Page 2 of Honeycombs & Homecomings

She frowned. “I’m sorry?”

“Does this mean we can take that couch now and you won’t give us any trouble?”

“What couch?”

“What do you mean, what couch?” He pointed toward the family room. “The one you were laying on in the other room.”

Oh no.

She signaled with a sweep of her arm in the direction he’d just pointed. “Show me.”

He rolled his eyes, but lead the way. They entered the sitting room a moment later, and he froze. She almost slammed into the back of him, but did a quick side-step. The couch came into view as did her twin sister, Alice.

Allie sat in the middle of the high-back sofa their father had made, knees up under her, an arm draped over the high-back, red hair splayed across the olive-green fabric, as she held it in a death grip. She pointed at a man standing on the far side, hands on his hips. “I told you, you can’t have it. Now get lost.”

“Allie!” Jo rushed forward. “What are you doing?”

The man she’d followed in, and the one at the end of the couch, both did double takes as they looked from Alice to Jo and back again. The movers were from out of town.

“There’s two of them?” The man at the end of the couch said.

Alice pointed at the man Jo had followed in. “Hulk here was just going to get his boss to tell on me.”

Jo placed her hands on her hips. “Allie, get off. This isn’t our furniture anymore; we’ve made a deal.”

Allie rested her head on the backrest. “Well . . . they, they can’t have this one.”

The Hulk stepped to her side. “You two look exactly alike.”

Allie glared at him. “We’re twins, genius.”

Jo flicked her arm.

“Ouch.” Allie flinched.

“Don’t be rude.”

They had been told they looked “exactly” the same since as long as Jo could remember. From the tops of the red heads that they’d inherited from their mother, to their sapphire blue eyes they’d gotten from their father and all the way to their toes, which they’d gotten from who knows where, (both parents had large feet by comparison,) they were the same. And not just in their appearance, but in their mannerisms.

There were two people in their lives who’d been able to tell them apart. The first was their father, and the secondwasn’ttheir mother.

The only thing that really differentiated the two was their personalities and temperaments. Like their mother, Allie had flair. For example, their mother called their hair color ginger champagne, and her sister called it strawberry ginger.

Jo called it red—though part of the reason she did that was a deep-seated joy of irritating them. Her father had understood that.

She swallowed thick at the thought of him.

“I’m not letting them take this one.” Allie tightened her grip on the back of the couch, the large t-shirt she wore swallowing her and making her seem so small and fragile. And Jo could now see that her eyes were red and puffy—just like their mom’s eyes had been.

A lump formed in her throat, but she cleared it and put on her mask of indifference. Someone had to hold it together, and it wasn’t going to be her mother, Clara, or Allie. Jo turned to the Hulk. “Fine, take her, too.”

“What?” Allie loosened her grip.

“If she won’t get off, just carry it out with her on it.” Jo signaled to the door. “Trust me, once you start closing the door on the truck, she’ll move off it faster than a one-legged man in a butt-kicking competition.”

Allie glared at her.

The men shrugged, lifted the couch and left the room with Allie on it. Jo followed to the hall as they carried it and her sister out the front door and down the stairs. Before they could climb the ramp, Allie was off and marching up the stairs to house again.

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