Page 78 of Pumpkin Spice and Promises

And seeing it lit up like that made the whole thing worse and better at once, because this was the place. The lights, the barn I’d helped patch up, the porch, the loud warm family somewhere in the middle of it—this was what I wanted to belong to, and Elizabeth was the door to all of it, and I’d shut it on myself with my own two hands. I wanted her back so badly, standing there in the dusk, that it was a physical thing, a pull under the ribs.

Iris was already out there, in her chair, dressed for the evening in a way I hadn’t seen her dressed before—good wool the color of the barn’s old paint, a brooch at her collar, hair done—one hand resting easy on the porch rail, watching the light go down over the fields.

“You’re early,” she said when I was close enough, and there was nothing but warmth in it. “Ball doesn’t start for a while yet.”

“I know. I wanted to catch you before it did.”

“Well, come sit with me a minute, then.” She patted the step beside her chair, an invitation, not a test. “You look like you’ve got something on your mind.”

“Two things, actually.” I came up the steps and sat where she’d pointed. “The first is that I’m sorry. Again. I know you’ve already heard it, and I know saying it twice doesn’t make it more true, but I wanted you to have it once more before tonight, not just once in the middle of everything falling apart.”

“I know you are, Matt.” She said it simply, no test in it at all, and reached over and patted my hand where it rested near hers on the rail. “You already said the hard part where it counted. I don’t need it a third time to believe you meant it.”

“The second thing is better news. The grant came through. All of it, no conditions. It’s the family’s, to use however you decide.”

Something moved across her face then, quick and unguarded, before she got hold of it again—relief, plain and enormous, the kind that comes when a weight you’ve held alone finally sets itself down. “That,” she said, a little rough, “is very good news to get on a night like tonight.”

The screen door opened behind us, and Heather stepped out onto the porch in a soft blue dress, hair up, looking for all the world like her daughter’s older reflection standing in the doorway. She stopped when she saw me sitting there, and her expression opened into something warm and a little surprised.

“Oh my god, you’re actually here,” she said, and came the rest of the way onto the porch, and rested a hand briefly on my shoulder in passing, the kind of touch that says more than words would. “I’m glad you came. Truly.”

“I wanted your mother to hear the grant news from me. And I wanted to say I’m sorry once more, before tonight.”

“You already did the hard version of that apology, and I heard every word of it,” Heather said. “Tonight you don’t owe me another one. You owe somebody else the rest of it.” She looked toward the barn, where the lights had started catching properly now, gold coming up out of the dark like the whole building was lit from the inside. “You’d better get down there before it starts. Once it gets going you won’t find five quiet minutes with her anywhere on this property.”

I was about to answer when I heard footsteps coming up the gravel path from the direction of the barn, and Iris’s whole face lit up, years falling away from it the way they do for grandmothers waiting on somebody they love.

“There he is,” she said, already gathering her purse.

Jonas came around the bend in a dark suit that fit him like it had been cut for exactly this evening and no other, and I understood immediately why half the town found reasons to walk past wherever he was standing. He grinned when he saw me, easy and delighted, like running into me on his grandmother’s porch was the best thing that had happened to him all week.

“Look at you,” he said, stopping at the bottom of the steps. “Last time I saw you, you were escaping in the back of my hayride. This is a nice change of pace.”

“Same to you. Suits you better than the tool belt did.”

He came up the steps two at a time and pulled me into a quick, easy hug, the kind between two people who’d spent long hours on a roof together and come down friends. “Glad you’re here, man. Truly. Whatever’s going on with you and Lizzie—it’ll sort. This family sorts things eventually. Usually the hard way, but it sorts.”

“Working on that tonight.”

“Good man.” He turned to his grandmother and offered his arm with a small, exaggerated bow that made her swat at him and laugh anyway. “Shall we walk, madam? Try not to break an ankle in those shoes before we even get down the hill.”

“I have been walking this hill since before your mother was born,” Iris said, taking his arm regardless, “and I will still be walking it after you’ve gone gray, so mind your tone.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He grinned at me over her head as they started down the steps. “Go find your girl, Matt. I’ll keep an eye on this one.”

“Cheeky,” Iris told him, without any heat in it at all, and let him lead her down the path toward the barn and the lights and the noise, the two of them already bickering happily about the state of her shoes on the gravel.

Heather touched my arm once more before I went. “Go on,” she said. “You’ve done the hard part up here. Go do the harder part down there.”

I went.

Chapter 33

Elizabeth

Ihad cried enough for one lifetime as of about fourteen hours ago, so I did my mascara last, on the theory that if I put it on early it would simply be evaporated tears by the time anyone saw me.

I sat at my mother’s vanity, in a slip and bare feet, watching myself in a mirror that had watched three generations of Starling women decide whether tonight was going to be one they survived or one they actually enjoyed. Outside, past the curtain, I could already hear cars crunching up the gravel toward the barn, doors slamming, somebody’s kid shrieking with delight about something. The whole farm was getting ready to have the best night of its life, and I had spent the last few hours getting ready to have possibly the worst one of mine, which felt like poor scheduling on somebody’s part.