I bit my lip to keep it from quivering. “Thanks, Sassy. Tell him I will.”
Henry stopped jabbering to the others and rushed over to open the door for me. He walked me to my car and held the bag of food until I settled into the driver’s seat.
“You know how to get in touch with me if you need anything,” he said, handing me the food through the window. “I’ll do my best to keep town gossip down to a minimum.
I snorted. “That’ll be a losing battle, but thanks.” With a wave goodbye, I started the car and drove back to Nana’s place.
The lights from the house lit up the evening sky, and the number of vehicles parked out front alerted me to the number of my friends waiting inside. Glancing at the bag of food, I realized it wouldn’t come close to feeding all of them. With dread settling in my stomach like a stone, I walked up the porch prepared to rustle up something in Nana’s kitchen.
The second I opened the door, my friends approached me. All the girls swept me up in a big group hug while Ben and Lee waited nearby. I got passed from hug to hug, crying on all of their shoulders until my body hurt from all the weeping.
“What are y’all doing here?” I asked, wiping snot off with the back of my hand.
“Granny called in the troops,” Blythe replied, enclosing my shoulders with her arm. “We’re going to come up with a schedule to watch over your grandmother so that she’s never alone.”
“That way, you and Matt can take breaks whenever you need to,” Alison Kate added.
Lavender stood next to me with a sour face, staring at the space above my head. Her cousin Lily smacked her arm. “Leave her aura alone. It’s not going to be in the best shape right now no matter what you do.”
“I can’t help it,” Lavender defended. “I want to do something for Charli.”
I raised my hand. “Does Charli get a say in that? Tell you what, Lav. Let me go fix everyone some food and maybe after we eat, you and me will go check on Nana and you can work on my aura then.” She didn’t need to know my ulterior motive to have her examine Nana’s aura first.
Ben waved his arm for me to follow him. “You don’t need to cook anything. Come see.” He led me to the dining room where I found Ada and Mimsy arranging multiple dishes with steaming food in the middle of the table.
“Y’all didn’t have to make us anything,” I protested, my mouth watering with the aroma of the food hitting my nose.
Matt grabbed my shoulders from behind and pushed me to find a seat. “They didn’t. People have been dropping off casseroles and all kinds of things. You know that’s our way.” He attempted to seat me at the head of the table, but I refused to sit at Nana’s place. Giving up, he let me take the chair next to it and sat at the head.
“Yep, if you’re sick, people bring you chicken soup.” Lee passed plates around. “If you get injured, you get a casserole. And you won’t have to eat for weeks if someone in your family passes…” His eyes shot up to mine. “That was callous of me. Sorry.”
“She’s not dying,” I countered with a little too much vehemence, pushing my empty plate away. If that’s what all the donated food meant, then I didn’t need to eat it.
Matt patted my hand. “No, she’s not. But she is the head of the town council, so it makes sense that people will want to show their support. And food is the easiest way to do that. Plus, we’ll need to keep our strength up.”
I glanced at my big brother, begging him with my eyes to reassure me that everything would be okay. When he didn’t, I slumped a little in my seat.
The rest of my friends busied themselves with filling their plates with the different food. Blythe grabbed mine and scooped a little bit of everything onto it until she placed the heaping mass down in front of me. After unfolding the cloth napkin with an exaggerated shake, she tucked it into my shirt so that it hung down like a bib.
“I will feed you like a baby if I have to,” she threatened. “But starving yourself isn’t going to make your grandmother get better just like people bringing over food won’t do it either. But we all do what we can and what we need to in order to get through the tough times. So, if I have to make this scoop of mac and cheese fly like an airplane to get you to eat it, I will.”
I snatched the fork from her and ate the bite all on my own. The cheesy goodness lifted my spirits a tiny fraction. “It’s good,” I admitted, keeping the thought that it wasn’t quite as good as Nana’s to myself.
Food really did heal the soul, and after a few tense minutes, the conversation flowed much easier. I regaled them with a few details from my trip with Mason but kept the best ones to myself in order to torture them a little.
“So, were the rumors true?” Lee asked through his bite of chicken and dumplings.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Which rumors are you referring to?”
Blythe tossed a biscuit at him. “I know you’ve been checking out her ring finger, and can already tell they’re not, nosy,” she scolded.
I held my left hand up in front of me and wiggled my fingers. “Oh, you mean, you want to know if Mason asked me to marry him?”
“Did he?” Alison Kate exclaimed, ready to burst into squeals.
“No!” I shouted. “Frosted fairy wings, we haven’t been dating that long, y’all.”
“I knew I wanted to marry Alison Kate after our first date. It didn’t take me that long to ask her,” Lee declared.
“Aw,
