Page 80 of Where It All Began
Phoebe smiled as she scrawled the directions and prominent milestones on the paper. “I’m happy to save a life today.”
“If you’re ever in Hastings, Connecticut, looking for Italian food, I have a restaurant, and you’ll eat for free,” he promised. “Amore Italian.”
Phoebe handed the paper and pencil over. “I’ll keep that in mind,” she promised.
“It’s amazing food,” the girl in the front seat announced.
“You won’t regret it.”
“He’s crap with directions but magic in the kitchen.” The girls poured the praise on, love over a glossy coat of annoyance, and Phoebe smiled. At least for some, life was beautifully, blessedly normal right now.
The man grinned up at her. “Disaster averted. You have my eternal gratitude, my directional angel of rural upstate New York.”
She laughed again, surprised that she was still capable. “It was my pleasure, lost stranger. Good luck on your travels.”
A van bumped past them down the lane, and Phoebe spotted three of the kids that made up the Wild Nigels, Blue Moon’s best—and only—garage band.
“We’ll let you get back to your celebration,” he said.
It wasn’t a celebration. It was how Blue Moon mourned. She wanted to tell him that but wanted more for the man to have his peace with his daughters. Phoebe waved as they eased down the lane toward the road. She watched them pull out of the drive before starting back the lane to survey the chaos that was her yard and house.
People poured out onto the porch into the front yard. Tables had magically appeared under the ancient oak and were laden with miles of food and gallons of alcohol. There was one measly case of water in a sea of beer and wine.
Phoebe pressed her fingers to her lips, swamped with feeling.
It really was a celebration. John Pierce, that beautiful man, had lived a beautiful life. And his friends and neighbors had turned out to mark the occasion and to show their support. She wasn’t alone. No one ever really was in Blue Moon.
She was surrounded, smothered in love freely given. She was woven into the fabric of this town as tightly as if she’d been born here. The town that had saved her family and given her the option to stay.
She’d given back in every way she could think of. She’d been a founding member of the Beautification Committee, finding creative ways to improve the quality of life for townspeople, including a little matchmaking here and there. Seven years ago, she and John had started up Blue Moon’s farmer’s market on a trial run, and it had been going strong ever since, occupying every square inch of One Love Park Sundays from spring to fall. And, as Mrs. Nordemann and Elvira had once done for her, she’d spent countless nights stepping in for other exhausted couples with small children.
It was a joy to be able to give that kind of support when it was most needed. And that’s what all these wonderful people were doing in her yard.
Elvira whistled from the front porch, two glasses of wine in her hands. She raised one in Phoebe’s direction, and Phoebe decided she couldn’t think of anything she wanted more in the moment.
She threaded her way through the growing throng, accepting hugs and condolences as she went. John’s middle school biology teacher, who gave him a C in ninth grade, was there as was the librarian who talked Jax into entering the poetry competition last year. Ernest Washington, the man who’d shown every one of her boys how to change the oil in their cars, was perched on a cooler, harmonica in hand.
Everyone was there.
Her boys found her on the porch, and there was something softer than the keen edge of grief in them all, she thought.
An impromptu wake with equal parts tears and laughter was good medicine. Her heart felt impossibly lighter as if she could feel John smiling down on her at the chaos that reigned in the yard.
Chapter Thirty
In the dark, Phoebe spotted a lone figure skulking up the steps of the side porch. She’d know that shadow anywhere.
She waited in the shadows of the porch until the figure had put down the parcel just outside the screen door.
“You leave that cake there, and some drunken mourner is going to step in it,” Phoebe said mildly, stepping into the moonlight.
“Shit. You scared the hell out of me, Phoebe.” Joey Greer didn’t look scared. She looked downright miserable. Phoebe held out her arms, and with the briefest of hesitations, Joey stepped into them. Still after all these years and so much heart ache, she counted this girl a daughter.
She’d been woven into the fabric of their family since the first day of kindergarten in Jax’s class. And once upon a time, she’d loved Jax with everything that an eighteen-year-old heart was capable of. An accident, a bad choice, and those days were over. Jax had picked up and left in the middle of the night, and Joey hadn’t seen him in the three years since. Phoebe knew coming here tonight knowing that Jax was here had cost the girl.
“What kind of cake is it?” Phoebe whispered into Joey’s chestnut hair.
“Pineapple upside down.”
