Chapter 28
28
Kieran
“So then,” Paul said, after taking a sip of his wine, “we find Sybil in line for the butter cow, because she wanted to see it again to decide if she could make one with the butter that was at home.” He laughed, finishing the story of how he and Mary had met while looking for a lost ten-year-old Sybil, who’d wandered off at the Iowa State Fair.
“I was out of my mind with worry,” Mary said, placing her palm on Paul’s arm. “But there she was, safe and sound.”
“And she only grounded me for two weeks,” Sybil said, holding up her wine. “Banned me from touching the butter in the fridge.”
“I thought the punishment fit the crime,” her mom said, but the smile on her face was good-natured, and she seemed to be warming to me. “But we were lucky Paul was there to help look, and that’s how we met.”
Grace sat across from me and seemed to have Sybil’s same kindness and warmth but without the sometimes frenetic energy. I liked her. I liked the whole family, and Sybil’s worry that she was the outcast seemed unfounded to me. “We’re all lucky in love, I guess.” Grace dropped a hand on Warren’s knee under the table, and his arm draped around her chair. I studied their movements with a quick glance before draping my own arm across the back of Sybil’s chair, my fingertips grazing her shoulder.
“We are,” Sybil said, and she glanced up at me. “But I’m sad I never got to replicate the butter cow.” It was odd, but I had no trouble picturing Sybil with stacks of butter attempting to sculpt an animal out of them. Even weirder, I could imagine helping her with it.
“You could make a donut cow,” Paul offered. “Is she allowed into the kitchen yet, Kieran?”
“Watch out if she is,” her mom said. “She set our microwave on fire last year.” She looked at the appliance. “Forgot to add water to a microwavable rice bowl, and poof!”
Sybil stiffened against my fingers, making me want to stroke her skin again until she relaxed.
“I just misread the directions,” she said, and I saw the color rise on her cheeks. “The microwave survived.” She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
“And that time she mixed up salt and sugar when making those cookies you sent Grace when she was in dental school?” Sybil’s mom and Paul laughed, and it took a moment, but Grace covered her mouth to stifle a giggle.
“It’s not my fault the salt and sugar are stored in containers that look exactly the same,” Sybil defended herself. “Don’t listen to them,” she said, that same not-quite-real smile on her lips. “I will not burn down your kitchen.” I thought of the way I’d gotten annoyed that first day she’d helped in the shop, and felt guilty. I knew Sybil well enough to see this was the moment when she saw herself as the other in her family, like the joke.
I didn’t like the way her expression dimmed with their teasing, and I remembered her asking me to pretend we were in love on the porch, before that kiss. It was my job to stand up for her, but the urge to defend her was real. “I trust you in my kitchen,” I said, pulling her toward me and dropping a kiss on her forehead. She smelled sweet, and I squeezed her shoulder, taking in the way her body lined up against mine. “Sybil’s been a huge help at the shop. The customers love her and she’s had some great ideas. She actually designed an entire catering outreach campaign to local businesses and researched implementation strategies, and the response has been amazing.”
“That’s wonderful,” Paul said. “Getting a real jump on things. But have you figured out what you want to do next? I mean, when Kieran goes back to school, you’ll probably do something else, right?”
An uncomfortable knot formed in my stomach. All I’d been trying to do was return to school, but if I imagined the shop without Sybil in it, without me in it, even though it had functioned that way for years, it still felt wrong somehow.
“Not sure yet,” Sybil said, squirming away from me and the question. “Oh! I brought some things for everyone!” She tossed her napkin on the table and jogged to the other room, leaving her family staring at me.
“When do you plan to go back to school, Kieran?” Sybil’s mom took a delicate bite from her plate. “Sybil mentioned she was thinking of possibly going with you, but I would hope that would be a ways off.”
I hoped for my girl, my fake girl, to rush back in at that moment with one of her off-the-cuff tales, but I heard her moving in the other room. “Um, the fall, I hope. They don’t usually allow people to step out like I did, so trying to get back as fast as I can.” As to part two, Sybil’s idea that we’d considered her coming with me, I had no idea what to say. “Details are still…up in the air.”
Sybil’s mom and sister opened their mouths to speak, no doubt to ask for more information on my BS response, but that’s when Sybil breezed back in, her hands full of gift bags she began passing out. “I brought presents!” She stretched in front of me to hand her mom and sister matching brown bags with the logo of a local jewelry store on them. Her breast grazed my hand resting on the table as she leaned away. “Sorry,” she mouthed.
“What’s this?” Her mom held up the bag, inspecting it.
Sybil brightened. “Open it!” She pulled two green boxes from another bag and handed one each to Paul and Warren. “What good is winning the lottery if you can’t surprise your family?” She settled back in her chair and looked from person to person, all of whom were inspecting the gifts at the table. “I was going to wait until after dinner, but I’m so excited!”
“Well, thank you,” Paul said, breaking the silence, opening the box in front of him, and holding up a watch that, based on my limited understanding of fashion, looked expensive. “Oh, wow,” he said as he studied the timepiece, the gold accents on it catching the light.
“My friend Emi knows everything there is to know about watches, and she recommended that one,” Sybil said, leaning forward, forearms on the table. “And, Warren, yours is water resistant. I thought it could be good for the triathlon.”
“Thanks, Sybil,” he said, taking it from the box. A smile spread on his face. “They were just talking about this one on a training podcast I listen to. It’s one of the best brands you can get.”
“That’s so generous, honey,” her mom said, thumbing the ribbon on the bag in her hands. “I hope you didn’t spend too much on us.” Her voice was careful, and she pulled a jewelry box from the bag, clicking it open and inhaling sharply.
“I thought it looked like the one of Janice’s that you like, only bigger.” Sybil bounced in her seat despite the quiet around the table.
Her mom turned the box to show everyone else. “It’s a diamond bracelet.”
“That’s definitely bigger than Janice’s,” Paul said with an awkward chuckle. “I’m fairly certain Janice’s is plastic, too.”
“Grace, yours has sapphires. It could maybe be your something blue.”
Grace was just opening the box when her mom gasped again, but this time while holding a receipt. “Sybil, this is too much!”
“I didn’t mean to leave that in there.” Sybil made a grab for the paper, but her mom held it to her chest.
“I know you won lots of money, but you have to be smart about it. I don’t need a fifteen-thousand-dollar bracelet.” She said the last part low, as if the media might be listening from outside the window. “This is too much, honey.”
“I wanted to do it,” Sybil said. I noticed her bouncing energy had dissipated, and she sank into the chair at her mom’s admonishment. “And I can afford it.”
“I know, but money is finite, and you have to make good choices.” The diamonds caught the overhead light and cast what looked like prism-colored raindrops across her face and splashed up onto the wall. “You know you have a long history of making bad choices with money.”
Sybil’s shoulders slumped, and she nodded along with her mom’s words. I noticed the same fake smile begin to curve her lips. The one that didn’t make the skin around her eyes crinkle. “She’s been thinking about philanthropy and supporting needs in the community,” I said, wanting to offset this narrative that was pulling her down. She’d mentioned donating a few times over the last few weeks since we’d stopped into the shelter. “Tell them about it, Syb,” I said, resting a palm on the middle on her upper back.
At my use of her nickname, she shot me a quick glance, and I squeezed the back of her neck gently, feeling like I was letting her down if I couldn’t change the flow of this conversation.
“Now, that’s really great,” Grace said. “There are so many people to help. So many good causes.”
Sybil bit back a grin, but it was a real one this time, and every muscle in my body pulled me to kiss that bottom lip, where her teeth rested. “Yeah, Kieran helps with a shelter near the shop, and it got me thinking about food and housing insecurity, and I think I want to make a difference if I can.” She started talking about reading she’d been doing on the issues locally and nationally, citing studies and sharing statistics, and I had no idea she’d been gathering that much information. “So I’ve been talking with some people about it.”
Her mom beamed, and I knew it was the right way to interrupt the conversation, which quickly turned to causes everyone believed in or volunteered with, and it was like Sybil blossomed right there at the table, sharing all the ideas she had, ones I’d had no idea about. She’d gone ten steps beyond writing a check in her mind, and I didn’t know her family, but they seemed proud and excited. I realized I was grinning, too. I was proud of her and indulged every excuse I found to touch her— to squeeze her neck again or wrap my arm around her shoulder to show I was cheering her on.
“Well,” her mom said as I helped her clear the table and followed her into the kitchen. “This is all still fast, but you might just be a great influence on her.”
I heard Sybil laugh from the other room, a loud, free sound I recognized as the laugh she had when something struck her as truly funny, and I could picture exactly how she must look. “I think it’s the other way around, ma’am. She’s the best person to come into my life, maybe ever,” I replied, and though I might have thought to say that while pretending, I said it because I meant it.