“Let’s go find Mommy.”
Forgetting his stuffed lion and truck, he ran off to find their mom. Fearless and undaunted by any future challenges that might crop up in his way. She needed to be more like her brothers, both big and small.
She made up her mind. As soon as everyone was seated and settled for supper, she’d announce her good news. And it was good news.
So why did she feel like she would somehow be letting everyone down?
The kitchen smelled amazing when Skylar returned downstairs. The deep fryer drama on the porch seemed to conclude, and now the men loitered around their wives like hungry hounds begging for scraps. The women chased them off with instructions to set the table as they transferred steaming side dishes from metal pots to serving bowls while the kids once again washed-up at the sink.
“We have no dessert now, thanks to all of you,” Aunt Sheilagh griped at her brothers.
Uncle Luke threw a dishtowel at her face. “Like Mum ever has just one pie.”
He was right. Gran always kept an arsenal of desserts hidden away for emergencies.
Skylar was so anxious to share her big news, the words wanted to burst out of her. She waited for the perfect opportunity, a moment—just a split second really—when everyone shut up so she could steal the spotlight. It didn’t come.
Halfway through the meal—no hint of the usual chaos quieting—an argument started over who would win the games next Thursday and who was ahead in the fantasy football pools.
“I got five to seven odds on the spread next week,” Uncle Kelly announced.
Uncle Luke perked up. “What’s Vincenzo paying?”
“He said it was up to five hundred when I talked to him on Friday.”
“Five hundred dollars?” Gran’s brows lifted. “That’s an awful lot of money to bet on one game.”
Vincenzo, Skylar’s Italian grandfather on the Marcelli side, grew up in Philadelphia and liked to pretend he had mafia connections, which he did not. But he wore the gaudy gold jewelry and the mob style tracksuits as if he were a method actor preparing for the role of a lifetime.
Deeply committed to his self-fabricated delusions of power, he even tried to run for mayor once. But he didn’t quite have the pull of Hoffa and he lost by a pretty extreme landslide. Suffice it to say, no one was allowed to speak the current mayor’s name in her grandfather’s presence if they wanted to eat at his restaurant. And no one in Jasper Falls cooked like her grandfather—including Gran—so everyone wanted a seat at his table.
If Skylar ever broke the news about Shippensburg to her McCullough relatives, she had to do it all over again on the Marcelli side. She dreaded breaking the news to her grandpa Marcelli, as he had a few misogynistic tendencies in regard to the females of their family. All three of her dad’s sisters still worked and lived at home and he always told Skylar she had her priorities right whenever she showed up for a shift at the restaurant.
Skylar liked working there, but it wasn’t what she wanted for a career. And her decision to stay in Jasper Falls had more to do with finance than any sort of loyalty to her family’s business.
Once, her mom told her how desperately she’d wanted to leave town after high school. That hadn’t worked out for her, and she claimed she had no regrets, but deep down Skylar thought she might harbor a few.
Skylar loved her town and was in no rush to leave, but some part of her believed she needed distance from her family in order to find her independence. She just hoped they would understand.
“Bray, how come you’re not in the football pool?” Luke asked, glancing over the spread that passed around the table.
Skylar’s dad chuckled. “He owes my dad from the last game.”
Gran gasped. “Is that true, Braydon? Are you in the hole with Vincenzo like some degenerate?”
“Shut up, Ant.” Uncle Braydon shot her father a look. “No, Mum. I just haven’t had the chance to get it over to him.”
Skylar wondered if other families openly discussed illegal gambling as if it were nothing to be ashamed of.
Uncle Kelly chuckled. “You’re afraid of Vincenzo. Just admit it.”
“No,” Braydon argued, only there was a slight tremble to his tone. “What’s he going to do, ban me from the restaurant?”
“Careful, Uncle Bray,” Skylar teased. “My grandpa thinks he has a special connection to The Man Upstairs. He might put the maloik on you.”
Her uncle shot her a scowl. “Kate, control your smartass daughter.”
Her mother shrugged. “She’s right. Hope he doesn’t put the evil eye on you.”
“That’s enough of that talk, Katherine,” Gran said. “We’ve got enough problems. We don’t need to invite pagan superstitions into the mix. Besides, for a man so connected to God, I’ve never seen him step foot in church.”