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wonderful glittery gold star with tiny bells and shiny Christmas balls trimming the front of it.
    â€œIt’s the niftiest star I ever saw in my whole life!” I said. “Where’d you get it, Dad?”
    â€œIt was … put away,” he said hesitantly.
    I saw Grandma smile and go back into the kitchen then, as though she wanted to leave us alone.
    â€œI … I was saving it,” he said.
    â€œFor what?”
    â€œWell, for our tree, I guess.”
    â€œIt shines! Gee, Dad, it must’ve cost a lot of money!”
    â€œYour mother made it,” he said quietly, and he sat down in his chair beside me.
    â€œMy mother made this? She must’ve been an artist!”
    â€œShe … liked to paint and draw, the way you do.”
    â€œI didn’t know that! Nobody ever told me that!”
    â€œShe made this star for your first Christmas tree.”
    â€œI don’t remember … I don’t remember.”
    â€œYou were only a few months old. She made presents for you, too.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œKnitted booties and a sweater. And she made you a bib with a … a big yellow duck in the middle of it.”
    â€œA bib? Was I a messy eater then too?” I asked, laughing. “Didn’t my mother give me any toys?”
    â€œThere was a thing—it was like a bunch of jingle bells suspended from a ribbon. We tied it across your crib, and when you kicked at it, the bells rang.…”
    â€œWow. Do you think I look like my mother? Grandma says I do!”
    He gave me a look that seemed a little sad, and then smiled. “You’ve got the same hair … you look like her, especially when you smile.”
    â€œDid I smile a lot when I was a baby?”
    â€œYeah, but your mother said it was indigestion. She’d put you on her shoulder and rub your back …”
    â€œOh, I wish I could remember! What else did my mother do?”
    â€œWell, she sang to you …”
    â€œIs my voice like hers? When I sing?”
    â€œThe other night, during that Christmas carol … you sounded like her.”
    â€œI’m a real combination, aren’t I? Because I’m going to be very tall, like you!”
    He smiled at me, and I held out the star to him.
    â€œPut it on the tree, Dad.”
    Instead of taking the star from me, he picked me up in his arms and held me up high so I could put the star on the tree. I placed it carefully on the top branch, and he put me down.
    â€œIt looks terrific, Dad!”
    â€œIt’s yours now, Addie,” he said, and I turned and put my arms around him, and he hugged me close.

Epilogue
    We never talked to each other about what happened to us that Christmas—we still weren’t much for telling our feelings in my family—and I won’t pretend that it solved everything between my father and me. We continued to do enthusiastic battle for another twenty years. But after that, each of us knew that there was a person somewhere behind the defenses on the other side, and we never forgot it.
    We had a Christmas tree every year after that. Even after my grandmother had died and I had moved away to the city, and my father was there all alone, he would have a tree waiting in the living room when I came home for Christmas, and we would decorate it together. And when it was all finished, I would unwrap the star and put it on the top. Then we would both stand back and admire it and not say much, but I know we were both thinking of that Christmas in 1946.

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Chapter One
    It all began on a Saturday morning in November, 1947. I was up early, and it was one of the few mornings of my life that I managed to get out of the house before breakfast. My grandmother had the idea that, if you didn’t eat breakfast before you left the house in the morning, your whole body would fall apart by noon. I had visions of my bones going soft and my