Then he walks out, shutting the door firmly behind him.
Chapter 20
IparkNatalie’sYukonbehind Handy Hardware, the store my dad has owned my whole life. Grace had to take over running it last year while he was sick, but once he was in remission and his strength came back, she had gotten her own life back on track. Not only had Boeing rehired her, she’d gotten a promotion.
I’m happy for her. We’d had some misunderstandings last year, mainly because I didn’t want anyone to know I was paying my dad’s bills. It would have stressed my parents out too much.
Paying those bills was equivalent to buying a new Tesla every month. Staying on top of those payments meant grinding even harder at work, pushing myself to exhaustion to promote my cookbook, taking every endorsement opportunity that came my way.
My funds had gotten excruciatingly low a few times, but now, slowly, my savings is rebuilding. And I’d do it all again in a heartbeat. But this time, I’d tell Grace, so we didn’t lose another year to tense conversations and hurt feelings because she’d thought she was doing all the helping on her own.
I walk around to the front of the store, admiring the assistant manager’s window display. She’s done a Memorial Day barbecue-themed scene, and it makes me want to buy a Traeger just to have as much fun as she’s making the mannequins look like they’re having.
Paige, the window genius herself, is behind the register when I walk in. She looks better than the last time I saw her at Christmas where she could have been the poster child for overworked single mothers. She’s put on badly needed weight. Her hair shines and her skin glows.
“Hey, Tabitha. What a surprise! I had no idea you were in town.”
“Technically I’m not. I’m at Camp Oak Crest doing an event, but my plans were canceled because of the rain, so here I am.”
“You mean you canceled your plans there and came to see us because you love us more,” my dad said, emerging from the landscaping aisle.
“That’s exactly what I meant,” I say as he folds me into a bear hug. “Where’s Grace?”
“She’s coming.” He gives Paige a sympathetic smile. “Said to tell you Evie is unpacking everything as fast as Noah can pack it.”
Paige gives a resigned sigh. “She’s going to miss her uncle.”
“Areyouokay with him leaving?” I ask.
Paige is Noah’s younger sister, and unless I suck at reading people—and I don’t—she’ll be Grace’s sister-in-law sooner than later. If Noah doesn’t propose by Christmas, I’ll buy everyone in my family an actual Tesla. Even six-year-old Evie, who will no doubt figure out how to drive one faster than her adoptive grandparents—my mom and dad.
They'd offered themselves for the job at Christmas, probably tired of waiting for Grace and me to produce grandbabies for them. They’re all-in kind of people, so Paige and Evie now live in the apartment above the garage for the cost of utilities, an arrangement they all love.
That was also when Paige had put together the most thoughtful present for Noah, even better than the puppy I gave my mom so she’d back off of me and Grace. Paige had presented him with a compelling case for why he should follow Grace four hundred miles south to Charleston. But now that his departure is here, maybe she has regrets.
But she’s nodding. “I’m going to miss him, but I’m excited for them. And Evie and I have proven to ourselves we can totally do this. I finished two classes this semester in business management, and I’ll get my associate’s degree next Christmas. And I learned a ton.”
“It’s true,” my dad says, his arm around my shoulder but beaming at Paige like he often beams at Grace and me. “She tries everything she learns here, and sales have never been better.”
“There have been a few misses,” Paige confesses. “But even those teach me something.”
I smile up at my dad. “Do you know how lucky you are to have her?”
He gives me a squeeze. “We sure do. Now tell me how the camp is looking.”
We talk until Grace shows up a few minutes later, dressed in joggers and a T-shirt, with a sweaty face that says she’s been doing some heavy lifting.
“Hey,” she says, giving me a hug. “Still drizzling, so let’s get the cemetery tools and wait for a break in the rain over at Bixby’s. But seriously, Tab, please don’t bug her for her chocolate croissant recipe again.”
We grab the mini-broom, rags, and brass polish we’ll need for the cemetery and walk over to Bixby’s Café. From there we’ll walk on to the cemetery. No point in driving when all these places are separated by less than ten minutes on foot.
“Good to see you, Winters girls,” Taylor Bixby says when we walk in. “What can I get you? And no.”
“She means no, you can’t have her recipe,” Grace tells me.
“I know. Almond torte and please?”
“Still no,” Taylor says, smiling.
