Chapter Twelve
Jess raced down the steps the moment Landon pulled into the driveway.
Though Rose knew he was anxious to see the sister he’d been parted from for so long, Landon took the time to turn to face Rose in the car, unclipping his seat belt and grabbing both her hands.
“You have nothing to worry about,” he said.
“I love you, and they will love you, too. Trust me.” She’d been initially hesitant when Landon asked if she would come home with him for Thanksgiving.
Rose worried he was blinded by the emotions surrounding his admission of love and would later regret his impulsive invitation, but she was more concerned by her own warring emotions: She simultaneously wanted so badly to go and wanted so badly to have a family of her own to be with.
When he’d asked—though he had asked with clear, bright eyes without an ounce of perceptible doubt—her first impulse was to ask whether he felt sorry for her, to ask whether he had taken in the place and people she’d come from and decided she needed rescuing.
She’d smothered that impulse and agreed, turning the music up louder on the six-hour drive any time she felt the urge to unload.
“I trust you,” she said, latching on to only that part of his reassurance, because the promise that someone could love her without knowing her was an empty one. Landon smiled and opened the car door, and Jess wrapped him in a hug so tight Rose worried for his bones.
“Whoa, whoa!” Rose could hear the smile on Landon’s face even if she couldn’t see it. “I missed you too, kid.”
“So hug me like you mean it,” Jess said, squeezing him tighter.
Though Rose had meant to give them privacy, the display of affection was too large and warm to ignore.
All her life she had longed for this—another person who knew and understood her because of their shared history, idyllic or painful as it might be.
Jess caught her staring and released Landon, who let out an exaggerated whoosh of breath.
“And you’re Rose.” Her face—tan and covered in freckles—brightened.
Landon had been right, of course, that he and Jess looked nothing alike.
Where he was towering, she was just tall, perhaps only an inch or two taller than Rose.
His hair was dark, and hers toed the line between brown and blond, with streaks of gold that caught the light.
But they had the same dark brown eyes, so wide they were very easy to get lost in.
“I’m Rose,” she said lamely, suddenly feeling adrift. Then Landon was there, his large, firm hand around her waist.
Jess raised her eyebrows, eyes sparkling. “I knew this would happen,” she said.
“Oh, please,” Landon said.
“Nope!” She placed both hands on her hips. “Don’t even try to take this away from me. I told you that you were going to get to that school and fall fast and hard. I should have made everyone place bets.”
“That would have been—”
But Jess cut him off, reaching for Rose’s hand and pulling her in for a hug that seemed only marginally less bone crunching than the one she’d given Landon.
“Girls just didn’t get him when we were growing up,” she said into Rose’s ear, but loud enough Rose knew Landon could hear.
“I swear, it was the most painful thing in the world to watch. But he is so sweet, and kind, and goofy, and I’m just so glad you’re here, Rose. ”
“You’re making me sound very cool,” Landon said. “Thanks for that.”
But Landon had already told her as much, under the covers of her twin bed. And besides, Rose already knew the reason no one had quite gotten Landon’s charm before. She’d known when they jumped into that pond. He had been made just for her.
“I have a lot of questions,” Rose said. “I’m going to require all the incriminating evidence you have about Landon’s childhood. I’m thinking we start with middle school.”
Jess clapped her hands. “I’m in. Unfortunately, most photographs will also include my incriminating childhood evidence, but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”
“She’s giving you the runaround,” Landon said, his hand once again snaking around Rose’s waist. “She was much cooler than me in middle school. We’d have to really dig to find anything she would be even remotely embarrassed by.”
“Well, I’m here for a full four days,” Rose said. “We have time.”
“I like her,” Jess said, beaming.
Landon placed a hand over both their shoulders and shepherded them into the house. “I’m not even a little bit surprised.”
Landon had described the home he’d come from in vivid detail, both the physical space and the people who raised him, but Rose was still awed.
The three-story house was somehow both cavernous and cozy, an optical illusion courtesy of Landon’s mother, who had gone back to school in her early forties for a degree in interior design.
She was as artfully composed as any of the house’s many rooms, her gray hair trimmed short, makeup subtle but distinct, and a stack of thick silver bracelets on each arm.
When Rose eyed the sleek white couch in the family room with what must have been latent suspicion, his mother said, “Now, don’t you worry.
Houses are meant for living, and couches are meant for sitting.
” Landon’s father was short, at least in comparison to his son, at no more than a head taller than Rose.
He drank his coffee from a #1 DAD mug, and both kids treated him in a way that made Rose confident he didn’t find it ironic—all the more after he pulled Rose away and into a tight hug to tell her how sorry he was for her loss, then slipped her the keys to the pool house if she needed a moment alone.
It made sense to Rose that Landon, with his quirky but undeniable charm, had come from a place where he’d been able to form the most secure of attachments.
What a leg up, she thought, to know that wherever your parents were, you were home.
Thanksgiving preparations started early.
“The crack of dawn,” Jess told her the night before, which translated to roughly seven a.m., when the sun had already risen behind the thick row of trees in the backyard.
The turkey, of course, needed prepping—seasoning, trussing, a swift push into the oven.
Then the vegetables needed dicing, a task traditionally assigned to Jess and Landon, with Rose joining their small team now, in charge of chopping fresh herbs.
They made the cranberry sauce from scratch, cooked the stuffing two ways, prepared and chilled their own pie dough, and used the stock from the turkey to make gravy.
Landon never passed up an opportunity to brush arms or legs or even, though in front of his whole family, pull her in close and plant a kiss on the crown of her head.
James Taylor played low through the home’s many speakers, his mellow voice summoning a calm Rose hadn’t previously known herself capable of.
It had been so long since she’d indulged in holiday rituals like these.
Jess pulled a clean fork from the cutlery drawer and dipped it into the potatoes Rose was still mashing. “Needs more butter,” she said. “But it’s good. You’re a good cook. You’re keeping up with us.”
“Well, thanks.” Rose said it with a touch of sarcasm, though truthfully she was touched.
From the other side of the long kitchen island, Landon’s mother called over her shoulder, “Was your house also a disaster zone on Thanksgiving morning, or did your parents have the good sense to space things out a touch?” Landon froze, and Rose knew him well enough by now to know he was concerned that his mother was displaying his trademark foot-in-mouth disease.
Or perhaps she was where it originated. Rose gave her body a beat to see whether the question bothered her and found, mercifully, that it didn’t.
“It was a disaster zone, too,” Rose said. “More of a disaster than this. My dad didn’t believe in cleaning while you cook—said it pulled his focus from the art form. It was worth it, though. The man wouldn’t have been caught dead with mashed potatoes that were too light on the butter.”
Landon’s mother dropped the whisk in the bowl of cold cream she’d been whipping by hand. “Oh, Rose, honey,” she said. “I didn’t mean—”
“I don’t mind talking about him,” Rose said.
“It feels good, actually. I was thinking about him anyway. How much he would have loved this.” It was the mashed potatoes.
She hadn’t meant to think about him, but the connection between her hands and her head had proven too powerful.
She must have been four or five the first time he’d pulled over a stool for her so she could help mash.
Rose wondered whether, for the rest of her life, there were certain acts that would conjure him whether she wished them to or not.
“Then I’m glad a little piece of him is in the room with us,” Landon’s mother said, the faux pas rolling like water off a duck’s back. Rose thought it the perfect thing to say.
“Me too.” And just like that, she felt at home.