Page 85 of Under One Roof

Then she gives my shoulder a squeeze and pivots back to her store. I watch through the display window as she brings Clara into her, arms wrapped around each other, their kiss moving out of the PG rating, and I slant my gaze away, heading toward Jo’s.

I’m the first to arrive, so I order our usual and claim our booth, setting the gift bag on the table. The one I’d forgotten about in the whirlwind of everything that happened recently, but I figured I’d finally move it off the counter.

I hate clutter, and without Andi around anymore, every loose item is pointless. She might’ve brought more energy and life into my house, but now that she’s gone, everything seems out of place.

Before I can get too into my feelings about it, my siblings arrive, Taryn sitting next to me and Ian across.

“You wanna talk about it?” Ian asks, getting right to the point.

“Nope.” My siblings were always the first to know when I needed a new nanny because they helped out with the twins in the interim, but this time is different. Andi isn’t simply a nanny. She is the closest that Logan and Grace have to a mom. She is also my…everything.

I’d prefer to avoid talking about her, like I’d prefer to avoid scratching open a scab, but I have to explain the gift bag as I hand it over. “Andi had these made two weeks ago.”

With a curious lift of her brows, Taryn pulls out a frame and gasps.

“What?” Ian leans over for a peek at it. “What is it?”

“It’s Mom.” She hands it to him and then takes out another frame. “Where did she…?”

“She found a bunch of photos I didn’t even know that I had and thought we might like this one. Made a copy for each of us.”

Ian sets his photo on the table and scratches at his beard. “Yeah,” he says gruffly. “This is…”

“Incredible,” Taryn finishes.

What I don’t tell them is that when Andi handed me the small box of photos, I had a flashback. At the time Mom passed, she was living in a small apartment, and she didn’t have a whole lot of mementos for us to go through. Ian volunteered to keep the few bags and boxes at his place until we were all together to decide who would get what. Ian chose the few pieces of jewelry Mom had since Taryn was always sportier and never much for it anyway. She wanted theI Love Lucyknickknacks. It was Mom’s favorite show, and she had quite a collection. Roman was still in college, twenty years old and beside himself. I remember how he picked up this old pillow that her graduating students had given her one year with their names all over it. She loved that pillow. So Roman took that, along with the tattered baby blanket we’d all supposedly been wrapped in. By the time it came for me to decide, I didn’t care. I was pissed and sad and just wanted to be done with it. I grabbed the box without even knowing what was inside.

And since I completely forgot that I even had it until Andi found it, I have trouble not thinking that’s what was supposed to happen.

I don’t believe in kismet or fate or whatever bullshit people like to blame or credit for things happening in their lives that they feel are outside of their control. But…

Watching my brother and sister stare in wonder at Mom’s picture. Feeling my skin prick like someone is watching me.

I can’t help but wonder if Mom is with us now. If Andi was meant to find those photos. If she was meant to make me remember and somehow bring us this gift of our mother.

Both Taryn and Ian clear the air, taking sips of their coffee, but there is still one frame left. I flick the edge of the bag. “One for Roman too.”

“Anyone talk to him recently?” Taryn asks around her coffee.

Ian leans back against the booth. “Last time was for my birthday. He sounded…off.”

“Like he’s using?” I ask, and my brother shakes his head.

“He said he really wanted to come to the party but couldn’t and promised to be at the next one.”

Taryn clucks her tongue. “Huh.”

Roman never makes promises because he always inevitably breaks them.

“He seems to be doing okay, though,” Ian says then gestures to my cell phone. “Text him. Tell him about the picture.”

So I do. I snap a photo and send it to him along with a message.

Is your address still the same? I’ll mail this to you.

I start typing another message that it’s a gift from Andi, but I hesitate over the screen, unsure what to call her—My girlfriend? The kids’ nanny? My whole world?—and decide to delete it instead.

It’s not until the three of us are almost finished with our coffees that Roman replies.

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