Taylor’s face was serious. “I’ll make a deal with you. If you do this, I won’t cry the next time I get a needle.”
“Six hours of agony versus a split second of pain? That’s not much of a deal, Taylor.”
“It’s the best one I can think of.” She held out her hand. “Deal?”
I took her hand. “Deal,” I said.
Taylor walked over to her sock drawer and began rummaging and pitching rejects onto her bed. “Why don’t I stay with the Wainbergs while you’re away? It’ll be fun to help take care of Jacob, and Izzy could probably use some company.”
“How’s she doing?”
“Not great. You know Izzy. She’s a control freak. She needs to know exactly how everything is going to be, and she needs to know it’s going to be perfect.”
“And none of this has been either predictable or perfect.”
The pile of socks on the bed was growing. “Well, just think about it,” Taylor said. “Izzy discovers that she has a sister, and before she even has a chance to get to know her, the sister is killed. Then, all of a sudden, there’s a baby in the house. Isobel’s crazy about Jacob but… ”
“It is a lot to adjust to.”
The sock drawer was empty. Taylor turned to me. “Do you know where those fuzzy purple socks are?”
“In my sock drawer,” I said. “Do you want to borrow them?”
“Do you mind?”
“No,” I said. “Do you mind if I extricate some of my socks from this pile on your bed?”
Taylor’s face grew thoughtful. “Don’t socks just kind of belong to everybody?”
“You mean like air?” I said.
“Good one,” she said. Then she raced out of the room, returned with the fuzzy purple socks in hand, pulled them on, padded over to her cupboard, and emerged with a pair of grey slacks. She slipped them on, and then gave herself an assessing glance in the mirror. “I think the hardest part for Izzy is knowing that her mother’s not perfect. It means she has to rethink everything.”
“How so?” I asked.
Taylor smoothed her sweater and turned to face me. “Izzy’s always thought she has to be as amazing as her mother, and now… ”
“And now she’s discovered that her mother is human,” I said. “Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.”
Taylor raised an eyebrow. “Because now she can stop obsessing about measuring up?”
“That’s a thought,” I said.
“And this message is aimed at who?”
“At whomever finds it helpful,” I said.
“You are
I looked at her body – not an ounce where it shouldn’t be. Taylor had not only inherited her mother’s talent, she’d inherited her metabolism. “Fridge door,” I said. “Go for it.”
Zack joined us in the kitchen, and while we ate, we chatted about the kinds of things families chat about two weeks before Christmas. Angus had called the night before. He was always a happy guy, but when I’d talked to him he’d been over the moon. He was pretty certain he’d aced his law school exams. His ex-girlfriend, Leah, had broken up with her boyfriend and she’d invited Angus to take the ex’s place on a post-exam ski trip. Angus had accepted. That would leave Zack with an extra ticket for the Junior A game the following week. Zack said that the Regina Pats were looking good, so if Taylor wanted to take in a hockey game, she was in luck. Taylor said that she was washing her hair that night – whatever night it was – but that Declan was crazy about hockey, and that speaking of Declan, if we hadn’t bought her a Christmas gift yet, we might consider giving her shopping money for a cool new dress for New Year’s Eve. Zack suggested that Taylor ask Lena where she’d bought her grape Kool-Aid dress because it was beyond cool.
The exchange of information was as lazily pleasant as it was unremarkable, but Zack had noticed a persistent strand in the conversation. After Taylor left, he popped a crumpet in the toaster for himself. “Was it my imagination, or did Declan’s name come up with some frequency?”
“It wasn’t your imagination,” I said.
“So what do we do?”
“Taylor’s fourteen years old. She wants to be with Declan; we don’t want her to be alone with Declan; so, I guess you and I prepare ourselves for plenty of double dates over the holidays.”
Zack groaned.
“So what are you up to today?” I said.
“Getting the adoption underway, and there’s some background stuff I’d like to check out.”
“What kind of ‘stuff’?”
Zack shrugged. “Just stuff.” He wheeled off – his invariable move when he wanted to cut short the discussion.
After Zack left for work, I made myself a pot of tea and attacked my tower of first-year essays again. My plan was to mark till ten-thirty and reward myself with a mid-morning phone call to Alwyn Henry, but she beat me to it.
“There are five blue jays at my bird feeder,” she said. “I put peanuts out on the feeding shelf after breakfast and the jays just swooped in. They make a racket and they make a mess, but they’re fun.”
“I’ll bet they look spectacular against the snow,” I said.
“When there’s snow, they do, but no snow for us this year. The weatherman predicts a green Christmas.”
I gazed out my window at the thigh-high drifts. “This weekend, I’ll be able to see for myself. Zack and I are coming to Port Hope.”
Alwyn whooped with joy. “This is the best news. How long has it been since you and I last saw one another?”
“Too long,” I said.
“And I finally get to meet the new husband.”
“And he finally gets to meet you,” I said.
There was a pause. When Alwyn spoke again, her tone was tentative. “Jo, how are you getting here?”
“The way normal people do – we’re flying, but Al, I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t even want to think about it.”
“Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof?”
“Something like that,” I said.
“All right,” she said, briskly. “Let’s discuss a problem we can solve. Accommodation. My house is out because the bedrooms and bathroom are on the second floor, but tell me what you need, and I promise that by Friday night I will either find it or build it.”
“No heroic measures necessary,” I said. “All we need is something accessible with a double bed and enough space for Zack’s chair to move around.”
“The Lantern Inn would be perfect. It’s on Mill Street, overlooking the river. They have a good dining room, an elevator, and very romantic suites – fireplaces and canopies over the beds.”
“I can’t imagine Zack sleeping under a canopy,” I said.
“He’s a manly man?” Alwyn said.
“In his law office, he has a picture of Mohammed Ali knocking out Sonny Liston, and you should see our house. It’s sleek and functional.”
“That doesn’t sound like you.”
“It’s like me now. I like the simplicity. Zack is complication enough.”
“I’ll call and reserve a suite at the Lantern Inn for you.”
“Thanks, and Alwyn, we’ll need one for Delia Wainberg, too.”
Alwyn’s voice sagged. “That’s right, this isn’t just a Christmas visit, is it?”
“No,” I said. “It isn’t. Delia doesn’t feel she can get through the memorial service on Friday morning, but she thinks seeing where Abby grew up and meeting the woman Abby loved might help both Nadine and her.”
“Very praiseworthy,” Alwyn said tightly, “except that Ms. Wainberg isn’t playing by the rules. Nadine Perrault
