Callie felt like a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders. It was chalking up to be a great day. Not only had she worked things out with Sasha, but Ariel was on her way to signing a book deal, and Taylor was no longer hiding anything from his siblings. For the first time in weeks, she felt like she could truly take full breath.
“Oh, I’m so glad everything is out in the open.” She bent over the sink and carefully twisted the cork out of the champagne. The bottle popped and the champagne overflowed. She poured everyone a glass, and once they were all holding their flutes, Callie held hers up in the air.
“To new adventures and to—to things working out!” she said. Everyone clinked their glasses together and sipped. Callie smiled at them all and hugged her son. “Oh, honey, I’m so happy for you. I know it was disappointing when you found out you were sterile, but—”
“What?” Ariel said, choking on her drink.
“Gee, thanks mom,” Taylor said with a curt laugh. “I hadn’t sharedthatpart yet.”
Callie’s eyes widened. “Oh, my goodness, honey, I’m so sorry! I had no idea. I just assumed that you’d mentioned the reasons you and Erica were adopting instead of—” She stared warily at her son and daughter-in-law, wishing she could turn back the last thirty seconds.
“It’s okay.” Taylor shook his head, laughing some more. “We were going to tell Ariel soon enough, and now you’ve taken the burden off of my shoulders.”
“Yeah, it’s really not a big deal,” Erica added. “We were sick of keeping it a secret anyway. They say secrets will send you to anearly grave and honestly, I believe it. The stress is never worth it, if you ask me.”
Callie took a big sip from her glass and gulped. “That’s probably a good philosophy to live by. But I still feel awful. That was your personal business, and I just announced it to the world without a second thought.”
“Please don’t worry about it.” Taylor gave Dot to Ariel and walked over to hug his mom. “It’s better that everything is out in the open, don’t you think?”
Callie smiled as convincingly as she could. “I do, yes. It’s better this way. Absolutely.”
Now she only had herownskeletons to worry about. Had she buried them deep enough in her closet? And even if she had, was it time to uncover them?
Chapter 4
That night, Callie made everyone wait to eat until Sasha and Mallory returned home. She figured they’d both appreciate having a nice warm meal after a long day, although she hadn’t taken into consideration the general animosity between them. The tension was palpable from the moment everyone took their seats, but what was even more strange was that her other kids seemed uncomfortable too.
When everyone finished eating, Callie planned on cornering one of her kids to get some answers. However, all three of them got up from the table abruptly with their own excuses for rushing off. Sasha offered to help Callie and David clean up, but Callie told her to rest. It was obvious from her sleepy eyes and sluggish way of carrying herself that she was exhausted from being on her feet all day.
“Are you sure?” Sasha asked before yawning. “I feel like I should do something after you brought me lunchandmade us all dinner.”
“Positive,” Callie said. “We’ve got it.”
“Yeah, we’ll be fine.” David smiled. “Why don’t you go hang out with the kids? I think they ended up going out onto the porch for a drink… even though it’s freezing.”
“That’s okay,” Sasha said. “I don’t think they really want me out there.”
David furrowed his brow, but she walked out of the room before he could say anything else. Once they were alone, he turned to Callie with a confused expression. “What was that all about?”
“The dinner?”
“Just all of it.” He threw his hands up in the air. “Why is everyone acting so strange today? I thought for sure the kids would’ve gotten over their apprehension at this point.”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Callie said with a shrug. “I never understood why they were so apprehensive to begin with.” She sighed over the sink full of dishes. “But to be honest, I don’t have the energy to try and figure out what’s going on with our children right now. If they feel like talking to us, then great, but if they want to keep acting weird and giving Sasha the cold shoulder, that’s on them. I can’t keep scolding them for something three adults should know better than to do.”
“Fair enough,” David said. “I just hope everything calms down a little before Thanksgiving.”
“Yeah, well… I’m not gonna hold my breath.”
“Sasha said you brought her lunch? That was nice of you.”
“I was in town anyway,” Callie fibbed. “She and Kate have both been working hard getting ready for the weekend. I had a feeling Sasha probably wasn’t doing a great job of remembering to eat, so I just brought them some food from that Mexican restaurant we used to go to.”
“Mmm, now I’m jealous. I haven’t eaten there in forever.”
“Maybe after the holidays are over we can go,” she said casually. “You can invite Patricia. That’s your friend’s name, right?”
“Yeah, but most people just call her Sia.” He smiled. “But yeah, I’ll think about it for sure. It’s probably about time the two of you met anyway.”
