His bushy brown eyebrows jerked high into the brim of hisWorld’s Greatest Goose dadhat. “I always heard he left a lot of little things undone, kid. Nothin’ big comes to mind, though. Not that I can think, anyway, and most everything unfinished Eula either completed or erased.”
“Erased?”
“Ignored. You know, like the greenhouse. You stop talking about somethin’ long enough, you forget it was there.”
I wilted a little, wringing out my socks. “Right . . .”
“But, you know,” he went on, “this place . . . I don’t think it really forgets anything.”
We settled into silence as I dried my shoes, and he watched the rain. It was soothing, soft white noise. I hated it. My fingers itched to do something, to dig, to prune, togarden, so I could occupy myself. Rainy days cursed me with patience, and I was never very good at that—even as a gardener.
“Jules asked me to play at the bicentennial with the boys,” he said after a while. “I don’t suppose that was you, was it?”
I feigned ignorance. “She asked you to play at the party? That’s amazing! Are you going to do it?”
He laughed. “You’re no good at lying.”
I shrugged. “Practice makes perfect.”
Shaking his head with a grin, he looked back out over the garden. “You know, this is some great soup weather. I could break out my ma’s Italian wedding soup and warm us all up. What do you think?”
My stomach grumbled at the thought of food. “I have a TV dinner in the freezer . . .” I shivered as a particularly strong wind buffeted the veranda.
He shook his head. “Nah, you’re having my soup. It’ll warm you right up,” he said decisively, pushing himself to his feet.
“No, I really think I’ll just go back to—”
Wykofski was already turning toward the kitchen. “I think there’s some fresh carrots and cabbage from the garden, and some parsley—it’s going to bedivine,” he added, kissing hisfingertips, and shouted up the stairs asking if Eula wanted some soup for dinner.
Of course she did.
Oliver leaned over the balcony. “Who’s making it?”
Wykofski batted his eyes.
“You?”
“If you can strip to my music, you can eat to my food,” Wykofski announced, and disappeared to the kitchen.
Distantly, I heard Oliver echo, afraid and confused, “Strip …?”
At some point we’d have to tell him that he managed to get down to his underwear before Jules and I corralled him into my Jeep, but I didn’t think today was that day.
It would cost me nothing to leave for my cottage right now, close the door, and warm up a TV dinner anyway. To keep my distance, since I’d already become dangerously close to everyone. To remind myself that I was leaving, that I wasn’t a part of this place, that Ishouldn’tbe. I’d only get myself hurt in the end. I didn’t want to hurt anymore.
But … it was still raining. And I was starting to get a little cold.
And . . .
Warm soup and good company sounded nice on an evening like this.
So I stayed. I told myself that I just debated so long that by the time Wykofski made the soup, it would’ve been rude to leave. It made me feel a little better as the smell of warm Italian wedding soup filled the manor, along with fresh bread and finely grated Romano. He was right, it did warm me right up. There really was nothing better than homemade food, Wykofski saidas he brought the soup up to Eula, and we all ate in her bedroom. He talked about his ma, and the big recipe book she left him. “I’m only halfway through them, but I read slow,” he said as we ate.
Harrie used to make the best chicken noodle soup. It was the kind that could cure anything, butespeciallyhangovers. I wished I’d gotten the recipe.
“It’s really good,” I told him, and he beamed.
“Not as good as my ma’s, but I’ll take the compliment, Sunny.”
