"Uncle Hugo!" Everly, who turned six last week, launches herself at me. She's a wild child, emotional and loud. Whether she's happy, mad, or sad, the whole room knows it.
I catch her one-handed, holding out my wineglass soshe doesn't knock it out of my hand. Vivi helpfully takes it from me, setting it down on the kitchen counter.
Burying my face in Everly's dark hair, I make a show out of sniffing her. "Why do you smell like"—I pause for dramatic effect, and Everly giggles—"a rhinoceros?"
Everly leans away from me, nose wrinkled, and palms my cheeks with her tiny hands. "I donotsmell like a rhino," she informs me with utter seriousness.
"Oh sorry, I meant to say you smell like a warthog."
Everly leans sideways, looking at her mother over my shoulder. "Mommy, your brother is hopeless."
Laughter erupts around the room, including from my mom and Aunt Carmen, who entered the kitchen in time to hear Everly.
"Sor-ry," Aunt Carmen singsongs the apology. "I accidentally taught her that today."
"Whose brother were you calling hopeless?" I ask. Everly shimmies and twists in my arms, telling me she wants down without saying the words.
"Obit," Aunt Carmen explains, sliding into her favorite chair at the kitchen table.
Nobody ever believes Aunt Carmen when she tells them what she does for work. She writes funny and irreverent obituaries, and she's typically hired by people before they pass away.
It's an odd job, one she didn't get into until after my dad died. She hated her brother's obituary, saying it was the equivalent of the color of dirt.Boring.Read like a grocery list.She later rewrote it, and my mother had it printed and framed. To this day, it sits on a bookshelf inthe living room, reminding us that his pursuits in the olive grove were more successful than the time he tried out for the town play, and how he never met a coupon he didn't clip.
I was a teenager when she rewrote it, and I was temperamental and full of grief, and I told her I hated it. Now, I love it. It keeps him alive, reminds me that he was more than an olive farmer who was preceded in death by his older brother, Jack, and his great uncle, Martin.
Crouching down, I open my arms for three-year-old Knox. He's the opposite of his sister, measured and thoughtful. He'll be four in a month, and takes after his father with his sandy brown hair and fairer skin.
Knox's little legs carry him into my embrace, his small head resting against my chest. He is the calm to his sister's storm.
"Hey, buddy," I say, pressing my cheek to the top of his head. The kid gives a great hug, and truth be told, I need it. I'm still reeling from my run-in with the podcaster earlier today.
"Hi," comes his tiny voice.
I wrap my arms around him, gathering him into me and standing. He resets himself, resting his head on my shoulder and tucking his arms between his body and my chest.
My mom sends me a wistful look. I know what it means. I'll be thirty soon, and I haven't given her grandchildren. She reminds me of this far too often.
"Please don't say it, Mom."
She rolls her eyes at me and rounds the counter,opening up a cupboard and taking down dinner plates. The sound of their stacking fills the air as she says, "You look good with a child in your arms, Hugo."
I feel good with a child in my arms too, but I'm not about to tell her that. My mother does not need any additional ammunition to use against me.
Mallory Hawkins' face flashes to the front of my mind, maybe because we're talking about children and she's the only person I know of who's expecting. Vivi knows a podcaster has been emailing me, but I haven't told my mother.
"Mom," I start, stepping back so she and Vivi can move freely around the kitchen. "A while back I got an email from a woman who hosts a podcast. Case Files."
Vivi's knife, tip poised above a head of purple cabbage, freezes. She looks at me with a mixture of curiosity and dread. We agreed not to tell our mom, but with Mallory in Olive Township, it feels like I should say something. What if somebody asks Mallory why she's here, and she tells them the truth, and then the truth gets back to my mom? It's a small town, gossip is more like currency. She should hear it from me, not the old hens who cut their teeth on idle chatter.
"Case Files?" Mom holds the stack of plates in one hand, adding folded dinner napkins on top. "What does she talk about? Crime, I'm guessing?"
I nod, rubbing a hand over Knox's back. He's content where he is, and I'm happy to have him. It's as if he is soothing me. "True crime."
Something flashes across my mother's eyes, but it'shard to decipher what it is she's feeling. "And? What did you say in response?"
"I haven't responded. She's emailed me four times."
My mother says nothing, and Vivi leads the way to the dining room table, holding the ceramic bowl of heavenly smelling ground beef. My mom follows with the plates and napkins, and Aunt Carmen comes up behind her, parading in with a platter of taco fixings.
