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“Mmm,” Bryce hummed. She’d learned this was the best way to handle her nieces’ unanswerable questions. “Get your shoes on, Cecily. We don’t need another pair of ripped tights.”
Cecily grumbled about the fact she liked ripped tights better, but Bryce ignored the argument bait. Last time she’d forgotten tights, Cecily had a meltdown when Bryce offered to go back and get them. The middle Weatherford girl was the easiest by far, so she tried to be patient with her quirks.
“Shoes on, Cici.”
Pouting, Cecily slid on her dingy, untied sneakers over her pink tights. When Bryce opened the door, it was like releasing a greyhound. Her niece blew past the other parents and kids, blasting toward the dome-shaped building of Dancing Through Life.
“See you after class.” She waved to her nieces, blowing Addison the required number of air-kisses—three—and trying not to growl at June as the tween rolled her eyes and sauntered away without a goodbye or a backward glance.
“If she rolls her eyes at me one more time, I swear…” Bryce muttered under her breath and was startled when a singsong voice behind her answered.
“Swearing won’t help,” said Imani Lewis, the girls’ dance teacher and the studio’s owner. The woman’s chestnut hair was pulled into a ponytail, and her eyes glittered with mischief as she hugged Bryce in greeting. “I teach enough teens to know, and who can blame them for the attitude? Middle school is terrible. But I think your nieces—and you—are doing fine, all things considered. It just takes time.”
Bryce felt sudden moisture in her eyes and blinked furiously, caught off guard by Imani’s heartfelt comment. The dance teacher had extended a hand in friendship when they’d met, telling Bryce how she’d lost her own mother in high school and offering to help with the girls anytime.
Bryce smiled. “Thanks, Imani. Do you need me to stay, or—”
“We’ll call if we need you.” Imani made a “shoo” gesture. “You go enjoy some ‘me’ time. Maybe grab a milkshake at the Texas Hot? That always makes me feel better. I’ve got Lactaid if you need it.”
“I think I’m going to go for a run. Clear my head.”
Imani nodded enthusiastically. “Great idea. See you in an hour.”
From her pocket, Bryce pulled a ring of keys as full as if she were a medieval jailer. She flipped through the ones for PattyCakes and the upstairs apartment she and the girls rented from Patty, the one to her post office box, and finally past the one for her Jet Ski, which she’d left, along with her single life, floating forlornly in the Tampa Bay region. Plucking off her car’s key fob, she stripped down to the sports tank and leggings she’d worn under her clothes. She’d been hoping to grab time for a run. Spring days in Western New York were unpredictable, with snow one week followed by balmy and warm days, like today. It would have been a shame to miss out on some fresh air and exercise. Stuffing her car’s key fob into her leggings, she set off.
Ten minutes later, Bryce felt the tension of the day, the week, the past half year, lessening. It was temporary; as soon as she stopped running, she’d become Aunt Beamer, with the hectic-craziness that title now entailed.
She jogged over the curved bridge above the dance studio, turning toward Maple Avenue. Her lungs burned, and thoughts of running with her brother—he’d always help her train for soccer season—flooded her mind, making her smile.
“C’mon, baby sis—you’re tougher than that. Show me who runs this field,” Bentley would say as she’d race against him in suicide sprints, using his words and his presence to encourage her. He was always there for her, but especially in sports, making it to every soccer game, even after he’d graduated high school. Bentley was her support, her person to make her challenge herself. Dig deeper. Be better.
But now he was gone.
Unbidden, thoughts of that night came to her. She’d been at work, prepping for dinner, when her cell phone rang. On her stove simmered her latest creation, toasted orzo chicken soup, named for the way she roasted the orzo in butter before cooking it, lending a nutty, caramelized flavor to the soup. When she’d seen it was Bentley calling, she’d immediately answered, grinning.
“Hey, Bentley. Wish you were here to taste tonight’s soup. You’re missing out—”
Another man’s voice interrupted, his tone solemn.
“This is Sheriff O’Grady from the Wellsville Police Department, and there’s been an accident. You were listed in Bentley Weatherford’s cell phone under emergency contact?”
All the kitchen sounds receded.
“Yes. I’m his sister. What happened? Is he okay?”
Then, before Bryce was ready for his next phrase, it was on her, strangling the breath from her lungs. “I’m sorry to inform you Bentley Weatherford and his wife, Heather, were in a head-on collision with a driver who ran a stop sign. His wife is in critical condition, but Bentley…he died on impact.”
The sheriff’s voice continued, telling her facts she heard but didn’t absorb until later: Heather was on life support in the hospital, the children were not in the vehicle during the accident, and the at-fault, uninsured driver of the other vehicle had also perished. Bryce had stood there, ladle dripping toasted orzo chicken soup in scalding-hot splats down her arm, leaving raindrop-shaped welts she didn’t feel and wouldn’t notice until the next day as she boarded the plane for New York, where the process of burying Bentley and understanding the ramification of his death began…
Bryce stumbled, remembering that horrific weekend and the surreal funerals that followed, first Bentley and then, a few days later, his wife, Heather, who had finally succumbed to her injuries. After the funerals, their will was read and Bryce discovered she’d been named as her nieces’ guardian. Her shock was probably as profound as Harvey and Adele Payne’s—the girls’ maternal grandparents—as they discovered they were the executor to the meager estate but had no guardianship role.
That’s when the lawyering up began.
Her mouth twisted, recalling how her formerly plump nest egg from working as a sauté chef in Tampa had shriveled to the size of a jelly bean. Despite her job at PattyCakes and the occasional catering clients she booked, Bryce knew that when the judge viewed her budget in the custody trial next month it would be glaringly obvious that the funds going out were greater than the funds coming in.
“The court will look at three prongs in this guardianship challenge,” Lillian Goodwin, her attorney, had said. “Who has been in the children’s lives? Where do the kids want to go? And who can support them best, both financially and otherwise?”
Bryce had lived in Tampa until recently, so the only times she had been in the girls’ lives was on her vacations to New York, or when the family came down to Disney World. Being local, the Paynes had a larger claim on the girls’ past. As for the second prong, she knew her nieces had initially been enthusiastic about living with their aunt. However, that feeling cooled considerably when Bryce began enforcing rules, like chores and homework done before using electronics. Now the maternal grandparents were the “fun” ones.
