Page 32 of Mistletoe Sky
“Remember how Dad would always make us clean the mixer, like, five times before we could leave for the day?” Amelie asked, standing over a jug of water and platters, sticky with fudge they’d sold.
Willa snorted. “I remember when we tried to mop the floor in three minutes flat and just made it messier. That was impressive, in a way.”
Amelie cackled. “I guess that’s how kids always are. Trying to get away with what they can?”
Willa swiped a rag over the counter, considering this. “Do you think we were especially bad kids?”
“What? No!” Amelie shook her head. “We were pretty good, I think. We never snuck out. We did our homework. We helped out at the shop.”
But Amelie thought she knew what Willa meant. Had what happened later—the fact that they’d left after everything—made them “bad kids”? Was this what Willa had stewed on for the past twenty years? Was this what Amelie was running away from?
Goodness, it was strange to be back. At the same time, it was the most natural thing in the world. Willa and Amelie spent the next two hours reminding each other of various tasks that needed to be performed before they could be free for the night. When they were finished, everything was sparkling clean, and the ingredients were prepped and ready for the following morning, when Amelie planned to return for another four a.m. session. Although she didn’t dare ask, she was pretty sure Willa thought she was crazy for opening the fudge shop. But at the same time, working with her sister today had been so soul-warming and beautiful that Amelie wanted to do it for the rest of her life.
She knew better than to think that would happen. She knew better than to hope.
More than that, she knew better than to ask that Willa come back tomorrow. She tried to gauge Willa’s expression to figure out where her head was at.
At seven thirty, Amelie and Willa returned to the bed-and-breakfast to change their clothes and get ready to go up the hill. Pascal was already dressed, chatting with a seventy-plus tourist who was staying the week to “fall in love with Mackinac in the wintertime.” Pascal had discovered that the tourist could speakFrench, and they were flowing through a gorgeous conversation, one that Amelie couldn’t fathom. She wondered if she’d ever learn French, if Pascal would ever be patient enough to talk to her. She wondered what she’d do if she left Mackinac and never saw Pascal again—if she’d pine for these sparkling, snowy days and jazzy nights.
Once in her bedroom upstairs, she watched as Willa went through her clothes and selected a black dress to wear for the night. It was the same one Amelie had wanted to wear, but she didn’t say so. She wanted Willa to be comfortable. Willa put on a shade of lipstick and pressed her lips together, then sat at the edge of Amelie’s bed and looked at her shoes.
“I’m terrified,” she whispered.
“Me too,” Amelie agreed.
They couldn’t think of anything else to say. Amelie was worried that if they speculated what was waiting for them, they’d jinx it. Maybe Willa felt the same.
Minutes later, they met Pascal downstairs and strode into the indigo dark. As though they were little girls again, Willa and Amelie held hands for a few minutes, crunching through the snow, until they spotted the house at the top of the hill. Their hands separated. Amelie stopped walking, her breath catching in her throat. Pascal continued to talk a mile a minute, telling Amelie and Willa a story about his childhood in France, about the baker down the road who’d always given him a free croissant, about his father, who’d been a failed baker and had to work in a factory down the road. Amelie tried to focus on Pascal’s stories because she wanted to know him, wanted to understand him. But faced with her own past, she struggled to hold empathy for anyone else.
How much of her past did Pascal already know?
When they reached the porch, Pascal didn’t hesitate before striding up and knocking on the door. In a flash, Grandma Maryopened it, delivering a delicious smile. “We thought you’d never make it! Oh, but we know there’s always so much to do at the fudge shop. Come in, Pascal. Come in, my girls.”
Amelie fell back into her grandmother’s hug, inhaling the smell of rose and lavender and something incredible, a dessert baking in the oven. When she re-emerged from her grandmother’s embrace, she fell into her grandpa Jerry’s arms, her eyes smarting at how much older he looked. After that were aunts, uncles, and cousins, all of whom said Amelie’s and Willa’s names over and over, celebrating them joyfully. Everyone had gotten so much older. But everyone was just the same as ever, as though personalities could never shift.
“Welcome back!” their uncle Tommy cried, clapping Willa on the shoulder. “When we heard that you’d be coming to film a few commercials for us, we were floored. We didn’t think, you know…” He searched for their aunt Addison, his wife, who filled in the blanks.
“We didn’t think you even thought about Mackinac anymore,” Addison explained sheepishly. “But we were so touched when we learned that you were coming!”
“And now, both of you are here!” Uncle Tommy cried. “We’re so lucky.”
Amelie watched Willa like a hawk, searching for what she was feeling. Although they’d had numerous laughs throughout the day, and Willa had stepped in when Amelie needed her most, there was still tension between them, proof of all that remained unsaid. Amelie wished she could take all that pain between them away. And she wished their family would calm down a little and not draw attention to all the time that had gone by.
Soon, Willa and Amelie were seated on the sofa, sipping glasses of red wine, with all of their family surrounding them, looking at them as though they were celebrities. Pascal was in the armchair to the right of Amelie, cracking jokes that everyonelaughed at. It seemed like Pascal was not just a child of the island, but that Amelie’s family had more or less adopted him. Her grandmother and grandfather obviously adored him, and her aunts and uncles doted on him, asking about his bed-and-breakfast and inquiring about a woman he’d previously been seeing.
“That’s long over! I’ve moved on,” Pascal said of the woman. Amelie’s heart stirred, wondering what kind of woman captivated Pascal and why it hadn’t worked out.
The fact that Amelie and Willa’s father, Frank, was nowhere to be found in the crowd was a surprise. Amelie searched the shadows, both eager and frightened to see her father’s face. This was his house, after all, the house where Willa and Amelie had been raised. It was decorated just as it had been when they were children, with the same art on the walls, the same refrigerator, and the same chairs. The only differences were found in technology, a larger television, and a laptop on the desk in the corner—no landline phone.
Finally, after Pascal had cracked everyone up in the family with another anecdote, Willa spoke. “Do you need any help with dinner?”
Their grandmother looked horrified. “No, darling! No help at all. We know how hard you’ve been working all day at the fudge shop. Pascal called us and said that both of you were back behind the counter, and we just lost it. It’s why we arranged this big dinner. We’re so happy.” Grandma Mary beamed. “But we’re waiting on your father, I’m afraid. He said he’d be ready soon. In fact, Pascal, would you mind checking on him?”
Pascal was already on his feet, moving toward the staircase. Amelie stood, clutching her chest. If she had to guess, it seemed likely that Pascal had helped her father a great deal, that he’d been the son her father had never had. I should have been here.Guilt filled every square inch of her heart. She crept to the base of the staircase, trying to peer up through the shadows.
But suddenly, Willa was there beside her, her face stony. With her lips an inch from Amelie’s ear, she muttered, “I think we should go. I’m not up for this.”
Amelie felt the air deflate from her lungs. She heard creaking on the floorboards upstairs and the coaxing from Pascal.
