Addie
Nine
Tonight is my regular dinner with my siblings—the last Wednesday of the month. It’s become our recurring promise to each other. No Evie. No strategy. Just us, a stark contrast to dinners with our grandmother, which have always been a full-contact sport, all for her enjoyment.
Ric and Liz are hosting this time, and as I park in front of their house, I feel a strange heaviness in my body. It’s just been a short drive across the lake, but that’s how exhaustion shows up now. A dull quiet that makes everything take longer.
I look around and see my sisters’ cars but, thankfully, no sign of my mother’s.
She doesn’t come to these dinners very often, but I’ve been avoiding her calls since I saw her last week before that fateful doctor’s appointment, and I’ve started worrying she could pop up just about anywhere.
I’m still trying to process what happened in that office, so I haven’t felt ready to add Mom back into the mix.
It was supposed to be my turn to host the dinner this month, but Ric and Liz thought it might be too much, so they offered to take over.
They somehow managed to do this without making it sound like an intervention, which made it both worse and better at the same time.
Still, I agreed before my pride could get in the way.
I think my siblings are the only people in my life who could convince me to let down my guard like that.
I step out of the car and close the door carefully.
The porch light is on, warm against the early evening.
I feel the familiar tension in my core, the worry that always comes with family time, even just my siblings.
With the Dempseys, love and scrutiny wrap together so neatly, they’re hard to separate.
The door opens before I knock.
“Hey,” Ric says, his smile easy, his eyes doing that quick scan he probably thinks I don’t notice. I let him hug me, and his arm settles around my shoulders.
“Smells good,” I say as I enter because it does and because that’s easier than saying, “Thank you for taking this off my plate.”
Liz’s voice floats in from the kitchen. “She’s here?”
I laugh as I slip off my shoes by the door. Coats on hooks. The low hum of voices from the dining room. Everything exactly as it should be. Exactly as it always is.
Ric closes the door behind me. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine,” I say automatically, and then add, “Just tired.”
He nods, accepting this.
The house smells of roasted vegetables and garlic, with something citrusy underneath. Liz appears with an Italian soda already in her hand, which she presents to me.
“You look great,” she says. “We’re all glad you came.”
I take a sip, grateful.
In the dining room, chairs scrape softly as everyone settles.
My sisters’ voices overlap, familiar rhythms rising and falling.
Josie slides a chair back for me without making a production of it.
Sera meets my eyes for a second, her look sharp but not unkind.
Ric takes the seat across from me, close enough that I can feel his attention even when he’s talking to Liz.
This is the part of the Dempseys most people don’t see, where warmth comes easily and everyone gets along without worrying about their place.
After a moment, Liz invites everyone to the taco bar she’s created.
We all stand, and Sera hugs me. “You really have a pregnancy glow.”
“Thanks.” I smile.
“Did you all hear that the police laid charges against Max and Evie this morning?” Ginny asks.
A few nods as we begin shuffling our way through the line, assembling tacos.
“Federal?” Liz asks.
“Yeah,” Ginny’s husband, Ryker, replies. “My dad took it pretty hard.”
Max Paradise is Ryker’s uncle, and he was arrested last year after he dropped the bomb that he’d worked with Evie to sabotage Paradise Hill. The family and the police have been investigating ever since. Sera and Josie have spent the most time with the Crown Prosecutor.
Josie leans back. “So what does that mean for Evie? Does anyone think she’s getting out of this?” She looks down the line we’ve formed.
“If they’ve got enough to charge Max,” Ric says, “they’ve got enough to keep digging. She’s been nervous since he named her.”
“If they charge her too, that’s it,” Sera says quietly. “She’ll see the inside of a prison cell. I don’t know how she’ll manage that, and who knows how it will affect us.”
I feel for my oldest sister. She has to work with Evie second-guessing her every day.
“We start picking next week,” she continues. “And it’s going to be hectic. Evie canceled some of our pickers, and by the time I realized it, I couldn’t get them back. They find other work so quickly, and we’re short-handed.”
“I thought Sera was going to force Evie to pick when she found out,” Josie teases.
A few smiles bloom, but no one laughs.
As several side conversations pick up, Ryker, who’s a pediatrician, leans over my shoulder from his spot behind me in line. “How are you doing?”
I nod. “So far, so good.”
“You just passed your twenty-week mark. Did you find out the sex of the baby?”
Everyone in the room stops. Suddenly, we’re all having the same conversation again.
“I did.” They’re leaning in close, waiting, and I feel like making them work for it a bit.
“Well,” Ginny asks. “Boy or girl?”
“Yes,” I say with a grin.
“I’m calling her peanut,” Josie declares.
“They confirmed it was a girl?” Sera asks.
I look around at everyone. They’re getting impatient, and as much as I want to string them along, I give in. “It’s a boy.”
“Our numbers are coming up!” Ryker says to Ric.
“It’s about time,” Ric replies. “I’ve been outnumbered my whole life.”
“What else did you find out?” Ryker asks, putting his pediatrician hat back on.
“I’m measuring right, but they’re a little worried about my weight,” I confess. “I seem to have severe morning sickness.”
“There are great medicines for that,” Ryker says, sounding a bit concerned.
“I really don’t want to put any chemicals in my body.”
Ryker puts his arm around my shoulder. “That’s admirable, but not all chemicals are created equal, and sometimes, you need a little help to be healthy.
Your body is doing so much right now, and the weight you gain in pregnancy is what feeds your baby and his brain.
If the doctor tells you to take something, it’s worth it. Really.”
I suddenly feel silly that I didn’t figure that out myself. “Thanks. I didn’t see it that way.”
“Well, I’ll be here to show him how to play basketball, and I know you won’t need a pediatrician, but if you do, I want to be his doctor.”
I smile and agree to that, and then it’s finally my turn.
When I get to the front of the line, I’m amazed to find four different taco fillings.
Feeling ambitious, I take a bit of everything.
It’s probably way more than I can eat, but I don’t care.
“Liz, you really outdid yourself,” I tell her. “Thank you for doing this.”
She chuckles. “No problem. Glad I could step in. Now eat.” She points at my plate. “Don’t forget the sides.”
I add a bit of rice and black beans.
I return to my spot at the table and take a careful bite, waiting for my stomach to object. When it doesn’t, I relax a fraction, enough that Josie notices.
“That’s a win,” she says lightly.
I nod. “I’ll take it.”
Conversation moves around me at first. Work updates. Someone’s neighbor renovating at the worst possible hour. A story about a patient Ric doesn’t name and likely edits down to something safe for the table. I mostly listen, grateful for the normalcy.
Ric asks about the statement piece I created for Monica’s gallery. I appreciate his interest, though I wonder if it’s mostly concern about how my finances are looking. But in the end, I answer honestly.
“It sold in three days for an obscene amount of money, but I don’t know to whom,” I tell him.
“I have a couple of prints still moving at the gallery, and my commission at Fire Engine makes me wonder if I could produce stationery and sell it to local stores. I figure it’s another way to sell work I’ve already done. ”
Everyone seems to like that idea. Sera doesn’t comment, which is its own kind of support. Josie fills the space with reassurance, talking about how people are finally paying attention, how good the timing is. I let her words wash over me. She’s my sister. Of course, she thinks it’s good.
Someone mentions town traffic getting worse again already, tourists creeping in for the fall crush parties.
The vineyards are gearing up. A casual observation, but I feel the way their eyes flick toward me.
They seem to have decided my baby’s father was a tourist, and that makes them nervous that the tourists are once again returning?
I don’t know. It’s not as if I can get pregnant again.
It’s Josie who finally brings us around to family business. She waits until plates are mostly cleared, until the conversation has settled into that comfortable lull where everyone feels generous.
“So,” she says, like she’s stepping onto thin ice, “do we want to talk about next month?”
Sera leans back in her chair, arms folding. Ric doesn’t look up from his glass, but I feel his attention sharpen.
Josie meets my eyes first. “About whether Zach should be included. Going forward. I mean, he is our half-brother, and he’s out of jail, at least for now.”
I don’t answer right away. The room seems to be leaning toward including him, but I can’t say I’m on board. He’s facing jail time because of how he was involved in what Evie and his father did.
“For now,” I say finally, “no.”
It’s quiet in the room, but not tense. Not yet.
“I don’t trust him,” I continue because if I’m going to draw the line, I’m not going to apologize for it. “He might not keep things said here from Evie. And I’m not willing to hand her a transcript of our dinners.”
Josie’s mouth opens, and then closes. She nods slowly. “I just thought—”