Christmas on Honeysuckle Lane

by Mary McDonough

  Emma shook her head. “If Ian had ever behaved like Danny did last night I probably would have walked out on him for good at that very moment.”

  “The difference is that Anna Maria loves Danny. You never loved Ian. Sorry,” Andie said. “That’s educated guesswork.”

  “No, you’re right,” Emma admitted, toying with her fork. “I thought I loved him for a while, but it wasn’t really love, not the right kind anyway. Still, there are limits to what someone should put up with, love or not.”

  “I don’t think Anna Maria is suffering at the hands of a violent lunatic, Emma. Danny’s going through a crisis, a dark night of the soul maybe, that’s all. I believe that.”

  “Like what Rumi is going through?” Emma asked carefully. “And you?”

  Andie sighed. “Maybe.”

  Emma reached across the table and put her hand on her sister’s arm. “Andie, I wish you had told me about promising the desk to the OWHA. I could have gone to Mary Bernadette before Danny had to know and told her there had been a mistake. I can handle her. I’m my mother’s daughter. No one could intimidate Caro Carlyle Reynolds and no one can intimidate me. Well, almost no one.”

  Andie smiled. “I should have gone to you. I was tempted to more than once, but honestly, I was just so embarrassed by what I had done. I was paralyzed.”

  “You don’t have to be embarrassed with me. Remember when I was in college and I thought I was pregnant and came crawling to you, begging for you to help me out? And you did. You were great. You didn’t try to make me feel ashamed that I’d been stupid enough to have unprotected sex.”

  “I just did what any big sister would do. And thanks for the offer of talking to Mary Bernadette, but that’s something I need to do on my own.”

  “If you’re sure.”

  “I am. Anyway, I think Bob should know what happened here last night,” Andie said. “I’ll call him a bit later. But no one else.”

  “You mean not Rumi. Of course.”

  “Yes. Well, what do we do now?”

  “I’m completely out of ideas,” Emma admitted. “I think we should call Anna Maria and let her advise us about how to go forward.”

  Andie nodded and reached for her phone. “I’ll call her right now.”

  CHAPTER 61

  Andie and her sister met with Anna Maria at Cookies ’n Crumpets at two that afternoon. After ordering—an herbal tea for herself, a latte for Emma, and a decaf coffee for Anna Maria—the women sat at the table furthest from the others.

  “Privacy,” Anna Maria said, “is hard to come by in this town. I suppose we should have met at the house but . . .” She half laughed. “I’ve had enough of Thirty-Two Honeysuckle Lane for the moment.”

  “Thanks for agreeing to see us at all after last night’s . . . I don’t even know what to call it,” Andie admitted.

  “Debacle? Meltdown?” Emma shrugged. “Whatever it was, I’m glad it’s over.”

  Anna Maria sighed. “Me, too. But things can’t magically go back to the way they were before Daniel became so . . . It’s just that he’s so emotionally invested in the family. In the idea of family. He wasn’t always this way. It’s only since Cliff died and Caro became ill that he became, well, became obsessed. The family means so much to him, too much at times.”

  “It must be hard on you,” Andie said. “You must feel ignored. You must feel that sometimes Danny doesn’t really see you.”

  “Honestly,” Anna Maria admitted, “yes, it can be hard, and yes, I do sometimes feel ignored, though I know that Daniel loves me. Since Caro’s passing he’s been ratcheting up. Frankly, when he told me he was going to insist you both be here for Christmas I was worried. I half suspected something like what happened last night was going to happen.”

  Andie put her hand on her sister-in-law’s arm. “You couldn’t have done anything to stop it, you know that. Danny was angry. He wasn’t focused on the truth. He was focused on himself.”

  Anna Maria shrugged. “Maybe I couldn’t have stopped it. Still . . .”

  “I’m sorry I told you to butt out when you tried to calm things down,” Emma said. “Only days before I was hoping that you would take a more vocal part in our crazy family matters. I shouldn’t have spoken to you so harshly.”

  “It was the heat of the moment,” Anna Maria said. “You’re forgiven. And maybe I shouldn’t have tried to butt in. It’s the peacekeeper in me.”

  Andie shook her head. “You should have thrown a bucket of cold water over us all. How is Danny today?”

  “Besides a bit hung over? Miserable. He’s not a drinker. I don’t know what possessed him last night, but I think he learned his lesson.”

  Andie smiled. “Danny did us a favor actually, destroying that painting. Emma and I were saying this morning that neither of us liked it. Dad’s eyes seemed to follow you around the room. And the expression on Mom’s face made her look like she was about to be sick to her stomach.”

  “Daniel wants to get it repaired,” Anna Maria told them.

  “That would cost a fortune,” Emma said. “He shouldn’t bother, really.”

  “I agree,” Anna Maria said. “I think that if he can manage to let the painting go, it might be a symbolic gesture, something that helps him to let go of his grip on his parents as people he still needs to please and impress. Maybe he can finally live out from under their shadow.”

  Andie nodded. “I think you’re right. It would be good for Danny to let the painting go. But for now it can stay in the hall closet where I put it this morning.”

  “So, how do you think we should approach Danny?” Emma asked.

  Anna Maria frowned. “He should be the one to approach you. He owes you both a big apology and he knows it.”

  “It doesn’t matter who approaches whom,” Andie said, “as long as we all make peace.”

  “Will you tell him that we three talked?” Emma asked. “I don’t want him to think Andie and I are actually going to leave Oliver’s Well before Christmas because of a stupid fight.”

  Anna Maria smiled. “I doubt he really meant that you should go. He so wanted to spend Christmas with you both. Not all of his reasons had to do with the estate. He genuinely misses you two. “

  “We will spend Christmas together,” Andie said. “Emma and I aren’t going anywhere.” At least, she added silently, not yet.

  CHAPTER 62

  Emma was tired but she hadn’t wanted to go back to the house quite yet, so after dropping Andie off she drove out to Shepherd Pond at the very edge of Oliver’s Well. There was a good walking and running path around the pond, and at a time like this, when quiet thought seemed necessary, it was the perfect destination.

  The air was chill and the sky was a dead sort of gray; Emma smiled at how well the weather seemed to mirror her own mood. As she walked along the groomed path she thought about the conversation she and Andie had had with Anna Maria, and what they had learned about their brother’s increasingly troubled state of mind this last year. And she wondered again if moving back to Oliver’s Well was a good idea after all. Would she, too, find herself sucked into the trap of the past her brother seemed to have been sucked into? No, she thought. It was highly unlikely. She and Daniel were very different people. She had wanted and needed in equal measure to leave the proverbial nest far behind, and a return at this point would be a very conscious choice. Besides, that nest was no longer what it had been. It had changed; she had changed; everything had changed. As Andie would say, the only sure thing in life was impermanence.

  Emma stopped at one of the stone benches along the path and looked out over the still water, steely gray in the December light. She felt her breathing slow and a sort of calm come over her. At the very least, she thought, she would stay in Oliver’s Well for a few more days. If things got really unbearable—if in spite of Anna Maria’s assurances, Daniel refused to apologize or to accept an apology—she would go back to Annapolis and spend Christmas alone. It wouldn’t be the first time. And it wouldn’t
preclude the eventual possibility of a permanent move back to Oliver’s Well....

  A group of ducks waddled their way out of the water’s edge and onto the path only yards from where Emma stood. Though they looked well fed, she wished she had brought some bread for them. Next time, she promised as, hands thrust in her pockets, she turned back toward her car. But when would that next time be?

  As for Morgan, well, she would be reluctant to leave before getting some sure sense of what or what might not be happening between them. She knew it would be difficult to get to know Morgan from Annapolis; long distance romances were never easy. Assuming, of course, Morgan wanted a romance with her. Yes, he had kissed her, but a kiss wasn’t necessarily a promise.

  Emma gazed once more at the pond before getting behind the wheel of her Lexus. No, she thought, a kiss wasn’t necessarily a promise. But it had been a very nice kiss.

  CHAPTER 63

  Daniel was making dinner for his family. My family, he thought, slicing cucumbers for a salad. My wife and my children. Maybe the only family I have left.

  Anna Maria was sitting at the kitchen bar, her laptop open in front of her. She was balancing the family’s personal checking account, one of the many chores she routinely undertook, as was managing the finances of their business.

  “I can’t believe I actually threw that painting,” Daniel said to his wife, his voice low. The last thing he wanted was for the children to get wind of what had happened the night before. To lose their respect would be devastating. “I’ve never done anything like that in my life. It frightened me.”

  “It frightened me, too,” Anna Maria replied, closing her laptop with a small sigh. “Daniel, this . . . this fixation with the family has got to stop. You’ve got to get some perspective.”

  “I know. I think it was hearing about my mother’s first engagement that just—that just made me lose it. Why it should matter is beyond me, but at that moment . . . I’ve got some serious thinking to do, don’t I? I’ve got to settle some big emotional issues concerning the family. I guess I’ve known that for a while, but just couldn’t. . . .”

  “You’ll do it, Daniel,” Anna Maria said encouragingly. “And I’m here to help if you need me.”

  Daniel felt tears come to his eyes; he put down his knife and reached for his wife’s hand. “I always need you,” he said. “And I always will.”

  “I spoke to your sisters earlier. We met for coffee.”

  Daniel cringed. “Do they hate me?”

  Anna Maria laughed. “Daniel, don’t be ridiculous. They love you. They want to make peace.”

  “Can you imagine what Mom would have thought if she knew I’d destroyed the portrait? She would have been so disappointed in me. Dad, too, but especially Mom. She . . . She expected so much of me.”

  “Daniel,” Anna Maria said, “it shouldn’t matter what your mother would have thought. She’s gone. You’re here. You have to let her go, your father, too. I need you to come back to me, Daniel. To me and to the children.”

  As if summoned by his wife’s words, Sophia and Marco came thundering into the kitchen. “I’m starving, Dad,” his daughter announced. “When’s dinner?”

  “I’m famished!” Marco added.

  Daniel laughed. “Where did you hear that word?”

  “On TV. I was watching one of those cooking shows you say are so silly.”

  “Well, I guess not all of them are silly if they help increase your vocabulary. What other new words have you learned?”

  Marco scrunched up his face in thought. “Succulent,” he said. “And daube. That’s French.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to be a chef when you grow up?” Daniel asked.

  “I’m one hundred percent certain, Dad. That’s another way of saying I’m sure.”

  Anna Maria laughed. “Maybe you’ll be a writer, Marco.”

  “Do they make a lot of money?” he asked.

  Daniel shrugged. “Some of them do, I guess.”

  “Then I’ll consider it. That’s another way of saying I’ll think about it.”

  “So, like half an hour?” Sophia demanded. “My stomach is literally growling.”

  “Half an hour,” Daniel promised. Satisfied with his answer, both children ran from the kitchen.

  Daniel picked up his knife again and got back to preparing the meal. And for some reason he suddenly remembered that popular expression from long before his time, “let go and let live.” The message there was pretty wise. He smiled. What would Andie say if she knew he was turning to the world of forty-year-old self-help for guidance?

  “What’s got you smiling?” Anna Maria asked, opening her laptop again.

  Daniel shrugged. “Life,” he said. “Broccoli or peas tonight?”

  CHAPTER 64

  The meeting with the people at R. W. Simons in Westminster had gone well; Emma had been grateful for Morgan’s professional presence. They had taken only one car, Morgan’s, for convenience, and on the ride back to Oliver’s Well Emma realized that neither of them had said a word for a full ten minutes. Just as she was about to rectify that, Morgan spoke.

  “You seem a bit preoccupied today,” Morgan said. “Anything the matter? You said you thought the meeting went well.”

  “I did say that and I meant it.” Emma hesitated, but only for a moment. “It’s just that there was a big to-do at the house the other night. Let’s just say a lot of old grievances were aired, some of them kind of surprising, others, not so much.”

  “Sounds upsetting. I’ve never been one for controversy or confrontation.”

  “It was upsetting,” Emma said. “It wasn’t a pleasant scene for any of us, but mostly for Danny. He’s been under such strain these past few years, taking care of my mother and the estate on his own. He pretty much accused Andie and me of neglecting our duty to Mom.”

  Morgan sighed. “Ah. Habits and family dynamics die hard. And slowly.”

  “Yes, they do,” Emma said ruefully. “Anyway, enough of my drama. I’ve been meaning to ask what you’re doing for Christmas.”

  “I’ll be spending Christmas with my parents and the dreaded Aunt Agatha in Baltimore.” Morgan glanced over with a grin. “Seriously, she’s the definition of the Formidable Aunt.”

  “What do you mean?” Emma asked.

  “Have you ever read the Jeeves and Wooster stories, or seen the TV adaptation with Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry?”

  Emma felt her eyes go wide. “You’re not saying she’s like Bertie’s Aunt Agatha?”

  “Yes, I am, minus the little white dog. Aunt Agatha’s got the meanest, most ornery cat I’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting. Anyway, I suppose she means well, but she dominates the entire family, even the others of her generation.” Morgan laughed. “She holds us in fear and trembling by the terror of her ways.”

  “A slight exaggeration?”

  “Yes,” Morgan admitted, “but only slight. Well, here we are.”

  Morgan pulled up to number 32 Honeysuckle Lane and took Emma’s hand in his. “Call me if you want to,” he said. “Any time, even after I’ve gone to Baltimore.”

  “Thanks,” Emma said. “It’s very kind of you.”

  Morgan laughed. “There’s something in it for me, too. I always appreciate a break from Aunt Agatha and her cat from hell!”

  He released her hand after a final gentle squeeze, and Emma got out of the car. She watched for a moment as Morgan drove away. Yes, she thought with a smile, in spite of the challenges, she was glad she had stayed on in Oliver’s Well.

  And now, there was an apology she had to make.

  * * *

  Emma found her brother in his professional kitchen, what was formerly the garage, chopping a mound of leeks. There was a tantalizing smell of sautéing onions in the air, and though she had eaten lunch after Morgan had dropped her home, Emma felt her stomach growl.

  “Hey,” she said.

  Daniel looked up from the chopping board, clearly startled. “Oh. Hi,” he said. �
�I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “You were absorbed with your work. I’m sorry to disturb you.”

  “You’re not disturbing me. Here, have a seat.” Daniel put down his knife and gestured toward a stool that stood next to the main work counter.

  “I just came from the auction house in Westminster,” Emma told him. “Morgan was nice enough to come with me. He thinks they’re perfect for our needs, and from what I learned today, I agree. And their price is competitive.”

  “Good,” Daniel said. “Thanks.”

  Emma thought she had never seen her brother look so awkward or pained. “Danny,” she said, without wasting more time, “what I really came here to tell you is that I’m sorry for my behavior the other night. And for my words. I’m sorry for using that information about Mom and her broken engagement like a weapon.”

  Daniel ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “I’m sorry, too, Emma,” he said. Emma thought he sounded both weary and relieved. “I don’t know what came over me. Well, yes, I guess I do. At least, I’m working on figuring it all out.”

  “Family can be . . . It can be difficult, both the reality of it and the idea of it. All the expectations and assumptions and misperceptions that go along with trying to find our place in it, in trying to break away from it. All the hurt feelings. All the loss. All the anger.” Emma shook her head. “And yet, where would any of us be without family?”

  “I have absolutely no idea,” Daniel admitted with a smile. “I should have come to you, Emma. I’m sorry.”

  Emma smiled. “Does it matter? We’re here now, together.”

  “And I am sorry for being a bit of a jerk all around since you and Andie have been back home.”

  “You’re forgiven. Though you did have me worried. It was so unlike you to be, well, jerky.”

  Daniel managed another small smile. “I think I worried myself, too! So, Mom really left her high society fiancé for Dad?”