And Then There Was You (Serenity House Book 2)

by Molly O'Keefe

  “Don’t worry, I wrote it down,” Tiffany said before leaning down to Mom. “I’ll see you later, Mrs. McAvoy.”

  “My daughter’s here now. I don’t need you,” Mom said in a biting tone that was so not at all Meredith McAvoy.

  Lindy blinked, flat-footed with shock. “I…I’m sorry, I’m—”

  “It’s all right,” Tiffany said, in a low murmur like Mom couldn’t hear her. “It’s part of the condition. You’ll notice the changes.”

  Despite having seen her mom get older over the years, whenever she thought of her mother, or her sister for that matter, they were the same as the night she left, brittle and tight-lipped. But life had moved on here and she needed to catch up. There was fluid intake to worry about.

  And escape attempts.

  The old house was unchanged, like stepping into a time machine to her girlhood. The shell lamp they made in Girl Scouts still sat on the table by the couch. The dining room table where Lindy shoved Delia and she fell (pretty overdramatically, if you asked Lindy) from the chair—still sat cluttered and unused off the kitchen. The door to their old bedroom was shut and she wasn’t brave enough to open it yet. To see their twin beds with matching quilts. The sparkly rainbow stickers, faded but still stuck to the door, were enough for the moment.

  She pressed her finger against them and felt the old rough glitter and remembered the night she left. The way she’d begged Delia to talk to her.

  Go away, Delia had said. Just…go away.

  “Lindy?” her mom said with just the thinnest thread of panic in her voice.

  “Yeah, Mom?” She stepped back out of the hallway and into the living room.

  Mom smiled. “I thought maybe I’d made you up.”

  It was a cover. A smart one, using her health like that. And it squeezed Lindy’s heart so tight, this fear over her absence, but she too put one foot in front of the other, just as her mother taught her.

  “You hungry?” she asked Meredith.

  “Starved.”

  Perfect. Food was easy.

  *

  The industrial-size jar of mayonnaise was where it had always been in the fridge door, the blue cap not screwed on but set in place for easy access. Meredith McAvoy ate mayonnaise on anything that would sit still. Apple slices, toast, crackers. Old pork chops. Tonight’s mayonnaise usage was as God intended.

  Tomato sandwiches.

  Lindy sliced up the tomatoes and served the sandwiches on chipped china out on the back porch. The sun was slipping down behind the front of the house, a cool breeze coming up from the beach. The mosquitoes were still a month away.

  “Here, Mom,” Lindy said, placing the plate in front of her. She was in total control, until Mom grabbed her wrist and squeezed.

  “Should we wait for your sister?”

  “Is she coming?” Lindy asked casually.

  “Well, she’s done at the beach at five.”

  “The beach?”

  Mom looked at Lindy like she was the one who’d had the brain event. “She’s managing the lifeguards this year. She works too hard if you ask me, but you know your sister. There’s no telling her that.”

  Lindy blinked and Mom blinked back.

  “That was years ago, Mom. When she was a teenager. She doesn’t do that anymore.”

  In fact, Delia only worked at the beach that one summer. She worked at the beach and at the shop, and any place in town that would pay her a couple bucks for odd jobs. She and Dan had been saving every penny to travel Europe.

  “Of course,” Mom said. “I forgot.” She shifted her attention to the open-faced sandwich. “Look at these tomatoes! Aren’t they something.”

  Lindy wasn’t fooled by her delight, but she also didn’t know what to say or how to say it. So instead she smiled, big and bright. They could both pretend nothing was wrong. After all, that was the McAvoy way.

  “Yes, they are, Mom.” And they both took a bite.

  Lindy had worked in high-end restaurants for the last ten years, and she’d eaten some pretty amazing food. But a perfect tomato with a smear of mayo on toasted sourdough bread—it was hard to beat.

  “Where are the potato chips?” Mom asked.

  Tiffany had been terrifyingly clear about Meredith’s low-salt diet and the dire ramifications of straying from it, so instead of chips, Lindy had pitted cherries and sliced peaches, dressed them in lime juice, honey and mint from Mom’s wild garden.

  “You want some fruit?” Lindy gestured to the purple bowl she made one summer at art camp.

  “Oh, honey, we both know you can’t have a tomato sandwich without potato chips.”

  She pushed away from the table and Lindy stood up to stop her. “No, Mom, I’ll get them. Are they still in the cupboard over the dishwasher?”

  “No. I had to hide them from your sister and that Tiffany woman. I’ll get them.”

  “Just tell me—”

  “I’ve had a brain event,” she said, dry as Lindy’s favorite martini as she headed toward the door. “Not a body event.”

  The screen door slammed behind her, and Lindy sat back down in the slightly warped chair in her old spot around the table. She picked a cherry from the bowl and rethought the amount of lime in the dressing. Her phone buzzed in the back pocket of her jeans and she fished it out to find a text from Angela, her friend back in Cleveland.

  Everything okay?

  Fine, Lindy wrote back. Mom is… She paused. What was Mom? Certainly better than she thought she’d be. But also not great. Good.

  Talked to Dante at Bola. He’s looking for a new head bartender, told him you were looking for a new job. He got really excited.

  Bola! Holy shit. Bola had been written up in Esquire’s Best 100 Bars in America and it was absolutely the spot in Cleveland. And with summer coming, its rooftop patio would be hopping.

  Here’s his number. I’ll tell him you’re interested.

  “Hello?” a voice called out from the front.

  A warning Lindy barely had time to register before her sister turned the corner.

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