The House on Honeysuckle Lane Read Free

she would soon be passing Holinshed Nursery; it was where her mother had bought most of her garden supplies through the years. Caro had kept a lovely garden, and Emma knew that Daniel had been doing his best to care for it since her passing, though he hadn’t much time to spare for watering, pruning, and planting.
    Time. Emma found it hard to believe that her mother had been gone for over a year. Last Thanksgiving she and Ian had stayed in Annapolis rather than travel to Oliver’s Well; they had been back only the month before to attend Caro’s funeral. And Christmas, too, they had spent at home, and while Emma sipped a classic whiskey sour and nibbled on spicy roasted almonds, she had given barely a thought to either of her parents. Thinking back on those two holidays, Emma realized the fact that her mother was no longer in this world hadn’t entirely registered with her until now. Now, in these final weeks before the second Christmas since Caro’s death, Emma felt her mother’s absence keenly. That they hadn’t been close for years didn’t diminish the fact that they had been mother and daughter, and that primary relationship could never be ignored.
    It was odd, Emma thought, how something small or mundane could trigger a wave of strong emotion and nostalgia. Just the other day she had been walking along a street close to her home, and the sight of a Christmas wreath decorated with a velvety blue ribbon on a storefront had literally stopped her in her tracks. Her mother had decorated her Christmas wreaths with the same velvety blue ribbon. It was a moment before Emma could move on, tears in her eyes.
    While Andie was probably expertly handling her mourning—she had the skills and the training to do so—Emma wasn’t quite so sure about Daniel. If his adamant invitation that his sisters gather for Christmas was any indication of his emotional state, he might still be feeling pretty raw. In fact, when she had last seen Daniel, at Rumi’s twentieth birthday celebration at the Angry Squire, he had seemed tense. Even Ian had noticed the change. Ian had gone to the party with Emma, of course. He had always enjoyed visiting the Reynoldses in Oliver’s Well, and they had always enjoyed being with him.
    Emma closed her window and wondered how her brother and his wife would take the news of the demise of her relationship. Anna Maria would be supportive, and while Daniel wouldn’t want to see his sister stick around in an unfulfilling relationship, he could be awfully . . . What was the word? Old-fashioned? Whatever the word, the fact was that Daniel had married his first and only love and sometimes seemed to have difficulty understanding that not everyone was quite so lucky.
    And Andie? Well, she would respond with her native gifts of sympathy and empathy. Emma deeply admired her sister; she believed that Andie deserved what success she had achieved as a writer and speaker, not that fame or money mattered to Andie Reynolds. She had always been of a self-effacing and generous nature, even as a child. Emma remembered Andie routinely giving half her lunch money to a boy whose family was known to be struggling, and she never failed to rush to the aid of an older person having trouble reaching a can from a high shelf in the grocery store or to open doors for mothers juggling a stroller laden with diaper bags, plush toys, and an antsy toddler. Emma smiled to herself. Her sister simply couldn’t help helping people.
    Happily, Emma saw some of that generous nature in Andie’s daughter, Rumi, who from the first had been very loving with her younger cousins. Sophia was a sweetheart; at twelve she was already taller than her mother. Marco, a charmer and now ten, looked to have inherited his mother’s small stature, but you never knew what changes adolescence might bring.
    Emma smiled. There, up ahead, just past Holinshed Nursery, was the town line. Oliver’s Well at last.