“I can’t believe our little girl is graduating.” Deanna helped me fix my cap over my long brown curls, which she tried to tame for the occasion.
“You’re not even 10 years older than me,” I reminded her. We celebrated her twenty-seventh birthday a couple of months before my eighteenth.
“And I’m your little girl!” five-year-old Clara pointed out, barging into her parents’ bedroom and putting herself between me and Deanna at the mirror. You wouldn’t think we were related if you saw us individually, with Deanna’s platinum pixie cut and Clara’s strawberry blonde pigtails, but when I looked at the 3 of us together in the mirror, we were a family.
“Lucy is our big girl and you’re our baby girl,” Sam explained, making me roll my eyes. His mom died when I was twelve, then his father three years ago, making Sam my legal guardian. He was an amazing dad to Clara, but I still saw him as a big brother.
“But who is your favorite girl?” Clara was all about favorites these days, ever since Deanna went back to work. It was only part time, a day or two every week, but she loved being a social worker and helping people. Clara wasn’t used to sharing her mom with anyone but me, and kept making sure she was still the favorite. I found it adorable.
“I love all three of my girls more than anything else in the world,” Sam answered without answering, which got Clara to sigh loudly for effect, oozing attitude. I appreciated his sentiment, but it had been thirteen years since I was anybody’s favorite, and I was okay with that. Most of the time.
“You’re my favorite sister.” Clara turned to me. She knew we weren’t really related, but I had been there every single day since she was born.
“And you’re my favorite little sister,” I assured her.
She pouted at that, but I shrugged and looked up at Deanna, who became my big sister long before she became Sam’s wife and, ultimately, my guardian. “I’ll put this back on after lunch,” Deanna assured me, gently removing the cap now that we knew how it would look.
“What time are we eating at?” I asked.
“I told everyone 12,” Sam shared. He literally meant everyone, but no one would show up. A few kids used to come to my birthday parties when I was little, so their parents could explore the manor and see if the rumors about us were true, but they gave up when they realized the eccentricity died with Grams. Keisha was the exception. She moved to town halfway through sixth grade, when everyone else already had their best friend, except for me. I wasn’t bullied, but people rarely went out of their way to make me feel welcome or accepted. Neither did Keisha, to be honest. She just showed up with so much confidence and strength that when she said we belonged, I believed her.
“I better start making the cake.” I got up and followed Sam and Deanna out of the room.
“Do you want to play hide and seek?” Clara asked, following me.
“I can play now, and she can come join us?” Deanna offered on her way down the stairs.
“Does that mean I’ll have to lick the spoons all by myself?” I pretended that was a daunting task.
“I can lick the spoons?” Clara asked in a whisper, looking over to her mom. Deanna liked to warn us about the salmonella we could get from cake batter.
“Of course,” I told her with confidence. I was barely allowed to leave the property as a child, but the house was always stocked with cookie dough to deal with heartbreaks.
“Let me get my hat.” Clara stopped midway down the stairs and ran back up.
I followed her to her bedroom, decorated with princesses and unicorns, and waited while she sorted through her toy chest to find a baker’s hat. She loved playing dress-up and helping us cook, so it was the perfect birthday gift for her. Embry nearly replaced me as her favorite when she opened it.
I made the cake batter with Clara and let her lick all the spoons and mixers, but I saved a few spoonfuls from the bowl for myself.
“Now cookies?” Clara looked up at me, her face all sticky with chocolate icing from when she tried to lick the middle of the mixer spoons.
“Now I go set the table while you wash up,” I corrected her. “We can make cookies next Sunday.” I never understood the harm in a ‘sugar rush’ until we introduced Clara to chocolate.
I went to the dining room and set seven places for my Graduation Party. Sam, Deanna and Clara were a given, and Keisha said she would come for an hour or so between her two parents, who divorced a month into our sophomore year. Gabriel would run off with something important to do as soon as the cake was done, but Embry would make up for him by staying an entire week to hang out.
By 12:30, Sam, Deanna, Clara, Keisha and I were sitting at the dining room table, waiting while the smell of delicious food kept wafting in, making my mouth water.
“You did invite them, right?” Clara asked like maybe her dad had been silly and forgot to tell the other guests about the party.
“I did,” he assured us.
“And?” I asked.
“Embry said he wouldn’t miss it for the world. Gabriel looked at me like I was talking a foreign language and said he would see.”
“Sounds accurate,” I conceded. Gabriel was like that brooding teenager whose parents forced him to attend an event about 90 percent of the time, while Embry was the big brother I would run to whenever he showed up. Which was often.
“Maybe you told him the wrong date?” Keisha ventured after I tried Embry’s cell phone again and was sent straight to voicemail.
“Or they thought this was a dinner party?” Deanna played along, but we hadn’t had dinner celebrations since Clara was born. She had a tendency to fall asleep at the table if anything started past 6 o’clock.
“I’m hungry.” Clara looked around the table to her parents, then back to me when they shrugged to let her know it was my party, so my decision.
“We can heat some up when they arrive,” I assured her, letting Sam and Deanna know I was okay with us eating without them. There were a million reasons why they could be late or unable to come, but few that explained why they hadn’t told anyone and weren’t answering their phones.
Sam, Deanna and I went to the kitchen and made five plates of Sloppy Joes. The table was decked out with hot sauces and chili for Deanna, ketchup and relish for Clara, who treated it like a hamburger, and mountains of shredded cheese for Sam and I. Keisha ate hers as is, with a fork and knife, opposed to the ‘sloppy’ part of the meal.
I smiled at Clara, who loved being able to make a mess of herself with food, but my mind was on the two empty chairs.
“You okay?” Sam asked while we brought the empty plates to the kitchen.
“Gabriel never said he was coming,” I said as if I hadn’t expected him to.
“True,” he agreed, but no matter how unenthusiastic Gabriel was sometimes, he was always there for milestones and big events.
“And maybe Embry doesn’t like the idea that I’m growing up, or that I’m going off to college instead of staying here forever,” I shared what had originally been a fear, but was now a better alternative to something bad happening to them.
“You think he didn’t show up just to spite you?” he questioned my logic.
“Do you have a better suggestion?” I would take disappointing them over 80 percent of the scenarios running through my mind.
“He forgot the date. Got a new phone and couldn’t figure out how to use it. He was speeding and the cop brought him to the station because he couldn’t provide a valid driver’s license. He got held up on his way because he stopped to rescue orphans from a burning building and his phone was lost in the fire,” he gave me a list of somewhat plausible explanations where Embry wasn’t hurt or mad at me.
“Thank you,” I smiled at the last one, because it was very Embry.
“Anytime,” he assured me.
“I hope it’s a simple misunderstanding.” I let out the breath I was holding and tried to release some of the tension that wasn’t letting up in my shoulders.
“How many messages under the table?” he let me know I hadn’t been as sneaky as I hoped.
“A million texts and three calls,” I admitted. “But I’m sure they’re fine,” I brushed it off.
“They always make it back to you,” he reminded me.
“Exactly,” I agreed with absolutely no conviction. Even if I was worried about them, I didn’t want Sam to worry about me.
“We’re ready for you!” Clara and Keisha called.
“Let’s go, High School Grads.” Sam ushered me to sit beside Keisha, where they put the candle-lit cake.
“For they are jolly good fellows, for they are jolly good fellows…” Clara and Deanna sang. Sam asked, “Really? That’s what we’re going with?” before joining in.
“This is so unnecessary.” I shook my head at them, but I was grinning ear to ear as Keisha and I blew out the candles.
“You girls are going to be amazing,” Sam said, locking eyes with me so I would know he meant it.
“You’ll knock them all dead,” Deanna encouraged.
“Then bring them back to life.” Sam looked pointedly to his wife, reminding her that I was going to be studying Medicine in the fall, where the hope is that I keep people alive, not kill them.
“Obviously.” She rolled her eyes and smiled.
“I love you guys.” I ignored the tears.
“Yeah, thank you Mr. and Mrs. Boyd.” We all inadvertently cringed when Keisha thanked them. Ever since the first time she came over, she insisted it was impolite for her to call them by their first names, but Mr. and Mrs. Boyd were Sam’s parents, so it sounded weird to us.
“We can do it all over again once Embry and Gabriel get here,” Deanna assured me when my eyes ventured to the empty chairs again.
“We’ll try to come up with a more fitting song for round two,” Sam agreed, getting a playful slap from his wife.
“I’ll have to pass on round two. My dad is taking me for ice cream.” Keisha got up from the table.
“How long is he in town for?” I asked. He moved to Providence after the divorce so his visits, though few and far between, were always extra special.
“He’s moving me into MIT after prom, then traveling for the rest of the summer.”
“How’s your mom taking it?” Deanna asked.
“Me leaving or him being there?” Keisha asked in a way that told us neither of these were suiting her mom so well.
“It’s a 15-minute drive,” Sam pointed out.
“How are you feeling about the 30 minutes to Harvard?” Deanna shot back.
“Point taken,” he agreed.
“And it won’t be 15 minutes. She got a grant to go do research and dig stuff up in England.”
“She finally said yes?” Her mom was always being asked to lead research expeditions all over the place, but she always said no to opportunities I would have jumped on.
“She says you can come with me at Thanksgiving if you want.”
I turned straight to Sam, but all my hopes died when I saw his expression. “We’ll have to talk it over,” he told Keisha.
“You’ve got time,” she assured him before Clara and I walked her to the door.
“Will you be at Lucy’s graduation?” Clara asked.
“I kind of have to be. I’m giving a speech,” Keisha shared.
“How come?” Clara looked at her like giving a speech was the last thing anyone should want to do.
“She’s smarter than everyone else.” I rolled my eyes before smiling at my best friend.
“By like half a percent,” she argued.
“It still counts,” I assured her.
“All that to say I will see you both later,” she told us. “And thank you Mr. and Mrs. Boyd!” she called back to the kitchen.
“Anytime, sweetie.” Deanna poked her head into the hallway.
“Can we play tag now?” Clara asked once we were back in the dining room, wolfing down her last few bites of cake.
“Of course,” I sighed while Deanna smiled at me, knowing I was only pretending it was a chore. I loved hanging out with Clara and would miss her dragging me out for adventures once I was on campus in the fall.
“You’re it!” She touched me before running off as soon as I opened the door to the backyard. I used to have to run at a snail’s pace and pretend I couldn’t catch her, but she was getting better, and sometimes I only barely caught her.
“Do you think Embry is okay?” she asked once I had her up in my arms, having trapped her in the maze that used to be our apple orchard.
“Of course he’s okay. He’s Embry,” I told her as if she had nothing to worry about, but my heart had been tight in my chest ever since Sam suggested we sit at the table instead of waiting for them in the doorway. Gabriel usually showed up right on time, but he was never late, and I couldn’t remember the last time Embry wasn’t hours early for a party. Something was off.
“You’re not worried at all?” Clara asked, making me feel terrible, because I knew she would trust me if I told her there was nothing to worry about.
“Nope. I’m thinking about all the cake we can have if they don’t come,” I teased, tickling her before running off.
“You’re so fast today!” I said when she caught me. I wrapped my arm around her shoulders so we could head back to the manor to get ready.
“I’m always fast.” She ducked under my arm and ran ahead of me to prove her point. If only I’d had her confidence at that age, I would have spent a lot less time worrying, and a lot more time doing things. Like standing up for myself and making friends, things I didn’t do until Keisha showed me how. Clara had her grandmother’s fierceness, her dad’s kindness, and her mother’s social skills. She was what I wanted to be when I grew up.
Once inside, I changed into the gorgeous yellow dress Deanna got for me to wear underneath the gown, and let her put the cap back on. Sam often said the luckiest day of his life was when he was the first person Deanna met when she moved to town with her dad, and it was one of mine as well. Sam had always been one of my favorite people, but Deanna had quickly become the best friend/sister I never got to have. Because Sam lived at the manor with my crazy family, a lot of the kids at school didn’t take the time to find out how awesome he was. Deanna walked into the grocery store when he was helping his mom out, literally fell into his arms in the produce aisle and left with his heart. Luckily, he’d made an impression on her as well. I was still waiting for someone new to move to the neighborhood and stumble into the manor, which might be the only way I could meet him before he found out that I was ‘that weird Owens girl’ to everyone in town.
When we got to school, Sam and Deanna took Clara to get seats while I found my graduating class in the library. There were eighty of us, mostly the same students I met on my first day of kindergarten. I was amazed at all the kids my age I had as friends, until they went home and their parents told them to keep their distance. Mrs. Boyd would say, “People are afraid of what they don’t know,” which wasn’t very comforting, even back then.
“We made it.” Tennison came over to me while someone from administration tried to line us up alphabetically, leaving behind the cheerleaders he’d been talking to. Other than Keisha, who came much later, Tennison Montgomery was the only student who talked to me when the teachers weren’t requiring it, which they rarely did. He had been my best friend on that first day of class, when I showed up all nervous because of so many new faces. He said he liked my curly hair, but I always thought it was the homemade brownies Mrs. Boyd sent me to school with. He sat with me at snack time until around second grade, when he became the boy every girl had a crush on. He would still volunteer to be my partner for school projects, with other kids acting like he was taking one for the team, but we would meet up way more than the projects required. Sam recommended I ditch anyone who was only nice to me when other people weren’t around, but his dad used to tell me that not everyone could be brave and fearless. Some did the best they could, until they got brave enough to act the way they felt inside. I was all for giving him a chance as long as he wasn’t mean to me, and he never was.
“Was there any doubt? It’s not like we went to war.” Keisha was utterly unimpressed, and felt the same as Sam about him.
“It’s something you say. I just meant congratulations. To both of you. You guys slayed it,” he said before one of his teammates called him over.
“We slayed it?” Keisha asked me. “You’re literally the only person who signed my yearbook.”
“I’m the only one you asked,” I reminded her. “And you’re valedictorian. I’m the runner-up. Academically, we did good.”
“Academically, we slayed it.” I shook my head at her before falling in line.
We went out onto the football field once we were in order, with families in the bleachers. It took forever before they called out my name, and I was only two-thirds of the way down the list.
“Congratulations Ms. Owens.” Our principal, Mr. Higgins, handed me my diploma before shaking my hand, while I scanned the audience. It was easy to find Sam and Deanna, who both stood up and cheered, with Clara on Sam’s shoulders, looking like she had just woken up. It was also easy to find the empty space beside them, for Embry and Gabriel, who didn’t show.
“Leftover cake?” Sam asked, wrapping an arm around me once the ceremony was done and we were able to go home.
“I think I’m good,” I told him.
“Did Lucy say no to cake?” Deanna pretended to be shocked. It wasn’t that I had it all the time. We tried to limit the sugary and unhealthy foods, but if there was cake, I was always going to have some.
“I’m tired, and I’m helping Keisha pack tomorrow.” She got accepted to a super intense program at MIT, designed for people who were going to become astronauts or cure cancer or something equally impressive. This meant they expected her to spend the summer taking extra courses, so she could start off on the first day smarter than 99.9 percent of the population.
“You still need to have dinner,” Sam pointed out.
“I will. I just don’t need the whole round two thing,” I explained.
“Sounds reasonable,” he agreed, but he was mostly playing along so we could pretend the lack of celebration was because I was tired, not because half the guests never showed up.