Page 13 of Coming Home for Fall 2
“I just thought you seemed a little… peppy. You know how some women look all glowy when they are with child or whatever.”
“If anything, that should be a sign that I’mnotpregnant. I love my children more than anything in the world, but I didn’t love being pregnant. Not even a little bit.” She took a sip fromher water. “You remember how sick I was, and how bad my skin broke out? It was rough.”
“Okay, not pregnant. Got it. But the good news is that your skin looks great these days.”
“Thanks,” she laughed. “I’m wearing this expensive concealer my friend Estelle bought and then ended up not using. She’s the kind of rich where she doesn’t return things. It’s too much work. So she’s always giving me all this fancy stuff she doesn’t want or clothes that don’t fit her.”
Mallory whistled. “Sounds nice. Where’d you meet her?”
“At a publishing event,” Ariel said. “She runs her own publishing house actually.”
“Why were you at a publishing event?”
Ariel waved a hand in the air. “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you about it later. Right now, I need to figure out what I’m eating because I skipped breakfast and I’m starting to get that shaky, low-blood sugar feeling.” She opened her menu and scanned the items. “I haven’t been here before, but I’ve heard that they have really good omelets.”
“I’m not super hungry,” Mallory said.
“Why? Did you eat before coming out here?”
“Not really, but I stopped for coffee on the way here and it’s not sitting all that calmly in my stomach.”
Ariel cocked her head to the side. “Are you sure you don’t want to get some food? It’s on me.”
Mallory tried not to seem too relieved when her sister said this, but she did pick up her own menu again and started to look through the offerings more seriously. The waitress came back and Ariel went ahead and ordered both of them mimosas and coffee.
“A mimosa?” Mallory asked when the waitress walked away. “I thought you didn’t believe in having alcohol in the morning.”
“That was the old me.” Ariel grinned. “The new me loves a good mimosa.” She shrugged. “Besides, the kids are going to be at school until after 5. They all signed up for various sports and clubs this fall, so they are busy little bees.”
“Nice. That means a lot more free time for you, right?”
“Right. And I’ve been filling that free time with all sorts of fun stuff.” Mallory opened her mouth to ask a follow-up question, but Ariel shook her head. “No, no, more on that later as well. First things first, let’s talk about this so-called emergency you lied about.” She narrowed her eyes at her sister. “I don’t see any broken bones or visible wounds, so I’m going to guess you’re at least physically okay. Which, to be honest, was my initial assumption. If you were having a true crisis, I wouldn’t be the first person you’d text.”
“You might be!” Mallory said defensively. “Although, now that I know you wouldn’t take my emergency seriously, maybe I will put you lower down on the list.”
“Just tell me what’s going on. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Mallory said. “It’s not about me. It’s about mom and dad.”
Ariel’s smile fell. “What about them? Are they okay? Is someone sick?”
“No, no, it’s nothing like that.” Mallory pushed past the little twinge of guilt for calling her sister all the way out there for what could very well end up being nothing. “There’s just something going on at the house that I think you and Taylor should know about. Mom has decided to sponsor this single mother who was living in a homeless shelter for a while.”
“Uh—okay. What exactly does that mean?”
“She let the woman move into the house with her nine-month-old baby. They’ve been there for a couple weeks already, but the woman is… shady.”
Ariel gave her a look. “Shady how?”
“She’s really cagey when you ask her questions about her past,” Mallory explained. “And mom doesn’t have any information about her either. She doesn’t even know what shelter the woman was staying in! There’s no paperwork or anything. I swear, it seems like this woman just showed up on their doorstep and asked to live there.”
“Dad wouldn’t let that happen.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” said Mallory. “But dad wasn't really involved in any of the logistics. He let mom take the reins, and he doesn’t seem to know much about it. Which is also weird, don’t you think? Why would he let a stranger come and live in their house without doing more research? That’s not like him at all.”
“Yeah, you’re right about that.” She didn’t sound all that concerned though. “But it’s not necessarily a bad thing if dad’s mellowed out with that kind of thing as he’s gotten older. He used to stress aboutevery little detailwhen we would go on family trips and stuff. Do you remember all the research he did when we were thinking about getting a dog? He drove himself mad and was going to take the rest of us with him if mom hadn’t called off the idea entirely.”
“God, I wish they had just adopted a dog instead,” Mallory mumbled.
