“Your brother lives with his mom!” she countered, quickly coming to the defense of her can-do-no-wrong son.
“Exactly. Men who still live at home are off my list on principle.”
“The Mission:Christmas party is coming up,” Mom said. “Who are you going to take?” Every year, Mrs. Pottinger, a member of Bethel Church, hosted a lavish Christmas party for the volunteers and their dates.
“I was thinking about taking you again this year.” Mom had proven herself to be a convenient date. She’d never met a party she didn’t like, knew everyone, and could easily spend the entire party chatting with people other than Maddie. However, should Maddie find herself awkwardly alone, she could default to her built-in wing woman.
“I’d be happy to go, of course,” Mom answered. “But should you find someone special between now and then—and I really think you should give Russell a chance, Maddie—then I’ll step aside. And you can go to the party with your new man.” She shot a hopeful look in Maddie’s direction.
Lord, have mercy.
“The brooch belonged to my mother,” Grandma explained to Maddie later that night over the phone. “My father died when a log truck overturned, and my mother died not long after that—of grief, they say, because she loved my father so much. I’ve told you all that before.”
“Yes.” Maddie sat cross-legged on the floor of her apartment in front of her newly decorated Christmas tree. Its branches sparkled with brightly colored ornaments and little white lights.
“My father’s brother, Uncle Oscar, and his wife, Maisie, raised me, but the brooch belonged to my mother, Marion Evans Brady.”
“Which makes perfect sense because the initials above yours on the bag are MEB. Did Marion’s mother give it to her?”
“I believe so.”
“Mom seemed to think that the women who have their initials on the bag are all related to us.”
“As far as I know, that’s true.”
“Has anyone studied the genealogy of that branch of our family?”
“Your aunt Susan has.” Aunt Susan was Maddie’s mom’s younger sister. “I have the family tree she sent me around here somewhere. Once I married your grandpa, I gave up wondering about all that folderol, but you’re welcome to it.”
“I’d love to take a look at our family tree. If we’re lucky, we’ll be able to match all the brooch’s initials to names.”
“Give me a few days. I think those papers might be in the hall closet, but I’m not entirely sure. I’ll call you when I find it.”
“Perfect. Thanks, Grandma.”
“Sure, sweetheart.”
“One more thing before you go. Mom mentioned that the brooch has an accompanying legend.”
“Yes, the legend has it that the brooch brings true love.”
“Do you believe that?”
A warm chuckle. “I didn’t want to. And then the brooch kept going missing and the same man kept bringing it back to me. That’d be your grandpa. I finally decided that the Lord works in mysterious ways sometimes.”
Chapter Four
The wordsDecember weatherweren’t exactly a match for the wordsgarage sale, Leo thought as he stepped back outdoors after taking a warm-up break inside his parents’ house.
Today’s temperature had started out below freezing before climbing to a cloudy forty-five around the time their sale opened. He and Maddie had done what they could to mitigate the temperature. They were holding the sale between the hours of noon and four, the warmest part of the day. They had two patio heaters going. And Maddie’s mom was handing out cups of hot chocolate topped with marshmallows.
Leo, Maddie, and his two younger sisters were manning the sale. They were two hours in, and so far, largely because Maddie had pitched the sale to the community as a charitable event, they were turning a big profit.
He caught sight of Maddie talking to an elderly woman. As he watched, his smile grew. He couldn’t hear their exchange, but he could tell Maddie was haggling. In her very likable way, she was unashamedly trying to take the older woman for every cent she could get out of her.
So far today, whenever anyone had come up to him and proposed a price for an item less than the one they’d marked,he’d simply said, “Sure.” Bargaining was not his strength. He’d never known this truth about himself until today because he’d never hosted a garage sale or attempted to bargain down the price of . . . anything.
During his elementary school years, he’d been so shy that he’d only spoken when his teacher had called on him in class. He’d barely talked to his classmates because he hadn’t known how to talk to them. He’d always understood that he and his family were oddly different and completely out of step with popular culture.
