A Forever Kind of Family. Brenda Harlen
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not true,” she denied.
“You’re right—salad and a taste of whatever else is put on the table.”
Since that was closer to the truth, she didn’t dispute it. Instead she said, “Even over and above the stocking of our freezer, your family has been amazing. Although there were so many people here the day of the funeral, I’m not sure I remember even half of their names.”
“I’ll make name tags for the next family gathering,” he teased.
“That would be helpful,” she said, her response perfectly sincere. “But for starters, which one of your bothers has the little boy—Jacob?”
“Jacob is Daniel’s son—but Daniel is my cousin. Braden and Justin are my brothers.”
“Justin is the doctor?”
He nodded.
“Is he married?”
“No.”
“But Braden’s married?”
He nodded again. “To Dana.”
“Do they have any kids?”
“Not yet.”
“And you have a sister who has a baby girl, right?”
“Nope—no sisters at all. You’re probably thinking of Lauryn, who is another cousin.”
She frowned. “But she referred to you as her daughter’s ‘uncle Ryan.’”
“It’s an honorary title.”
Harper shook her head. “No wonder I’m confused.”
“Andrew, Nathan and Daniel are my cousins through my uncle David and aunt Jane. Andrew is married to Rachel and the father of Maura. Nathan is married to Allison, who is the mother of Dylan. And Jacob’s father, Daniel, is married to Kenna.
“On my uncle Thomas and aunt Susan’s side, there are three female cousins—Jordyn, Tristyn and Lauryn. Lauryn is the only one married, and she and her husband, Rob, are the parents of Kylie.
“I also have three more cousins—Matthew, Jackson and Lukas—in upstate New York. Matt and his wife, Georgia, have four kids, Jack and Kelly have two, and Lukas and Julie have a toddler.”
“Name tags would definitely help,” she told him.
He just grinned. “What about your family?”
“Small,” she said. “And scattered. My dad has a sister who works for an insurance company in Wyoming, but she never married and doesn’t have any kids. His mother is down in Florida, but I haven’t seen her since I was a kid. My mom was an only child, so there’s just my parents, myself and my brother.”
None of whom had shown up for the funeral, despite the fact that Melissa had been her roommate in college and her best friend since.
Gayle Everton-Ross had expressed sympathy when her daughter called to tell her about the tragic heli-skiing accident that killed Melissa and Darren, but she hadn’t been able to talk long, because she was on her way to a meeting. Peter Ross had been busy on the set of the popular soap opera The Light of Dawn, and Spencer, an underwear model and wannabe actor, had been playing a bit part in an Off-Off-Broadway production.
“Are you close?” Ryan asked.
She shook her head. “Melissa was more my family than anyone I’m actually related to.”
“I have brothers and cousins,” he said again, “but Darren was my family, too.”
“I know.”
They finished their meals in silence. Even Oliver was quiet while he ate, more interested in his food than any attempt at communication. As Harper picked at her salad, she found her thoughts wandering. She’d met Ryan, through Melissa and Darren, more than six years earlier, but she wouldn’t have said that she knew him well. And while they were friendly enough, they weren’t friends—they were too different for that.
They’d occasionally hung out together, usually in a group, but they didn’t have much in common and never really hit it off. Even when Melissa and Darren got engaged and asked Harper and Ryan to be their maid of honor and best man respectively, they didn’t work particularly well together. She’d claimed he was too laid-back and he’d accused her of being too uptight, but they’d managed to put their personal differences aside for the benefit of their friends.
Then came the wedding night—when Harper ended up in Ryan’s bed. The next morning, they both agreed it was a mistake, and neither of them ever told anyone else what had happened.
When Oliver was born, the proud parents again turned to their best friends, asking them to be godparents and co-guardians of their baby. They’d both agreed, neither of them willing to let a little bit of personal history get in the way of their friends’ wishes. Of course, neither of them had anticipated that the guardianship would ever mean anything more than their names on a piece of paper.
Now, only a few months later, they had to figure out a way to work together for the sake of the little boy. Because the reality was that there wasn’t anyone else who could take care of Oliver.
She was certain of that because she’d spent a fair amount of time over the past few weeks trying to figure out if there were any other options—and desperately hoping, for Oliver’s sake, that there were.
Celeste Trivitt, his maternal grandmother, lived in France with her investment banker husband. She’d been devastated to hear of the accident that took her daughter’s life and immediately flew in for the funeral. Although she was happy to fuss over her grandson for a few days, she’d made it clear that her life was in Europe now. Oliver was lucky, she’d said to them more than once. He might have lost both of his parents, but he had Harper and Ryan to take care of him.
Quentin Trivitt, Oliver’s maternal grandfather and Celeste’s ex-husband, also came for the funeral—with his thirty-four-year-old wife, who was seven months pregnant with their first child. They’d said all the right things, expressing empathy for the “poor little boy” and his situation but at the same time making it clear that their focus was on their own yet-to-be-born child. They had no interest in raising a grandson, too.
On the other side, Oliver’s paternal grandparents were both living in an assisted-care facility in Greensboro. One of the attendants from the home had brought them to Charisma for the funeral and taken them right back again. Darren also had a sister, but neither Ryan nor Harper had ever met her and no one had known how to reach her to tell her about the passing of her brother and sister-in-law. Harper remembered Melissa telling her that Darren’s sister had been estranged from her family for a long time.
Harper pushed away from the table and carried her plate, with half of her meal still on it, to the counter. “Do you ever wonder...?”
Ryan began clearing the rest of the dishes. “What?”
She hesitated to say the words out loud, as if doing so might be disloyal to her friend, but she finally said, “If maybe Melissa and Darren should have chosen someone else to take care of Oliver?”
“Every day,” he told her.
“Really?”
He nodded. “But I figure they must have had their reasons for choosing us.”
“Maybe,” she allowed. “I’m just not sure I’m the right person to do this.”
“I have more than a few doubts about my suitability, too,” he said, surprising her with the acknowledgment. “But I’m not going to walk away without giving it my best shot.”
She squirted dish soap in the sink and turned on the faucet. “You think I want to walk away?”
“I don’t know—do you?”
She considered the question as she watched