CHAPTER ELEVEN
So they’d just take everything?”
“Pretty much.”
I paused, my hand on the door. It was my mom and Liz talking, on the porch.
“It’s not ideal. But we are dealing with a time issue.”
A pause. “And this would be faster.”
“Exactly. One day, in and out.”
It occurred to me that maybe I didn’t want to overhear this, so I opened the door, formally announcing my arrival. “Hello?” Liz called out.
“It’s me,” I said. “Finley.”
A chair scraped as I came into the kitchen. My mom, getting to her feet. “Hey,” she said. “I was worried about you.”
Same,I thought. “It was just crazy busy so I pitched in.”
Liz, who was seated at the table in another flowy top, this one with diamond-shaped sequin patterns on the sleeves, smiled at me. “Well, bless you. I’m sure Kasey appreciated it.”
I held the bag out to my mom. “Breakfast sandwiches.”
“Yum.” She took it, opening the flap and glancing in before nodding at Liz. “You want one?”
“Oh no,” Liz immediately protested. “Wedding is justaround the corner. I’m basically on a cleanse until then.”
“That’s ridiculous.” My mom reached up to a cabinet, pulling out two plates and putting the sandwiches on them. “You look great. And you need to eat for what we have ahead.”
She sounded so… motherly. Weird, but then the entire day had been. And I still hadn’t gotten any answers about the papers I’d seen.
My mom headed back to the porch, putting one of the plates in front of Liz. As she sat herself, I heard the door again.
“Hello?” Liz called out.
I heard footsteps coming down the hallway: quick, urgent. A moment later, a girl with white-blond hair wearing a blue sundress appeared. She was holding a drooping plant.
“This,” she said, dropping it with a dramatic thud onto the table, “is my marriage. Apparently.”
Liz looked up. “Anne! Honey. What are you talking about?”
Anne. The bride. Looking at her, I had a flash of my grandmother’s funeral. She’d been one of the only other kids there, a couple of years older than me.
“Jonathan’s grandmother picks a plant before every family wedding to symbolize the nuptials.” She flopped into a chair next to her mom. “It’s tradition. She gave his older sister a gorgeous rosebush. And I got… this.”
We all looked at the plant again, which was comprised of a couple of wrinkled stalks. Forget beginnings: It looked like it was already done.
“This is your cousin Finley, by the way,” Liz said. Anne gave me a tepid wave. I did not take it personally.
Again the door sounded. Liz cleared her throat. “Hello?”
“It’s me,” Kasey replied. “Did we assign jobs yet?”
“We were just about to,” my mom told her as she appeared. “Anne was—”
“Having a bit of a crisis,” Liz finished for her as her daughter grabbed a napkin from a nearby stack and blew her nose. “Anne. Eat some of this sandwich.”
