“Yup,” I agreed, brushing the scone crumbs off the table with the back of my hand, hoping the local birds would enjoy the feast. “That’s exactly what I said to Mom.”
“She thinks you’re mad at her,” Taylor volunteered, getting to the heart of the issue, as always.
“Oh, come on,” I scoffed. “I’mbusy! She knows that.”
“She just misses you.” Taylor locked on to me with the big-sister guilt trip that had stopped working when we were in college but she still occasionally deployed. “You should go visit her.”
I fiddled with the handle of my mug, feeling scrutinized. “Tay, you know what happens every time we go over there.”
“Yeah, and it’s normal for her to want to talk about Dad. It’s healthy. I don’t understand why you refuse to.”
“I don’trefuse.” I accidentally spat the word at her. “But what’s left to say? Talking about him just makes me—”
“Angry. Yeah, we know.” Taylor glanced around the patio to see if anyone was listening to us. “You need to deal with that. Talk to a therapist or something, Chels. You keep saying you will, but...”
“I don’t need to. I’m fine,” I insisted as a stone rattled around in my chest.
Taylor frowned at me.
“This time of year is just hard for me, okay?” I examined Edith’s tiny paw so Taylor wouldn’t see my watery eyes.
“It’s hard for all of us, but it would be a lot easier if we could actually reminisce about him with you.”
I doubted it. Talking about the wonderful memories made his absence that much harder for me to bear. Anytime I was at the house I half expected him to sweep into the room and wrap me in one of his bone-crushing bear hugs. The fact that it would never happen again gutted me.
“If you can’t do it for yourself, do it for Mom,” Taylor continued. “Just let her talk. Listen to her.”
I sniffled and finally met her stare. “Okay, I’ll try. She needs to meet Edith anyway.”
“That’ll be a good distraction for both of you,” Taylor agreedas she leaned back in her chair, the worry not quite erased from her face. “She’s a good puppy.”
We went quiet, not sure what topic was safe other than pets or skin care trends. I adored my sister but we’d had a tough time finding our way back to one another after the upside-downness of losing our father. I was half convinced her baby was conceived in grief, as a way for all of us to recalibrate and focus on the joy of new life instead of the hole in our hearts from the one we’d lost. And the truth was, a baby on the way was sort of working. We all had something beautiful and perfect to look forward to.
“I should go,” Taylor said, glancing at her phone. She reached into her purse and plopped an iridescent shopping bag on the table between us. “There’s some good stuff in there. Lip stain, a retinol sleep mask, a shimmer lotion, and some gel under-eye patches.”
I was reminded of my charcoal under-eye patch run-in with Andrew. It was Thursday and I still hadn’t come up with a way to get out of goat training. But the truth was, I didn’t want him thinking that he’d scared me off. His mom needed help and I was going to do my best to provide it.
Plus, Ireallywanted to hang out with goats.
I had a vision of Andrew helping his dad and accidentally falling off the ladder, clinging to the gutter with his legs dangling like in the movies. I stifled a gleeful giggle at the thought.
“What are you laughing at?”
I hadn’t told her about Andrew moving in next door to Frolic. She’d met him once and I wasn’t in the mood to get into the inevitable twenty questions that would follow.
“Nothing,” I said, reaching into the bag as Edith tried to nose her way into it as well. “Just something ridiculous.”
Orsomeoneridiculous.
“Oh, hold up,” Taylor said before I could pull my hand out of the bag, glancing around at the other tables. “I probably should tell you there’s something a little...extrain there.”
I peeked inside and saw a thin white box that looked like it contained a high-tech product nestled among the beauty supplies.
“What is that?” I asked with narrowed eyes.
“It’s a wand massager called Le Rush,” she said innocently. “I thought you could use some tension relief.”
I dropped my head to the table and it hit with a thunk. “You seriously gave me avibrator?”
