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“Better than I am.”
“I’d hope so. Her husband was a douchebag, Mom, and he didn’t die. Big difference.”
“I know, but there’s still grief in divorce.”
“They tell you that in group therapy?”
“How’d you know?” Claire smiled brightly. “I think they were also supposed to tell you that at medical school, smarty-pants.”
Laney opened her mouth to point out that med school was actually quite a long time ago, and counselling wasn’t a significant part of the curriculum anyway, but she was interrupted by what sounded like a stampede of elephants coming down the stairs.
“SLOW DOWN. Seriously, Connor, you’re going to kill your brother. Max, don’t push him.”
As if they hadn’t heard their mother, two very excited little boys slid into the kitchen on sock feet and bounced into the new arrival.
“Aunt Laney, Aunt Laney, you’re here!”
“Did you bring us presents?”
“We’re going to get a tree today!”
“Do you want to see a magic trick?”
“You can sleep in our room if you want.”
“We’ve been really good, don’t listen to mom.”
Laney collapsed into a pile of excited chatter with two of her most favourite people and beamed up at her older sister. “Hey! So we’re getting a tree today?”
Connor poked her in the shoulder. “Don’t forget about the presents.”
Evie hauled him off the floor with a gentle reminder that eight-year-old boys should mind their manners and set good examples for their little brothers by offering to help make breakfast before they start asking about presents.
“Would you like some cardboard pancakes, Aunt Laney?”
“Why yes, Connor, I would, thank you. I love cardboard.” She winked at Evie. “No cheat days over the holidays, sis?”
“Maybe for Christmas morning. But you’re here for ten days. If we ate crap that long, we wouldn’t have any energy to tromp through the bush, or have snowball fights, would we guys?”
Max pulled on Laney’s hand. She bent down and he whispered in her ear, “I don’t mind the pancakes. Grandma lets us have as much maple syrup as we want.”
“Good to know,” she whispered back.
Max was right. With enough syrup, the pancakes made from egg whites, oats and cottage cheese didn’t taste bad at all.
After breakfast, Laney cleared the table and ran the dishwasher. As she wiped down the counter, Evie came into the kitchen dressed in yoga pants and a long sleeve t-shirt with a puffy down vest over top. Her long blond hair was pulled into a high ponytail. They shared the same blue eyes and fair colouring, but Laney didn’t see the faint lines on her older sister that she could feel on her own face. It might be time for Botox. “Where are you off to?”
“I have to run into town for a bit, I’ve got a group Pilates session at the studio and we’re low on groceries. I’ll show you the app I use on my phone, you can add stuff to the list before I get to the store.”
“Multi-tasking mom, eh?”
Evie paused and grinned. “And loving every second of it. Little did I know that divorce would be the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“I want to hear all about that later. What should I do while you’re gone?”
“Convince the boys to get dressed? We’ll go to the bush to get a tree when I get back.”
Laney reached her hand out to rest on Evie’s arm. “Is Mom going to be okay with that?”
