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“Aren’t you going?” she asked her son.
“I was waiting for you,” he said.
She could see Riley’s eyes looking at her in the rearview mirror, big and far too serious for an eight-year-old.
Riley was the image of his father. Except Mac had never looked like that. Never so serious or grave. Not even when he knew he was dying.
Riley felt the death of his father particularly deep. Felt the burden of becoming the man of the house, and she could talk about gender roles and how that was outdated and all kinds of things, but it wouldn’t change the weight that little boy had taken onto his shoulders. That was another thing she put at Chase’s door. Because it was the kind of thing Chase acted like mattered. This man of the house stuff. And he’d stepped in like he... Like he practically owned the place.
Lydia hadn’t asked for another man around the house. Frankly, she’d been ready to...
She’d been ready to try life without one.
“Let’s go,” she said to Riley.
They got out of the car, and she did her best to smile. She’d never been effusive, even back before. So it wasn’t like she had to perform overmuch now. It was sort of a relief. Ruby waited for her, didn’t go parading down the steps at a breakneck pace or anything like that. She just sort of stood there.
Sosubduedfor her younger sister.
Lord.
When Mac had first died, there had been a lot to do. Life involved a lot of paperwork, death even more. During that time her parents had talked about it, had helped with the practicalities.
But those were long since managed, and now they didn’t talk about it, because they didn’t have to.
But Ruby... Ruby was giving her big, sad eyes that made Lydia want to yell at her.
Because Ruby hadn’t been here for the last six months. She’d come for the funeral and gone back to school and then on to England, and now she was standing there expectantly when Lydia just wanted to have dinner after a long day.
“How are you?”
“Not fragile,” Lydia said, harder than she’d intended.
Ruby’s eyes widened a fraction. “Okay. That’s good to know.”
Ruby bent down and scooped Hazel up, kissing her dark hair. Hazel looked so joyous and carefree, and for a moment, Lydia was frozen by a deep sense of jealousy. Jealousy that her daughter could feel happiness like that.
Jealousy that for a moment Hazel didn’t have to feel burdened by reality.
Great. You’re a wonderful mother, Lydia. You resent your daughter’s happiness.Yoursix-year-old child’s happiness.
She walked into her parents’ house, and she did her best to leave some of her angst behind. She just needed to get her head on straight and to be in the moment, because all of her problems would still be waiting for her when she got back.
When she walked in, the scent of pot roast enveloped her, and her sisters were already seated at the table. And in that moment she felt alone in this room full of people because no one really knew her. Not anymore. No one understood this.
She didn’t even understand.
She took a breath and fixed a small smile to her face. “Is there something I can help with, Mom?”
“We have it all ready,” her mom said, waving a hand, which, as far as Lydia knew, meant that her mother wasn’t allowing anyone to pitch in.
So Lydia ignored her and elbowed her way into the tiny kitchen area, going ahead and stirring the pot of gravy on the stove. Then she transferred the rolls to a basket, and set them at the center of the table, pouring the gravy into her mother’s cream-colored gravy boat imprinted with geese wearing heart charms and blue ribbons.
She helped put a matching set of plates on the table, and by the time she was finished with that, dinner was served.
“Did you kill the fatted calf?” Dahlia asked from her position down at the end of the table, and Lydia’s lips twitched.
Ruby might not exactly be the prodigal, but it was a close enough approximation.
