Page 76 of Time Out

“Right.” Her head fell to my arm, and I took her weight as my dad asked us more questions.

We told him how far along she was, that we would be going to her doctor’s appointment next Tuesday. I told him I’d call Mom and my sisters as soon as he was back home with them so he could fill them in as well, and by the time Eden opened the sliding back door, it felt like things were good.

I hadn’t disappointed my dad, just surprised the hell out of him, and like I knew they would be, he was fully supportive, including happy that Maggie was moving in so we could do this together.

“Everything all right out here?” Eden asked, peeking her head through the door.

If I wasn’t mistaken, she lingered longer on Maggie as she asked before flicking her gaze toward my dad and me.

“We’re good,” I told her. “Dinner ready?”

“Been ready actually, Mama B thought you might need more time.”

“I’m starving!” Jasper’s shout, on the verge of tipping the kid into the hangry zone, echoed through the house, and Eden flinched.

“Can’t keep Jasper waiting,” I said and went to guide Maggie toward the door.

We entered, and Eden hadn’t been lying.

The food was all on the table, the dishes covered with towels and lids to keep them warm and everyone’s drinks had been moved to their places. An extra leaf settled into the table to make it longer and like we’d done every family home dinner time since the fall with their neighbor and good family friend Marley passed away, there was a small bouquet of lilies laid across the place setting where Marley had always sat.

I ushered Maggie inside and to the chair next to me, where she’d had a glass of lemonade set for her, and held out her chair. “Sorry for the wait.”

“No apologies necessary.” Mama B slid into her own chair at the foot of the table while Dave pulled out his at the head. Across the table from me, Cole was standing with Eden at his side, Jasper on his other. “Good?”

“Perfect.” I grinned down at Maggie, kissed the top of her head and took my seat.

I wasn’t hiding secrets from my dad, he actually liked Maggie as I knew he would, and the rest of the family would come with time.

Chapter 23

Maggie

Dinner was an event, and while I was used to large family meals, it’d definitely been a few years, and back then, we’d all been kids, proper, kind and gentle manners forced on everyone so even though we were only seven adults and a child, the meal was much louder, much more chaotic with Cole’s mom telling stories about his and Graham’s childhood, sprinkling in memories of their friend, Marley. I’d wondered about the empty seat on the other side of Eden and was quickly filled in on her passing.

“That was what brought Eden back to town actually,” Mama B said. “Which only further proves to me that beautiful things can come from any darkness.”

“Thanks, Mama B.”

Kate, I learned, refused to allow anyone younger than her to call her by her name and instead, preferred Mama B.

“Stop thanking me, Eden. You know we love you.”

“How’d you all meet?” I might as well have dropped a bomb into the center of the kitchen table for as cool as the room turned.

“Um.” Eden glanced at Cole, and their eyes locked for a moment too long before they both laughed. “Silly,” Eden said, still laughing. “We’ve known each other since high school and the rest, truly, is the longest story of all time.”

“And not nearly appropriate for the dinner table,” Dave said. “At least not certain parts. Sorry.” He glanced at me. “It’s a happy ending with a lot of difficult parts for some of us to still talk about. You’ll learn, though, in time.”

Jasper, across the table and who was in kindergarten, talked around a bite of green beans. “Someone died. Eden left. Mom had me, and then Eden came back to help Miss Marley while she was dying, and now Dad and Mom don’t really like each other, and then Marley died. And it sounds bad, but it’s not all that bad because we all still have each other, right?”

He chewed his beans, and everyone’s eyes widened, including Davis’s. His hand he’d had resting on my thighs for most of the meal, tightened in a way that wasn’t so much about comfort but surprise.

It was Jim that spoke first, clearing his throat and taking in the frozen pulse of everyone around him.

“Sounds like you gotta lot of love in your life, Jasper. And you’re right… as long as you got that in your life, you can pretty much get through everything.”

“Sounds about right, Jim.” Dave raised his glass toward him. My gaze ping-ponged around the table, trying to take in what everyone else was thinking, but it was Mama B and Eden, who were staring at that empty place setting with tears in their eyes but smiles curling their lips that was a punch to my chest.

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