Always You (5 page)

“Speaking of home, Mrs. Randall, when does your husband plan to take you and your baby to yours? Soon, I hope?”

“I am home,” Kyla said simply. “So are you. You’ll be a lot happier once you figure that out.”

Her belly full after being permitted to eat in the kitchen in peace, Chiara quietly made her way upstairs to find an empty bedroom. The first bedroom she came to was her mother’s. Abby was still in the kitchen clearing away Chiara’s plate and drinking glass, despite Chiara’s willingness to do it herself. The room across from Abby’s was occupied, and Chiara could just make out three female voices, shrilly whispering.

“Don’t put any tape on that corner, you’ll make it bulge,” came the first voice, which Chiara recognized as that of her thirteen-year-old niece, Danielle.

“It’ll get out if we don’t tape it up all over,” fiercely whispered nine-year-old Abigail, never one to cower before her older cousin.

“What if it chews through the paper?” wondered Ella, who at seven seemed to be literally the voice of reason among the three.

“It doesn’t eat paper,” Danielle said. Chiara pictured the condescending roll of the eyes that probably accompanied Danielle’s declaration.

“It might rip up the paper with its claws, though,” Abigail offered.

“Maybe we should put tape all over it,” Danielle considered.

“But poke some holes so it can breathe,” Ella reminded them.

“Clarence is gonna love this present!” Abigail said.

Probably
, Chiara silently agreed, acknowledging her eleven-year-old nephew’s fondness for anything with fangs, fur, feathers, venom or claws.

Even though a seam of soft light shone at the bottom of the door of the room adjacent to the girls’ room, Chiara thought it was probably empty. It was Abby’s habit to leave table lamps burning in the rooms in the front of the house, especially on holidays. She stepped closer to grip the doorknob, but Kyla’s quiet utterance of her name stopped her. Just as their bickering had carried over into adulthood, so had Chiara’s tendency to eavesdrop at doorways. She kneeled in the corridor and gently pressed her ear to the keyhole.

“…not fair,” came Zweli’s voice. “Chiara’s a grown woman, but you and your sisters treat her like she’s still a ten-year-old in pigtails. I’m not sure I’d come home that often either, if folks jumped down my throat the way you did tonight.”

“I couldn’t help it,” Kyla protested. “Christmas is still hard for me. Mama does the house up so nicely, and so many people always turn out for Christmas Eve and Christmas dinner. I should be happy, but I want all my sisters around me at the holidays. It keeps me from missing Grandma Claire so much.”

“I know, honey.”

“Chiara acts like she doesn’t miss her at all,” Kyla argued. “Grandma was so sick for so long, and Chiara didn’t bother to show up once.”

“People handle grief in different ways, baby, you know that. You were here when Claire passed, but you have to admit…you acted pretty stupid most of the time.”

Kyla made a noise of indignation.

“You know you did, Ky. Has anyone thrown your behavior back in your face?”

“No,” she grudgingly admitted.

“It’s because we all knew how hard it was for you, dealing with Claire’s death. We didn’t hold your foolishness against you because we knew it was your way of dealing with everything.”

“Chiara dealt with it by not dealing with it at all, and I’m supposed to respect that?” Kyla suggested testily.

“She did deal with it,” Zweli said. “I was there a few times when Chiara was on the phone with Claire in the hospital. Claire’s the one who told her not to come home. Maybe there were some things your grandmother knew about your sister that you didn’t.”

“Like what?” Kyla scoffed.

“Like maybe Chiara wouldn’t have gotten through it as well as you and the rest of your sisters did. Chiara might just be one of those people who are better off alone, doing their own thing, instead of being in the thick of everything.”

In the next moment of silence, Kyla seemed to contemplate her husband’s words of wisdom. “Chiara’s always pulled away from us,” she said.

Not pulled,
Chiara thought.
I was pushed.

“All right,” Kyla sighed. “I’ll let it go. This is Niema’s first Christmas. I don’t want her hearing her aunty and her mama fighting.”

The light under the door disappeared with a faint click, and Chiara heard the bedsprings twang in response to the movement atop them.

“You’d better go to sleep, Mrs. Randall, or Santa won’t bring you any presents,” Zweli said.

“Santa won’t mind if we stay up a little longer,” Kyla replied. “Not if he knew what I plan to give you tonight.”

“I don’t want to wake up Niema,” Zweli protested weakly.

“Then you’d better be quiet, Dr. Randall,” Kyla whispered. The rest of her words were too soft for Chiara to hear, but there was no mistaking the meaning behind Kyla’s silky laughter and Zweli’s moaned responses. Embarrassed by her intrusiveness, Chiara moved on to the second set of stairs.

Abby had remodeled the attic, converting most of it into a spacious bedroom suite complete with a master bath, and the rest of it into well-organized storage area. Chiara recalled the e-mail her sister Cady had sent her, bemoaning the loss of the chaos of disarray and dust-covered junk that she had loved all her life. Once she reached the top of the attic stairs, Chiara saw that Cady hadn’t been too distressed by the renovation since she and her family were firmly settled in the “penthouse suite” for the night.

After knocking softly on the trapdoor and receiving permission to enter, Chiara raised the unlatched door and climbed up. Keren and Cady, snug in the new brass queen Abby had bullied two deliverymen into transporting up the two steep, narrow staircases, both held index fingers to their pursed lips. Chiara followed Cady’s pointed look toward the opposite side of the room, where Cady’s three-and-a-half-year-old twins, Samuel Keren and Claire Elizabeth, slept in the matching brass trundle bed. Cady regularly sent Chiara e-mails containing photos of the twins. Seeing Sammy and Claire nestled together like a yin and yang symbol—to Chiara’s eyes—the twins couldn’t possibly look more adorable.

The contents of the ancient crib next to Cady’s side of the bed quickly stole Chiara’s full attention. Virginia, almost a year and a half old, slept on her chest and knees with her tiny round backside pushed into the air. Cady’s youngest had her mother’s honey-gold complexion and her father’s full, sculpted mouth in miniature. Her black curls were all her own.

“She’s so beautiful, Cady,” Chiara sighed, thinking that the baby looked as compact as a packaged meatloaf in her long-sleeved Onesie. The side of the crib, the same crib she and her sisters had used in infancy, squeaked in protest when Chiara rested her forearms on the rail and leaned on it.

“Let sleeping beauty lie,” Cady advised in a soft voice. “If she wakes up, the twins will get up and think it’s time to open presents.”

“Time to open the ones they haven’t already opened,” Keren said, closing the book he’d been reading. He moved a pair of heavy, black-framed glasses from his nose to the crown of his shaved head. “Clarence organized a raid of the tree after dinner tonight. Abigail, Ella and the twins had opened half their gifts before we found them in the basement under a mountain of wrapping and ribbons.”

“Santa won’t look too kindly on that,” Chiara said absently as she lightly brushed her fingertips over Virginia’s silky black curls.

“One of Santa’s elves took all the rest of their presents and hid them,” Cady said as she fluffed her own multi-colored curls with her fingers. “They’re going to be awfully surprised in the morning when they don’t have anything to open, the little brats.”

“They aren’t brats,” Chiara said, her eyes fixed unblinkingly on Virginia. “They’re angels.”

“Angels with no appreciation for delayed gratification,” Cady said. “Are you all right?”

Chiara looked up from the baby to see Cady peering at her, her eyebrows drawn together.

“I’m fine.” Chiara quickly straightened and moved to sit on the foot of the bed. “I’m just a little tired. It’s been a long week.”

“I’m sorry about your partner,” Keren said. He reached toward the rocking chair beside his night table and drew forth the navy pajama top he’d discarded. Chiara couldn’t help staring at the stack of chiseled abdominal muscles moving beneath her brother-in-law’s mahogany skin as he put the top on. The attic was always a bit too warm, as evidenced by Cady’s simple sleeveless cotton nightgown, so Chiara knew that Keren was dressing for her benefit.

“When did you start wearing glasses?” Chiara asked, forcing her tone to be lighter than she felt.

“About a month ago,” Keren grumbled. He pulled the glasses off, carefully folded them and set them on the nightstand.

“Keren turned forty this year.” Cady hid a smile behind her loosely curled fingers. “They always say that the eyesight is the first to go.”

“I see just fine, woman,” Keren stated emphatically. “There’s just too much fine print in the world.”

“Lower your voice,” Cady said softly. “Let Wynken, Blynken and Nod get a good night’s sleep.”

“What are you going to call the next one?” Chiara asked, shifting her gaze to the light flannel blanket covering Cady’s midsection.

“No idea.” Cady set her hands over her abdomen, and Keren moved closer to her, to cover one of her hands with his. “It’s an inconclusive at this point.”

“A what?” Chiara wondered.

“My twenty-week ultrasound was inconclusive. The baby’s legs are folded, so the technician couldn’t get a clear picture of the gender.”

“It’s a girl,” Cady remarked as Keren said, “It’s a boy.”

Chiara wistfully gazed at Virginia. “It doesn’t matter.”

“So,” Cady started, “what were you and Kyla shouting about downstairs?”

Chiara stared at her, wide-eyed. “You heard us all the way up here?”

“We heard
you
,” Cady said. “You’ve always had a voice that travels. Kyla’s the trained actress. She knows how to moderate.”

Chiara snorted. “I don’t know where she gets off telling me how to live my life. I’m not the only one who’s spent a lot of time away from home. Clara lived on the West Coast and you lived on the East Coast for years, and Kyla…that dumb chump traveled all over, too, filming her stupid
Lifeguards
television show. That movie she signed on to do in June took her across half the United States for four months, and not only that, she dragged Zweli and her baby along with her! At least when I travel for my job, I don’t uproot anybody! My job—” She caught up short, unable to defend anything about her job and the distance it had created between her and her family.

“What is it, Chi?” Cady asked.

Chiara shook her head, dismissing whatever she might have wanted to say.

“You may as well tell us what the matter is,” Keren said. “Cady’ll pull it out of you one way or the other.”

“Nothing’s wrong.” Chiara aimed her lie at the baby’s sleeping form.

“We heard the waterworks, kiddo,” Cady told her. “Kyla hasn’t made you cry like that since you were in braids. Something’s up, isn’t it?”

“It’s nothing.” Chiara stood and moved to kneel at the twins’ bedside. “It’s something at work. I can handle it.” She was aware of her sister’s gaze on her as she rested her hand on Sammy K.’s small back. She envied his complete obliviousness to what was going on around him. He and his twin shared the same breath, and Chiara envied that, too. She had been close to her siblings, but being the youngest, she’d never felt as though she’d been on an equal footing with them. Sammy K. and Claire had come into the world together and would always have someone on whom to depend.

She touched his freshly shorn curls, marveling at the beauty of his dark brown skin and his chubby cheeks. Sammy K. was the more active of the pair, the one who unfailingly followed his sister’s mischievous schemes. Claire, with her dark honey complexion, ginger curls and long, sweeping eyelashes, could charm a saint into snatching candy from the Brach’s display at the supermarket.

“Chiara?”

She tore herself from her contemplation of her niece and nephew and returned to the foot of the bed.

“They’re going to be here tomorrow,” Cady told her. “You don’t have to fill up on them tonight. Why don’t you go to bed? You’ll feel better after a good night’s sleep.”

Chiara nodded. “I’ll squeeze in with the girls, I guess.”

“Mama hadn’t counted on them staying the night, but they insisted,” Cady said. “Clara and Ciel were glad to have them out of the way, so they could finish wrapping their gifts.”

“Were the boys here tonight?”

Cady nodded. “Troy brought his new girlfriend. The girl wore him like a piece of jewelry.”

“You just didn’t like her.” Keren nestled closer to Cady and punched his pillow before scrunching it under his head. “She was nice.”

Cady glanced at the ceiling. “Nice and possessive.”

“Troy seems to like her,” Keren said.

“Troy is only eighteen years old, he has no idea what he likes.”

“She’s got big tits, doesn’t she?” Chiara asked knowingly.

“They’re the same size as her head,” Cady scoffed.

“Then that’s what Troy likes about her.”

“How do you know so much about Troy’s preferences?” Cady asked.

“He sent me an e-mail when I was in Tokyo. He wanted some Japanese anime graphic novels. He doesn’t read Japanese, and the only other reason any red-blooded American teenager wants those books is because of the artwork. Big knockers feature prominently.”

“C.J. brought his little cross-eyed girlfriend, too,” Cady said. “You should have seen him. He got his license a few weeks ago, and he drove her here.”

“Chris Jr. has a girlfriend?” Chiara smiled. “Do you hate her, too?”

“She’s a sweetie, and I don’t hate Troy’s little floozy. I just think he can do better. He’s going to Stanford in the fall. He shouldn’t be hooking up with some hoochie.” Cady lowered her voice. “She reminds me of some of Zweli’s old girlfriends.”

“That bad, huh?” Chiara chuckled lightly. “Hopefully, it’s just a phase he’s going through.”

“It took Zweli twenty years to outgrow his phase,” Cady pointed out.

“Yes, but look at him now,” Keren said. “He’s a happily married family man.”

“So, Chiara,” Cady started with exaggerated casualness, “have you seen John Mahoney lately?”