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A guy with a body like that, a jawline like that—he was clearly handsome—he’d probably been recovering from a bender or something when I’d gotten that impression. Since our last talk, I’d tried to push him out of my mind. Still, I had the napkin with his number on it tacked to the little corkboard over my kitchen table at home and hadn’t quite explained to myself why I’d kept it. Except that maybe I really did intend to ask him for help.
I put it all out of my mind when Wednesday night rolled around. Dinner at my sister Delia’s house was a weekly ritual, and we had made a pact to be there for each other a long time ago. Neither of us would break plans without a solid reason. I needed those dinners, and her presence in my life.
I pulled into Delia’s driveway and my heart felt immediately lighter. I always dallied coming up the path to the door, thanks to Delia’s garden, which lined the walkway and filled the spaces beneath the front windows. Even with water restriction, even in the winter, Delia managed to keep her garden green and full of flowers.
Her house sparked pangs of longing in me. She’d gotten lucky in a lot of ways, but she had come from unlucky beginnings, just like me. When we’d been foster sisters in our last home, the one we’d each aged out of in turn, we talked about the idea of home. About what it meant to have a home, to make a home. We’d talked about the homes we saw other kids living in, our friends from school. We talked about the things we wanted, the families we’d build for ourselves. I had my list, and Delia gave me hell for it, but she had one, too. She just kept hers inside her head and a little less rigid.
“You planning to come in?” Carl stood on the doorstep, watching me stoop and sniff flowers and dawdle amid the greenery. He was broad and tall and dark, a beautiful specimen of a man.
I grinned at him and hurried along, standing on my tiptoes to give him a hug. “Hey, you.”
“Come on in,” he said, keeping a hand on my back. Carl had taken up a spot right next to Delia’s in my heart the moment they’d gotten serious. He had the same pure heart and positive outlook. And their children owned a lot of my cardiac real estate, too. Delia literally spent her days in the middle of my ultimate dream—a family of her own. I lived in her dream on Wednesday nights.
“Ha-wen!” A tiny girl with a wild halo of soft black curls and huge amber eyes stretched pudgy arms out to me as I walked through the door.
“Hey, Livie,” I cooed, scooping her up as I handed Carl the bottle of wine I’d brought. “You look beautiful today,” I told her, taking in the excessive tulle tutu, over which was slung a workman’s belt with plastic hammer, wrench, and screwdrivers dangling practically to her feet.
She beamed at me, her small hand reaching out to feel a lock of my hair. “I’m Pwincess builder,” she told me.
I carried the little girl into the kitchen where her bigger sister was standing on a stool next to Delia, stirring something on the stove.
“Hey, ladies,” I said, coming around the edge of the counter to hug them both. “Gigi, you’re getting so big! How old are you now?”
“You ask me that every week,” said the girl, pushing out a hip and working her attitude.
“So . . . thirteen?” I teased.
Gigi rolled her eyes at me. “I’m six.”
“And very dramatic,” Delia said. “Like her mommy.” She took the baby from my arms and then looked at me for a long moment. “You’re working too hard, I can see it.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so.” When she widenedher eyes at me in frustration, I smiled and said, “I’m not, I swear!”
“This should help.” She pushed a huge glass of wine into my hand and grabbed a bottle in a chiller, nodding toward the back patio. “Let’s go out.” The girls both followed.
We sat down out back, watching the kids jump and roll around in the grass. It was cool, but the sun had shone all day and there was no breeze to set me shivering. Delia tossed me a blanket, which I wrapped across my shoulders. I sat across from Carl and Delia, noticing the way his hand drifted to her arm, how she leaned her long body toward his when he sat next to her. I could have taken a photograph of this moment and held it up to other people to explain what family looked like to me, what I thought happiness would look like. If I could find a way to articulate this exactly, you could bet your ass it’d be on my list. Every inch of me wanted some part of what they had, some ounce of warm loving familiarity where only my cold lonely apartment currently stood.
“What’s going on?” Delia’s brows furrowed and she leaned forward to peer at me, her dark eyes taking in something I didn’t know I was showing.
I shrugged. “What?” I could never hide a thing from Delia.
She took care of me in many ways, and that hadn’t stopped when she’d aged out three years ahead of me. She had still come to Wednesday dinners at Mama Gi’s house—that’s what we called our foster mom. We were lucky. Our stories weren’t the sad ones you read about,the ones that make you shake your head and curse the unfairness of “the system.”
We’d been fed, clothed, cared for, and maybe even loved. Mama Gi had done well for us, and made sure we did well for ourselves. When she died a few years after I’d left for college, it was one of the most difficult times of my life. She was the only mother I’d ever really known, even though I’d been in three foster homes before hers. I still missed her every day, still smelled gardenia when I thought about her hard enough, and she was part of the reason Delia still insisted on weekly dinner. It was Mama Gi’s tradition.
“Let’s see,” Delia said, looking me over critically. “You’re thinner—I can tell because your boobs aren’t as big as usual.”
“Why are you judging my boob size?”
“Don’t pretend we haven’t been doing that since we were twelve.” She gave me a grope and then glanced at her husband, who was covering a dark blush by lifting his wineglass to his face. “And don’t pretend you don’t know that!” she scolded him.
I laughed as Carl shook his head. He was the strong, silent type, which was probably necessary for Delia. She was the opposite of silent, but she had strength in spades.
“So you’re not eating. You’re probably spending way too much time ordering your crazy fancy coffees at work, and then staying late and trying to knock something off that stupid plan of yours. Which number are you on? What number is world domination again?”
“I’m still on number one.”
She shook her head. “You got the job. Time for numbertwo. Where’s the hot man with all the orgasms in his pocket?”
