Page 21 of The House on Memory Lane

Evie shot her sons a quick glance, but they were absorbed in debate about the best Transformer. “Do any of them at Kyle’s place today?”

“Evie!” She felt the heat flood up her chest and spread across her face. So much for not caring if she was caught. “Uhhhh. I stopped there. To talk.”

“Is that why you just turned purple? It’s not the best look for you, you’re too fair to pull it off.” Evie leapt out of swiping range as Laney lunged at her. “It’s okay, little sister, rumour has it that you’re a trained medical professional, I’m sure whatever you did was entirely clinical.”

She groaned and buried her face in her hands. “Don’t tell Mom. Please. It’s…I don’t know. It’s a fling, it’s something we just need to get out of our systems. I’m not deluding myself into thinking it’s anything else.”

Evie waved in the air, abandoning the conversation. “Okay, mum’s the word. I think you’re playing with fire, but maybe you need to get burned.”

Claire returned from across the road shortly after lunch, carrying a tin of all butter shortbread courtesy of one of the bridge players, which Laney happily dug into while thumbing her nose at her sister.

"You two are worse than Connor and Max, seriously. Now, what should we do this afternoon? Puzzles? Charades? Monopoly?"

The boys started hopping in excitement at the last option, so Claire and Laney joined them in a rousing competition of real estate development while Evie busied herself in the kitchen, popping in occasionally to capture some of the tenser moments on video. By four o'clock, it was obvious that Connor was going to slowly bleed them all dry with his hotel resort complex on Boardwalk and Park Place, and before Max threw a low-blood sugar induced hissy fit about losing, Claire suggested that they call it a game and get cleaned up for dinner.

Max immediately protested having to put on fancy clothes, a campaign Connor could support with ease, so while the boys pled their case to the unswaying judges of holiday decorum, their mother and grandmother, Laney snuck away to grab the first shower. Scrubbed clean, she considered the two holiday outfits laid out on her bed: a dark green jersey dress with long sleeves and a cowl neck, and black pants and a sparkly red top. She had planned to wear the red top for Christmas morning, to go with an elf hat that she picked up, but the growing darkness prompted her to grab the pants. The hat would go just as nicely with the dress, and she would be less likely to be asked to sit on the floor and play with the boys in the morning when they are absorbed in their new toys.

She was the first back downstairs, so she pulled the bread pudding from the oven and lit the candles in the center of the table. Next down the stairs were Connor and Max, in matching buttoned down white shirts and knit vests with contrasting Argyll patterns on the chest. Grandma and Mom had obviously compromised with the boys, as they both still wore jeans, and Laney's heart squeezed. In front of her stood two little men.

"You look beautiful, Aunt Laney," Max said, and the squeezing turned into a full on bittersweet ache.

"And you both look dashing. Wasn't it a good idea to dress up after all?"

"I guess so," Connor said. "As long as we don't have to do it every day."

She laughed. "I agree."

Evie and Claire soon joined them and they settled in around the oversized kitchen table. Claire lifted her wine glass, and the others followed suit. Connor and Max had goblets as well, filled with ginger ale, and they grinned proudly as their grandmother began her toast. "Our lives have changed a lot over the last two years, and that has been challenging, but tonight I am just...happy. I'm so happy to have both of my daughters home for the holidays. I'm blessed with good health and the ability to keep up with my amazing grandsons. Connor and Max, you keep me young!"

"Really? I think they're aging me at a stupendous rate," Evie muttered, but the happy tear in her eye betrayed her words, and the boys squeezed her from either side.

"It has been a year of stepping back into the world," Claire continued, her words slowing as she considered what to say next. "And I hope that I'm setting a good example for all of you. Evie and Laney, you have both always been fearless, have followed your dreams, and I want that to always be true. You have far exceeded anything your dad and I ever did. He would be so proud of both of you."

Laney looked across the table at her sister. Evie was the textbook definition of fearless, barely stumbling after her separation. Laney didn't feel nearly that brave, just lucky in her career and not much else. She swallowed hard, trying to get rid of the lump in her throat, not sure what to say. Her gaze slipped over to her mother, who beamed at her with overwhelming love and understanding. A tentative smile crawled up her cheeks. "Thanks, Mom. That was really sweet. I hope..."

"I know, sweetie. We're all our own worst enemies. Trust yourself."

After second helpings of bread pudding, Laney and the boys settled on the couch to watch A Christmas Story before bed while Evie and Claire tidied up the kitchen. Connor suggested they also track Santa on the NORAD website, so the movie was interrupted every few minutes by Max poking Laney’s side, urging her to refresh the screen.

When Santa moved across the Atlantic Ocean, Connor and Max scrambled up the stairs and brushed their teeth without being asked. Evie joined them as they tucked into their beds, and Laney left her sister in charge of bedtime stories.

The bottle of champagne had been chilling in the fridge since she arrived. She set it on a tray. It wasn’t likely that her mom would have flutes, but Laney pulled a chair over to the cabinets to take a quick look just in case. Her parents had renovated the kitchen when Laney was in college, and her mother had insisted on extra tall upper cabinets. The extra storage shelves at the top housed large serving platters and soup tureens. If fancy wine glasses existed anywhere in the farmhouse, that’s where she would find them.

She found the smooth black pressed cardboard box hiding behind a set of googly-eyes hardboiled egg cups. She’d forgotten about the pair of crystal flutes. They were a wedding gift to her parents from a family friend, and she’d often seen them pull the box out on their anniversary when she was younger. She didn’t want to add any unnecessary melancholy to the holidays, but her gut told her that they would only bring happiness to the evening.

“Goodness, Laney, be careful up there.”

“You shouldn’t have built such high cupboards, it’s your own fault.” Laney turned and grinned at her mother. To reach the top shelf, she’d climbed up on to the counter, and that never went over well with parents. “I found your wedding champagne flutes, can we use them tonight?”

“Of course, pass them down to me. There’s only two … let me see if I can find a third wine glass that would work.” Claire set the box on the table and moved across the room to the china display. “Here!”

Laney slid to the floor and took the spare glass flute from her mother. Much lighter than the others, it was embossed with the name of a local winery.

“Your dad and I went to a class about sparkling wine at Water’s Edge. You know how your dad was about wine, it was never his thing, but he surprised me with the tickets.” Claire’s voice was soft with memory. “That was just six months before he died. He wasn’t much of a romantic, you know, but then he would do something like that and blow my socks off.”

Laney inspected the wine glass with new appreciation. “Way to go, Dad! And it’s kind of cool that they gave you a souvenir to take home.”

Claire’s eyes, bright with happy tears, crinkled into silent laughter. “Oh no,” she gasped. “Your dad stole that for me. We got a bit tipsy, you see, and I told him that it was one of the best nights of my life. We had…I hope this isn’t too much information, but it really felt like we had been flirting all night. And the wine was really quite good. It was a heady combination. At the end of the night your dad pushed me against the bar and kissed me, and apparently, he took that opportunity to slide his glass into my purse.”

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