Sure enough, when I get outside, everyone is gathered around a pen, oohing and aahing.
Emmy turns to me, her face flushed. “Abby! You’re just in time. Polly’s horse has foaled.”
“Oh, wow.” The first time I met Emmy nearly a year ago, they had a foal as well. It feels like a long time ago now. I come to stand by the fence as I watch the spindly-legged foal totter around. It’s a sight that can’t help but make me smile. “Caroline went back inside, by the way,” I tell Emmy, and she laughs.
“She’s in a huff because she wants the foal for her own. But she’s never been interested in horses! Not the way Alice and Polly have.” She sighs, then laughs again. “She’ll get over it. Caroline’s never been one to stay mad for long.” She props one elbow on the fence railing as she gives me one of her frank looks, in the way only Emmy can. “Where are your kids?”
“Actually, I came over on my own.”
“Oh?” Her fair eyebrows rose. “This sounds like it calls for coffee.”
We leave everybody else outside as we head back into Emmy’s comfortably messy kitchen, and she starts making coffee. She has some this time, and there are a dozen freshly baked muffins cooling on a rack. Maybe her meltdown of a few weeks ago really was just a blip. It makes me wonder whether I should suggest a girls’ getaway, after all… except, I realize,I’dlike to get away. This weekend might be as much for me as for Emmy.
“So?” Emmy asks once we’re seated at the table with our mugs and a muffin each. “What’s up?”
“Well, I had an idea.” Suddenly, I feel shy. Emmy is my best friend, and I’m pretty sure I’m hers, but a whole weekend away together feels like a big deal as well as a big ask, considering how busy her life is. I’m asking her to leave it for a few days to spend time just with me.
I feel like I’m in middle school, asking a new friend if she wants to sleep over. It’s definitely a little scary.
“An idea?” Emmy repeats, bemused because I haven’t yet elaborated.
Suddenly, I feel silly. This isEmmy. Even if she says no, she can’t, it won’t matter. I know she’ll appreciate the invitation either way, and we’ll still be friends.
“Well, I was thinking it would be nice to get away for a few days,” I tell her. “A girls’ weekend, just you and me, somewherefun. Nottoofun,” I add quickly, while a small smile quirks Emmy’s mouth. “Just a hotel… a pool…”
“A spa?” she asks eagerly. “Abar?”
I laugh. “Yes, definitely, although I’ll stick to mocktails.”
She slaps her hand on the table and lets out a West Virginia-style holler, making me wonder why on earth I was nervous to ask her.
“Well then,” she exclaims, “count me in!”
Chapter four
On Friday, we’re pulling up to Miss Barbara’s, all seven of us packed into the minivan. It’s been a while since we’ve been out all together in the evening, gussied up and good to go. Thanks to Josh’s broken leg and my pregnancy, life has been pretty quiet, even as it has remained chaotically busy. Funny, how those two things can go together.
Now, I’m wearing a forgiving dress in jersey—my bump on prominent display—and my dad’s brought out his bow tie. Also, one of the boys has gone a little overboard with the Lynx body spray, and I’ve been struggling not to sneeze since we got in the car.
“Ew, what is that smell?” William demands, sounding disgusted. “Jack, did youbathein that stuff?”
In the rearview mirror, I see my youngest son blush, which is certainly something new. I’m glad he’s made an effort, at least. In the past, he’s insisted it’s perfectly reasonable to attend a social function in sweatpants.
As we pull up to Miss Barbara’s ranch house, the whole place is ablaze with lights—fairy lights and paper lanterns arestrung through the garden—and even though it’s a little nippy out, people are mingling among the raised beds, drinks in hand. Music from what sounds like a live bluegrass band filters through the air.
“Looks pretty fancy,” Josh murmurs as we park in the drive with a dozen other cars. Getting out of here is going to be a nightmare, but that’s not something I have to worry about just now.
“Miss Barbara wanted to go all out,” Bethany says as she scrambles out of the backseat. “I bet this party is going to beepic.” Then she’s off, no doubt looking for Ben, who said he would meet her here. After the Obadiah-sized blip in the fall, those two have been closer than ever, a fact whichcouldcause me a little worry, since Bethany is only nineteen, but she’s matured a lot in the last year, and she’s basically an adult, so I’m choosing to go with it. Mostly.
“Ready to get your dancing shoes on, Dad?” I extend a hand to help him out of the car. He takes it with a slight grimace. He’s not as steady on his feet as he once was, thanks to a series of mini-strokes, but at least it turned out it wasn’t the Parkinson’s that was making him shaky. The PT has been helping, but I can’t resist the urge to step in even when I’m pretty sure he doesn’t want me to.
“I don’t know about dancing,” he tells me with a crinkly-eyed smile, “but I sense some mighty foot-tapping in my future.”
“I think that’s where I’m at these days,” Josh responds, slinging an arm around his shoulders in a way that is far more relaxed than my taking his hand, but which achieves the same purpose, and I know Josh knows it.
As they walk off, my dad leaning a little on my husband, I turn to my other three children, all of who are still hanging back by the van, looking a little anxious for various reasons I’m pretty sure I can guess.
William is reluctant because his ex-girlfriend, Alice, is here, and while he was the one to break it off, he’s still feeling fragile about it, not that he’s told me as much, but a mother knows. Jack is feeling uncertain because he’s thirteen and has overdosed himself in body spray and is probably worried he’ll make a fool of himself without even realizing he’s doing so. And Rose is reluctant because she’s eight, and it doesn’t look like there are many kids her age here.
