ChapterTen
The Copperfield House was alight with new life.
Since Alana’s departure earlier that month, Julia had hired a local crew to fix and paint the siding and the shutters around the enormous house. The dark shutters hung, confident and straight and without a single fleck of bad paint, outlining the large, glowing windows of the house. Alana’s breath caught in her throat. She’d always thought the windows of The Copperfield House looked like eyes.
“It’s funny what fresh paint does to the old place, isn’t it?” Julia asked, her smile crooked. “Thanks again for helping with the cost.”
Alana slightly remembered sending some cash via a phone app several weeks ago. Asher’s money, at least, had gone to one good thing.
Alana and Julia grabbed one suitcase apiece and wheeled them up the walkway to the front porch. All the windows were open, and French music billowed out from the kitchen. Already, the foyer simmered with savory smells of French fare; pots and pans and skillets sizzled like angry snakes.
“Are those my girls?” Greta appeared in the doorway between the kitchen and the large living room, a lace apron tied around her waist and a wooden spoon in hand.
“Mom!” Alana was genuinely surprised at the excitement in her voice. She dropped her suitcase with a clack and paced across the living room, swallowing her mother with a hug. Only in her mother’s arms could she name the devastation she’d felt the past two weeks. Only in her mother’s arms could she recognize her anger.
Greta looked even better than she had before Alana had left, as though, along with the repainting of the house, Julia had breathed life into Greta as well. Her cheeks glowed a rose color, and her eyes danced as she led Alana back into the kitchen, explaining that she had to “babysit” tonight’s dinner until the bitter end. Chicken Legs Coq au Vin was no small feat.
Julia entered the kitchen breezily, sifting through the mail she’d retrieved from the mailbox and kissing Greta on the cheek. There was already an ease between them; their mother-daughter relationship had transformed into something more like friends. Alana craved that.
“Alana, you must be exhausted.” Greta leafed through the refrigerator and drew out a pitcher of lemonade.
“Did you make your world-famous lemonade!” Alana cried.
Greta looked mischievous. “Oh, it’s just something I stirred up.”
“Mom!” Julia’s grin widened as she and Alana locked eyes.
Long afternoons on the beach, their tongues tart from Greta’s lemonade, the sunlight overhead pulsing evenly as the waves rushed to shore. A glass of Greta’s lemonade was their childhood.
“Let me pour that, Mom,” Alana said tenderly as Greta’s arm shook, lifting the pitcher. “You have enough to worry about with yet another overly-complicated French dish.” Alana took the pitcher and poured them each a glass, watching as Greta returned to the stovetop.
Greta’s brow furrowed for a split second as she lifted a wooden spoon. “It’s a funny thing, having you girls around again. I keep thinking that we’re back in the nineties, that I still have my strength. Then, when I try to do things like lift pitchers, my body remembers its age.”
Julia placed a hand on Greta’s thin shoulder. “You’re going to get that strength back, Mom.” She glanced at Alana, adding, “We’ve been doing Zumba in the living room every morning.”
The image of Julia and Greta in workout gear alongside the baby grand piano, side-stepping with weights in their hand, put a smile on Alana’s face.
“Don’t you dare tease me!” Greta said, waving a wooden spoon.
“Mom! I would never. I love Zumba,” Alana cried, although she’d never done it in her life. “May I join?”
Greta arched her brow playfully toward Julia. “What do you think? Should we let her in the club?”
“Only if she wears the correct uniform,” Julia quipped.
“And what’s that?” Alana asked.
“We have special pink sweatbands,” Greta explained.
Alana barked with laughter, her stomach clenching. “You’re kidding.”
Julia eyed Alana sharply, disappeared into the next room, and reappeared with a big pink sweatband over her forehead. She looked ridiculous and soon burst into infectious giggles. Ten seconds later, the three Copperfield women were doubled over, their laughter spilling out from the windows and across the beach.
There was a sudden creak outside the kitchen. Alana pressed her lips closed as a shadow eased out from the back hallway. At first, out of some unconscious habit, Alana imagined the forty-something version of Bernard Copperfield, wearing a suit jacket and a thick pair of glasses, his brain whizzing from some essay he’d just read. Instead, the seventy-year-old version walked through, his shoulders bent and his feet in thick wool socks.
Only his eyes glittered knowingly, with insight and intellect.
“What’s gotten into you three?” Bernard asked, spreading his hand across the counter. Alana had forgotten how massive his hands were. How safe they’d once made her feel.