“We aren’t doing anything else,” Toni said.
“Not anymore,” Sam murmured.
A memory surfaced of the last—second to last?—Christmas with our mother, in the brownstone apartment that had been her home base for a couple of years. For some reason, we weren’t at one of her usual parties, Mom in the front room with her friends, Toni and I in someone’s back bedroom, put down to sleep with the coats. That Christmas, it was just the three of us, eating takeout from little white boxes on a blanket on the floor. “A Christmas picnic,” Mom had said gaily. I remembered how strange everything had tasted, garlic and... eggplant, maybe? And Mom laughing as she taught me to use chopsticks.
She had set fat candles all around the blanket, red and yellow, indigo and violet. I’d worried Toni would burn herself, but the warm rainbow of lights was so beautiful, a private art installation on the hardwood floor. I’d been so happy to have our mother’s attention all to ourselves. To myself. Toni was too young to remember.
In the back of my mind, I’d thought I might re-create it with her, for her, this year, a picnic for the two of us.
Or, if Toni felt homesick, I would cook. I’d cooked for Gray all the time. I was becoming familiar with Reeti’s kitchen. I could make Aunt Em’s cola-glazed ham and tater tot casserole. Assuming I could find tater tots in Ireland.
But Toni was beaming, clearly delighted at the prospect of spending Christmas with the Clerys. There had been too few large family gatherings with noisy children around the table in her life.
In my life.
Fiadh was regarding my sister with the tolerant amusementshe might have shown a puppy. “Mam always makes more than enough,” she told me. “You’re more than welcome.”
“Thank you.” I smiled at her. At Sam. “We’d love to.”
—
Tonight was so much fun,” Toni said on our way home. “I love it here.”
I wanted her to be happy. I wanted her to be stable and secure. Not like our mother, abandoning her commitments. Toni needed to find her direction. Make connections. Go back to college.
“You seemed to get along with Fiadh,” I said cautiously.
“She’s so cool.” Toni slid me a grin. “And her brother’s hot. Are you guys doing it?”
I flushed. “Sam and I are friends.”
“Whatever you say.”
“I am totally focused on school right now,” I said, determined to be a good role model. “Plus, I recently got out of a relationship, remember?”
“Thank God for that.”
I blinked. Toni and Gray had never spent much time together. It was true, what I’d told Reeti. I’d kept my worlds, my two selves, separate, Dee-at-college and Dorothy-at-the-farm. But Toni had visited me often. Inevitably, she and Gray had met.
“You never said anything negative about Gray before.”
Toni strode over the bridge as if she knew where she was going. “Because you wouldn’t listen.”
“You said you liked him.”
She shrugged. “Because that’s what you wanted to hear.”
Maybe I’d been a better role model than I’d thought. Or else a horrible example. I didn’t want my little sister to feel she needed to please other people to get by.
“I want you to be honest,” I said.
“Okay,” Toni said agreeably. “I hate him. He trashed you in his stupid book. He deserves to die.”
I smiled, warmed by her loyalty. Ridiculously reassured by her rage. Maybe I hadn’t screwed her up by my example after all. “Thanks, Toto.”
She flung herself at me, wrapping me in her thin, strong arms. “Iloveyou, Dodo.”
I hugged her back. “Love you, too.”
