“We’re going to be a family from now on, not three people who live in the same house,” she answered. “We’re going to share everything.”

“Hello, house.” Mack’s big deep voice echoed as he came in through the back door. “I brought two friends with me.”

Lily got misty-eyed again when she saw Polly Dillard coming in ahead of Mack. Polly had been Vera’s lifelong friend. She had more gray streaks in her dark hair and a few more wrinkles than the last time Lily had seen her. Polly set a chocolate sheet cake on the cabinet and opened up her arms. Lily walked right into them. Hugging her was so much like hugging her mother that Lily had to fight back tears.

Mack carried in a covered dish and a bag of chips and placed them beside the cake.

“Thanks so much, Mack, for helping me get this stuff into the house.” Polly stepped away from Lily and said, “Girl, I could just take a switch to you for not coming home more often. I’ve missed you. I made seven-layer dip and your favorite cake.” She pointed at the cabinet. “You look more like Vera every day, except for that blonde hair, but then your grandmother had lovely blonde hair. Still don’t seem right that Vera is gone. Or that she left me behind. We made a pact when we were twenty-one and got drunk off our asses that we would do everything together. We even got married the same summer, and we were supposed to die on the same day. I guess she went on so she could get the place ready for me. Lord knows I’ll need all the help I can get.”

Polly always did use a hundred words where five would do the trick, but Lily was so glad to see her that she didn’t mind the way she went on, especially about Lily’s mother. It was comforting to hear the same things that she’d been told more than once.

Lily couldn’t imagine her straitlaced mother drunk. She had only drunk an occasional glass of wine, and that was at a wedding or a New Year’s party.

“She didn’t have kids at the same time I did, though,” Polly said. “Bless her heart, it was several years after she and Frank married before Rosemary came along, and then she had you. If it hadn’t been for you, she’d never have survived Rosemary’s dying so young.”

“It’s sweet of you to say that.” Lily’s voice cracked a little.

“A mother should never have to bury a child,” Polly said. “We’re born with the knowledge that we will have to lose our parents, and that’s a natural grief. But to mourn a child is unnatural grief. I was glad that Vera had her kids later in life. That way we never had that empty-nest thing because we still had you around.” She took off her coat and hung it on the back of a kitchen chair. She towered above Lily and was thin as a rail, yet her blue eyes still sparkled with lots of life. “Let’s all gather ’round and break into that dip. Then we’ll have some cake for dessert and call it all an afternoon snack. Where are the kids? And why did you decide to move back here in the middle of the school year? Sally told me yesterday that you were coming, but she was busy with a customer so I didn’t ask for details.”

“Kids are in the living room. I had to get them out of the city. Have to explain later,” Lily whispered, and then yelled, “Hey, we’ve got chips and dip and chocolate cake if y’all want to . . .”

Braden was in the room with Holly right behind him before she even finished the last words. Mack took a gallon jug of sweet tea from the refrigerator, got down five glasses, and asked, “Braden, you want to help put ice in these glasses?”

“I’ll help him,” Holly offered.

“Sweet Jesus!” Polly laid a hand on her heart. “They’ve grown up so much. They were just little things when Vera passed on.”

“I was expecting them to look like they did at Vera’s funeral, too,” Mack said as he took down a stack of small plates. “Guess we get a picture in our minds of the last time we saw a person, and we don’t think about the passing of time.”

He handed the stack to Lily. She took it and dealt the plates around the table. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d sat at the kitchen table with her kids. They usually heaped a plate and either took it to the living room or to their bedrooms. She scooped out two big spoonfuls of the dip and passed it on to Mack, who was sitting beside her at the round table. There was a slight tingle when his hand brushed against hers, but she chalked it up to nerves.

“Thank you,” he said. “It’s kind of nice to have folks to share food with. Gets lonely in this big house all alone.”

“Big house?” Holly fussed. “I don’t even get my own bathroom, or a walk-in closet.”

“But you get to live in a house that’s more than a hundred years old.” Polly piled dip onto her plate. “Just think of all the stories this place could tell.”

Braden poked her on the shoulder. “I bet ghosts live in your bedroom. When you hear spooky music, that will let you know they’re coming out of the walls.”

Holly shivered. “Be quiet!”

Braden hummed spooky music.

Holly narrowed her eyes at him and said, “If anything scares me, I’m going to open the door and shoo them over to your room. You better keep a light on. I hear they slip into your head and turn you into an alien.”

“Spoken like a true smart-ass.” Polly giggled. “I swear, her voice is even like Vera’s.”

Braden grinned impishly and poked his sister on the arm. “Maybe Granny’s ghost has already crawled inside your head. Any day now, you’re going to start wrinkling up all over your face.”

“You’re mean!” Holly ran her fingers over her flawless face. “Mama, tell him to shut his mouth.”

“You started it, Holly Jo,” Lily told her.

“I did not,” Holly protested. “Braden did, and if I start getting wrinkles, I’m going to run away.”

“The goats turn into zombies at night,” Braden said. “You better stay in the house after dark.”

“They only eat little boys. They hate girls,” Holly told him. “So you better not go outside to smoke. Did you throw away that pack you had hiding in your underwear drawer?”

“Yes, I did, tattletale,” Braden replied. “Did you throw away that joint you had in your purse?”

“I flushed it down the toilet.” She blushed.

“That’s enough out of both of you,” Lily said.

Mack chuckled under his breath. “This is going to be an adventure.”

“More like a nightmare,” Lily whispered.

Chapter Four

The first major fight between Braden and Holly came about on Saturday evening. They both wanted to have first dibs on the single bathroom on the second floor. Lily came out of her bedroom and got between them before they started throwing punches. “Braden, you go take a bath and get to bed. You can read until eleven since this is Christmas break. Lights go out at ten on school nights.”

“Ten! That’s for babies,” Braden argued.

“You always take his side.” Holly crossed her arms over her chest and fumed.

“You will take a morning bath.” Lily turned and waggled a finger at her daughter. “The bathroom is off-limits for putting on makeup or primping, and that goes for both of you. You each have a mirror in your room. And ten o’clock is bedtime, and there will be a bed check.”