“Well, of course he’dsaythat. Bless his heart. His mother never stayed home with him, did she?”
Polly nipped the fleshy part of my thumb. I pulled back my hand, sticking the bite in my mouth. “Jeez. Somebody’s feeling cranky.”
“Polly is sensitive,” Aunt Phee snapped. “And you’re a fine one to talk, missy. I don’t see anybody waiting at home for you.”
Meg sputtered. I choked.
Aunt Phee nodded once in apparent satisfaction. She thrust the cake saver at me. “You tell your father to come see me,” she said, and marched back to her car.
Gravel rattled beneath her wheels as she pulled out of the driveway. Meg bit her lip.
I caught her eye. “It’s like being related to Almira Gulch.”
Meg smiled. “Riding away on her broomstick?”
“Bicycle.”
“Whatever.”
I cackled. “I’ll get you, my pretty. And your little dog, too.”
“You made your bed,” Meg said in her best Wicked Witch voice. “You ought to go lie in it.” She wagged a finger at me. “Preferably with your husband.”
I snickered. “At least youhavea husband.”
Somehow we were giggling, laughing, holding on to our sides and each other until Meg was wheezing and I was out of breath.
“Poor old Aunt Phee,” Meg said.
“She’s a bitch,” I said.
“She’s lonely,” Meg said.
“I know.” I squatted to hold out my hand, coaxing the cat from under the swing. “That’ll be me in forty years. I don’t have anybody, either.”
“You have us,” Meg said.
The cat sniffed my fingers. I rubbed his head. “And Weasley. Maybe I’ll be a cat lady like Bethie.”
“Or you could get a little dog,” Meg said.
“Ha. Not in a million years.”
“You’re right. Dogs are too much work. Besides, you like being on your own,” Meg said.
“True.” We sat on the swing, side by side. I felt so close to her in the quiet dark. Like when we were little, whispering secrets across the space between our beds. “Sometimes I’m jealous of you,” I confessed.
“Of me?”
“Of you and John,” I clarified. “You have somebody you can count on. Someone who’sthere.”
Meg’s face looked funny in the blue glow of the Christmas lights. “If all you wanted was somebody there all the time, you could have married Trey.”
Huh.
“Did you tell him you’re back?” my sister asked.
I shook my head. “I didn’t come home to repeat my mistakes.”
