“You are a very cute pregnant lady.”
“Right?” Helen asked, preening a little. And the girl had the right to preen.
“So, you and Evan?” Josie asked. “I guess it’s for real now.”
Helen smiled. She and Evan had always been for real, from the second they met at university in Boston. Peas and Carrots, Grandma Iris had called them. Which was the highest compliment a couple could be given in Iris speak.
“I can’t believe you haven’t been back to the Riverview in five years.”
“Me neither, really,” Josie said.
“What do you do at Christmas?”
“Work.”
“You’re joking.”
“Nope. I have to work while I’m here. We’re casting for the new season. It’s actually a really busy time of year.” They were still creating a new season of I Do/I Don’t and hopefully transitioning to her new idea next year.
“You really are a big deal,” Helen said, nudging Josie’s shoulder and grinning. “Hotshot.”
“Hardly.”
“You must make a shit ton of money.”
“Are you going to ask for another donation?” Josie pretended to tease. Donating to Helen’s cause was literally the least she could do.
“No. But…” Helen sighed. “I love my job and I believe in it, but with the kid coming I think either Evan or I need to get something that earns a little more or is a little bit more stable.”
“You know the family will support you.”
Helen nodded, but stared off into the flames, her hand over her stomach. That was the funny thing about a family like the Mitchells. They could make it real comfortable to rely on them.
To stay, even. To be a part of the legacy here rather than step outside and find something of your own.
It was tricky.
“It must be weird being here without Cameron,” Helen said.
Again that name. It hit like a smack and Josie couldn’t stop the flinch.
“Please,” she whispered. Helen was the only person she could admit this to, and even that felt like too much. “Don’t. I can do this, I can be here and I can even be happy, but if we talk about him…” She couldn’t actually finish the sentence. Living with a mistake like the one she’d made required extreme compartmentalization. She had it squished down into a box, but the box was leaking and making a mess, and she was compensating for that box in a lot of different parts of her life, but it was closed.
And it was never—ever—opened.
“I need…to tell you something,” Helen said. Her tone was serious and Josie put a hand on Helen’s shoulder. They were cousins by marriage, but truly sisters at heart.
“What? Is everything all right?” Josie asked, alarmed by Helen’s sudden seriousness.
“Fine, but…I don’t want you to be surprised—”
“Hey girls.” It was Max, coming in from outside. A bitter December-in-the-Catskills wind blew in around him, making the flames in the fireplace dance and sputter. Snow dusted his hair and shoulders. “Snow’s coming down. You gonna bunk in the lodge tonight?”
“Slumber party?” Josie asked, wiggling her eyebrows. Max and Mom had built a cabin on the far side of the property, but for Josie, home was always going to be the bedroom she’d shared with her mother when they first moved here. The room she got to herself when Mom moved into Max’s room.
Helen sighed. “I can’t. I promised Mom we’d do some shopping in the morning. I need to head to the farm.”
She struggled to get to her feet and Josie stood up to help her.
“Oh my god, I’m a whale,” Helen joked.
“You are five months, Helen. And barely showing. You better start pacing yourself.”
Helen gasped in mock outrage.
Josie wrapped her arms around her. “Thanks for making me come home,” she whispered in Helen’s ear. “I’m glad I came.”
“So are we,” Helen said.
And Josie told herself not to say it, not to bring it up because it was pulling at the lid on that box she liked to pretend didn’t exist. But in this lodge, in this home that Alice and Gabe built for all of them, it was hard not to say it. It was the elephant in the room. “I don’t think Alice is happy I’m here.”
“Of course she is,” Helen whispered.
Yeah, it really didn’t feel like it.
“Come on girls,” Max said and then grinned. “Wow. Serious déjà vu.”
Josie smiled at the man who had become the kind of father any girl would be lucky to have. He’d picked up and dropped off Josie and Helen from dances and band practice and dates and school seven million times over the course of their teenage years. Never complaining. Always tuning the radio to their station. Often stopping for contraband McDonald’s on the way home.
“I’ll give you a ride, Helen,” Max said and then smiled, that flickery half smile of his, at Josie. “You, Dom, and I are going tree chopping tomorrow so you need to get some sleep.”
Josie looked around the giant dining room and realized there wasn’t a tree. It was four days before Christmas and there wasn’t a fresh pine tree brushing the ceiling and covered with lights and ornaments.
“Were you waiting—?”
“For you?” Max said. “Of course.” At the door Helen was shoving her feet into her boots and wrapping a scarf around her neck. “You gonna stay here for old times’ sake or do you want to come back with us?”
“I’m coming,” Josie said and put out the fire the way Max taught her and turned off the Christmas lights on the mantel. She blew out the candles on the table and then stepped to the door to put on her stuff and grab her bag.
“That’s my girl,” Max said and kissed her forehead. And she wished, with a longing she hadn’t had in a long time, that the night of her high school graduation hadn’t happened and they could be the family they were supposed to be.
4
The cabin that Max had built for his family—Delia, Josie, and then Dom—was on the back corner of the property. Walking between the main lodge and the cabin took about ten minutes, and the drive took about fifteen. Which was just the kind of logic the Riverview was known for.
Mom was legendarily a morning person. And Max had built the whole house to serve that. The kitchen and small breakfast area were wall-to-wall windows and faced the sunrise. There were comfy chairs and a professional coffee machine and even a place for Delia to put out her yoga mat so she could actually salute the sun.
Sitting in this kitchen felt like sitting in her mother’s soul in so many ways.
Work, however, was not letting her enjoy it. Josie had been up since five, answering emails and putting out fires. And the “solid Wi-Fi” that Helen had promised to convince her to come home had been a lie.
It was sporadic, at best. She was using her phone as a hot spot but that wasn’t a solution that was going to last this whole week.
She and the team were deep into casting for next season of I Do/I Don’t and Belinda, the casting director, was forwarding her headshots.
This guy looks like an excellent asshole, what do you think? Belinda texted.