Elissa shook her head as she pulled out the champagne flutes from the cabinet. Unlike at New Year’s, she didn’t have to blow out the dust from a year of disuse.
Leo returned, carrying paper plates and utensils. Ami worked the cork out of the bottle with a quiet pop.
“What about me?” he asked, a grin on his face. He knew he wasn’t getting any wine, but it was becoming a family joke.
“You know where the soda is, young man,” her mom said. “You’re only seventeen.”
Seventeen. And a junior in high school. With a driver’s license. Going on dates. With girls. A kid with a mom who would now make it to graduation. And weddings and the birth of grandbabies, if anyone decided to have those. Elissa brushed the tears away. They’d all have a chance to do those things with their mom around. The prognosis may have been good, but there was always the possibility the odds would not be with them.
Ami hovered the bottle over the last empty glass, her brows raised.
“Maybe this once, Dana.” Their dad sat in the chair at the far end.
Leo practiced his best puppy-dog eyes and folded his hands in front of him in supplication.
“Please? Just a tiny bit?”
“Ugh, fine.” Mom turned her sharp eyes on Ami. “If it’s over half full, you’re on dish duty at the next four Sunday dinners.”
“I got this. Don’t worry.”
Ami poured the perfect under-half-full glass, and everyone took their places at the table.
Dad raised his glass. “To my beautiful wife.”
Everyone clinked their glasses and sipped, then passed around the containers of Chinese food.
“Are you gonna keep the whole story to yourselves?” Ami demanded when plates were full.
“Not much to tell,” Mom said. “Bloodwork came back with all markers exactly where the doctor wanted them. I’m in remission. I have to go in for testing every few months for another year or so. After that, I can drop to once a year. We can resume normal activities.”
“That’s it?” Leo asked around a bite of food. Teenage boys could be so gross.
“Yes,” Dad said.
“Boring.”
“Yeah. Isn’t that something?” He leaned over and kissed Dana on the cheek.
He wasn’t wrong. This past year had been far too exciting. With the cancer treatments, Elissa moving in after her breakup with Victor, Ami’s academic and other issues at the university, and Leo’s two trips to the hospital for pneumonia and bronchitis. Boring sounded darn good, a nice change of pace.
Leo rolled his eyes, and an impish grin spread over his face.
“Hey, Ami, did you hear about Elissa’s date?”
The blood drained from Elissa’s face. She loved Ami, truly, but they had a more antagonistic relationship. Her sister knew every one of her buttons and pressed them as often and as hard as she could. Elissa couldn’t do much about it except try to disengage. Someday, though, stuff would get real and Ami wouldn’t know what hit her.
“Oh? Spill the tea.” Ami tapped her fingers together in front of her face like a supervillain from a movie.
“It was a disaster! Like, epic.”
“Really?” She nudged Elissa with her elbow. “Was he ugly?”
“No.” Elissa took a gulp of her wine. She was going to need it.
“Poor?”
“No!”
