy!” Amy laughed.
Jo shot up to her feet. “What did you say?”
I sighed from the chair. “Amy.” I said her name harshly enough for her eyes to snap to me. “What did I tell you about that?” I wasn’t having that in my house. My girls could dress however they wanted.
“I said you act like a boy.” Amy sat up on the couch, dodging Meg’s attempt to hold her on her lap. I knew if it got too heated, I would have to interfere, but I wanted to let the girls at least attempt to work things out on their own. Just like Meg with Mrs. King, though the nerve of the woman for not paying for honest work did grate at me.
“And what exactly does that mean, Amy? Because there’s no such thing as boys being stronger than girls!” Jo’s voice was loud and her fingers were bent into air quotations. “Being tough has nothing to do with being a boy. If anything—”
“Not true! Can you lift the same as a boy?” Amy challenged.
“You aren’t serious.” Jo’s mouth was a hard line.
Meg put her hands on Amy’s slim shoulders and pressed her flowery fingernails into her sister’s sky-blue nightie. Amy let out a stubborn huff of breath, but she lay down and let Meg play with her hair.
Jo waited, her hands on her hips.
The movie played in the background.
“Let’s enjoy our winter break. This is better than sitting in math class, right?” Beth asked. My sweet Beth was always trying to fix things. She was the most like Frank in that way. Jo had his political and social passion, but Beth was a natural caregiver.
Beth and Jo stared at each other for a few moments before Jo gave in and sat down quietly on the floor.
However, before long Amy began in again on her favorite topic of the last couple days. “Ugh, it’s not that much better than math. It’s not fair. You don’t understand that all the girls at my school are going to come back with all new clothes, a new phone, new shoes.” She counted the list on her fingers and lifted her cell phone in the air. “And here we are with no gifts under our tree at all.”
My heart ached and my head swam with guilt.
This time Beth spoke first. “We make more money than half the girls at your school. Look at our house and look at theirs. Our car, too. You need to look around and remember how it used to be before Dad was an officer.” Beth’s words were sharper than usual; they seemed to settle into Amy, because she frowned and her eyes darted around the living room from the beige walls to the fifty-inch flatscreen we’d bought from the PX, tax-free of course.
Amy looked at the Christmas tree. “Exactly my point. We could have—”
But, as had often been happening during the break, Jo forcefully interrupted Amy to remind everyone that the family only had extra money when Frank was dodging bullets and IEDs in Iraq, and so we had to respect that and not seem like we were being opportunistic on the back of his risk.
I hated when they talked in specifics like that; it was a little too much. I wondered if I still had that Baileys in the fridge. I thought I did.
“Plus,” Jo went on, all worked up into a lather, “all the girls in your grade steal most of that stuff anyway. You really think Tiara Davis’s family can afford to buy her Chanel sunglasses? Only officers can, and you don’t have any officer’s kids in your grade beside that one kid who moved from Germany, what’s his name?”
Amy nearly growled his name. “Joffrey Martin. He’s a jerk.”
Jo nodded. “Yeah, him. So, don’t be jealous. No one else has any money around here unless it’s the first or the fifteenth.”
“Except the Kings,” Meg said under her breath.
Her words expressed more than annoyance at not being paid. Everyone in the room could easily detect the longing in her voice for the finer things in life, and the King’s had all the finer things. There were even rumors that they had gold toilets in their expansive mansion, though Meg said she hadn’t seen any.