“You’ve been gone for four days.” She laughed, and I looked around.
“Are you sure it’s only been four days?” Because too much had changed in just twenty-four hours. The whole place looked different.
“Calli doesn’t waste time.” She chuckled, looking around herself. “She basically had people working around the clock.”
Calli? We were calling her by a nickname now? “Why? Are we hosting someone?”
She shrugged but didn’t reply as the rest of our family got off the elevator. The first person off was my mother. She was dressed in a deep purple dress, her brown eyes focused on me…she looked sad…and relieved. All I could do was smile.
“Welcome back,” my father said as he got downstairs, dressed in his favorite navy suit and fedora, a purple tie to compliment my mom’s outfit.
“Thank you. Nice gangster hat,” I teased.
“Don’t be jealous. It takes a certain swagger to rock this hat,” he said, and both my mom and I gave him a look.
“That’s the look for when you’re trying too hard, Uncle Neal,” Wyatt said.
“Yeah, just like that suit,” my dad shot back.
Wyatt was dressed in a dark-brown, double-breasted suit and tie. I looked at him and Helen; they fit together, but discreetly. He held a black umbrella, not because it was going to rain but to help him stand up straighter—also discreetly. Seeing as he was still healing, he had to be in a little pain, too.
“I like the suit.” Helen smiled, pulling something off his shoulder. They both shared a look.
“Oh God, please don’t kiss, or I’ll hurl,” Darcy said as he came out of the living room with Uncle Declan and Aunt Coraline right behind him.
Both were wearing all black and gray. Uncle Declan just glared at Wyatt, who sighed and rolled his eyes.
“Uncle Declan, aren’t your eyes tired of all that glaring?” Wyatt asked with a smile. “You know you love me.”
“I’d love to break your legs…again,” Uncle Declan muttered, looking away from him.
“Dad—”
“Did he do something bad, Nana?”
We all looked back to see Ethan’s daughter and Evelyn coming from the kitchen. She looked so sweet dressed in all white, with a little cape on her shoulders, a green, white, and red ribbon on her chest and a hat with her hair in full curls underneath it.
“Nana, did Uncle Wyatt do something bad?” she asked Evelyn, who wore a simple beige dress and jacket on top, with one small lily pinned to her jacket. “Uncle Declan said he was going to break his legs.”
“Good morning, Giovanna. How are you?” Wyatt asked, moving to her. “We didn’t get to hang out last night.”
“I know.” She nodded and smiled back “You were sleeping.”
Wyatt made a face at her. “You were sleeping, too!”
“I’m a kid.” She shrugged.
“Uncle Wyatt thinks he’s a kid, too,” Evelyn teased.
Giovanna made a face and shook her head. “Uncle Wyatt, you can’t be a kid!”
“Why not?” Wyatt asked.
“’Cause you’re too big and old. There was a person like that back at our other home. He was big and old, but he didn’t know and acted like a kid. Mommy said it was because he was sick and that I shouldn’t be mean to him. Uncle, are you sick?”
“Wow,” Wyatt muttered, standing up straighter and looking back to the rest of us. “Even his daughter lectures me?”
“She’s smart.” Uncle Declan grinned until Giovanna looked at him.