Twenty-Nine

Madelyn was happy. And maybe things weren't perfect or anything, but she was generally cheerful. Which wasn't necessarily surprising, seeing as Maddie was a cheerful sort of kid. But she hadn't really felt this cheerful in the last week or so.

There was Matt, of course. And she'd gotten an A on her algebra test. Her mom seemed a little less stressed, but really not that much--but some was better than nothing. And school was ending and Christmas was coming. And she'd won Rookie of the Year for tennis.



Sunday night, Maddie was decorating the Christmas tree. Hers wasn't a pretty tree--when Elena picked the ornaments, she put up all the ones that were shiny and sparkly and made of glass, all the ones that came in sets with shiny ribbons, the ones that started breaking as the years went on.

Madelyn's tree had all the ornaments that she and her sister had made over the years, the ones from preschool, the ones that came from kits that Grandma Eleanor had sent. The ones with the pictures of Lena and Maddie at ages one through five, the "Baby's First Christmas" ornaments.

Sure, it was different, but neither was better or worse. Lena's tree was really pretty, but Madelyn's was a killer burst of nostalgia.

Mr. Harrison came up behind his daughter. "Looks good, Mad," he told her, putting a hand on her shoulder in a move that was so "fatherly cliche" that it was illegal in several states. "I like it."

Maddie shrugged. "It's different," she said. She was perfectly aware that her tree was nothing like Lena's tree would have been.

Normally, Lena was the Christmas Nazi. She decorated the tree just so, put up the lights just so, put the Nutcrackers in a very specific configuration. Elena was very just so about appearances.

The funny part was, though, that if the Harrisons tried to invite anyone over to see all the fine work their daughter had done, Elena threw a veritable fit. She hated people in her house, she insisted. She liked her house to be her own. It wasn't anybody's business, Lena complained, what the inside of her home looked like.

Elena was one odd duck. Maddie wondered if she was going to come home for Christmas. But then again, Elena had never done anything she didn't want to do. She's come home precisely when it suited her and not one moment sooner.

And that was why Madelyn no longer worried.