“So your dad is coming but not your mom.”
“No, she said the wedding would be soon enough to see my dad.”
“For God’s sake, it’s been ten years.” Miss Gina slugged back a big portion of the contents of her glass.
“Eleven,” Zoe corrected her.
“Even better. Remind me to smack your mom when I see her.”
Zoe laughed. “You’re gonna have to stand in line, Miss Gina.”
“Just do it after the wedding. No drama before.”
It was nice to see her friend glowing.
“So what are you and Wyatt thinking? Church, garden . . . courthouse steps?” The last suggestion produced the look Zoe was going for.
“Bite your tongue.”
“Well?”
“We’d like a garden wedding . . . but the weather is unpredictable.”
“So a church?”
“I suggested a tent,” Miss Gina added her thoughts. “If nature wants to sprinkle your special day with liquid sunshine, you have a place to hide . . . if the sun comes out to play, you open up the sides and enjoy the shade.”
“I think we need to come up with a guest list before we decide. Wyatt’s family has a lot of need to invites.”
“Half of River Bend will expect to find an invite in the local paper.”
“Have you seen my backyard?” Miss Gina added. “There’s plenty of room.”
It was vast, even with the guesthouse she’d commissioned Wyatt to build last summer. Beyond the few acres designated to the bed-and-breakfast was a lot of open space. The closest home to the Victorian was a mile away.
“We have a lot to consider,” Mel said. “Besides, we’re getting ahead of ourselves. This weekend is about our engagement. We have time to talk wedding after this first party.”
“So where are we holding this shindig?”
Miss Gina rolled her eyes. “Here, of course. I was thinking cocktails, appetizers. I liked those shrimp puffs you made last year.”
“Who said I was cooking?”
“Don’t start with me, girly. I have the kitchen all stocked with your favorites, and this one”—she hooked a thumb in Mel’s direction—“doesn’t cook, and everything Sam touches is fried or overbaked.” Sam owned the local diner and only real restaurant in town.
“There are plenty of cooks in River Bend,” Zoe offered one last argument, not that she’d relinquish her spot in Miss Gina’s kitchen for anything.
“Yeah, but there is only one chef.”
The No Vacancy sign was posted at the entry to Miss Gina’s property and then again on the front door. The rooms slowly filled up with family and close friends the day before the engagement party.
Miss Gina refused payment for the rooms but happily accepted the helping hands of those there for the event.
Hope ran around like the perfect little hostess, happy with the attention bestowed upon her.
Zoe had been in River Bend just over twenty-four hours before she left Miss Gina’s to visit her own mother.
It wasn’t that she didn’t love the woman; she did . . . but as the oldest child, Zoe always felt as if the roles between them were somewhat reversed. She’d been forced to take care of her younger siblings early in life. Helped her mom with a budget, something Sheryl was notoriously bad at, and the cooking and cleaning when her mother worked long hours.
Even now, Zoe sent money home to her mom every month to help pay the bills.
Her mom had made some serious miscalculations in her young life. Education wasn’t possible when she found herself pregnant at sixteen . . . the man she married, Zoe’s dad, went on to father all three of them, then handled the stress by being a mean drunk who used his fists to get his point across. The day he went to jail for the last time both labeled her and saved her.
Ziggy Brown wanted all of his children named after him. Hence all the Zs in the family. It wasn’t until the trial that Zoe learned that Ziggy wasn’t even her father’s real first name. It was Theodore.
For some reason this thought popped into her head as she left her rental car and walked up the weed-filled path to the front door of the place she’d called home for eighteen years.
Only it wasn’t home anymore.
Her hand hesitated as she went to knock. Giving in to both urges, she knocked once and twisted the handle to let herself in.
Scent hit her first. The musty familiarity of worn furniture and the never truly clean carpet layered on top of each other like icing on cake. The added scent of a baby still in diapers reminded her Blaze lived there.
The television blared to an empty living room. Zoe glanced to the left; the kitchen was void of people, too. “Hello?”
She’d called her mom before coming over and knew Sheryl was going to be home.
“Mom!”
“Back here.”
Zoe placed her purse on the coffee table, the same one she’d done her homework on as a kid . . . the same one she and the girls had sat around eating pizza and often drinking something they shouldn’t have been.
Zoe followed the sound of her mom’s voice and found her in Zanya’s room, changing Blaze’s diaper.
Sheryl wore ill-fitting clothes Zoe was sure she recognized, and Blaze was in nothing but a T-shirt and a diaper when her mom finished the job.
“Look who is so big!” Zoe used a high-pitched voice and settled her eyes on her nephew.
“I was wondering when you’d grace us with your presence.” There was jealousy in her voice.
“Oh, Mom.” Zoe offered a one-arm hug and kissed her cheek.
Blaze gave her a cheeky smile and kicked his feet when Sheryl sat him up.
“Where is Zanya?”
“Working. She got a job in Waterville at that burger joint.” That explained the lack of a car in the driveway.
“It’s good she’s working.”
Sheryl puffed out a breath. “Yeah, but now I’m babysitting.”
Zoe could see the stress on her mom’s features. The woman had always looked ten years older than she was, but lately it seemed worse.
She reached her arms out to Blaze, who happily took the opportunity to play with someone else. Zoe placed her lips to the top of his head the second she picked him up. He smelled fresh and innocent. Opposite of everything these four walls represented. “Hey, baby boy.”
Sheryl took the reprieve and left the room with Zoe following.
Zoe sat on the couch, watching Blaze study her. “You look like your mommy.” And he did . . . the dark hair that all of them had, dark eyes and slightly olive skin.
Sheryl spoke to her from the open counter leading into the kitchen. “Let’s hope he doesn’t get fat like his deadbeat father.”
“Mom!”
“What? It’s true.”
“Yeah, but Blaze doesn’t need to grow up hearing that.”
“He’s too young to understand.”
“True, but you say it now and will continue when he’s three, when he does understand your words.”
“By the time he’s three, Zanya and Mylo had best have their shit figured out and be on their own. I’m not doing this forever.”
As much as her mom protested, she would never kick them out. She had a healthy fear of being alone.
“If Zanya has a job, she’s figuring it out.”
Sheryl huffed, unconvinced.