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“Mom, you can’t let Julian do all the work! He’ll burn the patties and we won’t be able to eat anything!” Elle complained.
“Well, maybe you should try helping out instead of just pretending to,” he shot back playfully.
Mom’s laughter wafted over their bickering like a soothing balm, and I couldn’t help but smile at the familiar sound. The years were starting to show by the creases on her face, but her eyes still held that same twinkle as they did many years ago. She had also traded in her monotonous neutral outfits for a more festive, jewel-toned blouse and jeans. A bright stone hung from a golden chain around her neck, catching the light as she laughed.
“Oh, Ollie’s here!”
Mom hugged me tight and kissed my cheek as if I still was a preschooler. “Hi Mom, how are you?” I panted.
I had almost forgotten where Elle got her strength.
“You have to try my new recipe!” she told me excitedly. “I tried to get these kids to go vegan but they won’t listen to me. Well, I still had to modify it so they don’t end up messing up their energies.”
All of a sudden, I eyed the appetizing burger she had placed on my plate with some suspicion.What exactly did Mom mean by “modify”?
“Don’t look at it like that,” Elle grinned. “It’s still a burger, and although it might not be what you’re used to, it’s still pretty good!”
I took a bite of the burger when Julian added, “The ground moonstone actually brings out the subtle nuances of the beef’s flavor.”
I almost choked on the mouthful I had bitten off but Mom just laughed and waved to the others to take their seats. It did taste different but it wasn’t totally horrible. Actually, it tasted prettygood, although I can’t be too sure I could comfortably digest grounded stones.
“Julian was just kidding around. I just added a couple of herbs to hopefully negate the effects of all that meat,” Mom explained. She looked at us wistfully and smiled, her fingers curling around her pendant. “This feels just like old times. I can feel so much positive energy now that everyone’s here.”
“Not quiteeveryone,” my best friend grinned. “You know, A—ow!”
He glared at Elle, who was looking at him oddly before she let out a strange laugh. “You big glutton! You still haven’t helped me out with the…um, the…the chairs!”
“What chairs?” he replied around a mouthful of burger. My sister continued to glare at him before he got up like he just realized something. “Oh, right.Thosechairs.”
I looked around and strangely enough, there were four chairs in the garden. Just enough for all of us.
“I think we’ve got enough chairs, Sis,” I told her. “I can help you guys out, though.”
“No!” Elle and Julian said, almost at the same time.
“You need to spend more time with Mom,” she explained. “You’ve been gone a really long time. We’ll be back before you know it.”
I looked at her like she had just grown another head. “Okay…”
Mom looked a little confused for a moment before she turned her attention back to me. “So, what do you think of the burger?”
“I think it’s great, Mom. Not exactly what I’m used to, but still great.”
I looked up to where my sister and best friend had disappeared. They were fine a moment ago, and then they just started acting…weird.
“When I first got into alternative healing, I realized how much we’d been doing wrong all this time,” Mom confided in me. “It took me quite some time, and you know your sister, she thought it was all nonsense at first.”
Correction—Elle still thought it was all nonsense. She’d just stopped expressing that to spare Mom’s feelings. My sister can be nice sometimes, although she’s a real pain most of the time.
Still, I couldn’t believe my little sister was actually gettingmarried. Like, somebody actually wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.
Wow.
“You look a bit peaked,” Mom told me. “Besides, you’ve had a long flight. Would you like me to bring you some warm milk with turmeric?”
I winced at the memory of the guy who sat next to me on the plane. Not exactly the worst flight of my life, but still…
I smiled at Mom. “Yeah. I guess I do need to catch up on some sleep. I got to look good for the wedding. I mean, Elle would kill me if I walked in looking like a zombie.”
