Rainshadow Road(30)
“What? I’m your first daughter to get married—and you’re not going to give me a wedding?”
“We’ll be more than happy to pay for a wedding when our family is healed. But as things stand now, you’ve gained your happiness at the expense of your sister’s. And in consideration for her feelings, that means we can’t support your relationship with Kevin. That also means that we’re not going to be supplementing your monthly income any longer.”
“I feel like I’m being disowned,” Alice cried in astonished fury. “I can’t believe how unfair this is!”
“You’ve created a situation that’s unfair to everyone, Alice. Including yourself. There are so many events ahead of us … holidays, births, illnesses … things we need to go through as a family. And that won’t be possible until you’ve worked things out with Lucy.”
Outraged, Alice had repeated the conversation to Kevin, who had shrugged and said they should probably put off the wedding.
“Until Lucy gets over losing you? She’ll stay single for the next fifty years, just to be a bitch.”
“You can’t make her start going out again,” Kevin said.
Alice was deep in thought. “As soon as Lucy gets a new guy, she can’t be the victim anymore. My parents will have to admit that she’s gone on with her life. And then they’ll have to give me a wedding, and things will go back to the way they’ve always been.”
“Where are you going to get this guy for her?”
“You know a lot of people on the island. Who do you suggest?”
He gave her a startled glance. “This is getting weird, Alice. I’m not going to fix up my ex-girlfriend with one of my buddies.”
“Not a close friend. Just a normal, decent-looking guy who would appeal to her.”
“Even if I can come up with someone, how are you going to…” Kevin’s voice trailed away as he read her stubborn expression. “I don’t know. Maybe one of the Nolans. I heard Alex is getting a divorce.”
“No divorced guys. Lucy won’t go for that.”
“The middle brother, Sam, is single. He has a vineyard.”
“Perfect. How do we get them together?”
“You want me to introduce them?”
“No, it has to be secret. Lucy would never agree to go out with someone that either of us had suggested.”
Kevin considered how to get two people to go out together without revealing that you were the one behind it. “Alice, do we really have to—”
“Yes.”
“I guess Sam owes me one,” Kevin said reflectively. “I did some ground work for him a couple years back, and I didn’t charge him anything.”
“Good. Call in the favor, then. Get Sam Nolan to take Lucy out.”
* * *
Holly giggled as Sam hoisted her spindly body to carry her through the vineyard on his shoulders. “I’m tall!” she cried. “Look at me!”
She weighed no more than dandelion fluff, her small arms loosely wrapped around his forehead.
“I told you to wash your hands after breakfast,” Sam said.
“How did you know I didn’t?”
“Because they’re sticky, and they’re in my hair.”
A giggle floated over his head. They had made s’mores pancakes, their own invention, which Mark almost certainly wouldn’t have allowed had he been there. But Mark had spent the night at his fiancée Maggie’s house, and when he was gone, Sam tended to loosen up on the rules.
Anchoring Holly’s ankles with his hands, Sam called out to the vineyard crew, who were starting up the Caval tractor. The vehicle was fitted with a huge spool of netting that would cover four or five rows of vines at a time.
Holly wrapped her arms more tightly around Sam’s head, nearly blinding him. “How much are you going to pay me for helping you this morning?”
Sam grinned, loving the slight weight of her on his shoulders, her sugar-scented breath, her endless quick-spun energy. Before Holly had come into his life, little girls had been alien creatures to him, with their love of pink and purple, of glitter glue, stuffed animals, and fairy tales.
In the spirit of gender equality, the two bachelor uncles had taught Holly how to fish, throw a ball, and hammer nails. But her love of bows and baubles and fluffy things remained intractable. Her favorite hat, which she was wearing at the moment, was a pink baseball cap with a silver tiara embroidered on the front.
Recently Sam had bought some new clothes for Holly and put the old ones that no longer fit into a bag for Goodwill. It had occurred to him that Holly’s past with her mother was eroding. The clothes, the old toys, even the old phrases and habits, were all gradually, inevitably, being replaced. So he had set a few things aside to be kept in a box in the attic. And he was jotting down his own memories of Vick, funny or sweet stories, to share with Holly someday.