1910s: Why shopping with sisters is immanently better than shopping with your mother!
As Christmas week begins, Abigail finally gets her wish. Her girls come home! There are happy hugs all around, although William is a bit hesitant. He's heard a lot about these older sisters, but he's only ten and it's been four years... he barely remembers them. Anna makes sure to offer him a hug too. He's a bit intimidated by the brave sister who went to war, but he likes the hug.
After hugs, and dinner, and keeping up appearances, Anna and Alice are finally alone in their room for the night. Now they can greet each other properly, and say all that they want to say without the others listening in. Anna is keeping a brave face on, but Alice knows how deeply she hurts. She tries her best to comfort her sister, but as she goes to sleep, she can hear Anna crying in her bed.
Anna shows none of her grief the next day, however, as she and Alice take Josephine shopping. "Are you sure I shouldn't go along? Abigail asks, but the sisters are adamant. Shopping, even for wedding gowns, are best left to the younger generation.
Josephine quickly learns that shopping, is much more fun when your mother isn't in the picture.
"I don't want to cut my hair!" she says, a bit nervously.
Alice just shakes her head and laughs.
"Don't worry. I haven't, have I?"
"Perhaps you should," Anna adds. "It's the best thing I've ever done. You'd look great in it."
"Maybe," Alice agrees. "But first a wedding dress for Josephine."
"And I know a fabulous hairstyle that doesn't include a haircut. Georgette perfected it, and she was French," Anna adds.
At the end of the day, they've found much more than a wedding dress. All three comes home with new outfits, though Alice shakes her head at some of the more practical things her sister has chosen.
"I'll need things like this in Selvadorada!" Anna points out.
"Yes but you need something to celebrate New Years Eve in Del Sol Valley with me too"
After a day full of shopping the three sisters heads off to an ice cream parlor before going home with their shopping.
Back home Josephine can't stop looking at herself in the mirror. She loves her new outfits.
While they've been gone, Abigail has been helping William with his schoolwork, and now that they're back she is looking forward to dinner with all her children around the table. All the girls are showcasing some of their new outfits that night, and Alice looks quite pleased with her new short haircut:
But as happy as Abigail is to have her girls at home, she is not blind, and worries about her eldest girl, who she has noticed seems a bit off at times. When the others gather around a game of simbles, she corners Anna in the bedroom, and asks her about what is wrong.
Anna tries her best to keep her facade up, but it's difficult when you've done little else but pretend you are fine all day. At the end of it, she tells her mother (almost) everything. About the man she fell in love with, the promise that was made, and the reason the promise could not be kept.
Abigail tries to console her daughter, telling her that life will move on, that eventually the pain will lessen, that she'll love again. But Anna doesn't believe she will.
"Could you? If it was father, could you just move on?"
"I can't imagine it, no, but he did. When you are ready, you should talk to your father. He knows more than most about loss like this. I have never had reason to doubt how deeply he loved Ruth, her picture still hangs in the living room, after all. But I also don't doubt how deeply he loves me."
"Maybe men are just different that way."
"Or perhaps you just need to give yourself time to heal."
And somewhere in this conversation, something very ordinary, and at the same time very extraordinary, start to happen between mother and daughter:
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