“Is Grandma Joyce here?” Olivia asked, bouncing on her toes, the plastic of her pink and silver sparkle princess dress-up high heels causing a clacking sound against the hardwoods. Anxiety washed over Carrie as she looked down at the twins, just now noticing that they weren’t perfectly dressed the way Natalie would have had them. Olivia was wearing her dress-up princess costume over top of a pair of blue leggings and a green floral shirt. Her hair was bunched beneath her plastic crown, wisps falling around her face. David had jeans and a superhero T-shirt that he must have found in his summer clothes drawer when he’d dressed himself this morning.
She watched as the camper pulled forward and backward, making tracks in the snow, over and over in an attempt to park the gigantic vehicle in the driveway. The sky above it was a dark gray—the kind of sky that would dump snow at any moment—a far cry from yesterday’s blue. Carrie wondered about the people in that camper. What were Adam’s parents like? Were they as wealthy as Adam? Were they workaholics like him? Overachievers? She’d never had extended family in the house while she was watching children before. Would they make things more complicated for her? Would they judge her by the way she’d dressed the children? Would their expectations for the kids be different than hers? It could make for a very difficult holiday if they didn’t agree with her methods.
The camper finally came to a stop. The driver’s side door opened, and a man got out. He was dressed in a pair of jeans and a wool coat, and he didn’t look very intimidating. When he turned around, she bit her lip to keep from smiling. She knew exactly who he was just by looking at him, and she knew what Adam would look like in another twenty-five or so odd years. She’d never seen someone look so much like someone else before. The man’s hair was silver, and his stance wasn’t as strong as Adam’s, but he looked just like him. The door opened on the other side and a petite woman with a gentle expression got out. Her gray hair fell just above her shoulders, and she had it tucked behind her ears. She had on a giant coat that nearly swallowed her, her petite legs barely showing beneath it. She was rubbing her arms to keep warm as she walked around the camper. Carrie let the smile finally emerge when she saw the man put his arm around her and try to warm her up. She remembered when she’d been sitting in her car outside this very house, and she wondered what it would feel like to have someone to keep her warm.
The man let go of his wife to help an elderly man that was wobbling down the step of the camper, grabbing on to the side of the vehicle for support and barely getting down on his own. Her first inclination was to run out and help him—he looked very unsteady—but he seemed more stable once he was on the ground. The man pulled a walker out of the camper and placed it in front of him. Carrie worried that he’d never get it through the snow outside, and she wished someone had shoveled the walk.
The family didn’t look intimidating or even overly wealthy, which was surprising. After seeing Adam’s huge house and all the expensive things in it, she’d just assumed that they would be. But the truth was, they looked a lot like her own parents. A sense of calm wrapped around her like a warm blanket as she saw their affection for one another. Then, she had a jolt of excitement as she noted the license plate on the camper. It was from North Carolina—her home state. Immediately, she wondered what part of North Carolina they were from. Had Adam grown up there? He must have worked to lessen his southern drawl over the years. At least if she had to spend time with a family that wasn’t her own, they were people to whom she could most likely relate.
The back door of the camper opened and two more people got out: a woman—his sister? Then, a man. Carrie felt her heart speed up as she heard the clank of the camper doors shutting through the window. The group started walking toward the house. Olivia ran to open it, David following behind her.
“Grandma Joyce!” Olivia called out, swinging the front door wide open and trying to step onto the snowy front steps with her princess heels.
“I’ll come to you, Olivia,” the woman said with a grin that lit up her entire face. She darted around the two men as they made their way to the door. As the woman got closer, Carrie noticed that her eyes were the same blue as Adam’s. “You’re gonna slip if you come out here. I’m coming.” Carrie definitely recognized her accent. It sent a soothing feeling through her. There was something unique about the accents in the southern states; each one of them had their own slight differences. It was the way she said the word “I” and the drawl in the name “Olivia” that had given her away. It was the same drawl she’d heard when her mother had read her books at night all snuggled up in bed. Her “I” sounded just like her dad’s had when he told her stories.