“You know, forget it. Forget it. Sorry, I can’t help you decorate the tree,” Josie said and turned right around.
Alice sighed so hard her knees actually gave out, and she put her hand against the back of the couch and then just sat down on the arm. Her eyes burned and her heart ached and she’d done this to the poor girl.
And she didn’t know how to make it right.
“Alice?”
It was Gabe standing in the shadowy hallway. Gabe was one of those men getting better-looking with age, and he hadn’t exactly been ugly when he was twenty-eight. It was enough to make a woman crazy if she thought about it. So she didn’t. She just counted her blessings every day she had with the man.
“You saw all that?” she asked, embarrassed a little, but also glad he’d seen it so he knew what they were all up against with Josie.
“I did.”
“I’m afraid I won’t be able to make this right. That she’ll leave and she’ll never come back.”
Gabe walked over to her, put his hand on her shoulder and pulled her up against his body. He was warm and strong and smelled familiar and safe. His hands on her body were a comfort. And Alice pressed her face to his shirt and waited for him to say the right thing. Because that was Gabe’s superpower. Infallible. Unflappable. Positive in the darkest darkness.
Come on, honey, she thought. Hit me with some bright side.
But he was silent.
JOSIE
Dinner was served by the light of a completely decorated Christmas tree. And Josie wanted to ask who’d finished decorating it, but after one look at Gabe and Stella, she knew Alice’s husband and daughter had stepped in when Josie ran.
She’d gone back to her room in Mom and Dad’s house and told Belinda, the casting agent, that maybe an all-asshole cast would be perfect. Maybe it would be exciting.
I won’t be the thing that punishes you.
Yeah, Josie didn’t need Alice to punish her when she had this job.
Helen came waddling into the dining room wearing a yellow sweater and black leggings, and carrying a big salad bowl. Dom followed with a big platter of parsley-flecked rice and crispy roasted potatoes. Garth and Iris followed, with Garth carrying a platter of meat.
“I will have you know,” Alice said, bringing up the rear with two bottles of red wine. “I stood outside and grilled for you people.”
“And for that,” Jonah said, looking down at the dinner and rubbing his hands together, “you have my undying gratitude.”
“You know,” Daphne said. “You don’t ever react to my dinners like this.”
“I don’t?” he asked, his face twisted like he was confused about something.
“You don’t.” Daphne lifted a white-blond eyebrow.
“Is there a way for me to get out of this conversation without being in trouble?”
“Yeah. You can promise to cook.”
“Done,” Jonah said and leaned over to kiss Daphne.
“How are things at Haven House?” Josie asked as they all sat down to a beautiful Greek feast. The green salad was full of chunks of salty white feta cheese and the pita had been brushed with olive oil and toasted over the fire. Josie lived in one of the most exciting food cities in the world, but when you grew up with Alice cooking for you, it was all a little anti-climactic.
She made it seem so easy.
“It’s going pretty well,” Jonah said, looking over at Daphne who nodded in agreement. “We’ve brought in a few more teachers for both the mothers and the children. Daphne’s work program at the farm has been at capacity since we started.”
“I’ve hired two full-time employees from the program and we’ve been able to move the mothers and their kids into permanent housing in town.”
“That’s amazing,” Josie said. Haven House had been built while she was in high school and the program was up and running by her first year at college. They brought single mothers and their kids out of hard environments with few opportunities and started them off with a vacation in a beautiful inn with plenty of green space and even an indoor swimming pool. And then, slowly, they introduced programs on how to understand basic finances and their legal rights, as well as art and basic home repair, and then slowly branched into things like job training.
“We miss you, though,” Jonah said.
“Ha! Well, free labor and all that.” Josie felt Alice’s eyes across the room and just did not feel comfortable taking compliments in front of her.
“No, you were so good with those writing courses for the moms and the kids. You really struck a nerve.”
Josie’s birth father had been a violent guy—never to her, just to her mom—and Josie, when she worked at Haven House that summer, had really felt the ramifications of that. A lot of those kids had had the same kind of crappy experience.
“Remember when Cameron did that cooking class with the children?” Gabe asked, laughing. Josie felt her throat close up.
“The Riverview kitchen was the only kitchen big enough for all of them,” Jonah said.
“Yeah.” Gabe smiled at his brother. “I’ve heard that before.”
“Cameron was cleaning flour out of the tile for weeks,” Alice said.
So was I, Josie thought. And I taught that class with him. And when the kids opened the wrong end of the flour bag and the bowl fell on the floor, it was the two of us. We hit heads trying to grab the flour and he put his fingers around my wrist and my pulse beat against his skin and I was sure—sure–I was just going to die from him being so close.
She’d wished, like any sixteen-year-old girl deeply in love with a twenty-one-year-old man might wish, that he would apply the pressure to her wrist that would pull her closer to him. And then, when she was a breath away, he’d smile his half smile, hiding that crooked tooth he was embarrassed about, and press those smiling lips to hers.
She’d wished that wish so many times it was nearly a prayer.
Helen set a very big glass of wine down in front of Josie.
“Whoa.” Josie laughed. “You trying to get me drunk?”
“You’re drinking for two tonight,” Helen said with what seemed like a nervous smile.
“The second person is you, I take it?”
Helen nodded glancing backward at the door and then over at her parents.
“You all right?” Josie asked. She took a sip of the red wine and then another. She’d managed, so far, to keep the memories of Cameron at arm’s length. But she could feel them hovering tonight. Close enough to touch.
“Fine,” Helen said. “But look, whatever happens tonight, I just want you to know that everything is going to be okay.”
“You’re freaking me out, Helen,” Josie said, turning to face her cousin more fully.
“Alice?” Grandmother Iris was looking over her shoulder at the tree. “Did you do something different with the tree this year?” she asked.
“No. I mean, the lights are on a timer,” Alice said, putting green salad on her plate. “But I did that last year.”
“I think…” Patrick got to his feet, and over his shoulder Josie saw the branches of the tree shimmy. “…maybe the tree had a stowaway.”
“What are you talking about, Dad?” Max asked, leaning forward so he could see the tree too.