Staying Together Read Free Page A

worked on the fabric flowers, and Flora and Ruby managed not to fight. At lunchtime, Olivia’s father poked his head through the door. The Walters owned a store nearby called Sincerely Yours. Robby Edwards worked there part-time. “Hello!” called Mr. Walter, waving to Gigi, who was his mother, and tugging at Olivia’s ponytail. “Stop by the store before you go home, okay?” he added, and Olivia nodded.
    By late in the afternoon, the flowers were finished. Ruby had grown tired of the project and Min had given her permission to go to Hilary’s apartment. Nikki hopped on her bicycle and headed for home, and Olivia left for Sincerely Yours. Flora had just sat down at the table in the back of the store and picked up several of the quilt squares when a shadow fell across her work. She turned around.
    â€œHey, Flora,” said Margaret Malone.
    â€œHi,” replied Flora.
    â€œBoy, that’s a big job.”
    â€œI know, but it’s fun.” Flora looked lovingly at her project. “Are you on your break?”
    Margaret worked at Heaven, the jewelry store next door to Sincerely Yours.
    â€œYup. And I need stuff to make pillow shams. For my dorm room.”
    Flora looked at her curiously. “You got in?”
    Margaret grinned. “I got in! In exactly five months I’ll be on my way to Smith College.”
    â€œThat’s great!” Flora jumped up and gave Margaret a hug. “I know that’s what you’ve been wanting, but … wow, I can’t imagine going away from home. I wouldn’t want to leave my friends and Min and everyone and go to a new place all by myself.”
    â€œYou’ll feel different when you’re my age,” Margaret told her. “Really. You’ll be ready to leave. I’ll miss my dad and my friends, of course. My sister … well, I guess that’s a different story. Lydia and I have a lot of differences. I don’t think we’ll miss each other. But anyway, it’s time for me to move on.”
    Flora thought about Margaret’s words as she stitched away at the quilt squares. She and Ruby certainly had differences. They’d been drifting apart lately. Did this happen to all sisters? Flora hoped not. And she hoped that whatever had changed between her and Ruby could change back. But before that happened, Ruby had to fix the very bad thing that she had done.

Ruby was in trouble. If only she could blame the trouble on someone else, but she couldn’t. To her credit, she was trying hard to fix things. But if you listened to her sister, Flora, not only was Ruby
not
fixing things but she was a big, fat, untrustworthy liar. Which wasn’t true. Well, not entirely. Ruby hadn’t told Min a lie. She just hadn’t told her something that, well, all right, Min would want to know about. But Ruby felt she could fix things without Min ever finding out what had happened.
    This, however, was what always made Flora begin talking about sins of commission versus sins of omission — sins of commission being the bad things you actually do and sins of omission being the difficult things you
should
do, but conveniently don’t. She made Ruby sound like a thieving, pillaging villain instead of a fifth-grader who had made a mistake.
    As Ruby walked toward Main Street after school one Monday, she thought back to the afternoon when she had decided to entertain herself by looking through Min’s drawers. She hadn’t intended to do anything wrong; she had just wanted to see what her grandmother might be keeping hidden. Peeking in drawers was fun.
    â€œWould you want someone going through your drawers?” Flora had asked her when she’d finally learned what had happened.
    â€œI wasn’t
going through
her drawers,” Ruby had replied. “I was just looking.”
    â€œAll right, would you want someone
looking
in your drawers? Me, for instance. How would you feel if you came into