I, Richard - Elizabeth George [35]
“Family doesn't have to be defined as blood relations,”
Willow pointed out. “Leslie's like an aunt to the children. Anfisa could be like a grandmother. And anyway, I hate to see her alone the way she is. With the holidays coming… I don't know. It seems so sad.”
Scott's expression changed to show the relief he felt at not having Willow suggest they move back to be near his loathsome parents. She sympathized with—if she didn't understand—his unwillingness to expose himself to any more comparisons to his vastly more successful sibling. And that empathy of hers, which he'd always seen as her finest quality, was something he accepted as not being limited to an application only to himself. She cared about people, his wife Willow. It was one of the reasons he loved her. He said, “I don't think she wants to mix in with us, Will.”
“She came to the cook-off. I think she wants to try.”
Scott smiled, reached up and caressed his wife's cheek. “Always rescuing strays.”
“Only with your blessing.”
He yawned. “Okay. But don't expect much. She's a dark horse, I think.”
“She just needs some friendship extended to her.”
And Willow set about doing exactly that the very same day. She made a double batch of drop-dead brownies and arranged a dozen artfully on a green plate of Depression glass. She covered them carefully in Saran Wrap and fixed this in place with a jaunty plaid ribbon. As carefully as if she were bearing myrrh, she carried her offering next door to 1420.
It was a cold day. It didn't snow in this part of the country and while autumns were generally long and colorful, they could also be icy and gray. That was the case when Willow left the house.
Frost still lay on her neat front lawn, on the pristine fence, on the crimson leaves of the liquidambar at the edge of the sidewalk, and a bank of fog was rolling determinedly down the street like a fat man looking for a meal.
Willow stepped watchfully along the brick path that led from her front door to the gate, and she held the drop-dead brownies against her chest as if exposure to the air might somehow harm them. She shivered and wondered what winter would be like if this was what a day in autumn could do.
She had to set her plate of brownies on the sidewalk for a moment when she reached the front of Anfisa's house. The old picket gate was off one hinge and instead of pushing it open, one needed to lift it, swing it, and set it down again. And even then, it wasn't an easy maneuver with the ivy now thickly overgrowing the front yard path.
Indeed, as Willow approached the house, she noticed what she hadn't before. The ivy that flourished under Anfisa's care had begun to twine itself up the front steps and was crawling along the wide front porch and twisting up the rails. If Anfisa didn't trim it soon, the house would disappear beneath it.
On the porch, where Willow hadn't stood since the last inhabitants of 1420 had given up the effort at DIY and moved to a brand-new—and flavorless—development just outside of town, Willow saw that Anfisa had made another alteration to the home in addition to what she'd done with the yard. Sitting next to the front door was a large metal chest with grocery delivery stenciled in neat white letters across its lid.
Odd, Willow thought. It was one thing to have your groceries delivered… Wouldn't she like to have that service if she could ever bear the thought of someone other than herself selecting her family's food. But it was quite another thing to leave it outside where it could spoil if you weren't