Oh. I looked around at the faded hydrangea wallpaper, the salt and pepper shakers shaped like birds, the windup kitchen clock. Everything the same, dear and familiar. The air even smelled the same, of old wood and books and, faintly, of the barn. But now that Meg had pointed it out, I could see neglect lying over the house like the patina of woodsmoke. A pile of mail instead of the Christmas village on the lowboy. A film of dust on the piano where the Nativity scene should be. No wreath, no tree, no candles shining welcome from the windows.
A longing for our mother pierced me. And for our father, although making the house ready for Christmas had never been his thing. Or mine, either.
“I could do it. Decorate, I mean,” I said. “Now that I’m home.”
Meg smiled. “We’ll do it together. Like we used to.”
“I’m so glad you’re here,” I said.
“I’m glad you’re here, too.”
“Whatever happens, you have each other,” Momma used to say. I’d never been more grateful for my sister’s presence.
We ate dinner together in the kitchen. Anyway, Meg and I ate. The twins dropped noodles on the floor and smeared red sauce on the table.
“They had cookies for lunch,” Meg explained, mopping a milk spill. She turned her gaze on me. “What will you do now?”
I swallowed, my appetite gone. “I figured I’d stay here.”
“For Christmas,” Meg said.
“For Mom’s surgery and Christmas.” I shoved pasta around my plate. “Maybe longer. Until Mom’s out of rehab.”
Meg’s eyes were full of doubt. “That could be weeks. What about your apartment?”
“I can’t afford the rent as it is. I was going to have to let it go anyway. Move to the Bronx. Find another roommate.” I shrugged. “Maybe I’ll sublet.”
“Won’t that make it harder to go back?”
“What happened to, ‘I’m glad you’re here’?”
“I am glad. It wouldn’t feel like Christmas without you. Especially with the girls gone this year.”
“The house is awfully quiet.” I grinned. “No Amy drama.”
“No Bethie singing.”
“I can’t believe our little Mouse is a YouTube sensation.”
“Jealous?” Meg asked.
“No.” Maybe. I drank more wine. “I’m proud of her. It’s time she spread her wings.”
“You don’t think this Colt Henderson is taking advantage of her?”
“I don’t want to take advantage of you,” I’d told Eric.
“Maybe I am taking advantage of you,” he’d said, kissing my neck.
The memory made me squirm. “He’s using Beth’s song in his show,” I pointed out. “I’d say the advantage is on her side.”
“I know. I only meant she’s not very experienced,” Meg said.
“Which is why this is such a great opportunity. She needs someone who can bring her out of her shell. Coax her into the spotlight.”
“Professionally, sure. But she sounded a little starstruck on the phone.”
Uneasiness slithered through me. “That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Look at me and Eric.”
“Because that turned out so well.”
I flushed. “My point is, he didn’t take advantage of me. Anyway, Beth would have told me if there was anything like that going on.”
“I’m just worried. She’s never even had a boyfriend.”
True. Long after Amy had moved on to magazines and makeup, Beth was still taking care of our discarded Barbies, styling their chopped-off hair, bandaging their missing limbs.
I shook my doubts away. “If she’s going to have any kind of career, she needs to get the hell out of Bunyan.”
Meg gave me her Mom Look. “What about you?”
I swallowed. “What about me?”
“You couldn’t wait to leave Bunyan and go to New York.” Meg stooped to retrieve DJ’s spoon from the floor. “I’m surprised you’re giving up on it, that’s all.”
I stared at her, stung. I wasn’t giving up. Eric wanted me gone, I was gone. Back home, where I was needed, where I was loved. “Hey. You’re supposed to be on my side.”
“I am totally on your side,” Meg said. “You should sue his ass for sexual harassment.”
Her unaccustomed fierceness made me grin. But some deep-rooted instinct, pride or fairness, made me say, “It wasn’t harassment. Sleeping together was my idea. My choice.” I gulped my wine. “My mistake.”
Meg nodded. “So you ran away.”
I lowered my glass. “What are you talking about?”
“Well.” Meg took a sip of her own wine. “That’s what you do. You ran away from Bunyan. You ran away from Trey. Anytime you get too close emotionally, you bolt.”
Guilty. Damn it. “Not this time,” I argued. “He rejected me. He said he didn’t know me. After we’d been . . . You know. Intimate.”
“After you’d had sex.”
I scowled. “No. Yes. Meg, he slept at my apartment. We went running together. We cooked together. And then he dumped me.”
“Asshole,” Meg said.
I turned my fingers over to lace them with hers. I couldn’t stay mad at my sister. It was easier—safer—to be mad at Eric. “I love you.”
Meg squeezed my hand. “Love you, too.”
“Ath-thole,” DJ repeated.
Meg covered her mouth with her hand, her gaze darting to meet mine.
I fought a grin. “Sorry.”
“I not a ath-thole,” Daisy said. “I a kitty.”
“Athole! Athole!” DJ said gleefully, banging his spoon.
Meg’s laugh spurted. “And . . . It’s bedtime.”
I didn’t want her to go. “So, shoo. I’ve got this.” I stood to stack our plates.
“I’m not leaving,” Meg said. “I’ll put the kids down in Beth and Amy’s room until Dad gets home.”
Gratitude swamped me. If Mom were here . . . But she wasn’t. And as close as I felt to our father, I could never talk to him the way I talked to Meg. Unless he was counseling one of his vets, heart-to-hearts weren’t really his style. A daughter’s breakup barely registered on his trauma scale.
Alone with the dishes, I listened to the twins’ footsteps as they ran down the hall, the squeak of the old box springs, the rise and fall of Meg’s voice as she read them a story. If I ever had kids—which was probably never going to happen, given how my life was going—I hoped I’d be as good a mom as Meg.
A snatch of lullaby drifted down the stairs. “Silent night . . .” A fat, hot tear slid down my nose and plopped into the sink. Crap.
“No use crying over spilled milk,” Momma would say.
I dried my hands and reached for my phone. As if a handful of new blog comments would make me less alone. I checked my text messages.
Nothing.
I mopped my eyes with the dish towel and went outside.
* * *
Iteetered on the railing of the front porch, stretching for the hook I was sure our mother had screwed into the eaves.
“What on earth are you doing?” Meg asked.
I glanced at my sister, silhouetted in the doorway. “Putting up the Christmas lights.”
“But it’s dark,” said my sister rationally.
“That’s why we need them.”
She tipped her head to one side, considering the open cartons and tangles of wires spread over the shadowed porch.
I held my breath, hoping she would understand my need to do something. Waiting for the Jo, be reasonable look she’d given me our entire lives.
“I’ll get the ladder,” my sister said.
An hour later, Meg was pink-cheeked with cold and exertion. I had scratches on both arms and a splinter throbbing in my thumb. Overhead, the stars shone, pure and clear as angel voices. I
could not see the river, but I could smell water, like snow or promise in the air. Weasley, safe from Daisy, twitched his tail on the porch rail, lit by the glow of fat, multicolored lights. Candles shone from every window. More lights bloomed on the front of the house, festooning the bushes and twining up the crepe myrtle.
I was pretty sure our mother would have approved.
“It looks great,” Meg said.
“Yeah.” Like home. I shot her a sideways glance. “Want to do the tree now?”
She huffed with amusement. “We have to buy one first.”
“There should still be an old one around somewhere. From when Daddy was deployed?” Our mother had always insisted we celebrate Christmas together as a family. One year that tree stood, covered in ornaments and dust, until February, when Dad came home from Iraq.
“The fake one? Great. Maybe we can get DJ to throw balls at it,” Meg said.
I leaned my head against her shoulder, a little buzzed with wine and lack of sleep. “Thanks for being here.”
She hugged me, enveloping me in her warm Meg smell, babies and Pantene shampoo. “What are sisters for?”
I felt a twinge of guilt. I hadn’t exactly been there for her lately. “How are you doing?”
“Fine.”
I snorted. “You sound like Mom.”
“Yeah.” Meg looked away.
“We should tell the girls about her surgery on Friday.”
“I know. But what good would it do? It’s not like they can come home.”
“They still have a right to know.”
“It’s not our place to tell them.”
“Have you talked to Dad?”
“To Mom and Dad. She doesn’t want to worry them. And he doesn’t want to upset Mom.”
“I could e-mail them,” I offered.
“Because that’s reassuring,” Meg said dryly.
I shrugged.
“Fine. I’ll tell them,” Meg said, taking Mom’s role as she always did. Taking responsibility. Thank God. “I’ll tell them everything’s fine and they don’t need to come.”
“Thanks.”
Her smile flickered. “It’s what I do.”
“Make everybody feel better?”
“Pretty much.” Her tone was light.
I peered at her, trying to read her expression in the dark. Trying to imagine how it would be to have everyone depending on me all the time, to be responsible for everybody’s feelings. “So, what’s this about you going to work for Carl Stewart?”
“Oh, that. It’s just part-time. A couple hours a week, helping out with the books since his parents retired. I can do most of it from home.”
“Following your passion,” I said, half joking.
“I don’t have a passion. I’m an accountant.”
“But you like numbers.”
Meg nodded. “I like the clarity. The responsibility. And I’m not going to lie—I like getting paid.”
“What does John think about you going back to work?”
“John says it’s my decision. Whatever I want, he said.”
“Well, that sucks.”
She laughed. “A little. Like it’s all on me. But, really, he just wants me to be happy. He gave up teaching so I could stay home with the kids. He doesn’t want to take that choice away from me. I think maybe because his mom didn’t have a choice, you know? She had to work.”
“Whatever you want,” Eric had said. Because he didn’t want to take advantage of an employee. Because he trusted me to say no. Like I could be myself, and it would be okay. Me telling him what I wanted freed him to say what he wanted.
Until he wanted me to go.
Headlights swung up the drive. I raised my head, squinting against the glare. “Dad’s home.”
But he wasn’t.
A white Mercedes pulled up to the barn, and a well-upholstered woman in a purple car coat climbed out, a plastic cake saver in one hand, her little dog cradled in the other.
“Aunt Phee,” Meg said. “What a surprise.”
“I could say the same.” Our aunt’s gaze swept the glowing lights and the bottle of wine before narrowing on me. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s Christmas,” I said.
“Not for another week. But I suppose there’s nothing to keep you in New York now that you’ve lost your job.” My job at the paper, she meant. But her words stabbed anyway. She was right. I was twenty-eight years old, underemployed, unattached, and back where I started. “Unless you’re finally dating someone,” she added, twisting the knife.
“Nope. Just having meaningless sex with my boss.”
Aunt Phee snorted with laughter, surprising us both. “Well, you’re honest, at least.”
“I was honest with you,” Eric said. “I opened myself to you, yeah? And you never said a word about this . . . this . . .”
“Jo came home to help Mom,” Meg said.
“I hope your mother appreciates it. This whole hospital nonsense has been very difficult for your father.” The Yorkie yapped as Phee climbed the stairs. Weasley jumped down with a disgruntled thump and slunk under the porch swing. Too bad there wasn’t room under there for both of us. “Where is Ashton? He should be home by now.”
“He’s having dinner with Momma,” Meg said. “At the rehab center.”
Aunt Phee’s coral lips pursed. “But I brought dessert.”
I rolled my eyes. Who put on lipstick and drove across town at nine o’clock at night to deliver dessert to a grown-ass nephew?
Oh.
Somebody lonely, that’s who. Aunt Phee had been widowed as long as I could remember. No living parents. No kids. All she had was a bad-tempered little dog. And our father.
“Is that your hummingbird cake?” I asked. “It looks awesome.” Not that I could see much through the plastic shield.
Aunt Phee clutched the cake saver tighter. “It’s for your father.”
Right. Another offering on the altar of the Reverend Ashton March.
“Do you want to come in?” Meg asked politely. “I can make coffee.”
“It’s too late. Drinking coffee after three o’clock in the afternoon interferes with your sleep.” She gave a pointed look at the bottle of wine. “So does drinking alcohol.”
Meg and I exchanged glances.
“It is late,” Meg agreed. I scratched the Yorkie behind the ears. “Jo’s had a long day. Maybe we should all say good night.”
“You certainly should,” Aunt Phee said. “Before that husband of yours gets tired of waiting for you.”
“John understands I had to work today,” Meg said, sticking up for herself in her quiet way.
“Well, of course he’d say that. Bless his heart. His mother never stayed home with him, did she?”
Polly nipped the fleshy part of my thumb. I pulled back my hand, sticking the bite in my mouth. “Jeez. Somebody’s feeling cranky.”
“Polly is sensitive,” Aunt Phee snapped. “And you’re a fine one to talk, missy. I don’t see anybody waiting at home for you.”
Meg sputtered. I choked.
Aunt Phee nodded once in apparent satisfaction. She thrust the cake saver at me. “You tell your father to come see me,” she said, and marched back to her car.
Gravel rattled beneath her wheels as she pulled out of the driveway. Meg bit her lip.
I caught her eye. “It’s like being related to Almira Gulch.”
Meg smiled. “Riding away on her broomstick?”
“Bicycle.”
“Whatever.”
I cackled. “I’ll get you, my pretty. And your little dog, too.”
“You made your bed,” Meg said in her best Wicked Witch voice. “You ought to go lie in it.” She wagged a finger at me. “Preferably with your husband.”
I snickered. “At
least you have a husband.”
Somehow we were giggling, laughing, holding on to our sides and each other until Meg was wheezing and I was out of breath.
“Poor old Aunt Phee,” Meg said.
“She’s a bitch,” I said.
“She’s lonely,” Meg said.
“I know.” I squatted to hold out my hand, coaxing the cat from under the swing. “That’ll be me in forty years. I don’t have anybody, either.”
“You have us,” Meg said.
The cat sniffed my fingers. I rubbed his head. “And Weasley. Maybe I’ll be a cat lady like Bethie.”
“Or you could get a little dog,” Meg said.
“Ha. Not in a million years.”
“You’re right. Dogs are too much work. Besides, you like being on your own,” Meg said.
“True.” We sat on the swing, side by side. I felt so close to her in the quiet dark. Like when we were little, whispering secrets across the space between our beds. “Sometimes I’m jealous of you,” I confessed.
“Of me?”
“Of you and John,” I clarified. “You have somebody you can count on. Someone who’s there.”
Meg’s face looked funny in the blue glow of the Christmas lights. “If all you wanted was somebody there all the time, you could have married Trey.”
Huh.
“Did you tell him you’re back?” my sister asked.
I shook my head. “I didn’t come home to repeat my mistakes.”
“Are you so sure it would be a mistake? Trey loves you. He’s always loved you.”
“Trey loves his idea of me—the girl next door, his buddy, his pal. As long as he can imagine he’s in love with me, he doesn’t have to grow up. But I don’t fit into his life. And he definitely doesn’t fit into mine.”
“You mean, your life in New York.”
“I mean, we don’t want the same things. We’re not like you and John.”
“Sometimes I don’t know what John wants anymore.”
I felt a little flare of alarm, like a moth flying into a bug zapper. “Meg?”
She looked down at her lap in the blue light, where her engagement ring shone like a star. “Did I ever tell you about our first date?”
“You went to a football game, you said. He took you out afterward for ice cream.”
Meg and Jo Page 25
