"Can we still drink it if one of us gets fired?"

"We'll have to then. We'll toast to new beginnings."

I smiled. New beginnings."Hey, come over early. Spring wants to show you..."

"Can't. I have an appointment, but tell her I'll be over for dinner. See you tonight."

"Tonight."

Billie seemed a little mysterious about her appointment, but whatever it was, it wasn't my business. Though I had to admit, it was getting harder to feel that way my mistake.

Spring liked making tracks in the falling snow. She was wearing her red duck boots, and since the first snow of the season, she rarely took them off, even in the apartment. Spring held my hand and we swung our arms, as we walked.

Spring liked the walk home with the Christmas lights and the snow although after a few blocks, she had seen multiple Santas ringing bells and asking for donations. She had a confused expression on her face and I thought she was going to ask me about them.

"Hey D? What can I get Mommy for Christmas?"

Wrong guess.

"I don't know, Spring. What would she like?"

"To see me."

I considered it to be a testament to my emotional fortitude that I was able to continue swinging her arm after she said this.

"Do you remember when you told the taxi driver you wanted your mom to be happy?" She'd done this when she was chatting up the man in the second cab we'd ever been in together.

"No." She stopped.

"Yeah, when we went to the zoo. You said you wanted your mom to be happy." I took a deep breath and didn't dare make eye contact. "I think you got your wish."

"I did?"

"Yeah, I think you did. Because you're getting a little bigger and a little smarter every day, and you're doing lots of things that would make her proud."

"I am?"

"Definitely. Every day. And you feel okay, right?" I pointed to my chest. "You know, in here."

"Uh huh," she said, making a circle in the snow with her boot.

"You sure?"

She looked up at me. "Yeah."

"Then I know your mom is happy. Because you make her very happy."

"I do?"

"No question about it."

We traveled a few more steps, with Spring dragging her feet and leaving a small continuous path. I tried to get her arms swinging again, but she was focused elsewhere.

A couple of blocks away from our apartment, a group of hip-hop carolers were performing on a street corner. There were about a dozen people standing there listening to them. We stopped to join the crowd. Spring seemed fascinated to hear some familiar songs with these new arrangements and inched toward the front, ultimately and perhaps unwittingly moving between the crowd and the singers. When one of the rappers noticed her, he scooped her up to join their group. At first, Spring seemed alarmed and I thought I was going to have to go in to retrieve her. But as the group launched into what was unquestionably the coolest version of "Frosty the Snowman" I'd ever heard, Spring was smiling and waving her arms with the rest of the singers. The crowd was charmed, the singers grew more animated and I was disproportionately pleased with the entire thing.

When the song was over, the crowd applauded, the lead singer kissed Spring on the cheek, and she ran back into my arms. We stayed for a couple more songs before we made our way home.

"That was fun, huh?" I said to her. She offered a huge nod as confirmation.

When we entered the building and headed to the elevator, Spring waved hi to security guard Vanderhoof. He returned the wave, as we walked by and stepped into the elevator.

Spring hit the button for our floor and moved toward the corner of the car. "D? Would Mommy be mad, if I wasn't okay?" She pointed to her chest. "You know, in here?"

I was pretty thrown off by the question, having just seen her partying outside a few minutes earlier. There was so much more I had to learn.

"No, Spring," I said. "She wouldn't be mad at all. But I think she'd want you to tell me if you weren't, so I could help make you feel better."

"Really?"

I nodded. Her cheeks were rosy from the walk. "Is there something you want to tell me?"

She shook her head.

"You're sure? We can talk anytime you want."

She shook her head again. I assumed this meant that she didn't want to tell me anything and not that she didn't think we could talk if she needed to.

We arrived at the apartment just ahead of Billie. I poured some wine in a plastic cup for me, white grape juice in a sippy cup for Spring, and grabbed an Anjou pear for her snack. By the time I removed my tie, Spring had relocated the cups to the cover of my laptop, thinking it would make a nice tea set. Fortunately, there was a knock at the door.

"Billie!" Spring said, running to open it.

"Ho, ho, ho, little girl."

Spring turned to me with a smirk and Billie walked in. She was wearing a Santa hat and beard. She crouched down next to Spring and offered another "Ho, ho, ho." Spring laughed. Billie did look silly, but that wasn't what made me smile.

"Nice facial hair," I said. "I told you those supplements you were taking were going to backfire on you."

"When Spring's not around, I'll tell you what the supplements have really done for me," Billie said, standing up. "I have Santa hats for everybody."

"Why?" Spring said.

"It's Christmas."

"Why?"

Billie wasn't biting. "Because I thought it would be a good thing to put over your mouth," she said, chasing after Spring. Spring laughed and retreated to a corner. Billie turned back to me. "Sushi here yet?"

"Just ordered it. They're pretty quick, though."

"I hope so. I'm ravenous."

"And in that beard, you're ravishing, as well."

"You're such a flatterer, Mr. Hunter." Billie took off the beard and kissed me on the cheek.

The sushi arrived ten minutes later. I gave Spring some roast chicken from the previous night's dinner, but she seemed much more interested in watching us eat the sushi than she had on previous occasions.

"Do you think you'd like to try some of this?" I said to her. "You can have part of this roll if you want. It's cooked shrimp and asparagus."

Spring reached out her hand tentatively and I gave her a piece of the roll. I was really pleased with her willingness to give sushi a try. She dipped the roll in some soy sauce and then took a small bite.

"D?" she said, still chewing.

"What do you think?"

"I think this sucks." She spit the piece onto her plate.

"Did you say 'sucks?" Where did you learn to use that word?"

"Kerry says it sometimes."

"Really? I'm going to have to have a conversation with Mrs. Stephanie about allowing that kind of language at the daycare center." I relished the thought of calling Stephanie on something, even though I knew I'd never do it. "So you really don't like the sushi?"

Spring wrinkled her nose and shook her head. "Is that okay?"

"Yeah, of course it's okay."

"I don't think I'm hungry anymore."

"That's fine. You can hang out with us, or you can go play in your room if you want." She stayed for a few minutes and then she bounded off.

"She's pretty cute for an alien, huh?" Billie said after Spring left.

"Yeah. Definitely cute and definitely alien. In the span of 45 minutes, she can go from a heart-wrenching conversation about her mother to break dancing with some rappers to some real insecurity about her emotions to curiosity about food to pogo-ing into her room."

"What about that surprises you?"

"I don't know. None of it, I guess. I just keep expecting at some point to get to normal."

"Maybe this is normal."

"If this is normal, I think I'm going to replace the television with a defibrillator."

As if to punctuate this conversation, Spring ran into the room a couple of minutes later with her box of crayons all 128 of them. She pulled Billie out of her chair and led her to the wall.

"What are you doing?" Billie said.

"Stand here."

"Can I go get my wine?"

Spring wasn't pleased with this, but she agreed, then requested I hang another sheet of paper over the chair rail, doubling the height of the paper to just over six feet. She began to trace Billie's outline, without the wine cup, against the wall with a blue crayon I wasn't sure whether it was pacific blue or robins-egg blue. I held Spring up, so she could trace the high spots. I was guessing that this was something she had recently done at the daycare center, though her subject was probably considerably shorter. When Spring was done with Billie, it was my turn to stand against the wall. Spring began to outline my body about two feet from the other image. I requested she use my favorite crayon, sunset orange.

Then, it was Spring's turn. She stood in between the two images, while Billie and I each traced a side of her. Spring wanted us to use cotton candy and pink flamingo. She hadn't told me earlier that we could have selected more than one color, or I would have done that for my outline. Before we could finish hers, she commandeered our crayons and completed the work by connecting our hands.

When the drawing was complete, she ushered us to the couch to admire her artistry: three outlined images walking, or strolling or maybe just standing still, but all holding hands. The images in the new mural were of our approximate height and girth, although mine was a little larger than in real life.

Billie sat looking at the image and seemed for a moment to be lost in thought. Then she laughed and went to the stereo to put on some Christmas music. "Linus and Lucy" from A Charlie Brown Christmas came on first. She hurried into the kitchen, returning with an umbrella and a small broom. She grabbed Spring's hand and pulled her onto the makeshift dance floor. She handed Spring the umbrella.

"Ready?" Billie said Spring.

Spring looked dumbfounded.

The ultimate Peanuts piano tune filled the room with its driving bass line. At first, I imagined the little characters bobbing up and down, their heads tipping back and forth with the music. Then I didn't have to. Billie danced in Peanut fashion with a broom for a partner, and tried to get Spring to do the same. I felt fortunate that this was a girl thing and that I didn't own a mop. I didn't hear Jim when he came in until he surprised me and handed me a beer.

"I was out of macaroni and cheese," he said, showing me the box in his hand. "Man, I love this stuff. I'll get you another, and while I was close to your fridge, I thought I'd grab a beer. One for you, too."

Billie waved at Jim, while continuing the bob, and Spring mimicked her dance. I was surprised that Billie continued to dance now that Jim was here. The few times in the past when I'd seen her act this playful, she would quickly pull herself together, if she noticed someone else watching. After Jim began to dance, an apparent blend of the Pigpen hop and '80s slam dance while trying not to spill his beer I felt like the odd man out and stood to jitter with the rest of the gang. Fortunately, "Linus and Lucy" was a short song.

"Do you do this every night?" Jim said. "Or is this just for the holidays?"

"Limited engagement," Billie said. "After seeing you dance, now I know why you answer to Jimbo the Monkeyman."

Spring giggled.

"I gotta go. Thanks for the mac and the beer."

I escorted him to the door. "Hey, what are you doing Christmas Eve?"

"Going to my ex's place for dinner with her and the boys. It's a little weird a lot weird, actually but it's the one tradition that we've kept and the kids seem to appreciate it. You?"

"Well," I lowered my voice, "I usually drink some wine and watch 'It's A Wonderful Life,call my brother on Christmas and say hi and see if there's anyone I can hook up with that night. But I don't know this year with Spring here and Santa coming."

"You should invite Billie," Jim said, looking over at her. She and Spring were crawling under the tree, prodding Spring's presents.

"Yeah, I should even though she's a terrible influence on Spring. She probably has other stuff to do, but it would be fun to have her here with us, if she doesn't."

Later that night after putting Spring to bed, which had taken longer than usual due to all the dancing and singing, Billie and I sat on the couch leaning against each other, drinking red wine from real glasses now and listening to music. Although we had spent much of the last three weeks together, it wasn't the six days and ten hours of old. There was something easier about the time we were spending now. While we had been good friends for a long time and while she was one of the few people I felt I could really count on, there had always been an edge of competition between us like we were squash buddies or something. Of late, it seemed less important who got the last word in, or whose banter was cleverer.

I looked over to Billie without moving my head. I didn't want her to catch me, or to wake her if she was asleep. I just wanted to take her in: she had done so much for me in the last few weeks. To disturb her meant chancing that she would leave. I sipped my wine and moved into her a little more, mostly to make sure she was still there.

She raised her glass to her lips.

"Maybe you could come over on Christmas Eve," I said.

She took another sip.

"I mean, you don't have to, but if you don't already have plans... "