All or Nothing (28 page)

“It's in the running for worst day of the century.”

“The century's young yet.”

“I'll still put my money on this one.” Nick heard Phil's voice more clearly as they approached the kitchen. She was on the phone again, probably trying to finalize details for her presentation the next day.

“Nick!” His grandmother called as they stepped into that room. “This green or the darker one? I think I prefer the lemon tones of this one. It's more scrumptious, in a way...”

“I'll be right with you, Lucia.” Nick pointed Zach in the direction of his sister and niece as Michael's wail gained in volume. The dog bounded into the conservatory and Annette squealed with delight.

“This must be Roxanne!” she cried and immediately made a fuss over the dog.

Phil frowned and put a finger in her other ear as she leaned away from the noise to talk urgently into the phone. Nick shrugged an apology and she smiled a little.

He headed back for the stairs and a very unhappy toddler. “I knew that nap was too good to be true,” he muttered.

“What a voice,” Lucia said with approval as she listened to Michael wail. She nodded confidently to Zach. “He gets it from me, you know. It's in his blood.” As she began to sing some part in Italian from an old opera, adding to the household concerto in her own way, Nick fought the urge to yell for silence.

Zach nudged him, bringing him back to sanity or its closest approximation. “Bring me a niece or nephew, your choice,” he murmured conspiratorially, “and I'll do what I can.”

“You might regret that offer.”

Zach grinned. “I'll just add it to the list. After all, I'd rather regret what I have done than what I haven't.”

The scary thing was that Zach was making sense. Nick wasn't going to give credence to his impression that his brother-in-law had changed just yet—his observations might be affected by his lack of sleep, after all—but he wasn't going to turn down an offer for help either. “You're on,” he said, resolving to entrust Zach with whichever kid was screaming the loudest.

It would serve him right for volunteering.

“The lighter green or the darker one?” Lucia demanded and Nick did not care. He opened his mouth to say so but Zach spoke first.

“The light one,” Zach said decisively. “The yellower tone of that chartreuse brightens the room and picks up the greens from the leaves in the conservatory.” He moved across the room and held up his hands, framing a view. “See? Look here and picture that lighter color on the walls. Then look at the darker one against the floor: it makes it look dingy and you probably don't want to lay a new floor.”

“Not right now anyway,” Nick muttered. As he headed down the hall, he glanced back.

Lucia looked around the kitchen, then smiled at Zach. “You know, you're right. I didn't know you had an eye for such things.”

“Hey, I just do what I can.”

That was a switch, but Nick wasn't going to argue.

Not on this day anyway.

* * *

It was dark by the time Zach drove away. He'd talked—apparently earnestly—to Phil for a while and stayed for dinner. He'd also painted one wall of the kitchen with the can of test color that Lucia had bought, promised to come back the next day to finish the kitchen. And he'd managed to lull Michael to sleep with some story about a stuffed toy that he'd seemed to make up as he went along. They'd barbequed some chicken breasts to make life simpler, and Nick was ready to crash out himself.

Phil was nursing the baby, still occasionally getting up to add to her sketch. Nick watched her, liking the way her hair was swept up into a ponytail, liking the way she shifted the baby's weight so easily. She had licked or eaten off all of her lipstick, and looked smooth and soft and natural.

The way she did first thing in the morning. She was filled with that nervous energy she always had before a meeting and he suddenly felt a bit less sleepy than he had.

He could think of one good way to expend that energy of Phil's. He'd bribe her with chocolate, if he had to, and volunteer to help her work off the calories.

“I gotta go.” Annette was packing up her notebooks.

“I'll walk you back to Grey Gables,” Nick offered before Phil could give him a look.

“It's not that far,” Annette protested, her tone revealing that she knew she'd lose.

“I could use a stretch.”

Phil cast Nick an impish grin, the one that made his heart skip. “You could use some silence,” she teased. “It's just an excuse to get out of this madhouse for a few minutes.”

“He might go out for milk and never come back,” Lucia teased. “He's done it before.”

“Not this time,” Phil said with confidence before Nick could protest his own innocence. She smiled warmly at him and he knew he'd be walking home double-quick. “He doesn't do that anymore.”

“He grew up,” Lucia said with approval. “Just like your brother is doing.”

“Who was that, anyway?” Nick asked, gesturing toward the door as he got his jacket. “He looked like Zach and sounded like Zach but sure didn't act like Zach.”

“He said he's trying to be an adult,” Lucia offered.

“It's not new,” Phil said with care. “Father's death had a big effect on him. Remember that contract?”

“I don't know.” Nick laughed. “Being an adult will be a big change for him. You watch, he won't come back to paint tomorrow. That promise will be out of his head before he reaches the highway tonight.”

But Phil shook her head. “I don't think so. He'll be here in the morning, you'll see, all bright-eyed and ready to go.”

“This would be your brother Zach we're talking about?” Nick asked, not hiding his skepticism.

Phil laughed. “He doesn't make many promises but he's always kept the ones he does make. Trust me. He said he'd do it and he will.”

“Why?”

Phil's lips quirked slightly, and Nick knew she was laughing at him. “Maybe it's pity.”

Before Nick could argue with that, Annette spoke up.

“I think he's in love,” she said with a teenager's resolve. The adults exchanged smiles.

“Do you, then?” Phil asked. “What would you know about that?”

“It makes perfect sense,” Annette said, her manner haughty. “It happens in almost every show on TV and in every movie. The sexy heartbreaker hunk who sleeps with every woman but doesn't commit to any of them finally falls in love. And then he changes.”

Lucia nodded. “The child is right. It's a classic theme in operas, as well.”

“And when the woman is convinced of the change in him, they live happily ever after?” Nick said, unable to keep from teasing Annette.

“Be serious,” Annette said.

“I think not,” Lucia said at the same time.

Nick and Phil exchanged a glance. “What then?” Phil asked.

“Well, the woman dies, obviously,” Annette said with the considerable scorn that can be mustered by a fourteen-year-old.

“It's the climax of every tragedy,” Lucia agreed. “Thematically, the hero has learned his lesson about using other people for his own pleasure, and thus is robbed of his own pleasure for all time.”

“Right. The cowboy is such a wreck that he can't ever love again,” Annette concluded with a shrug. “Happens every time.”

Nick saw that Phil's dismay at that prospect. “Hopefully not this time,” she said.

“Maybe she'll just dump him instead,” Nick suggested. Phil smiled, slightly reassured, but neither Annette nor Lucia were convinced.

Not that it mattered to Nick. If Zach really painted the kitchen the next day, Nick would have to give serious consideration to the prospect of forgiving and forgetting.

But he wasn't going to rush into anything.

* * *

For the first time in Jen's recollection, the prospect of Christmas lacked a certain zing. Even the invitation from Teresa to stay at her apartment in Boston for a few days for the solstice didn't put a bounce in Jen's step. She reminded herself of all the great vintage places in the vicinity, the holiday sales and the adventure of a different more urban locale, but couldn't manage to persuade herself.

Teresa would talk all night about her fab job. Her apartment would be perfect, her clothes would be chic, and she would drink a lot. The phone would ring incessantly, or maybe it would be her Blackberry demanding her attention. Teresa's knitting wool stash would be impressive, both in quantity and in quality (and thus expense). She would have knit glittery things that Jen couldn't imagine wearing. Jen would have almost nothing to say to her former best friend, no experience or anecdote of any relevance to a high-powered female executive destined for corporate glory.

Jen would wear the black cashmere breast prosthesis and it wouldn't help. She certainly wouldn't make the mistake again of showing Teresa the very neat prosthesis, having already made the mistake of assuming that a fellow knitter would be intrigued by the clever decreases and vintage button used for the nipple. On that unforgettable occasion, Teresa had stared at Jen's empty bra cup instead, making her feel like a freak when she'd been trying to establish common ground.

Nope. She wouldn't do that again.

Maybe she'd ‘catch pneumonia', cancel, stay home and knit.

She finished the socks for her mother, and was enormously relieved. It seemed to energize her with possibilities. Jen then embarked on a pair of quiviut mittens for M.B. in a wonderful chocolate color. It wasn't so terrifying to embark on a bigger project the second time—although she still did knit like a fiend and didn't take a deep breath until they were done.

It was easy to commit to the intricate hat that would be perfect for Cin. It was a onesie, after all, not half of a pair. She felt triumph when it was done.

No goals? She had goals.

Jen embarked on a lacy shawl for her grandmother, knowing that it would take until the Eve of Christmas itself to finish it, if she knit like crazy. She worried a bit about making the deadline, but for the first time in a long time, she forgot to worry about whether she'd be alive by then or not. She even went for her routine mammogram without spending the night before puking her guts out in terror.

If that wasn't progress, she didn't know what was.

* * *

Meanwhile, not very far away from Natalie's house, a skeptical Maralys was pushing prints back across her kitchen table toward Zach. “Fair enough,” she said. “But it could have been staged.”

Zach pretended to be outraged. “Don't you trust me?”

Maralys smiled. “No. Why should I?”

There was that. Zach gathered up his prints of dinner at Jen's grandmother's house and started to put them back into the envelope. Roxie was scoring oatmeal cookie crumbs from Zoë, who had parked herself on Zach's knee.

“Zach cookie,” Zoë said, offering him the gummy remains of the cookie she was eating. She had sticky crumbs all over herself, and Roxie was salivating as she watched. Zach thought that maybe the dog should just lick the toddler all over, but wasn't sure Maralys would approve of that idea.

“You'd better finish that one yourself,” Zach said with a smile. The little girl hesitated and he pretended to be horrified. “Isn't it any good?”

She giggled and held onto it with both hands. “Good cookie.”

“Oh, then you eat it up.”

Zoë leaned against his leg contentedly, took another bite of the cookie, then handed the rest to Roxie.

Roxie didn't give her a chance to reconsider her offer.

Maralys tapped a fingertip on the table. “Christmas,” she said and Zach was startled by the firmness of her tone. “Bring Jen to Christmas dinner and then I'll believe you.”

“But wait a minute...”

“I hosted Thanksgiving dinner, planned purely to reconcile you with your family, and you skipped out with an excuse. I don't have to let you off easy. Think about it: Thirteen Coxwells trapped in this small house for seven hours together.”

Zach shuddered. “It must have been slice of hell.”

“Actually, it was kind of fun.” Maralys shook a finger. “But you still owe me. Christmas dinner with Jen and we'll call it square.”

Zach felt obliged to make an observation. “But we don't have a family Christmas dinner.”

“Wrong! We worked it out at Thanksgiving. You would have known that if you'd bothered to show.”

“Go ahead, rub it in.”

“I will.”

“But uh, Jen and I broke up...”

“How convenient is that?” Maralys demanded, a gleam in her eye.

“Actually, she didn't want to get married,” he said, going with a variation of the truth.

“You proposed to a woman and she turned you down?”

“Well, yes.”

Maralys grinned. “Now I have to meet her.”

“Impossible.”

“Nothing's impossible, Zach.”

“Well, this is.”

“Are you telling me that your charm isn't enough to persuade her to make one guest appearance, for old times' sake?” Maralys tapped the side of her coffee cup. “Oh right. Jen's immune to your brand of charm. Otherwise, she'd be wearing your ring.” She leaned an elbow on the tabletop, her eyes dancing. “So, what's it like, having finally met your nemesis?”

“She's not my nemesis...”

“You proposed for the first time in your life and Jen said no. Who knows? She might be perfect for you. Aren't you going to go back and ask again?”

Zach met the challenge in Maralys' eyes and knew he had to make this happen somehow. Rather conveniently, Jen still owed him—and it had been her own suggestion that the trade be attendance at their respective family dinners.

He'd been a dope to turn down her offer, but maybe that meant there was a chance of recovery.

“Deal,” he said, picking up his envelope. “Are you going to tell me where dinner is and when, or is that a surprise?”