Accompanying Alice (8 page)

“Helen!
What
are you doing here?”

“We came to take you to dinner.”

“It’s barely two o’clock.”

“So we’ll hit a movie, play some miniature golf—”

“Helen.”

“Okay, all right. I’m on a mission from Ma.”

“Aaauughh.” Alice violently grabbed tufts of hair at the sides of her head and yanked them in frustration. Whoever had said no good deed went unpunished knew what he was talking about. “I knew it.”

“She’s worried about you. Said you haven’t been out of the house since Lyn and Becky’s commencement. Said you were pining for them. Felt like you were getting old.”

“How would she know? I haven’t talked to her since the commencement.”

“She talked to Edith who talked to Grace—”

“Oh, God.”

“—who obviously didn’t know anything about Gabriel or she’d have said something. ‘Course, the state she’s been in since Ma told her Aunt Bethany invited another hundred—”

Ten or fifteen, Alice interpreted silently.

“—people to the wedding, she might not have noticed. But bod like that, you’d think he’d be hard to miss.” Helen ran a hand through her unruly curls, a statement of disappointment about their youngest sister Grace’s as yet underdeveloped sense of nosiness. “So—” she switched tacks
abruptly “—what do you think of Skip?”

“What do I...? Back off, Helen. What did you think? You’d come over and introduce me to the guy and I’d marry him? I’ve been married once. I didn’t like it.” Unable to stand still any longer, Alice turned to the bed, yanking rumpled sheets into place.

“Well, you know—” Helen shrugged and pulled down the sheets on the opposite side of the bed “—we really didn’t think you’d go quite that fast, but Skip’s a nice guy, and Ma’s always said when we find the right guy we know.”

“Well, forget it, he’s not the right guy.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s... he’s...” Alice squashed a pillow in frustration looking for a mentionable reason. “He’s
cute.
I mean, Skip. What kind of name is that for an adult? And the age difference—it’s impossible.”

“He’s thirty-three and you’re thirty-five. Big deal. He’s less likely to die before you if he’s a couple years younger than you.”

“He’s thirty-three going on ready-to-settle-down-and-raise-a-family, and at the moment I’m thirty-five going on gray hair and grandma-dom. Trust me, it won’t work.”

Helen fluffed her pillow and waited for Alice to pull up the quilt with her. “Well, at least come out with us for a while. He took a day off work and came all this way—”

“
Helen.
” Alice snapped the comforter loudly into place. “Helen! In case you haven’t noticed I’ve got company.
Male
company. He’s wearing my fat pants, and I’m in the middle of cutting his hair. It’s midafternoon, and we’re making my bed. What does that say to you?”

“That you’ve mutated since last Friday. Did you protect yourself at least?”

With difficulty Alice strangled the scream welling in her throat. “Quit meddling in my life.”

Helen blinked at her. “We only do it because we love you. You’ve done the same for us.”

“I have never thrown men you don’t want at you.”

“I’m a career woman. I can take care of myself.” She shrugged. “Besides, if you were a man, would you want to be thrown at an inflexible thirty-three
year
old army major who was a regiment commander at the Point and who thinks a good day’s fun is a twenty
mile slog through the nearest swamp? Think about it. Not many men are up to the challenge—although, your Gabriel looks like he might be. How long did you say he’s been around here?”

“I, uh—

The door opened behind them and the
he
in question stepped into the room in time to answer for her. “Long enough to like what he sees and know what he wants.” He swept Alice a slow intimate glance head to toe and brushed a strand of hair off her cheek with the tip of his finger.
“Definitely knows what he wants,” he repeated softly, as though for her alone, and Alice nearly forgot the scene was merely an act.

“Oh, yeah.” Helen drew out the word on a sigh her staff would never have believed the major capable of. “Now I understand what it is about Skip. This one’s a lot more dangerous.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Alice muttered, and Gabriel grinned. She quelled the grin with a look. “Did you come in here for a reason?”

He shrugged and shook his head. “Just wanted to rescue you. And tell you we could hear every word you said. And oh, by the way, there’s another one of your sisters shuffling in the doorway.” He eyed Helen and saw no reason not to be blunt. Enjoyed the prospect, in fact. “She didn’t give me her name, but she turned white and nearly left when I told her you were here, Helen. Alice did the same thing when she saw you on the porch. Do you have that effect on everybody?”

Helen nodded sadly. “It’s the curse we who are tactless, insensitive and decisive about everything have to bear. You are coming to the wedding and you will steal my heart and dance the night away with me, won’t you—”

“Oh, hell,” Alice said and left the room.

The baby of the family, just three years older than Alice’s daughters, honey-haired hazel-eyed Grace, shuffled guiltily at her approach, reminding Alice of Allyn on the day she’d backed the car into the wall at school. She couldn’t help it. Suspicion settled immediately. “What’s up?”

“Nothing.” Grace spread her hands wide. “Mom said Helen said you were home so I just came to try on my veil. But you’ve got company, so I won’t stay.”

She made a move to go, but Alice stopped her. “Grace? Is something wrong? Do you...” She glanced at Gabriel and Helen behind her, at Skip looking as vacant as possible on the couch. “Do you want to talk?”

“Not really. It’s just... Mom thought I should tell you...” Grace shuffled a little, glanced at Alice, at Helen, two of the legends and censors of her childhood, older sisters whose approval she needed to earn and whose expectations she had to live up to. Her waffling features firmed, her chin took on a stubborn tilt. “I think you should know Phil and I stood up for Becky at her wedding because Allyn wouldn’t, and I thought they should have someone in the family support them.”

She settled her hands defiantly on her hips and didn’t say
so there,
but the room resounded with the sentiment, anyway. Skip squirmed on the couch looking as though he’d prefer to be anywhere else. Helen arched one brow incredulously for Alice’s benefit, then slipped Grace a delighted grin and an unreserved thumbs-up behind Alice’s back. Alice opened her mouth, shut it with a snap, then gaped at Grace unable to utter a word.

Gabriel laughed. He couldn’t help himself. The urge bellied upward and burst from his lungs before he could stop it. The harder he tried to suppress it, the harder he laughed. His sides hurt and some of the humor he saw was a bit macabre—the parallels he recognized between Grace’s betrayal of Alice’s trust for the sake of Alice’s daughter, and the possibility that he’d been set up for a hit by his oldest friend and mentor were painful—but it had been a long time since he’d been able to laugh at anything and, God help him, he didn’t want to stop. It was the first remotely normal feeling he’d experienced in months.

“Shut up,” Alice said.

“It’s funny,” Gabriel gasped.

“Maybe if it was your daughter it’d be funny, but it’s
my
daughter and
my
sister. I’ve put 950 seed pearls on her veil so far, and she helps my eighteen
year
old get married
without me
behind my back. Why didn’t one of them come to me? I might have tried to talk Becky out of it, but I’m not an ogre, I’m just a mother.” She swung around at a strangled gurgle from Helen. “Don’t say it,” she ordered fiercely. “You know what I mean.”

“Sure,” Helen agreed. “You can’t stand it that Becky ran away to get a parent-ectomy on her own the same way you did, and you’re hurt that she felt she had to, the same way Ma and Dad and the rest of us were hurt when you cut the family out of helping you with your problems. Face it, Allie, we come from a long line of independent self-righteous granite-willed women, and the fruit just doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

For a heartbeat after Helen’s pronouncement the silence was so absolute that even the refrigerator seemed to have stopped running on cue. Then it was as if everyone drew a collective breath and rushed to find the place they’d been before the disturbance began.

“Well, I’ve got to get to work.” Grace said to no one in particular. “I just stopped to tell you I’m sorry if you’re hurt, but I’m not sorry for being there for Becky.”

“Yeah.” Helen picked up her jacket, kissed each of her sisters. “Come on, Skip, we’d better go, too. Oh, Gabriel, as long as you’re going to be at the wedding, anyway, you might as well meet Phil and get a tux. Way things are going, we’ll need at least one more usher just to help with crowd control. Grace, see you tomorrow at eleven for our final fittings, and then sisters-sisters night here? Alice, you’ll be there?”

“I’ll be there. Grace?” Alice caught her youngest sister’s hand before she could slip out the door in Helen’s wake.

“Allie, look—”

“No,” Alice shushed her. “It’s all right I just... I’m glad you were there for her—glad she trusted someone. I’m a little jealous, too, but I’ll get over that. It’s just... hard right now. And I wish—” She squeezed Grace’s hand wistfully. “I wish you’d been old enough to stand up for me.”

She hugged her sister quickly before Grace’s natural inclination to run at the sight of emotional display got the better of her. And for a moment it was almost like having the chance to hold Becky and say all the things she’d never given her own mother the chance to say to
her
on her wedding day.

Almost.

She watched Grace descend the walk, and the tears ran before she knew they would come. She shut the front door in the face of the rain and pressed her forehead to the painted wood, trying to hold the tears back, trying not to sniffle. Trying to be a grownup with company in the house instead of an exhausted adult whose world seemed to be falling apart around her. Trying to remember that the way things looked today would not be how they’d look tomorrow. Trying not to feel too sorry for herself.

The tears flowed, anyway. There were so many things she’d stored up to say to Allyn and Rebecca when the time came, things she’d say to them eventually, next week, next month, in a few years, but she’d wanted to say them now. But the only things it really mattered that she hadn’t said hadn’t been given
—
hadn’t
taken
the time to say were: I love you. See you later. Take care. Call if, and I’ll come. Take care, take care, take care....

She slapped the door with the side of her fist and didn’t care that the tears flowed.

Gabriel watched her cry out a grief he wasn’t sure he understood. Letting go was something other people did. He’d hung on to nothing and no one over the years; he remembered nothing about letting go. People came and went, that was how it was, nothing tearful about it. But maybe watching a child you’d raised, or a friend you’d blindly trusted walk away—grow away—run away from you was different, harder. At least for the time being. And if the gun at the back of the top shelf of Alice’s closet turned out to be Markum’s or Scully’s... He’d have to deal with
that soon. But not now. He didn’t want to handle it now.