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Everything in my closet was machine washable and designed for comfort,
“An echo with nothing and no one to call her own,” Arthur announced without preamble. Clearly, this was a subject he’d given some thought to. “A friendly facade. An empty smile. A scared little girl without an opinion of your own, latching on to other people’s bigger and brighter lives because you’re not willing to fully live your own.”
but I didn’t know how to explain to him that I needed the upheaval of mess all around me. That upheaval meant I was living. Not well, obviously, and not in any way that would spark envy among home renovation enthusiasts, but enough so that some evidence of my existence remained. Even the smallest, most insignificant Roman housewife got to leave her shards of pottery behind.
“He wanted stability so much that he spent his whole life serving a man who never appreciated it. Or who appreciated him.” “Maisey!” Sloane protested, but it was no use. “I was right,” I insisted. “It is a sad book.” “Well, I’ll be damned.” Arthur put his hands down and looked at me with a new light in his eyes. “The housewife might not be as bad at this as I feared.”
“By the way,” I added, heading up the sidewalk to the house, “if your grandfather throws the coatrack, you should probably duck, but the vase is an heirloom.” He blinked at me, perplexed. “That one you’ll want to catch.”
I started pulling out the makings of a salad even though Arthur had very determinedly informed me yesterday that salads “are what food eats.”
In fact, I hadn’t been born to any trade whatsoever. My résumé read more like a hodgepodge of failed personalities than a formal document.
“Brett Marcowitz is a lump of wet beige clay,” I said by way of explanation. “If this plan is something he wouldn’t approve of, then it has my full support.”
“Let’s just say he and I don’t share a lot in common,” I said. “I’m fun. He’s not. I introduce joy and light into people’s lives. He sucks everything good back out again.”
Say what you might about Arthur McLachlan, the man was erudite. I’ve never been called God’s pestilent uvula before, but it was a phrase I intended to throw in at every dinner party I attended for the rest of my natural-born life.
“If I’d known my house was going to turn into the setting of a Jojo Moyes novel, I’d have let them put me in a nursing home in the first place,” he muttered.
“If either of you find yourself facing a man like Arthur McLachlan in a full-body rage, my advice is to run,” Mateo said. Maisey considered this for a moment. “And what’s your advice if we’re facing a man like Greg?” “That’s easy.” Mateo winked. “Run faster.”
He’s always trying to give people money to make up for his grandfather’s terrible personality.”
“To where? An early grave? Thanks, but I’d rather stay on this side of the grass, if you don’t mind.”
She was in every book I’d ever read, every tale that had ever touched my heart. Fiction and nonfiction, memoir and short story—no matter what I read, I always found her.
“October is a wet, cold, miserable month, and anyone who pretends that a few rotting leaves make up for it is an idiot.”
“Never mind. You’ll never guess. I got a phone call.” “Alert the authorities,” I said. “This is a matter of national security. Or maybe we should call the Enquirer. Take out a full-page ad in—”
Maisey would never be a complex woman, and if you handed her Schrödinger’s box, she’d immediately open the lid so she could slip a can of tuna inside, but I was coming to appreciate that about her. Someone had to remember to feed the damn cat.
“I’m sorry for what I said the other day, Maisey.” She grew perfectly still, her hand upraised like a statue about to pour water out of a pitcher. “For which part?” “Yeah, Grandpa,” Greg drawled. “There are an awful lot of potential apologies to choose from.” “There has been the need for at least a dozen in my hearing alone,” Nigel agreed.
This world was a terrible place. It gave you people to love and then took them away before you stopped loving them. It made you mean and angry and cruel to those who needed you most. It ground you down until it was all you could do to get through the day. But most of all, it tried to convince you that you were alone in your suffering.
Honestly, the younger generation’s need for external validation was going to be their undoing.
“There she is,” he murmured. “I knew you had a big and bright life burning somewhere inside you.”
“The pink ones are mine,” Maisey said, confirming it. Mateo nodded. “I got green, but only because the other colors were taken.” “Grandpa is yellow,” Greg added, “and I’m blue.” Even Nigel felt compelled to add to this. “I’m orange, but as we’re only just starting to get to know each other, there aren’t as many as I’d like. I hope that’s all right.”
Every highlighted passage spoke of friendship and affection, of hope and optimism. Alone, they were happy little sound bites that were pleasing to the eye. Stitched together, they became something else entirely. They became a love letter of words and sentiment—and one that was addressed entirely to me.
“The truth is, I need Greg at the house—not to look after me, but because I have a lot of apologizing left to do. Unfortunately, it’s going to take more than a few speeches or highlights in a book to start repairing the wrongs I did his mother. He is being gracious enough to stick around long enough for me to try.”
