two of you should find something to eat first. You need your strength.”
“I’m starving,” Christopher said dramatically.
“We can’t let the boy starve. A friend of mine brought cinnamon rolls over yesterday. They’re delicious. I bet you wouldn’t have to twist his arm to convince him to have one. There’s plenty for you, too.”
Abby wasn’t a big breakfast eater. She usually only had coffee and sometimes added a slice of avocado toast. Christopher, on the other hand, was a pretty avid lover of scrambled eggs with feta cheese and her buckwheat pancakes.
He would have to make do today with straight carbs.
“I love cinnamon rolls,” he declared.
“You’re in luck, then. These are the best around.”
Winnie pointed to a tray on the counter, and Abby pulled out a gooey, sweet-smelling pastry that she set on a small plate for him.
She settled her son at the island with the roll and a glass of almond milk from the refrigerator, then pulled a chair closer to Winnie’s.
“All right. Where do we start? Also, I need to find a notebook so I can write a list. I was thinking I should run to the grocery store first thing. Don’t they usually close early on Thanksgiving?”
Winnie shook her head, pink locks flying. “No need for that. First of all, our Thanksgivings here at Holiday House are always potluck, so you don’t have to do everything. We’ve had crowds of up to twenty-five and everyone brings something. My guests have already told me in advance what they wanted to bring so I could make sure everything is covered. Here’s the list so you can see the plan.”
Ah. A woman after Abby’s own heart. She loved lists and plans. Sometimes she thought being organized had been the only thing keeping her sane after Kevin died.
Winnie handed Abby another piece of paper, and she saw that Winnie had written the names of her guests and what they had agreed to bring to dinner—yams, salad, cranberries and pie.
“I am only taking care of the turkey, the mashed potatoes and gravy, the rolls and a pumpkin pie. The turkey doesn’t have to go in until noon, since we’re eating late this year. Which means we only have to do the pie and maybe prep the potatoes this morning. I already bought everything we should need last week, and the turkey has been thawing for days. I’m usually not this organized, but some crazy instinct told me to get ready early this year. I had no idea why. Boy, I’m sure glad I listened to that inner voice, right?”
“Definitely.”
“Isn’t it funny, how the universe sometimes tries to give you a warning that your life is about to be shaken up?”
Abby could certainly relate to that. She had been getting signals from the universe for a year now, ever since the initial shock and overwhelming grief over Kevin’s death began to wear off and her life began to fall into patterns that would become her new normal.
Something else had been calling her, a whisper on the wind telling her maybe it was time to make a new start.
She had lived in Phoenix for nearly a decade, but it wasn’t really her home. She didn’t have any family there and neither had Kevin. He had moved there for med school and she had followed him.
Over the years, they had built a strong network of friends, wonderful, cherished people who had supported her throughout the ordeal of losing him so violently. She would be forever grateful to all of them for helping her these past two years.
Lately, though, she had grown weary of the role everyone had assigned to her. To all their friends, she would always be the grieving widow. She could see it in their sympathetic looks, hear it in the cut-off conversations when she would walk into a room.
She didn’t want to wear that badge for the rest of her life.
That didn’t mean she would stop grieving for Kevin’s bright light, extinguished too soon. He had been a wonderful man and a dedicated, caring doctor. He had already been offered a position at a teaching hospital in Austin when he finished his residency. They had researched the town and thought it would be a good place to raise their son and any other children they might have.
He hadn’t accepted the offer yet but had been on the brink of taking it when a patient who should never have had access to a gun because of his mental illness had barged into the ER