"I know," said Rosalie. "I had a doll before. Her name was Margaret. But she was in the fire." She said it matter-of-factly, the way children say the most terrible things. "I don't need a lot of stuff. Mama says we can't have a lot of stuff this year because we have to get a new apartment first. I just want the Starlight Sweetheart. Because the star keeps the bad dreams away. It says so on TV. And I have bad dreams now. About the fire. And Mama has to get up with me, and she's very tired, because she works a double on Saturdays."
The basement had gone quiet around them. The record player was playing "Silver Bells." Rosemary Castellano had put down the coffee pot.
Graham bent his head down toward the little girl until the itchy white beard nearly touched her bangs.
"Rosalie," he said, "I'm going to do my very best."
"That's what Santa always says," said Rosalie, unimpressed, and climbed down, and went to get a cookie.
*
Gina did not sleep much that night. She lay in her bed on Lowe Avenue, three blocks from the black, boarded-up shell where the Ferraros' building had been, and stared at the ceiling and thought about yellow yarn hair and a little felt star, and about forty dolls going out the doors of Halloran's in thirty-five minutes while she sat upstairs drinking cocoa.
On Monday she called in sick to the agency and went hunting.