“Are you sure about that?” he asks. “I couldn’t help taking a peek outside.”
“Well, Kai is gay, so I wouldn’t get my hopes up there,” I warn him in a teasing voice.
“And the other one?”
“Not gay.”
“So?”
“I’m not sure,” I admit. Felix is the only safe party to have this discussion with. If Poppy knows that I have even the slightest curiosity about Sterling, she’ll never stop playing the matchmaker. Until I make up my mind about what I think about him, I can’t have that. “He’s complicated.”
“Do tell.”
“He drove me to the hospital the night she died,” I say softly.
Realization lights across his face. “I thought he looked familiar.”
“I thought he was kind of a jerk.”
“And now?”
“Maybe I was wrong,” I say.
“First impressions are as reliable as a weatherman — wrong as often as they’re right,” he tells me.
“So, you’re saying I should give him another chance?” I ask.
“It looks like you already have.”
I chew on my cookie, considering this. Sterling hadn’t made the best first impression but neither had I, if I’m being honest.
“What about you?”
Felix has been seeing a local teacher for the last couple of months. As much as I want him to be happy, I’m worried about what will happen if things get serious.
“We have a date tonight,” he says, filling me in on the details. He’s bringing her daisies and some of the cookies. I’m left feeling guilty for not wanting things to move too quickly. It’s obvious he cares about her, and any man who treats a woman like he does deserves to be happy.
“I guess that means I’m having dinner with the family.” I screw up my nose. Family dinners are a lot like a game of Russian roulette. I’m never entirely sure what to expect when I take a seat at the table.
“Look at this as an opportunity,” he says. “A chance to reconnect.”
I snort at the thought. The MacLaine family has never been connected in the traditional sense. It’s more like a collection of dots. If anyone bothered to draw a line from point to point—person-to-person—it might form a coherent picture. Then again, it might just be a mess. “At least, I know they’ll be cookies afterward.”
“There’s something else,” he says, handing me another cookie. “I’m not sure how to say this.”
I take it, realizing my fingers are trembling. There hasn’t been a lot of good news for me lately. If Felix baked cookies to soften whatever he needs to tell me, I imagine it’s not good either.
“The mortuary called. Your mother’s headstone is in place.” His voice is gentle, but the words scrape against the hollow pit in my stomach. I stare at the cookie in my hand, no longer feeling hungry. It seems that there’s some heartaches even Felix’s cookies can’t cure.
I trade the comfort of my yoga pants for a trim pair of black capris, a loose, cream-colored cable-knit sweater that drapes off my shoulder, and velvet flats. It’s dressy enough that I won’t get a lecture from daddy about proper evening attire, while still being comfortable. But it doesn’t matter. I can’t eat at dinner. Normally, I love pot roast and mashed potatoes. Tonight I can’t find my appetite. I’ve known it was coming. One of the shocks of burying someone is discovering that it takes weeks for their tombstone to be put in place. One of life’s little jokes. Think you’re ready to move on? Even just a little bit? Well, got you! Get your ass back to the cemetery and feel the pain all over again.
Ginny is here tonight, talking incessantly about wedding plans. She’s marrying my brother in February, the week of Valentine’s Day. The only thing that could be more cliché would be a June wedding. Still, she isn’t so bad. Her own mother lives on the east coast, so Mom had been helping her with the majority of the preparations. Now that she’s gone, we get to listen to all the drama associated with a high society wedding. There’s a lot. Shakespeare would be impressed. Hell, he’d probably take notes.
“So, I told them that if Senator MacLaine called the Customs House, we could move the venue in five minutes flat. Suffice it to say, there won’t be a golf tournament at the country club that weekend.” She looks incredibly smug about this turn of events.
“Good,” Daddy says, not bothering to look up from his phone. There’s always some new message coming in from Washington. I’ve sat down to dinner with this man nearly every night of my life, but we’re rarely in the same room. He’s always elsewhere — his mind focused on other things.
When Mom was alive she’d say gently, “Angus, come be with your family.”
“Yes, dear, one more minute.” He’d smile at her like she was the moon and sun and stars and then go right back to his emails and business dealings.
At least then we’d had Mom to ask us about our lives. She would tell us stories about how her and Daddy met. Or what ridiculous things the local chamber of the Tennessee Historical Society had up their sleeves now. These days it’s just Ginny planning the wedding or total silence. The only other topic of conversation that regularly comes up is Malcolm’s hopes for State Senate. Because of this, he’s on his phone nearly as often. I guess that’s why Ginny only bothers coming around once or twice a week for dinner. In the meantime, she must be saving up all her energy to try to get attention on these nights.
“Tell me,” she says, turning in my direction, “what do you think of lavender bridesmaid dresses?”
“I thought it was a Valentine’s Day wedding,” I say. “Shouldn’t we wear pink or something?”
She waves her hand derisively and laughs, as though it’s a ridiculous thought. “That would be cliché.”
I want to remind her that she’s the one that insisted on planning a wedding during America’s most cliché Hallmark holiday, but I keep my mouth shut.
“I guess,” I
