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  The children knew that their mother struggled mentally but were unable to help her; they would have if they could — after all, children know if they are loved. Dominic often stayed in his room, trying to avoid his little sister’s questioning eyes. It was too hard to pretend that nothing was wrong with their lives. The good side of it was that Sasha was an optimist and liked to pretend. In a way, it made him happy that she managed to be so high-spirited, while he seemed to be bearing the whole world on his shoulders.

  “Sasha, why don’t you at least get with it and help me get some work done. After all, you are old enough to help out.” Then, as soon as he said it, he felt bad.

  “Oh, Dominic, you worry enough for both of us, so why take it away from you? You seem to enjoy it,” teased Sasha. She knew very well how much he suffered but to let him know that she knew would change things forever. And so it went. But somehow, things worked out just fine from day to day.

  Dominic was becoming quite a handsome young man. As for Sasha, she was much more mature than she let on. At times, she could figure things out that even a grownup might have some difficulty with.

  Henry had a soft spot in his heart for those two children. Often, when they came to walk Serge, he could hardly keep himself from giving both a big hug. There was something about the two of them that made him appreciate his own life. He could remember when Dominic first came and asked if he could be allowed to walk Serge.

  “Hello, Mr. Dobbs. Would you allow me to walk your dog? I would bring him right back whenever you wanted it. I really like dogs.” Dominic knew about Mrs. Dobbs’s passing and wanted to help. Besides, he truly wanted to be with that dog. He often felt very lonely.

  Henry was only too happy to let him do it: “Well, what are you waiting for?” And off they went.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Almost directly across from the Lamberts lived the Prestons. Sam and Barb Preston had three children. Olivia was the oldest, Nicole was the next, and Trevor was the baby of the family.

  Sam was a tall and robust man. He was in the moving business. The work was hard but it provided a fairly decent living. He often worked long hours, which caused some tension at home.

  Barb was an attractive-looking lady. Her profession was bookkeeping, and she did some work from home while the children were young. She also did home daycare on a part-time basis — for mothers who needed a break — in order to help financially. She was one of those active mothers who managed to accomplish many different tasks on a daily basis and she treated all the children as her own.

  Susanne and Barb knew each other from their college days. However, they had both married young and lost touch with one another. It was not until they ended up living on the same street, with their children at the same school, that their friendship resumed.

  Dominic was the oldest of the five children who often played together while they were younger. Olivia and Sasha were the same age. Nicole was just over a year younger, and Trevor was always treated as the baby. While the Lambert children struggled with fitting in with the normal kids, the Prestons had no problem accepting them as normal.

  Always on the chubby side, Olivia carried herself well. It wasn’t until she started school that she started feeling different. She was a good student, but a definite crowd pleaser. It all started in kindergarten. Children have a way of saying things quite bluntly and they called her “fatty.” She was slightly overweight, but with all due respect, she had her father’s large frame, which didn’t help. Her sister, Nicole, could never wear her hand-me-downs because they were not only too large, they had the wrong proportions. Things like that certainly hurt.

  “Mommy; why is Nicole so thin? Is she sick?”

  “No, Olivia; Nicole is just built differently. She never had any baby fat. And yes, I used to worry about that, but Dr. Palmer assured me that she is fine. You are both doing well.” Barb felt bad for her.

  “What about Trevor? Is he all right? He is a boy and you always said that boys will be boys; how come he is not as big as me even though he eats all the time?” She was getting desperate. She was trying so hard to fit into the popular circle of schoolgirls and she was going about it the wrong way.

  “Young lady, you would be better off worrying about bringing your brother home from school, than worrying about those girls who are giving you a hard time because of your size. I can see almost all the way to school and I see Nicole holding Trevor’s hand, while you are busy running after the very girls who are hurting your feelings. Then, just before you reach home, you rejoin your siblings in order to please your father and me.” Olivia fell short of a good explanation. She withdrew even more.

  “Olivia, come out and join us! We need another player,” Nicole was shouting from the backyard.

  “No, thanks; I am busy right now. Besides, that is for kids.”

  Olivia had always claimed to be on her way to becoming an opera diva. If that failed, she could be an actress someday. She had that tendency to feel that she was above others, so why would the girls treat her that way? Someday, she would show them how well she has succeeded.

  “Hi, gorgeous!” Her father peeked into her room after hearing her answer to her sister. “What is so important in here that your sister can’t get you to join them for a game?” He knew the answer but was trying to smooth things between the two sisters.

  “Oh, Daddy, that’s kid’s stuff. I can’t be bothered with them. Anyway; I have a lot on my mind,” Olivia answered. But her father felt sad, as well as annoyed with her at the same time. He was not too old to remember how being young was not always easy. He was a loner himself once, but sports soon took care of that as soon as he joined the other boys at school in any and every sport possible.

  Sasha and Olivia became good friends in Grade 1. As different as they were by nature, they got along well. While Sasha was content being friends with Olivia, the same did not apply the other way around. Olivia had little sense of humour or imagination, so she became restless and tried to copy the other girls, who were livelier and at times very unkind.

  Larry Lambert had a tendency to follow his children’s every move and disapproved of the friendship between his daughter and Olivia. She had a very pretty face, but he wasn’t impressed with the rest of her and hoped Dominic would not become smitten with her beauty. His son was too good for that girl.

  Larry was one of those people who preferred to invade the privacy of other people and mind their business instead of taking responsibility for his self-inflicted problems. He was average-looking, with a slightly receding hairline, on the heavy side and rather short, he often had revenge on his mind. So Larry decided to have a chat with Olivia regarding his son.

  “Olivia, I want you to stay away from my children.”

  “What do you mean? Is something wrong?” She was frightened. He had a look about him that never meant good news.

  “Don’t get any bright ideas about my son. He is too good for you. And being friends with Sasha will not help you get his affection. You and Sasha are always together, and I don’t like it.”

  “Mr. Lambert, I have never had those kinds of feelings about Dominic. The five of us are just friends and have been for a long time. You don’t need to worry about me —”

  Before she could finish, he stepped right close to her and yelled, “You heard me! And if you say a word about this to anyone, I will make sure that you suffer for it. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes, Mr. Lambert.” She was petrified and hurt at the same time. She figured that just because she was overweight she should not be rejected everywhere and by everyone.

  So, Olivia dropped Sasha’s friendship at once. Sasha was devastated and wondered why. First she told her brother all about it and then she decided to find out what caused it.

  “Olivia, have I offended you in some way? Don’t you want to be my friend anymore?” Sasha asked.

  “No, Sasha. Nothing is wrong. I am just very busy these days.” She wished her friend would take her word for it because it
was too hard to explain. She had misunderstood Larry’s attitude and thought that he was against her because of being chubby. It hurt to be rejected for something that was not her fault. She became even more withdrawn.

  “Olivia, you can’t just turn away from me without an explanation. You owe it to yourself to try and sort out your actions. Are you hiding something? Because if you are; I would like to help you.” Sasha was hurt and scared for her friend at the same time. Luckily, Sasha was capable of dealing with disappointments and had no wish to judge anybody. Well, Olivia had always been a bit strange.

  “Nicole, can you explain your sister’s weird behaviour lately? I have tried to penetrate through her strange way of thinking, but nothing works.”

  “Sasha, when I find out what it is, I will let you know. In the meantime, you might want to ask my mother if she knows something that I don’t. I gave up on her a long time ago,” Nicole answered. Her mother tried time and time again to reason with Olivia, but she was one of those children who suffered silently. She was unable or unwilling to communicate verbally, deciding that nobody would understand.

  Nicole was another story. She was an active girl who showed potential from the very start. Her focus was on sports and she showed a competitive side right from the beginning. Nicole wanted a partner; someone she could trust to compete with, and that someone was Olivia. Unfortunately, Olivia had no such ambitions. She was clever, all right, and might have tried joining some sports, but she would want to do it with some other partners, such as her popular peers. So that was that. One can only say: too bad for her. Nicole understood. Not that she and Olivia always agreed on everything. In fact; they hardly ever agreed on anything; but Nicole, being more laid-back, often simply dismissed her sister’s temperament as “one of those things.”

  Ever since Trevor was born, he’d had a hard time dealing with the sibling confrontations. He was a very clever boy who could play by himself or with whomever. He was basically happy by just passing the time between the meals. He had a healthy appetite. Once he was a bit older, he figured out why his sisters never got along.

  “Mom, can you please do something about those two sisters of mine? They are always arguing.”

  “Correction!” Nicole just happened to hear her brother complaining about the two of them. “Olivia is quite capable of arguing with herself, since I am not in on this one. She is on her own because I have better things to do with my time.”

  “I agree, but at the same time I do worry about that girl.” Barb was worried that Olivia was setting herself up for a disaster. She could only hope that one learns from one’s mistakes.

  Barb worked from home. She was taking in typing for several small firms and was good at what she did.

  “Sam, we have to talk.”

  “What brought that on all of a sudden?”

  “I realize that you don’t like to talk about our future, but it is high time that we bought a house. This apartment is getting too small for us, and a change would do us all a lot of good.” Barb had tried to talk about buying a house before, but each time she tried, Sam would dismiss it for this or that reason. He was afraid to take on such a big responsibility. However, even he couldn’t deny them a better home. He would say, “I don’t have either the time or the money to buy a house.”

  “What do you mean, ‘you don’t have either’? Why is it always what you do, or what you don’t have? We are a family; and the last time I remember, we had enough money for a reasonable down payment.”

  Silence.

  “Sam!” By now, Barb was shouting.

  “I needed some of it for the business but I will return it in a couple of months.” He was hoping to have everything recovered by the time Barb noticed that the money was missing. Needless to say, Barb had some choice words to add. The children had instantly disappeared from the kitchen as soon as their father confessed to having taken their house money and used it for the business. They knew how their mother felt about the business — and about the house. They were upset seeing their parents so distraught. They wanted to live in a house, but not on those terms.

  Barb had become very quiet. “As far as I am concerned, you can either return the money within a month or sell the business before I take the children and go to live with my parents.” She walked out of the kitchen and went for a drive to get out of the house before she did something she might later regret. She left Sam dumbfounded and he could hardly believe what just happened. He would make sure that he never deceived her again and he would replace that money quickly, no matter what.

  Sure enough, things improved slightly once they bought a small house. Olivia was hoping that her peers would not look down on her now that they lived in a house of their own. She was under the impression that having a large home (like those some of the other girls lived in) was the answer. She overlooked the fact that some of those children had broken families. She was the lucky one and never knew it. The children were able to stay at the same school, since they moved only two blocks down the same street.

  And while all this was going on, Henry had invested in more properties. He had hired a man as the general manager of “H.D. Holdings” as soon as he took over the family business, for he was never interested in dealing with such matters. He also had a reliable lawyer in order to keep everything legal. They had advised him to invest in more real estate.

  “Now, I don’t want any of it being advertised, if you don’t mind,” Henry would instruct them.

  Henry kept all his affairs out of the public eye. He was a private man and felt good about it. If only he had somebody to share his wealth with. He often wondered how he could help Dominic and Sasha. But people talk, and he could tell that there was more than met the eye. Even at the supermarket, you could sometimes hear comments about those kids.

  But unknown to them, Larry was not sleeping. He had been stalking the children discreetly. Although he didn’t support his children, he still insisted on seeing them. He felt resentful that his son took such pleasure in walking Henry’s dog, yet refused to come and see him. After all, who was the father, here?

  Dominic declined to see his father, but young Sasha, who used to be Daddy’s girl, wanted to see him. At times, she could be heard pretend-talking to Daddy in her bedroom. She was persuading her father to come back but telling him that he needed to be nice to Mommy because Mommy is always tired since he left them and went away. Dominic found it very disturbing to hear his sister dealing with such emotions. He often assured her that she was not to worry, for he would take care of her.

  “Sasha, what have I told you time and time again? You must let Mom and Dad sort out their problems. Many other parents have similar problems — our parents are no different.”

  Sasha adored her brother. But Dominic did not tell his sister that he heard her talking to their father in privacy; he did not want to embarrass her. After all, she pretended to be much older than her years while talking to her father and telling him off about being nice to Mommy. That was to stay between the two of them.

  “There must be someone out there who could help us and help me to protect my little sister,” Dominic thought sadly. “My little sister deserves better.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The Millers owned the local supermarket. They had a well-established business and could well afford to organize and provide for some extras for the community. One of those things happened to be hiring a Santa for the Christmas holidays. That way, the children could come and see Santa and tell him their wishes for Christmas.

  Their regular Santa was no other than Henry Dobbs. He had filled Santa’s shoes for years. He had never failed the Millers.

  As the local children grew older and realized that Henry was their Santa, they liked him even more. He was great for the job. A gentle man with a lot of patience, yet a strong voice, he was perfect. His wife, Lily, used to look forward to the holidays, mainly because of Santa’s involvement. In a way, she felt as if she were Mrs. Santa.

  Lily would say, “I real
ly look forward to every Christmas when the children so eagerly come to see Santa. Henry gets so anxious about the whole affair. He is definitely more excited than the children; I can assure you of that!” She adored her husband, and whatever he enjoyed doing was fine with her. Not too many people have the privilege of marrying their soulmate.

  The year that Lily passed away — in October — Henry had a hard time doing his job. However, he couldn’t very well let the Millers down. At the end, as a special thank-you, the Millers included him in their Christmas celebration.

  “Henry, how would you like to join us for this year’s Christmas dinner?” Anna gently approached Henry after the last day of his tedious time with the children. She knew that some of the children had asked him why Mrs. Santa wasn’t there this year. Henry gently informed them that Mrs. Santa had gone to another place where she could feel better on account of her asthma.

  The Millers also provided plenty of treats for the local children. The Preston and the Lambert children were among them.

  George and Anna Miller had three sons, Greg, Dan, and Robert. They also had a daughter named Marianne. One after another, they were being trained to help in the store, making it a family business. Even during their elementary school years, they had to do their homework after nine p.m., since they worked in the store after school. They were all paid for their work, and on Sundays, they were free to do whatever they wished, considering their ages. Those kids worked hard.

  When Dominic reached the age of twelve, he approached one of the Miller boys, asking him, “Dan, do you think I stand a chance to get a part-time job at your store?”

  “You will have to ask my parents about that, but I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t.”

  “That would be great, Dan, thanks.”

  He followed up by speaking to George Miller, who was glad for the extra help; his mother allowed him to work there after school, but only until seven o’clock so his school marks wouldn’t suffer. Besides, he was so thin that Miller felt the boy needed food more than work. Dominic was allowed to help himself to an apple or two for his after-school snack and often to some other food as well, in order to have the energy to do the work. When he first started working, Sasha often came in to visit him, but he quickly dismissed her in order not to cause him to shirk his responsibilities. He loved his sister and she was very much the reason for his wanting to earn some money — to take care of her.