Page 42 of Twelve
The smile never left her face. “Youdolook like your mother, don’t you? That hair. And those cheekbones! When I was your age, I would have killed for those cheekbones.”
Given that she was the best shot in this family, I wasn’t entirely certain she was exaggerating.
“I’m Sawyer,” I said, trying to wrap my mind around the greeting I’d gotten from a woman my mom had always referred to as the Ice Queen.
“Of course you are,” came the immediate reply, warm as whiskey. “I’m your Aunt Olivia, and that’s William Faulkner. She’s a purebred Bernese mountain dog.”
I’d recognized the breed. What I hadn’t recognized, however, was that William Faulkner wasfemale.
“Where’s Lillian?” I asked, feeling like I’d well and truly fallen down the rabbit hole.
Aunt Olivia hooked the fingers on her right hand through William Faulkner’s collar and reflexively straightened her pearls with the left. “Let’s get you inside, Sawyer. Are you hungry? Youmustbe hungry.”
“I just ate,” I replied. “Where’s Lillian?”
My aunt ignored the question. She was already retreating back into the house. “Come on, William Faulkner. Good girl.”
My grandmother’s kitchen was the size of our entire house. I half expected my aunt to ring for the cook, but it quickly became apparent that she considered the feeding of other people to be both a pastime and a spiritual calling. Nothing I said or did could dissuade her from making me a sandwich.
Refusing the brownie might have been taken as a declaration of war.
I was a big believer in personal boundaries, but I was also a believer in chocolate, so I ignored the sandwich, took a bite of the brownie, and then asked where my grandmother was.
Again.
“She’s out back with the party planner. Can I get you something to drink?”
I put the brownie back down on my plate. “Party planner?”
Before my aunt could answer, the boy who’d had me in his sights earlier appeared in the kitchen. “Lily says it’s bad manners to threaten fratricide,” he announced. “So she didn’t threaten fratricide.”
He helped himself to the seat next to mine and eyed my sandwich. Without a word, I slid it toward him, and he began devouring it with all the verve of a little Tasmanian devil wearing a blue polo shirt.
“Mama,” he said after swallowing. “What’s fratricide?”
“I imagine it’s what one’s sister very pointedly doesnotthreaten when one attempts to shoot her with a Nerf gun.” Aunt Olivia turned back to the counter. It took me about three seconds to realize that she was makinganother sandwich.“Introduce yourself, John David.”
“I’m John David. It’s a pleasure to meet you, madam.” For a trigger-happy kid, he was surprisingly gallant when it came to introductions. “Are you here for the party?”
I narrowed my eyes slightly. “What party?”
“Incoming!” A man swept into the room. He had presidential hair and a face made for golf courses and boardrooms. I would have pegged him as Aunt Olivia’s husband even if he hadn’t bent to kiss her cheek. “Fair warning: I saw Greer Richards making her way down the street on my way in.”
“GreerWaters, now,” my aunt reminded him.
“Ten to one odds GreerWatersis here to check up on the preparations for tonight.” He helped himself to the sandwich that Aunt Olivia had been making for me.
I knew it was futile, but I couldn’t help myself. “What’s happening tonight?”
Aunt Olivia began making a third sandwich. “Sawyer, this rapscallion is your Uncle J.D. Honey, this isSawyer.”
My aunt said my name in a way that made me 100 percent certain they’d discussed me, probably on multiple occasions, possibly as a problem that required a gentle hand to solve.
“Is this the part where you tell me I look like my mother?” I asked, my voice dry as a desert. My uncle was looking at me the same way his wife had, the way my grandmother had.
“This,” he told me solemnly, “is where I welcome you to the family and ask you, quite seriously, if I just stole your sandwich.”
The doorbell rang. John David was off like a rocket. All it took was a single arch of my aunt’s eyebrow before her husband was on their son’s heels.
