A Toast to the Good Times - By Liz Reinhardt Page 0,29

about Dad? Do you think I should try to talk to him?”

Mom’s dark hair swishes back and forth as she shakes her head.

“Let him come to you. And eat. You look like you just got sprung from a POW camp, Landry. Do they not have food in Boston?”

I shovel a heaping bite of eggs into my mouth and avoid Mom’s eyes. I can feel her watching me, taking me in; my unshaven face, my wrinkled undershirt, the heavy bags that I know must be under my eyes.

“I knew you’d come. I just knew it,” Mom says with a small smile, wrapping an arm around my shoulder and kissing me on the top of the head. “I couldn’t stand the thought of another holiday without you here.”

“I came because Paisley called—” I try to stop the words from falling out of my mouth, but it’s too late. Mom’s smile has morphed from something radiant to something sad and embarrassed.

Goddamnit.

“Oh, I see.” She wrings out a dishcloth that’s dry and puts the coffee mugs she just washed back into the sudsy water in the sink.

“No, Ma, listen, I didn’t mean it like that. You know I wanted to see you, too. It’s just, Paisley called. Said it was important that I haul ass-”

“Language,” Mom stops me with the stern look that only a former Catholic school teacher could give, but she moves away from the sink and sits across from me to listen more closely to what I have to say.

Shit. I feel nervous now. When my mom gets all serious like this, it’s almost never a good thing.

“Haul butt out here for some big announcement.”

Mom looks puzzled, and I realize I may have blown it for Paisley.

I reach across the table and cover Mom’s hand with mine. “I’m glad I’m here, though,” I lie.

I’m not.

I want to leave.

I’d rather be back in my bar, or even avoiding Mila in our apartment than here with Dad.

But I did miss seeing my mother. Of course. I’m not a completely heartless bastard. “I missed you, Ma.”

“Paisley!” Mom calls, apparently not distracted by my heartfelt declarations.

“Shit,” I mumble.

“Landry, language.”

Chapter 8

Paisley rounds the corner into the kitchen looking half-asleep.

“Mom? Is everything okay?” She pauses when she sees me sitting at the kitchen table. “Oh, hey. Um, so, Landry is here.”

I’m stuck between wanting to scarf down the last of my Nutella-coated breakfast deliciousness and just bolting like the sad sack of crap I’m turning out to be.

“Yes. Landry is here.” Mom looks back and forth between the two of us while we avoid eye contact at all costs. “He’s here because you asked him to come here?”

“I did!” Paisley’s big green eyes get all luminous, like one of those scarily eager anime kid’s. “I just...I was so sick of all of us being apart for every single holiday! I wanted us together. For once. Finally.”

Perfect. It’s selfless and fits the season and would probably have flown if I never opened my big mouth before and screwed everything up.

“Landry says you’ve got something to tell him. To tell us.” And by us my mother means why didn’t you tell me first, I’m only your mother for God’s sake.

Paisley does this nervous tick thing where she grabs her hands and squeezes them together like she’s going to rip them off of her wrists.

“It’s not, like, some big thing. You know? Not like anything that’s so weird. I mean, it’s kind of a big thing, but also something we’ve been talking about for a while now, and I think it’s going to be good in its own way, because it will be something I can really use, spiritually and emotionally and in life, you know...”

We have no idea.

Mom’s eyes are wide, and she’s inching one hand closer and closer to her heart and pulling at the fabric of her snowflake pajamas like she’s about to go into cardiac arrest.

I’m stuffing as much food in my mouth as I can, because, whatever half-baked, crazy-ass idea my sister came up with, it’s going to rock this holiday off its damn foundation. I can feel that.

Henry bursts in from his morning run, breathing loud and stretching his leg behind his back to keep his muscles loose.

“What’s going on in here?” He interrupts Paisley’s long-winded explanation and looks back and forth between us.

“I was just saying...”

Before Paisley can go down her long, windy, say-nothing-meaningful road again, I cut her off and jump in. “Paisley’s news. Mom, uh, was asking about her news, and