Weather Girl(73)

I’m not exactly in the market for a stepmom.

No wonder I can’t find a silver lining.

Russell asks if I want him to carry the Whole Foods apple pie in the Subaru’s backseat, but I shake my head, tell him I’ve got it, and together we head up the drive.

The porch is lined with geraniums and marigolds and begonias that look newly potted, and maybe there’s my silver lining: my mother gardening again.

I knock, because even though I lived here for eighteen years and for a couple summers after that, it feels too intrusive to just let myself in.

When the door opens, Orion grins up at us, showing off another lost tooth. “Hi. Are you Aunt Ari’s gentleman caller?”

“You’re supposed to ask who it is before you open the door,” Alex says, jogging up behind him. His face lights up when he spots Russell, and with a narrowing of my eyes, I will him not to embarrass me tonight. “Welcome! I’m Alex, Ari’s brother. You must be Russell. And this is Orion”—he claps a hand on Orion’s mop of curls—“who just learned an important lesson about opening the door to strangers.”

“Sorry,” Orion says, fidgeting to get out of his dad’s grip. “I didn’t think Aunt Ari would bring over anyone bad!”

“He called Russell my ‘gentleman caller,’?” I inform Alex.

“We may have been watching too much of that new period piece on Netflix,” Alex says. “Guess he picked up a few things.”

Maybe a precocious five-year-old is exactly what Russell and I needed to break the tension, because he starts cracking up. “Good to meet you,” he says, shaking Alex’s hand.

The house is tidy. That’s the first thing I notice. Almost too tidy, as though my mother wanted to make sure we were seeing it at its best. No stray laundry, walls adorned with minimalist geometric artwork, the scent of a lemon air freshener stinging my nostrils. While it doesn’t have much in common with my childhood home, at least aesthetically, all the memories are still here, trapped inside these walls. Getting home from school after staying late at a science club, throwing open the front door and hoping I’d find a mother who was happy to see me. Hoping there wouldn’t be a stranger waiting to introduce himself to me and asking if it was okay if he stayed for dinner.

My mother rushes over, a light pink apron I’ve never seen before tied around her waist. Come to think of it, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen her in an apron. “Ari, hi. You look great. Traffic okay?”

I assess my unremarkable striped skirt and linen button-up. “Hey, Mom. Yeah, not too bad.”

It’s okay. Maybe we’re talking about traffic, but that’s not a bad omen. Besides, I’m sure Hannah would have as much to say about traffic as small talk as I do about weather. We continue the introductions as Javier walks in carrying Cassie, who buries her face in his chest, suddenly shy.

“You certainly look familiar,” my mother says to Russell as Alex takes his coat. “I’m sure I’ve seen you on TV.”

“Are you a meaty—meter—weatherperson, too?” Cassie asks, stumbling over the word, her face scrunching up with the effort of it all. Her curly hair is in two pigtails today.

“I’m not,” he says, bending at the knees a bit so he can be eye level with her. “I cover sports. But I still get rained on a lot of the time.”

Cassie gasps, like this is the greatest thing she’s ever heard. She wiggles in Javier’s arms until he sets her down. “I love sports! Daddy and Papa just signed me up for soccer.” She shows off the ribbons on her pigtails which, sure enough, have little soccer balls dangling off them. “I’m going to be the goalie!”

Russell’s jaw drops open. “Are you serious? I used to play goalie for my hockey team. It’s the best position.”

“He also gets to go to a lot of games for free,” I say to Cassie, and she looks like she might explode.

“I want to do your job,” she declares. No allegiance, this kid.

“She’s wanted to be a meteorologist for the past year,” I say to Russell as we head into the living room. “You’ve poisoned her.”

“Nothing to poison. I just happen to have a very fun job.”

Alex drops onto the couch with Cassie and Orion on each side of him, who’ve started squabbling about how much money the tooth fairy should leave them. It’s not the same couch we found our mother on the day our dad left, but it’s in the same spot.

“Do you need any help in the kitchen?” I ask my mother.

“I think Javier and I have it covered. It should be ready in ten.” She slides a loose strand of hair back into her bun. I can tell she’s not used to the shorter length yet. “I know it’s not quite sundown,” she says to Russell. “But with the kids, we kind of fudge it. We did the same when Ari and Alex were little. It was impossible to get them to wait.”

“Don’t drag our good names through the mud like that,” Alex says. “We were extremely good children!”

“I have several photo albums that prove otherwise.” My mother brings a hand to her throat. “Ari . . . you still wear that necklace?”

It dawns on me that I wasn’t wearing it at the hospital. Russell had taken it off that night in the hotel, and I wasn’t able to do the clasp myself.