“Oh, man! My shorts!” Spencer whined, looking down at the damage.
“I’m so sorry! I was just going to have Pop try mac and cheese with ketchup, and the next thing I know, it’s raining condiments!” she said, all wide-eyed and apologetic.
“Who eats mac and cheese with ketchup? These are my favorite shorts!” Spencer moaned.
Brick got the wash rag out of the sink and started to clean the excess ketchup from the cabinets and floor. Pop let out another wheezy chuckle that he covered with a cough. Remi earned another trembling thumbs-up as Spencer bemoaned his wardrobe’s fate.
“I feel awful,” Remi said with theatrical horror. “Run on upstairs and take them off. I think with ketchup stains you’re supposed to let them set for a few hours before washing it out. Right, Pop?”
Pop gave one enthusiastic nod, the corner of his mouth still lifted.
Spencer thundered up the stairs cursing all tomato-based condiments.
“What on earth is going on in here?” Brick’s grandmother, Dolores, demanded from the doorway. Her sterling silver cap of hair had been set in fresh curls. “It looks like a crime scene in here.”
“I swear it’s not blood. No one’s been maimed,” Remi announced, grabbing the roll of paper towels off the counter and joining Brick on the floor. “It’s just ketchup.”
“Well, what’s it doing all over my kitchen?” Gram demanded.
“It was an accident,” Brick volunteered.
Remi gave him an impish grin.
“Pop and Brick were playing tic-tac-toe, and we were all enjoying some macaroni and cheese, and I was telling them about how my friend Tammy Kim likes to eat it with ketchup, and they didn’t believe me. So I was going to have them try it, and then Spencer came in, and I guess I just lost my grip on the bottle—”
“Pop and Brick were playing tic-tac-toe?” Gram interrupted.
“And eating,” Brick added.
His grandmother nearly went misty-eyed on them as she crossed the kitchen to put her hands on her husband’s thin shoulders. She took in the bowls, the paper and marker, and dropped a kiss on the top of Pop’s bald head.
“Hair looks…nice.” Pop formed the words slowly.
“You old charmer,” Gram whispered.
Brick felt like he was intruding on a private moment and itched to give them their space. Remi must have had the same notion because she nodded her head toward the hallway.
“I’ll help you take the trash out, Brick,” she announced brightly.
She waited while he hefted the bag from the bin, then led the way to the back of the house. She held the door for him, and together they stepped out onto the back patio.
“I’ve never seen someone do that much good by telling that many lies,” he told her when they were out of earshot.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” she said cheerfully, plucking the metal lid off the trash can. He dropped the bag inside. “Teamwork makes the dream work,” she said, closing the lid and wiping her hands on the back of her shorts.
“Thanks for that in there,” he began. “All of it. Gram’s been worried about him.”
“I hardly did a thing,” she insisted. “Sometimes folks just need to remember there’s a whole lot of life left to live.”
He dipped his head and glanced down at his feet. “Well, thank you for reminding him.”
“Think Spence will forgive me for those damn shorts?” she asked, not sounding like it bothered her a bit.
“Eventually. Probably.”
“I guess I’d better get back home. I have to write an essay I told my dad I finished Friday.”
Not for the first time, he found himself at a loss for words around her. Remington Ford was a handful of trouble and sunshine.
“I guess I’ll see you around then,” he said.
She wandered into the backyard toward the gate in the fence. “You know, if you enclosed this whole porch thing, it might be a nice big living space for Pop,” she mused.
He grunted.
“Well, I’m sure we’ll be seeing lots of each other. Bye!”
He said nothing as he watched her stroll around the side of the house and let herself out through the gate.
7
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 was two. 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?