After Aunt Joan had sliced out three generous pieces of cake and each person had savored the sweetness on their tongue, Paige turned her attention to them both.
“Are you going to tell me now or later?” she finally asked. “What did the doctor say?”
Aunt Joan studied her plate as Uncle Craig cleared his throat.
“My test results are pretty good. No improvement, but I’m definitely holding steady.”
“Honest?”
“Honest.”
Paige heaved a sigh of relief. “That’s good news,” she said, her face easing into a hesitant smile. “So, what has you both on edge?”
“Let’s just enjoy our cake for a minute, huh?” Joan said. “You two had better catch up, because I’m already eyeing a second slice.”
“Joanie,” Uncle Craig said, his voice the hush of a gentle reprimand. “Come on.”
Joan released a labored sigh and set her plate on the table. Clasping her hands tightly in her lap, she lifted her eyes to Paige with a resolute face.
“Today marks ten years since...”
“Yes, Aunt Joan, I know. I was there.”
“Of course you do. Of course you do.” Joan’s fingertips had gone white from clasping them. “Your uncle and I have been talking, discussing really, the notion of...family.”
Paige drew her plate closer to her as her eyes shifted between the only two people in her life who qualified as that. After her mother had died years ago, she’d moved in with them. It had been a blessing to all three: they had helped her get on her feet after a tumultuous childhood, and she’d already been a permanent fixture in their lives when Uncle Craig had first been diagnosed with cancer.
“As you know, Paige, our little family is not very big—”
“And getting smaller every day,” Craig said with an eye roll. He patted the latest in his line of bandages on the inside of his wrist.
“Craig.” Now it was Joan’s turn to reprimand.
“We all know it, Joanie. Keep going.”
Joan turned to Paige again. “We want to ask if...more like ask where you stand on...”
“Yes?”
Craig reached across the table to take Joan’s hand before smiling at Paige. “Have you ever given thought to Lucy?”
Paige’s breath hitched at the sound of the name. It had been all but forbidden between the three of them, no one even thinking her name for fear it would accidentally slip from their lips at the wrong moment and in front of the wrong person.
“Lucy?” she whispered. “I think about her all the time.”
Joan smiled. “It’s a silly question. We think about her all the time too, sweetie. What he really means is, have you ever thought of going to see her?”
Paige shook her head. She was confused. Her head had quickly clouded at the question.
“What do you mean see her? Like in person?”
Aunt Joan and Uncle Craig nodded.
Paige hadn’t seen Lucy since the day she’d snuggled that baby-soft skin against her lips and savored the delicate fragrance of a newborn. She had daydreamed about that little baby every day and night for ten long years. They knew they were asking her a question to which they already knew the answer.
Copyright © 2020 by Elizabeth Mowers
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ISBN: 9781488068126
A Family Man at Last
Copyright © 2020 by Cynthia Thomason
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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A Family Man At Last Page 23