“Nothing,” he added, throwing the truck back into gear.“It’s a surprise.That’s all.”
“Oookay.”
I twirled the keyring again, unsettled.First my aunt’s mysterious “heart attack,” now Mr.Cryptic having a whole moment over a flower shop.
We turned down a red-dirt driveway and rumbled up toward the house on the hill.The place rose ahead of us—dormer windows, wrap-around porch, weathered boards that had seen decades of Texas summers.Alice’s Cadillac still sat in the drive, sun glinting off the hood.
Mac killed the engine.For a moment we sat in silence, both staring at the house.
Memories rushed in on a tide of scent and sound—baking chocolate chip cookies, spice cake cooling on wire racks, the crackle of a winter fire even when outside was barely jacket weather.The wheeze of the old piano as Alice coaxed music from its yellowed keys.The bang of the screen door as neighbors came and went carrying casserole dishes and gossip.
The white rocker on the porch swayed faintly in the morning breeze.I could almost see my aunt there—telling stories about fairies and knights and hidden places between worlds where magic still lingered if you knew how to listen.
Potted flowers spilled color over the porch rail.Somehow, even without Alice, they were thriving.Of course they were.
A skinny orange tabby with an outrageously fluffy tail hopped off the porch steps, stretched luxuriously, and sat, fixing us with bright golden eyes.
“Who’s been feeding the cat?”I asked.
“I have.”
I turned to stare.“You?”
“Well, I couldn’t let her starve.”He shrugged, like it was nothing.“She’s a good mouser, but she doesn’t eat them.”He hesitated.“Should I come in with you?”
My first instinct was to say no.This house was memories and ghosts and grief—none of which I wanted to unpack in front of a guy I half-recognized and half-suspected.
But the idea of walking into Alice’s house alone after ten years made my chest feel tight.
“Sure,” I said.“You can come.”
We climbed out of the truck.The cat trotted over and bumped her head against my shin, purring like a tiny engine.
“You’re a friendly one, aren’t you?”I murmured, bending to scratch between her ears.The cat wound figure eights around my ankles.“What’s her name?”
“Willow,” Mac said.“She was abandoned.Showed up on Alice’s doorstep one day, so Alice took her in.”
Of course, she had.Aunt Alice collected strays—plants, people, apparently cats.
We ascended the porch steps.Mac pulled open the old wood screen door, and I unlocked the front door with fingers that didn’t feel entirely steady.
The musty scent of a closed-up house hit me first—dust, old wood, and underneath it all the faint sweet ghost of Alice’s lavender cleaning spray.
Willow padded in ahead of us, tail high, as if welcoming us to her kingdom.
The living room was frozen in time.Two sofas facing each other with a scarred coffee table between them.An oversized chair.Entertainment center and television on one end.Bookshelves sagging under the weight of long-loved paperbacks and hardcovers.The fireplace on the other with the mantel lined with framed photos.
One in particular drew me in like a magnet.
I crossed the room and picked it up.The little girl—me—in a pink tutu, grinning at the camera, Alice’s arm around my shoulders.I remembered the sparkly tights, the plastic tiara, the way my aunt had clapped louder than anyone in the audience.
Other family photos dotted the mantel—my mother, Iris, Clay, even my dad—but there were far more of me than anyone else.And sometimes I wondered if it was more than “proud aunt” but that seemed ridiculous.
“I always thought you were her favorite,” Mac said quietly from behind me.
“I don’t know why,” I murmured.“I never thought I was special.”
“But she did.”
