“No, ma’am. I cooked with my mom until she died, so I would’ve known if she was hiding anything.”
“Maybe you should make the potato salad if you know her recipe.”
“Prefer coleslaw myself. The vinegar kind.”
Margie breezes back into the kitchen. “Jack says yes to dill, no to doubling the mayo,” she reports. “And is the chicken ready for the grill? I can take it out if it is.”
“No chicken,” Lucky says at the same time Decker says, “We’re doing kabobs.”
Margie makes anoopsface that I’m completely positive is an act. “Oh, right. I knew that.”
“You ever have kabobs?” I ask her.
“No, Rhys, I’ve never been to a cookout where someone made kabobs.” She shakes her head at Mrs. Sullivan. “Men. Am I right?”
Mrs. Sullivan laughs. “And now you know what my entire life has been like. I’ve spent the past thirty-odd years surrounded by only men.”
“You’ve had Sabrina and Aunt Traci, and they were over all the time,” Decker reminds her.
“Still outnumbered.”
“Not with the size of Sabrina’s personality,” Jack calls from the deck.
“That all three of you tried to keep up with,” Mrs. Sullivan says.
I know the triplets have another cousin, but there was some drama with him a couple years ago, involving when he almost married Emma, Jonas’s wife, plus some other things, and they don’t talk about him anymore.
Apparently they don’t talk about his parents either.
“Son, best to quit when you’re not so far behind that you can’t see where you started anymore,” Mr. Sullivan says. His voice is softer but still carries through the screen door.
I grab a knife and start cutting apples.
Margie digs into the fridge and comes up with the kabobs. “Okay to take these out?” she asks Decker and Lucky.
“Yeah, get ’em going,” Decker says.
While Decker’s distracted with answering her, Lucky adds an extra scoop of mayo to the potato salad, then screws the lid on and moves around me to put it away.
“Are you serious?” Decker mutters as he looks down at the potato salad.
“You’re not letting the flavors blend long enough anyway,” I tell him. “Won’t actually matter in the end.”
Mrs. Sullivan giggles.
I eye her. “You know the real recipe, don’t you?”
“Who, me? I’m only an in-law. I don’t get the real Sullivan family recipes for anything.”
Her smile says she’s lying.
For a moment, I wonder how things worked out that Mr. Sullivan isn’t the triplets’ biological father.
And then I remind myself it’s none of my business.
My business is telling Decker if he can trust Margie.
And honestly?
