Page 57 of Splintered Memories
A man sat at the end, his blond hair falling over his forehead as he read the paper. “Good to see you guys made it. Just in time, too.” He flipped the page of the sports section.
August clapped him on the shoulder. “Wouldn’t have missed it, Pops.” August pulled out a chair and gestured toward me.
I shifted on my feet. Before I could take the seat August offered, a bright, feminine voice said my name. The woman bustled in from a doorway on the right as she untied an apron from around her waist. “It’s so good to see you!” She placed the apron on a hook screwed into the wall before she approached me and wrapped me in her arms.
My muscles stiffened at her embrace. She was tall and slim, but her grip was surprisingly strong. She was warm, and she smelled vaguely of the meal she had prepared, with a floral undertone.
I had met Raleigh Ramsey once, but she held me as if she had known me all my life.
She rubbed one hand up and down my back and didn’t let go until my muscles relaxed.
I had often been hugged by my own mother, but the way Raleigh hugged was what I envisioned the embrace of a real mother to feel like. No tension or weight of expectations.
Raleigh smiled as she let me go, and it was filled with nothing but warmth and happiness. There was no judgment in her expression at all.
“Come on, sit down and eat,” she said. “We have enough food to feed a small army, I think.”
I nodded, my skin flushing, not knowing exactly how to interact with them all. They were simply—a real family.
My eyes cut to August. He still held a chair out for me, a ghost of a smile on his mouth. Cautiously, I sat. He scooted the chair under me before taking the seat to my right.
Hailey sat across from me, her eyes surprisingly assessing for such a small child. They bounced from me to August as Raleigh sat down next to her.
“How old are you?” Hailey asked.
“How old are you?” I offered back.
Hailey pursed her lips. “I asked you first,” she said, with a hint of attitude that I appreciated.
The corner of my lip twitched, the closest I’d gotten to a smile in over a week. “I’m twenty-seven.”
She frowned, as if she didn’t know exactly what that meant, and so I added, “I am around Lark’s age.”
Her eyes brightened. “Oh, okay. Lark is going to be my aunt, you know,” she said excitedly.
“That’s right.” I nodded. “Lark is a really good friend of mine.”
“Lark is my friend too,” Hailey said as Raleigh dished some food onto her plate. “I’m six, by the way. I just had a birthday, it was awesome! Daddy brought me to go see a real life play where the people were on stage singing and everything.” She speared a piece of chicken and brought it to her mouth.
“Hailey,” Raleigh warned, eyeing the little girl’s fork. “Let’s say grace first before we eat, all right?”
Hailey froze, her eyes bouncing to her grandmother before she slowly put her fork down. Raleigh smiled in approval, and something tight and uncomfortable hit my chest. There was no malice in Raleigh’s eyes as she corrected Hailey’s behavior. There was no undercurrent of anger.There was only a gentle reprimand in love. Something so foreign to me. And yet, it was everything.
We all bowed our heads as August’s dad, Warner, said a quick prayer over the food. I wasn’t a praying person, but the quick, sweet prayer had a calmness spreading through me. A peace I hadn’t felt in a very long time.
When grace had been said, we ate.
I didn’t participate in much of the conversation, but I sat and listened. The family around me spoke of everything and nothing. Hailey chattered on about how her daddy was off work tomorrow and she was excited to go to the park with him. Raleigh talked about how she was preparing to start her garden, and Warner spoke about a spot on the porch that he needed to repair.
I think I ate more than I had the whole last week put together. The food was delicious. I went back for seconds.
Through it all, I was highly aware of August sitting close at my side. He’d been so tense this last week in the brief moments I’d seen him. But his usual, easygoing smile was finally back. That slightly mischievous glint in his eye had my very full stomach fluttering when he looked at me, his gaze lingering longer than it normally did.
“Emersyn,” Hailey grabbed her third piece of bread, “are you excited about Lark and Reid’s party?”
I frowned around a mouthful of mashed potatoes. “Party?” I asked when I swallowed.
Hailey nodded, her head bouncing up and down like a bobblehead. “Yeah, the party for their wedding. Icannotwait!”
