She brought out a refrigerator dish for Mom. Inside it was a glass dish with a baked custard.
I unpacked the presents we carried over to open with Mom. She said, “This is the laziest Christmas I’ve had in a long time.”
In the afternoon, Aunt Ginny and Suzie traded places with us. They brought some Christmas dinner to eat with Mom. Mrs. Buttermark drove me home to eat with Granddad and Max.
I opened two gifts from Granddad. One was a framed picture of Mom and my dad, and I was sitting on Dad’s lap for the photo. I looked a little surprised by the whole thing, but Mom looked proud and Dad looked happy to be there. I’d never seen this picture before.
The other present was a set of small warrior figures on horseback.
Some of the men wore colorful scarflike outfits, and the others were dressed in blue and white, in white shirts with flowing sleeves. Even the horses were dressed up with scarves and feathers, the wind lifting the scarves and sleeves so men and horses looked like they were in motion. I’d never seen anything quite like them. They gave me a little chill.
They were the Greeks and Persians, Granddad told me. “Your dad was kind of a history buff. These belonged to him once.”
Goose bumps, that’s what they gave me.
That’s what Granddad said his gifts did for him. Mrs. Buttermark had accidentally given him a book he’d been wanting, a book of famous ships.
That evening, Granddad and Mrs. Buttermark went over to the hospital. Suzie and Aunt Ginny opened the rest of their gifts with me. It felt like Christmas was going on and on and on, which was fine by me.
Mom was home for New Year’s Eve and we did the holiday sleepover. She could get around in this narrow little wheelchair that Aunt Ginny had rented.
Granddad’s cold was gone and Mrs. Buttermark was over at our place more than she was at home in her apartment. That was fine with everybody. Especially Granddad.
Joey Ziglar was back from Florida and he came over too, with his dog. He and Aunt Ginny could hardly shut up about Arizona. Which was very cool. Joey has a major crush on Aunt Ginny.
Max hardly knew what to do with himself, visiting with a dog the same size. And Joey’s dog woke up to acting like a dog that had more on his mind than a leash, a food dish, and a nap.
They kept chasing each other all around the apartment, the sound of dog toenails up and down the hallway. Now and then one of them would body slam the other. They would pant hard in that laughing way, but they ran on without stopping.
There was a new jigsaw puzzle on the coffee table, half done. The chess table was out because Mom and Granddad had been playing the same game for two days.
He had another game going with Mrs. Buttermark. And her old set with the salt shaker was under the tree in case anybody else felt like playing.
Around eight o’clock, Mom and Aunt Ginny put on a movie and Joey and I got into our sleeping bags to watch with them.
Joey fell asleep halfway through the second one. Luckily, he was already in his sleeping bag. His dog was in there too. When we got to the Kleenex part of the movie, I went in and flopped on my bed for a while.
Mrs. Buttermark would sleep there tonight. I had a sleeping bag on the living room floor too. Max followed me in and hopped up on the bed with me. He flipped onto his back for a belly rub. I didn’t even have to think about it. As bristly as most of his body is, the belly hair is soft, like the feathers on ducklings.
I thought, that’s something to reflect back at him. While I was doing that, something weird happened. I saw him really sharp around the edges. I was going to have to tell Aunt Ginny about that.
Granddad came and sat on the edge of my bed. “Tearjerkers not your style?”
I shrugged. “They’re okay.”
“You haven’t caught my cold?”
“Never catch cold,” I said, making my voice deep. I pounded on my chest. “Hardy.”
He jounced on the edge of my bed, jiggling me around. Max barked and jumped off the bed.
Granddad said, “Hey, do you remember this?” He started to sort of stand halfway up and sit down hard on the bed over and over, jiggling me a little. A lot.
Granddad bounced so hard I lifted off the mattress. Not as high as I used to, but that didn’t matter. The jiggling made me feel like I was laughing. Maybe I was laughing. Max barked a few more times.
Mostly, it surprised me. Partly because Granddad was acting kind of silly, and I liked that. Also because I saw my memories weren’t really pointless after all. I was seeing Granddad really sharp around the edges.
Granddad kept up the bouncing and pretty soon I was laughing like a maniac.
“I remember!” I shouted.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For those of you who wonder,
and I know there are a lot of you—
teachers, librarians,
and often the young readers—
I’d like to point out the supportive cast of
characters at Random House who made this
book the beautiful object that it is.
* * *
Designer: Heather Palisi
Art director: Ellice Lee
Copy editor: Alison Kolani
Production manager: Dan Myers
Managing editor: Maren Greif
Illustrator: Antonio Javier Caparo
* * *
Last, not least, my editor, Shana Corey,
who always makes our shared work
the best it can be.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Audrey Couloumbis’s first book for children, Getting Near to Baby, won the Newbery Honor in 2000. Audrey is also the author of several other highly acclaimed books for young readers, including The Misadventures of Maude March (which was named a Book Sense 76 Pick and a New York Public Library 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing Selection, and won a National Parenting Publications Gold Award) and Love Me Tender (a Book Sense Children’s Summer Pick), and coauthor of War Games (a Horn Book Fanfare Best Book of the Year and a Junior Library Guild Selection). Audrey lives in upstate New York and Florida with her dog, Phoebe, and Phoebe’s two pet parakeets, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.
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