“Good for you,” Mia said, setting down her work.
Arianna settled on Mia’s other side, producing her phone and bringing up pictures of Sophie, rosy-cheeked and smiling, wearing the pink-crocheted hat Mia had made for her for Christmas. In spite of having her life turned upside down, Sophie was a happy child. With their worst year behind them, Arianna was determined to keep the happy vibes going.
“Look at you,” said Mia. “You’re a natural.”
“It hurt when I fell down,” Sophie confessed.
“Falling can be painful, but each time you get up, you do better,” Mia told her, and smiled at Arianna.
That was Mom, always looking for a chance to slip in a bit of wisdom and encouragement.
“You look like you’re feeling better,” Arianna said.
“I am. Are you hungry? I made soup,” said Mia.
“Chicken noodle?” Sophie asked eagerly and her grandmother nodded. “Yay!” she said and hopped off the couch.
“Hang up your coat and wash your hands first,” said Arianna. “You going to join us?” she asked Mia.
Mia shook her head. “I’m not very hungry. You go ahead.”
“Okay. Do I need to check the mail?”
“Yes, please. I ordered a book. It should be here.”
“I’ll run and check,” Arianna said.
She got a text as she was going out the door.
Sunny: No broken bones. Just a bad sprain. Looks like I’ll be typing with one hand for a while.
Arianna: At least it’s not broken. Sucks that you got hurt when you were the one who planned this.
Sunny: Oh, well. Now I know I’ll never qualify for the Winter Olympics.
That was Sunny, always shrugging off the bad, always looking for the humor in a situation. Arianna sent her a laughing emoji to end the conversation.
She stuck her phone in her back pocket and went to the mailbox, half wanting to skip. Except for Sunny’s mishap, it had been a great day. Sophie had had a wonderful time and Arianna was feeling like this whole Christmas-restart thing was exactly what she needed.
Alden Brightman’s truck pulled into his driveway and Arianna suddenly found herself stalling at the mailbox, looking through each piece of junk mail as if it contained vital information. The garage door on the house next door went up. The truck pulled in. A moment later she heard a door shut, heard a dog barking, and little Buster was racing out onto the front lawn. He found a bush at the edge of the lawn, marked it and trotted over to the flower bed in front of the house to sniff his way along its border.
And there came Alden. It would be rude not to say hello.
“Hi,” she called.
He waved and called a hello back, then sauntered over her way. “How’s it going?”
“Great,” she said. “My daughter and I just got back from our Christmas-in-January skating party.”
“No broken bones?”
“Nope. Maybe some wounded pride. I went down a lot more than I thought I would. But it was fun to get out and try.”
“You gotta try things,” he agreed.
Her daughter was waiting for soup, her mother was waiting for her book, which Arianna had snagged. Arianna was waiting for inspiration as to what to say next.
“Looks like you’ve been out and about,” she said.Oh, brother.
