Jane made impressed noises over the wine and then brought it—and me—through the house and into the kitchen, which was sauna-hot and teeming with people. They all stopped talking to look at me, and I wondered briefly if my eyes still resembled ripe tomatoes.
“Everyone, this is Robin Calvert,” she told the assemblage, then proceeded to introduce me to each of them. “My husband, Graham,” she said, pointing to a tall burly guy with wavy brown hair. “My youngest, Nicole.” (Blond, tattooed, early twenties) “My oldest daughter, Alicia, her husband Kenji, and their daughter Ellie.” (Attractive dark-haired couple, late twenties, beautiful pudgy baby) “My oldest son Garrett, his wife Maggie, and their boy, Isaac.” (Handsome blond man who looked vaguely familiar, petite red-haired woman, school-aged son).
My head whirled. Remembering all these names and faces would require several hours and possibly a cheat sheet. The adults watched me curiously, as if waiting to see if I’d bolt. I kind of wanted to. In this warm, bustling house, surrounded by all this family, I felt like a mutant stray that had wandered in off the street.
Jane’s grandson Mason appeared in the kitchen then and wrapped himself around his grandmother’s legs. Seeing him reminded me of Drake and Lila, and I had to swallow back a lump in my throat. “Where’s Daddy?” he asked over the clamour of voices and beeping appliances.
“At the store, angelface,” Jane replied, absently patting his curls as she stirred something on the stove. “He’ll be here very soon.”
Two seconds after she said this, the thump of the front door closing filtered into the kitchen and Mason took off running. And less than a minute after that, Mason reappeared in the kitchen, this time draped across the broad shoulders of a tall, lean man with dirty-blond hair and pale blue eyes.
The universe had to be messing with me. My cheeks blazed, and suddenly I wished more than anything that I was back in my sad, desolate house, alone, with a lit cigarette in one hand and nice chilled beer in the other.
No food or beverages allowed, he’d told me. It was him. The irritating guy from the bookstore.
Chapter 6
His name was Ryan, and he obviously recognized me too. I could tell by the way his eyebrows shot up when he saw me.
“God, Ryan,” the youngest daughter, Nicole, exclaimed over the kitchen chaos. “I know she’s, like, obscenely pretty and everything, but you can at least stop gawking at her long enough to say hello.”
I shot her a one-sided smile that said, You and I are going to get along just fine.
“Shut up, Nic,” Ryan said lightly. He unwound Mason from his neck, set him down on the floor, and nodded once in my direction. “Hello.”
“Hi,” I replied, still flabbergasted by this coincidence. What were the odds that the annoying guy who’d intruded on my alone time at Margins last week would be the son of the woman who’d witnessed yesterday’s meltdown at gymnastics? Then again, crazier things had happened in my life.
Jane’s husband, Graham, stepped up beside me then and said with mock formality, “Allow me escort you to the dining room, my dear.”
I took his arm, smiling again. This family seemed a little intense so far, but I liked it. I bet they played board games on Saturday nights and took summer vacations together and decorated a gigantic, live tree at Christmas while listening to holiday music and drinking eggnog. A TV sitcom household, loving and well-adjusted.
In the dining room, I stood off to the side while Jane and a couple of others filled the long, ten-seat table with food. I’d never seen a spread like this outside a buffet. Potatoes, rolls, salads, several kinds of vegetables, and a football-sized glazed ham topped with pineapple slices. My stomach growled so loudly that Mason—who sat at the collapsible “kids’ table” next to me—turned to stare at my middle. His eyes were a pretty light blue, like Ryan’s. In fact, now that I knew they were father and son, their similarities seemed obvious. Aside from the brown hair, Mason was his father’s miniature clone. I wondered what his mother looked like and if she was as useless as Jane had claimed.
“Robin, honey, come sit here.” Jane placed a warm hand on my back and steered me toward an empty chair next to Alicia, the oldest daughter. We nodded to each other as I sat down. Her baby, Ellie, sat in her lap, fingers stuffed in her mouth as she dozed. She looked about eight months old. I thought about the twins at that age, how solid and warm they’d felt when they slept on me, and felt another stab of loneliness.
Stop it, I scolded myself. You cannot start crying in front of all these strangers.
I was so focused on remaining dry-eyed, I almost missed seeing Jane shoo Nicole away from the vacant chair on my right side while simultaneously pushing Ryan toward it. They both looked at her, Nicole in confusion and Ryan with a flat-eyed glare. Jane ignored them both and went to take her place at the end of the table. I pretended to survey the food as Ryan pulled out the chair with more force than was necessary and dropped himself into it.
Once everyone was seated, I expected grace or a blessing of some sort before we dug in. This seemed like the kind of family who said grace. But that didn’t happen. Instead, serving dishes, hot and steaming, began making their way around the table. Plates got piled high with food, which was then immediately transferred into mouths. I noticed—because I was sitting too close not to—that Ryan filled Mason’s plate before his own. When he reached behind us to hand the plate to his son, I caught a whiff of soap mingled with the dusty scent of used books. He smelled like Margins.
“Wine?”
I looked to my left and realized Alicia was holding an open bottle of pinot grigio. “No, thank you,” I said, holding up the glass of water in my hand to show her I was all set. As I did, I noticed Jane’s gaze bouncing between my face and Ryan’s, a small, pleased smile on her lips.
Oh, Jesus. I sincerely hoped she hadn’t invited me here on some sort of crazy matchmaking scheme. If so, she was going to be disappointed. I didn’t date guys with kids. Not even hot guys with kids. I liked children, and I loved being a big sister, but I had no desire to help raise someone else’s child. I didn’t even want children of my own someday.
Under the table, a denim-clad leg bumped against my bare one, and I was suddenly very aware of the crowded conditions at this table, and how awkward it felt sitting next to a man who hadn’t spoken a word to me since he got here aside from “hello,” and only because his sister told him to. Not that I particularly wanted to speak to him either, but pretending I didn’t exist was just rude.
In an attempt to break the ice—and also because I felt like being evil—I leaned closer to Ryan, gestured to my food, and said, “Am I allowed to eat this here?”
He made a noise that sounded like a cross between a laugh and a cough. “Of course,” he replied. He did that twitchy, trying-not-to-smile thing with his mouth again, like he’d done at the bookstore after I’d handed him the five dollars. “It’s not like there’s a big sign on the door telling you that you can’t.”
I snorted. “Touché.”
Alicia, overhearing this exchange, looked over with an interested expression. “Do you two know each other?” she asked. She had one of those loud, resonant voices that carried over everything else, so of course the entire table stopped talking to stare at us.
“No,” Ryan said at the same time I said, “Kind of.”
The curiosity factor in the dining room suddenly increased tenfold. Everyone was looking at me now, expectant. I’d never been the reserved type who shied away from an audience, so I gamely recounted the Bookstore Incident for them while Ryan feigned a sudden interest in his scalloped potatoes.
“That sounds like Ryan, all right,” the oldest son—Garrett?—said once I’d finished the story and everyone had stopped laughing. “He’s always been a stickler for rules.”
Ryan shot him the same glare he’d given his mother earlier. I could tell, even after only an hour or so in this house, that he was probably the most common target for his family’s good-natured ribbing. I wondere
d what that was like, having siblings close in age who made fun of your quirks and gleefully embarrassed you in front of guests.
“So you’d never been to Margins before?” Maggie, the daughter-in-law lawyer, asked me as she spooned second helpings of food onto her little boy’s plate. “I thought it was really popular with the college students. You’re a student, right?”
“I just finished my third year at Kinsley,” I said, taking a sip of water. “And I’d been to Margins lots of times, but not since before Christmas. And the last time I was there, no one seemed to care if I ate a muffin. The owner—”
“Kenny,” Graham said, his eyes—the same pale blue as Ryan’s, Mason’s, and Nicole’s—flashing with pain. “He’s my brother.”
“Oh,” I said, surprised.
“Uncle Kenny has cancer,” Nicole told me, meeting my gaze across the table. “It started in his lungs and then spread really quickly. He’s…terminal.”
“Oh,” I said again, this time with the same sadness that was etched across all their faces. I’d only spoken to Kenny a handful of times, but he’d always had a smile for me when I came in the store. And of course, he’d bent the no-food-or-drinks policy for me without complaint. “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said, resting my fork on my plate. “He seems like a really nice guy.”
“He is,” Alicia said, bending to brush her lips across the top of her baby’s head.
Silence descended on the table, and suddenly I regretted bringing up the bookstore at all. After several long seconds, Jane cleared her throat and beamed a smile at Ryan. “On a positive note,” she said, “Margins will live on for many years to come, thanks to my brilliant, business-minded son over there.”
I glanced over at him, surprised again. He’d taken over Margins? He seemed awfully young to be a business owner. Seeing my confusion, Nicole leaned across the table and said, “Uncle Kenny has no kids of his own, so Ryan moved home in January to manage the bookstore because his wife—”
“Oh, look,” Ryan said, standing up so fast that his chair knocked into mine, making me jump. “The boys need a milk refill. I’ll just…go take care of that.”
We all stared at him, kids included, as he darted out of the dining room. When he was gone, I turned back to Nicole, eyebrows cocked. She gave me a light-hearted shrug. The rest of the family went back to their eating and talking, though less boisterous than before, and I took another fortifying gulp of water.
Wife? He also seemed awfully young to be married already—and with a three-year-old son, no less. I hadn’t noticed a wedding ring. What had this wife done, or where had she gone, that prompted him to move with his son from wherever they’d lived before and take on an indie store that could fail at any time due to large chain competition and e-readers?
Ryan returned a few minutes later, without the boys’ milk, and sat stiffly in his chair. Everyone pretended like nothing out of the ordinary had happened, so I did too. For the rest of the meal, I answered the occasional question about school or my job or which sports teams I liked. No one mentioned my family issues, even though I was positive they’d all heard my story from Jane. Or maybe they didn’t think it would be polite to discuss my missing mother over Sunday dinner.
After dinner, though, was fair game. As the rest of the family helped clear the table, Maggie approached me as I crouched by the kids’ table, talking to Mason. “Jane mentioned that you had some legal questions,” she said when I straightened up. “I’d be happy to help, if I can.”
“Thank you,” I said, smiling down at her. She couldn’t have been more than five feet tall, but there was a shrewdness in her dark green eyes that made me think she was a force to be reckoned with in the courtroom.
She led me out of the dining room and into a cozy living room filled with plush beige furniture, framed pictures, and plants. Once we’d settled on the sofa, Maggie turned to me and said, “I don’t make a habit out of this. Legal-talk outside the office, I mean. Typically I’d ask you to call me during work hours, but Jane tells me you just want to know what your options are. That I can do, but because of liability issues and such, I can’t actually give you any advice today. Okay?”
“I understand,” I said. “And I really appreciate anything you can tell me.”
“Great. Can you go over the specifics for me, just so I’m sure I have it straight?”
I told her the same thing I’d told Jane. As I spoke, she listened so intently, I could practically feel the weight of her eyes boring into mine.
“Well,” she said when I was finished. “One option would be filing a petition for visitation rights. But that could get costly, and from what you’ve told me, no one is legally preventing you from seeing the children.”
“I could probably see them,” I agreed, even though I assumed the grandparents would slam the door in my face if I showed up on their doorstep. “But I’d rather have them back home with me. Where they’re happy.”
“So you want to file for custody of them? Become their legal guardian? Sounds like a huge responsibility for someone your age. Are you sure you’d be up for that?”
I looked away from her sharp emerald gaze and focused instead on the collection of family photos on the wall beside me. There were at least twenty pictures, some posed and some candid, a happy collage of bright, smiling faces. A big, close-knit family, displayed with pride. Growing up, with just my mother and me and the occasional cat to keep me company, a warm house filled with people and love and laughter was all I’d wished for. Then, as I got older, I’d grown to accept the silence. Nowadays, I was well-accustomed to drifting along on my own, without a touchstone to anchor me.
“I guess not,” I said, finally. I stood up and smoothed down my skirt, then met her eyes again. “Thanks for listening…and for telling me what I needed to hear.”
She stood up next to me, reaching out to touch my arm. “Good luck, Robin. You seem like a lovely young woman. I hope everything works out for you.”
Unable to speak, I responded with a half-hearted nod and then ventured through the house to find Jane. It was time for me to leave.
“There she is,” Graham said when I arrived in the kitchen, where half the family was still cleaning up.
“Everything okay, honey?” Jane shot me a look over her shoulder while she wiped down the counter.
I nodded. “I think I’m going to take off now. Thank you so much for dinner.”
“You’re leaving already?”
“Yeah. Early shift at work tomorrow.”
She frowned for a moment, then grabbed a stack of Tupperware off the counter and headed toward me, dodging her grandsons as they raced across the kitchen. “I packed up some leftovers for you. Ryan,” she said, glancing toward the entrance to the dining room, where he was deep in conversation with Alicia’s husband. “Help Robin take these out to her car.”
He stopped talking and looked at us, irritation flickering across his face. Christ. Don’t do me any favors.
“I can handle it all,” I said, but Jane steamrolled on, taking all but one of the five containers and shoving them at Ryan. Then she turned back to me, pulling me in for a brief hug.
“Next Sunday,” she said in my ear. “We plan to barbecue if it’s nice. Four o’clock.”
I started to decline, but quickly realized there was no point in arguing when it came to this woman. She was tenacious. Still, it was unlikely that I’d be back. They were nice people, and the last thing they needed was someone like me hanging around, disrupting their nice, normal lives. And the last thing I needed was to feel like someone’s charity case.
Ryan didn’t say a word as we left the house and walked down the driveway to the road and my car. I was almost positive now that we’d been purposely thrown together today, though I had no idea why.
“So,” I said once the leftovers had been safely stowed in the passenger seat. “Small world, huh?”
He rubbed a hand over his short hair and looked up at the newly-budding branches of the maple tree tha
t hovered over my car. “Yeah, sorry about that,” he said. “It’s not the first time she’s done something like this.”
“It’s not the first time who’s done something like what?”
“My mother.” He dropped his gaze to me, his Bradley Cooper eyes meeting mine for a moment before shifting away again. “She’s always trying to set me up with women she thinks would be good for me.”
I glanced around the quiet, tree-lined street, half-expecting people with cameras to step out of some bushes and tell me I’d been punked. What the hell was he talking about? “She didn’t invite me for that.” Did she? “In fact, she didn’t mention you at all.”
“Okay,” he said, equally as baffled.
I leaned my hip against the car and peered sideways at him. “Besides, aren’t you, um…married?”
“Not anymore. I’m divorced.”
“Oh. Your sister said wife, so I just assumed.”
“Ex-wife.” He crossed his arms over his chest, making his shirt strain against his biceps in a very flattering way. “And Nic likes to antagonize me. It amuses her.”
I laughed. “Your family is really…something else.”
“If by ‘something else’ you mean crazy and overbearing, then I agree.”
“I think they’re great,” I said, glancing back at the house, well-lit and homey in the falling darkness. Strangely, no one was spying at us through the windows. “You’re lucky to have them.”
After a moment, he nodded. “I know.”
A stretch of awkward silence ensued, broken only by the squeak of the front door opening and Mason’s little voice shouting across the yard, “Daddy? Are you out there?”
Ryan’s face broke out into a dazzling grin, throwing me off guard. I’d never seen him full-on smile before, and now that I had, I felt like telling him that he should do it way more often.
“I guess that’s my cue,” he said. “I’d better get back inside and help clean up. It was nice meeting you, officially.” With a nod, he backed away from me and headed toward the house and his family.
Until Now Page 5
