Page 21 of Forever Never
Despite the ever-changing outside world with its dark deeds and charming monsters, Mackinac remained solidly, stalwartly the same. There was still a chair for her at her parents’ table. Still a jar of butterscotch candies on the counter. And her father still didn’t want her getting in his way in the kitchen.
“Ouch!” Remi rubbed away the sting of the dish towel he’d snapped at her.
“Move away from the oven, Remi Honey,” he ordered, glasses steaming as he opened the door to peer at the turkey.
“Dad, I think I know how to be present in a kitchen when the oven door is open,” she said, plopping down on a stool and unwrapping a candy.
“Need I remind you about the time I told you the burner was hot, and you still lunged for it like it was a floor tater tot?” Gilbert chided, closing the door and wiping down the meat thermometer.
“I wastwo. Just like how long Mom was in labor with me, you’re not allowed to hold stuff I did at two against me.”
He reached across the counter and ruffled her hair. “Sleep okay last night in your fancy lakefront cottage? You look tired. How are you affording the rent on that place, anyway?”
There were a few things it was time to tell her family. A few things pre-broken arm she’d been excited to share. But then everything had gone to hell.
She was saved from having to answer—or lie—by the timely arrival of her sister.
“We’re here!” came the call from the front door over the noise and fuss of coats and kids.
Remi slid off the stool at the sound of her sister’s voice and bounced toward the front door.
“Coats and boots, you little heathens.”
Kimber Marigold Olson was born to be a mother. It struck Remi every time she saw her big sister with her son and daughter. Kimber had managed to inherit both their mother’s implacable calm and the everyday delight of their father. It was a perfect mix of good parenting genes. Meanwhile Remi seemed to have exploded from nowhere. The running joke was that she’d been left on their doorstep by a traveling circus.
“What did you do with Hadley and Ian?” Remi asked, feigning confusion as she leaned against a gold-toned wall and crossed her arms. “Trade them in on two taller models?”
“Aunt Remi!” Seven-year-old Ian bolted toward her with one boot on and one bare foot. He wrapped thick little arms around her and squeezed, dislodging his glasses.
“Hey, buddy! I missed you,” she said, managing to pick him up so that his feet dangled just off the floor. Her arm twinged in protest, and she plopped him back on his feet. She shoved a hand through his thick mop of chestnut hair and studied his sweet, round face.
“We missed you! Can we paint with you?” he asked. “I got a new app that analyzes and identifies the exact mixture of colors.” Her nephew was a little, round genius. He’d been programming his parents’ universal remotes at age four.
“Of course,” she promised him. She could handle that at least.Couldn’t she?
“Hi,” Hadley, ten, said quietly. She was whisper-thin and leggy. Ethereal was the word that came to Remi’s mind. Her niece had stick-straight hair that toed the line between blonde and brown, a mix of both her parents. But the eyes were all Ford. Jade green. She was going to be a stunning woman in no time at all.
Remi opened her arms, and Hadley, after the briefest of hesitations, walked into them. “Hey,” she whispered to her niece, who no longer smelled like markers and Play-Doh but of dryer sheets and hairspray.
Hadley ended the hug first and took an awkward step back. On a sigh, Remi let her escape. She’d hoped there were a few more years before little kid enthusiasm gave way to teenage apathy. But time stood still for no aunt.
She waited until Kimber had finished precisely arranging gloves in pockets before demanding a proper greeting.
“Hi,” her sister said, leaning in for a hug almost as an afterthought. “It’s nice to see you.”
Remi hugged her back firmly. “I missed you. How are you? What’s new?” she asked.
Kimber extracted herself from the hug with a perfunctory smile, and Remi felt an unexpected distance between them open up into a yawning chasm. “Everything’s fine. Just busy with the kids.”
Kimber looked exhausted as she retrieved the two casserole dishes she’d parked on Gilbert’s desk. Remi could empathize.
“Where’s Kyle?” she asked, glancing over her sister’s shoulder to the door, wondering if her brother-in-law had been left on the porch.
“He’s not coming. He worked late and didn’t feel up to being good company.” Kimber gave the explanation as though it were a speech memorized long ago.
“Where are my grandmonsters?” Darlene bellowed from the top of the stairs.
Hadley flashed a ghost of a smile toward her grandmother while Ian shrieked in mock terror and sprinted for the kitchen.
