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“What? We did most of it,” he said in his and Maylee’s defense.

I gave him a look as we walked toward the house.

“Daddy is coming home today. ‘Most of it’ is not what I asked for.”

“You sound like Ma.”

“Good. Maybe that means you’ll listen.”

He laughed and held the door open for me. The first thing I noticed when I stepped inside was a trail of orange leaves leading from the foyer toward the living room. Not real leaves, either. The fake ones I had bought the day before were scattered across the floor like somebody had opened the package and thrown it in the air. I slowly turned my head toward MJ, and he looked down at the floor.

“That wasn’t me.”

“Then who was it?”

“Maylee.”

“Of course it was,” I said as I rolled my eyes.

I loved my sister to death, but with Mama barely at the house, she made me realize that having a kid is not for me. College was approaching, and at first, I wanted to be a teacher, but I could see that majoring in early childhood education was not the move. Having to repeat myself around the house and dealing with her little attitude had me switch my gears toward nursing.

“I heard that!” she yelled from somewhere deeper in the house.

“Good!” I yelled back. “Come pick up your mess!” I yelled loud enough for her to hear that too.

I carried my bags into the living room, where Maylee was standing on the couch trying to arrange a fall garland across the mantel. She had one end draped perfectly and the other end twisted around her wrist.

“Before you say anything,” she told me, “I know what I’m doing.”

I set the bags down.

“You look like the garland got you in a chokehold.”

MJ burst out laughing behind me.

“Shut up,” Maylee told him.

“Get off the couch before you fall,” I said, reaching for the tangled end. “And why are there leaves all over the foyer?”

“Because MJ knocked the bag over.”

I turned around. MJ was already walking toward the kitchen.

“Boy!” I fussed.

“I’m getting the other bags!”

Maylee and I looked at each other before we both started laughing. It felt good. Since everything had happened, every time I walked into a room, somebody seemed to stop talking to ask how I was doing. Once Daddy’s name made it to the news, even people at school were doing it too. I knew they meant well, but I was tired of everybody looking at me like I might fall apart if they said the wrong thing. I wanted to argue with MJ about decorations. I wanted Maylee to get on my nerves. I wanted to come downstairs and find Daddy sitting in his favorite spot, fussing because somebody had touched the thermostat. He would fuss at everyone because he was hot-natured and then shut up once Mama told him that it was her because her feet were cold. I wanted my house back.

“Okay,” I said, taking the garland from Maylee. “Help me straighten this out.”

She climbed down from the couch while I untangled it, and together we spread it across the mantel. I stepped back to look at it, then moved one end a little farther to the left.

“There,” I said in satisfaction.

“It looked like that when I had it,” Maylee said as she tilted her head to the side to examine what I had just fixed.

“No, it didn’t.”