From this distance, it appeared that the phony sock monkeys, still heaped in a pile, hadn’t been messed with: proof that the thief had known exactly what he or she was looking for.
Olivia released a deep breath. She took one step forward. Her hands trembled.
Suddenly, from the opposite side of the ballroom, Throckmorton heard the loud snap of a lock.
The double doors swung open.
Olivia quickly slipped back into the shadows.
“Annaliese,” Miss Pine exclaimed, rushing to her side. “What are you doing in here? I’ve been looking all over for you! It’s practically the middle of the night. You’re supposed to be in bed.”
Tears welled up in Annaliese’s eyes. “It’s my fault!” she shrieked. “I have to fix them!”
“That can’t be true,” said Miss Pine, crouching down beside her. “What do you mean?”
“I broke my promise! I told Teddy about the diamond and he told Evan and Evan told . . .”
Miss Pine grasped Annaliese’s arm. The needle and thread dropped from her hand. The injured sock monkey tumbled out of her lap.
“What promise? What diamond?”
Now Annaliese was crying so hard that she almost couldn’t speak. “I—I didn’t . . .
“Keep . . .
“Now the sock monkeys are ruined . . .
“And no one’s going to want them back!”
Miss Pine gripped Annaliese’s shoulders. She looked squarely into her eyes. “Annaliese, you didn’t harm the monkeys. It’s not your fault—you have to believe me.”
Miss Pine pulled Annaliese close to her chest. Olivia’s long fingernails dug deeper and deeper into Throckmorton’s skin, the pain like an arrow piercing his heart.
“I was bad,” Annaliese blubbered. “I was a bad baby, too—Madge told me so—and that’s why my mother went away. And now she’s gone and I missed my chance and I gave that Joe guy the wrong monkey and I’ll never see her or Throckmorton ever again.”
“No! That’s not true!” Olivia cried out suddenly. “Madge lied! You weren’t a bad baby! That’s not why I left!”
Annaliese’s fingers flew to the locket that hung around her neck.
“Throckmorton!” she screamed, scrambling to her feet. “And YOU!”
What a remarkable moment . . .
Throckmorton was home at last, blissfully squished inside Olivia and Annaliese’s embrace.
Mother’s and daughter’s tears mingled and sprinkled on his pretzel-shaped ears, more tiny medals of honor he’d treasure for the rest of his life.
Miss Pine, who’d stepped back to give Olivia and Annaliese room, came forward, offering Olivia her hand. “Miss Pine,” she said warmly. “Miss Laurel Pine. Welcome.”
The smiling nanny tousled Annaliese’s hair. “And I’ve got some other good news. That wicked Madge is gone and she’s never coming back.”
“She isn’t?”
“Madge packed up and left sometime last night. She told Mrs. Wiggins that she was sick and tired of working for the Easterlings.”
Good riddance!
Annaliese shifted Throckmorton’s body so that his chin rested on her shoulder. “Wait a minute,” she said, noticing the note pinned to his chest. “What’s this?”
“You can read it later,” Olivia whispered.
At that very moment, Throckmorton spied a silent and imposing figure filling the doorframe that Miss Pine had just passed through.
Jumping jackrabbits!
It was Judge Easterling!
How long had he been standing there?
Annaliese wiped her nose with her sleeve. “But the sock monkeys,” she sniffed, “I have to fix them—before everyone wakes up. Before Father gets home.”
Now, like an actor who’d just been given his cue to come onstage, the judge quietly approached Annaliese.
The judge’s eyes met Olivia’s. He stopped short. His mustache twitched like it had never twitched before.
“I am home,” he announced.
Annaliese spun around. “Father, look! My mother is here.”
Mother.
The word hung in the air like a bird trapped in the eye of a storm—the word that the children weren’t allowed to say, yet one which was always hovering, wanting to land.
“Yes, Mrs. Wiggins warned me,” he responded.
“Mother is Miss Chickadee Finch, the singer,” Annaliese said excitedly. “I didn’t recognize her. No one did!”
“Indeed.” The judge nodded. “A clever disguise. Just as I suspected; Great-Grandmama Easterling had a trick up her sleeve.”
“There’s been some kind of mistake,” Olivia tried to explain. “Annaliese gave Joe—the bandleader—her sock monkey to give to me. I didn’t know why.”
“You’re the one who made the mistake,” he snarled.
Olivia’s face turned ashen. “I know that I’m not welcome here . . . forbidden, actually, from ever coming back . . .”
Annaliese held her father in her gaze. “Father, you wouldn’t let Mother come back?”
Throckmorton fully expected the judge to deny it. Plead the Fifth Amendment or some such thing.
The judge fell silent.
“That’s not fair,” Annaliese told the man who spent his days sitting in judgment of others. “Why, all these years, I’ve been waiting and wondering and . . .”
Annaliese turned her back on him.
With Throckmorton tucked safely under her left arm, she marched to where Ebenezer the Lighthouse Keeper was sitting.
She picked up the sock monkey—that she’d sewn by hand and stitched with love—and put it into Olivia’s outstretched hands.
“This is Ebenezer,” Annaliese told her. “He’s a lighthouse keeper. He’s the monkey meant for you, not Throckmorton.” Annaliese cocked her head. “How did you know that I’d made a mistake?”
“I didn’t,” Olivia answered. “I thought Throckmorton was some kind of sign, a sign that you wanted me to come back.”
“I’ve always wanted you to come back.”
The room went silent. Olivia’s chin dropped to her chest. After a few moments, she turned Ebenezer’s brown-and-cream body up, down, and all around. “They’re almost exactly the same size,” she observed. “And they’ve got the same ears. It would be easy to get them mixed up.”
“I made Ebenezer,” Annaliese said. “Great-Grandmama taught me how.”
The judge heaved an exasperated sigh.
“Perhaps I’d better go now,” Olivia said. “I didn’t come here to cause trouble. I have a car waiting.”
“No!” Annaliese said firmly. “You’re not leaving! Nobody’s leaving. Not until the sock monkeys are fixed.”
The judge protested, “But—but—she . . .”
“Shush!” Annaliese scolded. “You’re upsetting them! They’ve been hurt—badly!—and we have to put them back together.”
Miss Pine, who’d been quietly gathering sock monkeys in her arms, nodded in agreement.
Annaliese’s eyes bore into her mother first and then her father.
“Your fight can wait.”
“What do you want me to do?” Olivia asked, slipping off her hooded cape.
Olivia didn’t have time to help, Throckmorton realized. She had less than twenty minutes. Joe was waiting outside.
“Breakfast’s at nine,” said Miss Pine, checking her watch. “Folks will start waking up around eight. That gives us less than two hours.”
Annaliese cupped her hand over her chin. “Hmm . . . let me think.”
After a few moments, her eyes lit up. “I’ve got an idea.”
“Father, you line the sock monkeys up in their chairs along the wall, smallest to largest. Then match their arms with their bodies the best you can. Luckily, only their left arms were snipped off.”
“Miss Pine, pick up the hearts and pile them right there.” Annaliese pointed toward the spot on the floor next to where she’d been sewing. “Then gather up the stuffing and put a few handfuls inside each monkey.”
“I will,” said Miss Pine, “gladly.”
“And since you’re so good with costumes, Mother,” Annaliese said with a smile, “you can piece their outfits together and dress them back up.”
She held up Great-Grandmama’s ledger and a pen that Great-Uncle George had left behind. “This will make your job easier.”
“I’ll give each sock monkey a heart and stitch their arms back on, the way Great-Grandmama taught me.”
“Good thinking,” said Miss Pine as she and the judge set out to do their jobs. “A sock monkey reassembly line.”
Annaliese and Olivia set Throckmorton and Ebenezer against the sewing basket, and then Annaliese sat down. Olivia remained close by, filling her hands with random bits and pieces of the sock monkey costumes: a little leather shoe, a fez hat, pom-poms, a string of pearls, Sir Rudyard’s suspenders.
“I wish I knew which heart belonged to which monkey,” Annaliese told Olivia. “But I guess it doesn’t matter. Great-Grandmama used the same cookie cutter to make them all.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Only Ebenezer’s heart is different.”
A puzzled look crossed Olivia’s face. “Why’s that?”
Annaliese pressed her pointer finger over her lips. “There’s a huge diamond inside his heart. I put it there myself. Great-Grandmama wanted you to have it.”
“How can that be?” Olivia asked quietly.
Annaliese picked up the sewing scissors. “If you want to see it . . . ,” she offered, albeit reluctantly. “I guess I can always sew Ebenezer back together . . .”
“No. I’m not going to do that,” Olivia said. “Not now. Not ever. I’ve broken enough hearts in my life.”