looks good there, but I think it would make the perfect logo for the Sunshine. I could have it on the reception desk, and also painted on the sign. I’ll have to find someone to do the artwork, though.”
She glanced hopefully at Carly, who was relaxing on the sofa with a glass of iced tea. She shook her head. “Sorry, Gemma. I can put colors together and paint a basic design, but something that detailed is outside my skill set.” She tilted her head as she considered it. “Although I guess I could learn.”
“Marlene Fedder,” Lisa suggested. “Junior’s mom. She took up painting about five years go, and she’s really good.”
Lisa set down the piece. Carly picked it up and ran her fingers over it, letting them rest on the back of the baby’s tiny head. Sorrow touched her face before she handed the carving back to Lisa and resumed sipping her tea.
Lisa and Gemma exchanged a look, but didn’t comment. Lisa rewrapped the piece and fitted it back into its box, then she ran her hand over the tabletop.
Gemma saw the gesture and smiled. “It’s clean, Lisa. You polished it five minutes ago, remember?”
Lisa answered by wrinkling her nose. “Can I help it if I like clean surfaces, uncluttered spaces?”
“You’ve earned that quirk,” Gemma assured her. Lisa had been raised in the home of her loving hoarder grandparents and was determined to never go down the path of too many possessions taking over her life.
“We should celebrate the last of your unpacking,” Lisa said, curling up on the sofa opposite Carly and pulling her feet beneath her.
Gemma sat sideways in the armchair, her legs dangling over one arm and her head resting on the other.
“Let’s order a pizza from Crossroads,” Carly suggested. “That’s one of the good things about living in a small town. You can get gas, groceries, new socks and a pizza all at the same four-hundred-square-foot store.” Before Lisa could object to the number of calories in a typical Crossroads pizza, she held up her hand. “Try to think of it as a crust-based salad. They do buy my onions and peppers, you know.”
Lisa rolled her eyes, and Gemma laughed. While her two friends haggled over the pizza toppings, she relaxed and thought over the events of the past few days. When their dinner had finally been ordered, she said, “At the meeting yesterday, did either of you know there would be that much hostility toward Nathan?”
Carly shook her head. “No. I thought people would be too excited about the reopening to care about anything else.” She shrugged. “But I’m probably not the one to ask. Most of my conversations center around vegetables or reclaimed furniture.”
“I thought people might be hostile,” Lisa admitted. “A few have made comments. Everyone was curious. I think most of them expected him to come in driving a Rolls-Royce, move into the family mansion and lord it over the rest of us.”
“Probably what Cole Burleigh thought,” Gemma said.
“Looks like the good people of Reston suspected he’d profited a lot more than he did, maybe even colluded with his old man,” Carly said.
“Well, then, they just didn’t know him.” Gemma spoke more sharply than she intended to and her friends gave her assessing looks.
“That’s the second time you’ve come to his defense,” Lisa pointed out. “Wasn’t he the one who had nothing good to say about your chosen profession?”
Gemma squirmed uncomfortably and focused on the ceiling. “I’m used to that. Almost every midwife is.” She paused. “He didn’t have to come back here. No one expected him to...make up for his dad’s crimes.”
“And?” Lisa prompted.
“I don’t know why he’s doing it.”
“Because it’s the right thing?”
“Maybe to prove he’s not like George,” Carly added.
“I guess so,” Gemma admitted. “But he had a good job in Oklahoma City. No one there knew or cared about his father, or Reston. Whatever his reason, I think it’s tearing him up.”
“How can you know that after seeing him exactly three times?” Carly asked.
“It’s a...feeling I have.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her friends exchange a look, one she knew well, that said, “Gemma is on another rescue mission.”
She pretended not to notice.
* * *
“YVETTE, THIS IS the changing table I picked out for you,” Margery Burleigh announced in tones that seemed to invite applause. “Bob assembled it.”
Yvette thought that much was obvious since he had bandages on three fingers. He had brought the table in on a hand truck and now waited, red faced and panting, for his wife to give him further instructions.
Forcing a smile, Yvette looked at the oversize, curlicue carved piece of furniture and wondered how they would fit it into the nursery. It was too big, and...overwhelming.
In fact, it reminded her of Margery—outsize and overdressed.
Her mother-in-law seemed to think her place in the community was much more important than it really was. She considered herself to be an expert on everything, including childbirth and child raising, though she’d only ever had one son, and that when she’d been past forty. Now in her seventies, she was set in her ways and unlikely to change. She drove a Cadillac and dressed up every day in spite of living on a place with livestock, and raising her own chickens. Yvette had never seen her in a pair of jeans, and suddenly had a momentary vision of the big, ugly changing table dressed in denim.
“Um, thank you,” Yvette finally said. “It certainly looks...useful.”
If Margery was annoyed by the faint praise, she simply breezed right past it. “The crib you said you liked in that online store won’t do. You’re going to get the one that matches this changing table and can convert into a toddler bed, then into a full-size bed later on. When the other children come along, we’ll get them ones to match.”
“Other children?” Yvette asked faintly. How many was she expected to have? Besides, she had already ordered the crib she wanted.
“It’s not easy being an only child. Ask Cole. I couldn’t have any more babies or we would have filled the house up.” Margery seemed to recall something and fixed her piercing, critical gaze on Yvette. “You do already know that. You’re an only child, right?”
“Yes, I am.”
“That settles it, then,” Margery exclaimed as if they’d been having a heated argument. “You’ll want a big family.”
Yvette wondered how Margery could possibly know that. She never asked what Yvette wanted or thought, or hoped for. She simply made ironclad statements and stared down anyone who tried to argue with her. Bob went along with whatever she said and backed her up. Cole was intimidated by them, although he could be exactly like Margery.
Margery turned her attention to
