Forever Never

Despite the ever-changing outside world with its dark deeds and charming monsters, Mackinac remained solidly, stalwartly the same. There was still a chair for her at her parents’ table. Still a jar of butterscotch candies on the counter. And her father still didn’t want her getting in his way in the kitchen.

“Ouch!” Remi rubbed away the sting of the dish towel he’d snapped at her.

“Move away from the oven, Remi Honey,” he ordered, glasses steaming as he opened the door to peer at the turkey.

“Dad, I think I know how to be present in a kitchen when the oven door is open,” she said, plopping down on a stool and unwrapping a candy.

“Need I remind you about the time I told you the burner was hot, and you still lunged for it like it was a floor tater tot?” Gilbert chided, closing the door and wiping down the meat thermometer.

“I was two. Just like how long Mom was in labor with me, you’re not allowed to hold stuff I did at two against me.”

He reached across the counter and ruffled her hair. “Sleep okay last night in your fancy lakefront cottage? You look tired. How are you affording the rent on that place, anyway?”

There were a few things it was time to tell her family. A few things pre-broken arm she’d been excited to share. But then everything had gone to hell.

She was saved from having to answer—or lie—by the timely arrival of her sister.

“We’re here!” came the call from the front door over the noise and fuss of coats and kids.

Remi slid off the stool at the sound of her sister’s voice and bounced toward the front door.

“Coats and boots, you little heathens.”

Kimber Marigold Olson was born to be a mother. It struck Remi every time she saw her big sister with her son and daughter. Kimber had managed to inherit both their mother’s implacable calm and the everyday delight of their father. It was a perfect mix of good parenting genes. Meanwhile Remi seemed to have exploded from nowhere. The running joke was that she’d been left on their doorstep by a traveling circus.

“What did you do with Hadley and Ian?” Remi asked, feigning confusion as she leaned against a gold-toned wall and crossed her arms. “Trade them in on two taller models?”

“Aunt Remi!” Seven-year-old Ian bolted toward her with one boot on and one bare foot. He wrapped thick little arms around her and squeezed, dislodging his glasses.

“Hey, buddy! I missed you,” she said, managing to pick him up so that his feet dangled just off the floor. Her arm twinged in protest, and she plopped him back on his feet. She shoved a hand through his thick mop of chestnut hair and studied his sweet, round face.

“We missed you! Can we paint with you?” he asked. “I got a new app that analyzes and identifies the exact mixture of colors.” Her nephew was a little, round genius. He’d been programming his parents’ universal remotes at age four.

“Of course,” she promised him. She could handle that at least. Couldn’t she?

“Hi,” Hadley, ten, said quietly. She was whisper-thin and leggy. Ethereal was the word that came to Remi’s mind. Her niece had stick-straight hair that toed the line between blonde and brown, a mix of both her parents. But the eyes were all Ford. Jade green. She was going to be a stunning woman in no time at all.

Remi opened her arms, and Hadley, after the briefest of hesitations, walked into them. “Hey,” she whispered to her niece, who no longer smelled like markers and Play-Doh but of dryer sheets and hairspray.

Hadley ended the hug first and took an awkward step back. On a sigh, Remi let her escape. She’d hoped there were a few more years before little kid enthusiasm gave way to teenage apathy. But time stood still for no aunt.

She waited until Kimber had finished precisely arranging gloves in pockets before demanding a proper greeting.

“Hi,” her sister said, leaning in for a hug almost as an afterthought. “It’s nice to see you.”

Remi hugged her back firmly. “I missed you. How are you? What’s new?” she asked.

Kimber extracted herself from the hug with a perfunctory smile, and Remi felt an unexpected distance between them open up into a yawning chasm. “Everything’s fine. Just busy with the kids.”

Kimber looked exhausted as she retrieved the two casserole dishes she’d parked on Gilbert’s desk. Remi could empathize.

“Where’s Kyle?” she asked, glancing over her sister’s shoulder to the door, wondering if her brother-in-law had been left on the porch.

“He’s not coming. He worked late and didn’t feel up to being good company.” Kimber gave the explanation as though it were a speech memorized long ago.

“Where are my grandmonsters?” Darlene bellowed from the top of the stairs.

Hadley flashed a ghost of a smile toward her grandmother while Ian shrieked in mock terror and sprinted for the kitchen.

“Thanks, Mom,” Kimber said with an eye-roll. “No running in the house,” she shouted after her son.

They convened in and around the kitchen, the grandkids catching up the grandparents on school and social activities. She found it telling that neither of her parents asked Kimber where Kyle was. She also noted that her father didn’t feel the need to tell her nephew that the stove was hot.

“Here are the sweet potatoes and the broccoli casserole,” Kimber announced, placing the dishes next to the oven.

“You guys could have told me to bring a pie or something,” Remi said, feeling a little guilty that she hadn’t contributed anything other than her wobbly presence to the meal.

“Don’t be silly,” Gilbert said. “You’re the guest of honor.”

“Yeah. Besides, we want food that’s editable.” Ian smirked.

“Edible, you little jerk,” Remi said, screwing up her face at the boy. “I’ll have you know I’m an excellent baker.” At least she was when she paid attention to the recipe and the oven timer.

Removed. It was how she’d always felt within the ranks of family. Her parents and sister had things in common. No one had much in common with the asthmatic synesthete who was always getting into trouble. Though thanks to the aforementioned reasons, she’d been at the center of the circle. Not part of the ring, but the gravitational force they’d all had to orbit around. Doctor’s appointments. Schemes. Parent-teacher conferences. Trips to the emergency room.

Raising her must have been one long, exhausting battle, she realized with sympathy.

Now that they were all adults, the distance was all the more pronounced. They shared a day-to-day existence that she had no part in. Kimber was a parent. Her parents were grandparents and busy with island business. It was as if the circle had closed without her, leaving her on the outside. Just because she was the reason for the family meal didn’t make her feel more like a part of the family.

“I’ll put away the extra plate,” Remi volunteered, hooking a thumb toward the dining room, suddenly wanting to be in motion.

“It’s not extra,” Darlene told her, looking up from the stovetop where she was showing Hadley how to whisk gravy. “Brick’s coming. That boy has been living off beef stew for months now.”

“At least it’s homemade, Mom. You make it sound like he’s eating cold ravioli out of a can,” Kimber teased over the veggie tray she was arranging.

Well, shit.

“I didn’t know he was coming,” Remi said. Now she definitely needed to move, to burn off some of this nervous energy.

After this morning’s awkwardness, he wasn’t exactly someone she wanted to spend an evening making small talk with.

“It’s family dinner,” Gilbert said, as if that was a reasonable explanation for the invitation.

“Brick’s not family,” she insisted. If he was family, well, she was going to need to talk to a therapist about a lot of things STAT.

She’d been convinced the man was going to tell her no on the studio space when he’d opened the door. Then he’d asked most sincerely if she was okay, which had nearly undone her wobbly defenses. And then. Then! She’d just happened to notice the baseball bat of wood he was sporting in those tight uniform pants. Dear Josephine Baker in heaven. She couldn’t have been more hypnotized by that obscene length of dick if he’d taken it out and swung it back and forth in front of her eyes.

After he’d ditched her at the front door with a bag of meat, she’d indulged in a little fantasy where Brick had to take matters—matters meaning a monster of an erection—into his own hands and pleasure himself thinking about her.

It had to be her, right? What else would have riled him while they were alone in his house talking about natural light and macaroni and cheese?

The man had finally had a single moment of weakness. On one hand, it was a long sought-after triumph. On the other, it was an unnecessary complication. For years, she would have reveled in Brick’s attention and enjoyed torturing him. But right now? She just needed him to mind his own damn business so she could handle hers.

And speaking of handling her business, she’d also discovered the frustration of fantasizing about an old crush without the use of her good hand. She absolutely did not need to be sexually frustrated for an evening with Brick Man Mountain Callan.

“Why doesn’t Aunt Remi think Uncle Brick is family?” Ian asked from his perch in the breakfast nook where he was expertly folding cloth napkins.

“Aunt Remi and Uncle Brick don’t get along,” Kimber said wearily.

“Why not?” Ian wanted to know.

“We get along fine,” Remi insisted.

“You look flushed,” her father interjected. “Are you feeling okay?”

Her face burned.

“You do yell at him a lot,” Hadley piped up from over the pot of gravy.

“I yell at everyone a lot,” Remi said, feeling defensive.

“So does Mom,” Ian said.

“Ian!” Kimber snapped.

“See?” the boy said smugly.

“Let’s keep the yelling to a minimum tonight,” Gilbert suggested, precisely arranging his bartending paraphernalia on the counter.

“Kimber, you mind heating the corn?” Darlene asked. A pro at redirection, she hurled two bags of frozen veggies at her eldest daughter.

“So, what are we making tonight?” Remi asked her dad as she snooped through the ingredients on the counter.

“Manhattans. Brick said I can try my hand at some bar shifts this summer.”

“He did, did he?” Great. Her own family had replaced her with the man who’d chased her off the island in the first place.

“Remi Honey, we finally got that Bluetooth speaker thing you got us out of the box last night,” Darlene announced. “Why don’t you play some music for us?”