You Are Invited...

by Holly Jacobs

  Rather than indulge Zoe’s desire to argue, Mattie simply smiled and said, “Zoe, you always look great. If I could wear a pair of jeans and make them look as fashionable as you do, I wouldn’t want to change, either. If you want to go to Colton and Sophie’s party in that, you absolutely can. You’re old enough to wear what you like.”

  “Can I wear this?” Mickey asked.

  The freckle-faced eight-year-old had on his favorite pair of jeans, a Green Lantern T-shirt that fit him a few weeks ago, but was all of a sudden looking a bit small and sneakers that had been out in the mud one too many times.

  “Nope,” she said.

  “How come Zoe can wear that?” He bristled at Mattie’s apparent injustice.

  “I’m not wearing this, shrimpo,” his older sister said.

  “See, Mick, it’s all good,” Mattie assured him.

  Finn gave her a congratulatory look, and she nodded her head ever so slightly to acknowledge it. Most of the time she floundered with the kids, but every now and then, she managed to handle something perfectly. This was one of those moments. And there was a certain satisfaction that her small win had happened in front of Finn.

  They entered the small brick building that housed Burnam’s Pharmacy and waved at the pharmacists, Eric and Mike, at the back counter.

  “It’s down this aisle,” Mattie said.

  Abbey bolted down the aisle and found the bottle. “This one, right?”

  “Right,” Mattie confirmed.

  “Can I put it on now?” Abbey was already tugging the zipper of her coat down.

  Mattie reached down and pulled the zipper back into place. “No. It’s not ours until we’ve paid for it. But when we get home, you can use it.”

  “I’ll smell like Mommy for the party then. It’ll be like she’s huggin’ me all day.”

  “Mommy’s not gonna hug you ever again,” Zoe practically screamed. “She’s dead. Dead people don’t hug you.” The eleven-year-old bolted out of the pharmacy, and Abbey collapsed into an instant pool of tears, while Mickey stood next to her looking confused.

  Mattie hugged Abbey, while gesturing to Finn. He looked reluctant, but went down the aisle, trailing after Zoe.

  * * *

  FINN GLANCED BACK TO SEE Mattie and Abbey hugging and Mattie reaching for Mickey’s hand. The door was swinging closed as he got to the front of the store. “She went to the right,” one of the pharmacists told him and pointed, as if he didn’t know which direction right meant. The man was vaguely familiar, as were a lot of the folks in town. Valley Ridge was small enough that even though it was impossible to know everyone, it was easy to recognize most.

  Finn hurried down the block and spotted Zoe, turning a corner, heading over to the car, he hoped. “Zoe, stop,” he called.

  He turned the corner and she was waiting, her face streaked with tears. “I’m so sick of the two little kids talking like Mom’s on vacation or something. She’s dead. They need to understand that she’s not coming back. Not ever.”

  “They’re younger than you, Zoe, and they’re doing their best to understand. It’s only been a month.”

  “Yeah, but she was dying a long time before that.” There was a mature weariness in Zoe’s voice as she said the words. “And now she’s gone and she’s left us all alone.”

  Finn knelt and tried to imagine what his sister or Mattie would do, how they would handle Zoe, who was little more than a young child, yet had already suffered a very adult loss. He held his arms out to his niece, but rather than accepting his hug she took a step back. “Don’t pretend like you care. You’re only here because of Colton and Sophie and their stupid party tonight. You never liked us before Mom died, and I don’t think you like us now. We don’t need you,” she added, clearly wanting to be sure he got her point.

  Oh, he got it all right. He tried to defend himself by saying, “I was here as often as I could be,” but he knew as he said the words they were a lie. Every time he visited after Bridget had gotten sick, he’d felt so helpless and he hated that feeling. He saved people on a daily basis, but he couldn’t save his sister. That knowledge would haunt him for the rest of his life. He’d made excuses not to visit, and to assuage his guilt, he’d hired one of the most competent nurses he knew, Lily Paul. He’d sent Lily in his place to Valley Ridge to care for Bridget. And Mattie had been here. The two of them kept things under control. He wasn’t really needed.

  At least that’s what he told himself.

  It was an easy lie to believe...some days.

  He couldn’t say any of that to Zoe. Instead, he tried to justify his decision. “My job is demanding...”

  “Yeah, that’s what Mom always said. Your uncle Finn is an important man, Zoe. He’d be here more if he could. He loves us. But he saves a lot of people, Zoe. Well, you didn’t save Mom, did you?”

  His niece’s words echoed his own feelings of inadequacy and tore at him. He had no idea what to tell Zoe, or the other two kids either, if he were honest. Finn wasn’t accustomed to feeling at a loss. He was a surgeon. Decisiveness, confidence and action...those were three words he’d built a career around. But the girl in front of him wasn’t part of his job, she was his niece—his family. And he wasn’t prepared to deal with her pain.

  “We don’t need you,” Zoe continued in the face of his silence. “You don’t have to run after me when I run away. I know Aunt Mattie probably made you. And I don’t want your hug. You’re not as important as you think you are. If you died, no one would care. I bet no one would even notice. My mom, she wasn’t a doctor but she was important. Lots of people cared about her and miss her, but it didn’t matter. She died anyway. My mom’s dead.” The words were so final. So was Zoe’s tone. Even if Mickey and Abbey didn’t fully realize the impact of Bridget’s death, Zoe certainly did.

  “You’re right, Zoe. And if I could have saved her, I would have. I’m sorry.” He wasn’t sure if he was apologizing for her losing her mother, or if he was apologizing for not being able to heal Bridget. He was sorry on both counts. More sorry than he could ever explain to his oldest niece. “Come on. We need to get back to Mattie and the kids.”

  Zoe walked alongside him, careful to maintain her distance.

  Finn didn’t blame her. Maintaining his distance was part of his job description. That ability had always served him well when it came to his patients, but he didn’t think it worked nearly as well when dealing with family, especially a certain grieving niece.

  * * *

  SOMEHOW MATTIE MADE it through the tense afternoon with Finn underfoot. It came as no surprise to her that he was a precise cook who followed the recipe to the letter. She found watching him scrape out a measuring cup to be sure there wasn’t one speck less than a cup as annoying as he probably found her measuring by eyeballing the ingredients.

  They both worked silently, but every time the back of a knife scraped the metal measuring cup, Mattie found her blood pressure spike.

  It was a relief to leave for the party. At least there would be enough people there that she could easily avoid Finn without anyone noticing.

  Abbey and Mickey held her hands, and Zoe was at her side carrying their dish with vegetables alfredo as they walked down the gravel drive toward Colton’s barn.

  Mattie glanced at Finn. He’d asked to drive with them, and she couldn’t think of a reason to say no. So he’d ridden with them, his tray of pecan bars, so exactly measured, balanced on his lap.

  He walked ahead of them. Par
t of the group, yet separate. She wondered if he found the situation as uncomfortable as she did.

  The music grew louder as they got closer to the barn, filling the cold March evening with lively country sounds. Colton’s vineyard sat on a rise about a mile from Lake Erie, just north of Five. In Valley Ridge parlance, North of Five, meant north of Route Five, aka bordering the lakeshore.

  Colton had moved all of the really big equipment out of the barn and though he didn’t raise livestock, he’d artistically arranged bales of hay around the room.

  Or, more likely, Sophie had, Mattie thought. Rows of tables covered in red-and-white-checked tablecloths were set up, and a raised platform stood at one end of the barn.

  Strings of lights ran from the loft to the beams, then back again. Sophie had told her that she’d made Jerry at Valley Ridge Farm and House Supplies dig through the storeroom to find last year’s leftover Christmas lights. They zigzagged merrily, setting the cavernous barn aglow.

  Half of the town’s population must have been crammed inside that barn. Mattie had worried that it would be cold even inside the shelter and had dressed the kids accordingly in layers, but between all the people and the borrowed heaters, the barn actually felt balmy. Mattie was the first to peel off her coat and sling it over a vacant chair.

  “Aunt Mattie, I’m gonna go hang with my friends,” Zoe told her, already on her way. Mickey and Abbey shed their coats as well and disappeared almost as quickly.

  “We’re not very cool,” Finn said in the kids’ defense.

  “Speak for yourself,” Mattie retorted.

  Bars of “Waltzing Matilda” were hummed off-key behind her. “If it isn’t our own waltzing Mathilda,” a male voice chimed.

  Mattie swung around and hugged her huge younger brother. “And if it isn’t Ray-Ray Keith, the terror of Valley Ridge.”

  “Not terror...mayor. You keep forgetting the mayor part, little sis.”

  “And you keep forgetting you’re the little brother, squirt,” she said. Ray stopped being her little brother when he was twelve and had already passed her five and a half feet. Okay, that was a lie. She was an inch off that half foot.

  Both her little brothers, Ray and Rich, towered over her.

  “I’ll try to remember my little-brother status, if you try to stick around awhile.” The words were infused with humor, as if to try to soften them, but Ray’s expression said he didn’t think she’d manage to stay.

  “I’m here for at least the next twelve years.” It would be a dozen years until six-year-old Abbey was off to college. Twelve long years of staying put. The words hung heavily on her tongue, as if by not saying them, they wouldn’t be true. And of course, if Finn had his way, they wouldn’t be.

  Ray snorted. “I’ll believe it when I see it,” he said as their parents approached where they were standing.

  “Ray, you have as much tact as...” Their father hesitated as if searching for something tactful to say.

  Their mother, right next to him, filled in. “None. You have no tact, son, which makes us wonder how you ever won the election.”

  “My good looks and charm,” Ray assured their mother. “Women voters outnumber males in Valley Ridge. I knew that with that particular demographic in my pocket, I had the election sewed up.”

  “Charmless,” Mattie muttered.

  “But harmless,” their mother added, then held her hands out. “Ignore the mayor and hug your mother.”

  Mattie happily obliged and held on tightly, enveloped in her mother’s warmth.

  Her parents never changed, she reflected. Her mother, Grace Keith, was tall—her genes were where her sons got their height. Her mom was easily five-ten and rail-thin. Her gray hair was perfectly styled. Mattie’s father, Gerry Keith, on the other hand, was only slightly taller than Mattie, practically bald and had a potbelly. Her parents didn’t look as if they should be a couple, and yet, they definitely were.

  “Mattie,” was all her father said, but his arms were open before she’d reached him. “You look beautiful, darling. You and your mom are the most beautiful girls here. Don’t tell Sophie I said that. I don’t want her thinking my girls are outshining her at her own engagement party.”

  Mattie laughed. “Thanks, Dad, but I think you’re biased, at least on my part.”

  “Yeah, Dad, you’re way biased if you think the pipsqueak is beautiful,” her brother added.

  “Gee, thanks, Ray.” It didn’t matter how long she was away, whenever she came home things immediately fell back into their regular places...and sniping with her brothers was one of the best bits.

  “No problem, Squeak.”

  “You know, I always did like Rich more,” she teased.

  “He’s your boss, so you have to. He always swore he’d achieve favorite-brother status, it simply took him a while to figure out that hiring you was how to go about it.”

  Their mother folded her arms across her chest and tried to look stern. “Okay, kids, enough.”

  “Ahh, Mom,” they said in unison like they had when they were younger, which left them both chuckling. Mattie’s father shook his head and asked her mother, “Where did we go wrong?”

  Sophie rushed toward the group. “Mattie, you’re here and I need to talk to you before the festivities kick into high gear.” Sophie Johnston’s words tumbled out on one single breath. And she’d grabbed Mattie’s hand and was dragging her away from her family before anyone could say anything.

  “Oh, Mattie, can you believe it?” Sophie flashed a ruby engagement ring at her.

  “It’s beautiful.” It wasn’t the ring that really shone, though; it was Sophie. Her utter glee radiated from every fiber of her body. “I’m so happy for you, Soph.”

  Sophie’s response was a high-pitched squeal, as if her happiness needed a pressure gauge to bleed off some of the overflowing emotion. “I’m so darned happy. The ring was Colton’s mom’s. We drove into Buffalo to have it resized because I didn’t want to risk it falling off. They did it while we waited so I’d have it for tonight.”

  “The ring is gorgeous, but the man—well, also gorgeous and...” Mattie paused. “Solid. Sweet. Pretty much a Prince Charming in a vineyard.” Thinking of Colton’s out-of-place, but ever-present hat, she changed that to, “A Marshal Dillon to your Miss Kitty.”

  As she said the words, she realized that she didn’t think the marshal had ever married poor Miss Kitty, but she didn’t have time to try again. Sophie was practically swooning as she agreed, “He is, isn’t he?” She took a breath, squealed again and said, “Oh, Mattie, I’m so happy I could burst.”

  “Please don’t, though,” Mattie warned, wishing she could think of a time she’d been as happy as Sophie was now. “If you burst, it’ll make a real mess.”

  Rather than laugh, Sophie simply offered a small smile then immediately grew more serious. “I wanted to check on how you’re doing.”

  “I’m fine. The question is how are you doing? Tonight’s your night, after all.”

  “I heard that Ray was teasing you, and I worried that things weren’t—”

  “Ray has always teased me. That is the nature of our relationship.”

  “But I know you’re trying to adjust to being back home and you have to deal with the kids. It was different when we still had Bridget. Now, it’s only you and the kids, a new job, and here I am tacking my wedding stuff on you. I know that the whole thing’s happening at warp speed, but honestly, I don’t think I can stand to live without Colto
n much longer, and I’m not looking for a perfect wedding. I want to stand in front of my friends and tell him that I’ll be his forever.” As if recalling she’d veered away from her topic, Sophie hurried and added, “I don’t want it all to be too much for you. I mean, if you wanted to back out—”

  Sophie had been in Valley Ridge long enough to know most of the town gossip, and Ray wasn’t the only person who knew the words to the song “Waltzing Matilda.” Mattie wasn’t sure if any town outside Australia knew the song as intimately as Valley Ridge seemed to.

  So Sophie was also worried that Mattie was going to go waltzing out of town again, like the swagman from the song, always on the move and on the hunt for adventure. She took her friend’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “Soph, I’m not going anywhere, and I’m honored to be in your wedding. The only thing that could make the day any sweeter would be if—”

  In unison they said, “—if Bridget was here.”

  Mattie blinked back her tears, but Sophie didn’t. Sophie Johnston had never met an emotion she didn’t like and always felt the need to share with everyone in her immediate vicinity. Happiness bubbled from her friend like some Old Faithful geyser. Powerful and regular. Now Sophie let the tears fall with the same sort of abandon. Her openness was mystifying to Mattie.

  Mattie wasn’t sure why, but sharing herself had never come easily. She could be open with her family, and with Bridget, but letting the rest of the world in was hard.

  Watching Sophie cry, Mattie knew that Bridget would have reached out and comforted her, but she felt awkward. It was easier with the kids than with other adults. She simply stood, hands in her pockets, feeling uncomfortable.

  Mattie didn’t stand that way long. Sophie reached out and hugged Mattie.

  Maybe that was the measure of a friend, Mattie reflected as she hugged Sophie. A true friend was someone who knew what you needed even when you didn’t and helped you get it.