But he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at my dressing table. At the drawing taped to the mirror. “What is that?”
“Timmy drew it. A door. I like how he put the extra doorknob down low. I guess that’s so little boys can get in, too.”
He stood there for a long moment, just staring at the drawing.
“Uh, Eric? What’s so fascinating about Timmy’s door?”
“What? Oh. It just reminds me of something, but I can’t think of what. Quite the little artist you’ve got there.”
I laughed. “According to Fran, that’s all he draws these days. Zillions of them. It’s like he’s Monet and doors are his water lilies.”
“Weird but cute,” he finally said, and I couldn’t disagree.
“Sweet dreams, Katie-kins.”
And then he was gone, the door clicking shut behind him, leaving me alone with the wine and the silence and the feeling that I’d just missed something important.
I looked at the drawing again. Red rectangles. Gold dots. Doors.
Just a child’s drawing. Just Timmy being Timmy.
So why couldn’t I shake the chill that had settled in my chest?
11
ALLIE
Seventeen.
I was officially seventeen years old, and Mindy had gone completely overboard, taking full advantage of Mom telling her to “have at it” when Mindy had begged to be the party planner.
“It’s not overboard,” she retorted after I’d said as much.
I lifted my brows. “Really?”
She shrugged, and as we followed the path toward the side garden, I let my gaze sweep over the approximately nine billion fairy lights she’d strung through every tree and along every railing.
Ahead of us, I could see the group gathered near the long table—Mom laughing at something Aunt Laura had said, Gramps holding court in one of the garden chairs, Daddy at the grill with a spatula in hand. Near the fountain, Timmy and Elena were playing some elaborate game that involved running in circles and shrieking, while Fran watched from a nearby bench, coffee cup in hand.
Signora Micari was fussing over the food table, of course, and I breathed in the scent of her pasta sauce, one of my favorite things in the world.
“It’s completely overboard,” I repeated as I hip-butted my bestie. “And I totally love it.”
Sophie and Ana hurried ahead of us, then grabbed chips from the bowl on the table. Stuart caught my eye and winked. I grinned back. He’s not my father, but he is my dad. And considering those pre-teen and teen years he survived, maybe the visions make sense. I mean, the man’s clearly a saint.
“So it’s really okay?” Mindy asked.
“Are you kidding? It’s freaking amazing.” And it was—all the fairy lights, the incredible spread of food, the wrapped presents. There was even a HAPPY 17TH ALLIE banner strung between two oaks, the crooked letters suggesting that Timmy had helped. “I love it,” I said, giving Mindy a squeeze. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. Wait until you’ve seen the cake. It totally rocks.”
She pulled me toward the far corner of the garden, where a separate table held three tiers of white frosting and delicate gold scrollwork. Seventeen candles flickered on top, already lit. And right in the middle of the top layer was the coolest cake topper I’d ever seen. “OMG! It looks just like my stiletto.” It really did, too. The marzipan topper was an edible clone of the pearl-handled weapon Mom had given me on my fifteenth birthday.
Mindy shrugged. “The lady at the bakery thought it was weird. But now she has a great story about the freaky girl with a weapon for a cake topper.”
“You’re insane.”
“I prefercreatively committed.”
