“Why not?” Travis asked, wide-eyed. Travis was a very big fan of pepperoni pizza.
“Well, actresses have to be really careful about what we eat,” she said. “Otherwise, we won’t fit in our costumes and that makes the wardrobe staff angry.”
“What happens if they get angry?” Mae asked worriedly.
“They give youreallyugly clothes,” Hailey said and then winked at her, earning herself another waterfall of giggles from Mae.
Travis smiled and Ransom patted his son on the back.
While Mae had cried once or twice about missing her mom, especially during those first few nights, overall, she seemed to take the change in her life more or less at face value. Her mom needed to be away, and her dad was taking care of her now. That was that.
But Travis was more reserved than his sister. Ransom worried sometimes that maybe his son was taking things to heart, but not expressing his feelings. He’d tried to broach the subject of his mom once or twice, but Travis didn’t really engage. In the meantime, he was generally quieter than his sister and slower to laugh.
He’ll open up in his own time,Ransom thought to himself.
“Should we eat at the kitchen table?” Hailey asked, looking to Ransom. “And what do you guys like to drink?”
“The kitchen table is great,” Ransom said. “And water is fine.”
“So…notlemonade?” she asked.
Mae turned to Ransom, her eyes pleading.
“Well, if youhavelemonade, I’m sure we’d love a glass,” Ransom said.
“Yes,”Travis said in celebration, for the second time this afternoon.
Ransom helped the kids get set up at the table while Hailey poured glasses of cold lemonade and carried them over.
The radio was on low, and he could just hear “JingleBells” playing. Between that and the cozy atmosphere in the kitchen where he’d grown up, he felt a happy sense of well-being.
Travis said grace again and they all dug in.
“Mmm, so good,” Hailey hummed around her first bite.
“Did you forget how good Mario’s is?” Ransom teased her.
“Oh, I remembered,” she said happily, and took another bite.
He was hit with a memory of the two of them sitting opposite each other in a booth, passing a slice back and forth while making plans for summer vacation.
We used to have so much to look forward to…
“What’s that?” Mae asked, pointing to the wall.
“Oh, that’s a wallpaper swatch and a paint chip,” Hailey told her. “I was deciding how to decorate each of the rooms.”
“What’sThe Forest of Arden?” Travis asked. He was reading the little sticky note that was on the wall just under the thumbtacked wallpaper and paint chip.
“I wanted to name each room in the house after the location in a famous play,” Hailey explained. “The forest of Arden is where one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays takes place.”
“So the kitchen will look like a forest,” Travis said thoughtfully.
“It will be inspired by one,” Hailey said, nodding.
“That’s cool,” Travis said.
“Well, it will be cooler when I can figure out whatkind of finish the paint is supposed to have,” Hailey said, shaking her head.
