From Friends to Forever Read online

  To pulverize him like Ed had all those meat trays.

  “Hey. You ’sleep?”

  “Not really,” Tony said, as half smiling, he opened his eyes. Her chin propped on the rim of the shell-pink tub, Josie was watching him through water-spiked lashes like Tony was a damn miracle or something. Fear inched a little further out, teeth bared.

  What if—?

  “Dad!” Daphne yelled up the stairs. “Aunt Magda just pulled up in the driveway!”

  Frowning, Tony scrambled to his feet, grabbing a towel off the rack. In one motion he yanked the baby out of the tepid water and wrapped her up like chubby little burrito, then tramped down the stairs. Except it wasn’t Magda standing in his doorway, weighed down with bulging grocery bags, but Lili, all big eyes and soft smile and grownup curves, and he had to squelch the urge to yell Run! Get out while you can!

  Then it occurred to him the woman was perfectly capable of fending off lunatic men with easily excitable libidos. Especially those who couldn’t do anything even if they wanted to, since there were three children—

  Ed woofed.

  —and a dog in the house.

  “Oh, my goodness,” Lili said, dumping the bags to pat her thighs. Ed went nuts. Nuts. “Aren’t you a wonderful doggy, yes, you are—no, no!” Much laughter as she tried to dodge his slobbery kisses. “What’s his name?”

  “Ed.”

  “Yes, Eddie…I love you, too—!”

  “It’s Lili,” the ever-helpful Daphne said, looking up at him.

  “I can see that,” Tony said, hiking the soggy baby farther up into his arms. “Runnin’ away already?”

  Wiping dog spit off her chin, Lili grinned. Even if the grin did look a little undecided. “Tempting, but no. However—” she shoved Ed’s head out of one of the bags to pick them up again “—she thought you might like some of party leftovers—”

  “Dad? Who is it…? Oh.”

  “Hello, Claire,” Lili said, her smile genuine but careful. At Claire’s mumbled response, Tony cleared his throat and she sighed and said, “Hi, Lili,” back. Not like she was overjoyed, but it was a beginning.

  Except then she said, “You want me to get the baby ready for bed?” at the same time Daphne, already in her nightgown, said, “You gonna read to me tonight, or what?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Lili said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your routine—”

  “Not at all.” The baby handed to Claire, Tony took the bags from Lili’s hands, getting a good strong whiff of something pretty and kinda spicy which did a real number on his head—among other things—and what shreds of common sense he had left told him nothing good could come of this, even as he thought that was nuts, because there was no this, and wasn’t gonna be.

  “Come on in,” he said.

  Standing in the entryway with her arms crossed, Lili valiantly tried to ignore Claire’s thundercloud face as Tony ducked into the kitchen, dumped the bags, then popped back out, striding over the well-worn, earth-toned braided rug.

  “Coming, cupcake,” he tossed up to Daphne, draped over the banister like a rag doll. Then to Lili, with a quick, nervous smile as he hooked one hand around the newel post and swung himself onto the stairs, “I’ll be right back. There’s soda and stuff in the fridge, if you want—” Halfway up, he pivoted to hunch over the banister. “Whatami thinking, you probably have plans or something, right?”

  “Um…not really, no. But I can’t stay long, I, er, promised to watch a video with Magda later.” Lili nodded toward the kitchen. “I could put the food away, if you like.”

  “Oh. Sure. Claire, you mind showing Lili the kitchen—?”

  She smiled. “Unless you moved it, I remember where the kitchen is.”

  “And I have to put the baby to bed, anyway,” Claire said, stomping up the stairs past him, her baby sister expertly balanced on her hip. Lili watched as Tony’s gaze followed them both for a second before he gave her a tight smile.

  “Kids,” he said, shrugging, then lightly banged his palm on the banister. “Right. Well. See ya in a few.”

  Ed, aka her New Best Friend, followed Lili into the kitchen, where he collapsed with a groan onto the mosaic-patterned linoleum. Underneath a pleated forehead, soulful brown eyes kept watch as she surveyed the familiar, eerily quiet room that had once been command central for Tony’s large family, with Rhea Vaccaro the generous, iron-fisted general in charge of it all. The floor, dark wood cabinets and mustard-colored countertops were the same, but a huge, gleaming two-door refrigerator had usurped the old almond model, and on one rusty-red wall a trio of large paint swatches in bright, clear blues and greens hinted at changes to come.

  Long overdue changes, Lili mused as she emptied the plastic bags, then tugged open one of the refrigerator doors, bringing the dog instantly to his huge feet, floppy ears perked. Eyes firmly clamped on the container in her hands, he slowly lowered his hindquarters to the floor. Looked from container to Lili to container again.

  Chuckling, Lili popped it open and pulled out a hot dog. Looking as if he might weep with joy, Ed gingerly accepted the offering, only to gulp it down in a single chew—

  “He’s not supposed to have people food,” Claire said behind her, making her jump. “It gives him really disgusting gas.”

  “Oh! I’m sorry,” Lili said, blushing as she dove into the fridge and began rearranging innumerable deli packages, leftover Chinese take-away and half-eaten yogurts to fit in her aunt’s offerings. Behind her, Ed burped, and Lili felt like slime.

  Only to choke back a laugh when Claire said, “You are so not sleeping in my room tonight.” Then, “So you were here before?”

  Lili twisted around. The intense, suspicious glare was at complete odds with the girl’s slouched stance, the tightly tucked arm over her round stomach, the constant twisting of a strand of hair around and around her finger. Déjà vu, she thought on a spike of sympathy.

  “Ages ago,” she said mildly, wedging containers of vinegary, red cabbage slaw and macaroni salad in amongst the chaos. Noticing that the cottage cheese sell-by date harked back to late spring, she removed it, setting it on the counter. “When this was still your grandparents’ house.”

  “Dad’s parents, you mean? They’re both dead now.”

  “I know,” Lili said with a quick, hopefully sympathetic smile. “I liked them both, very much.”

  “I don’t really remember them. Daph wasn’t even born yet.”

  The first batch of goodies tucked safely in their new home, Lili stood to retrieve the rest of the containers. Desperate for another conversational topic, she nodded toward the paint swatches. “I think I like the second one from the right best. How about you?”

  “What?” Claire followed Lili’s gaze, then seemed to realize what she was doing to her hair, perhaps because somebody had been on her case about it before. She tightly crossed her arms. “Those are from before Mom got sick. Dad hasn’t had a chance to paint back over them yet.”

  “Paint over them? Instead of choosing one of the new colors—?”

  “The red’s fine. I like it.”

  Got it, Lili thought, plunging into the depths of the refrigerator again to shove in the hot dogs which she somehow doubted they’d ever eat. Telepathically communicating his willingness to help everyone out on that score, Ed looked up at her. And burped again.

  “I suppose a new color would take some getting used to,” Lili said, backing out of the fridge and shutting the door. Ed plodded off to sulk. “But sometimes it’s fun to change things around, don’t you think?”

  “Not really,” the child said with a where-do-people-come-up-with-these-things? expression. She pushed up her glasses. “Stacey says you’re from Hungary, too.”

  “Stacey…oh, right. Rudy’s daughter.” Any time now, Tony, Lili thought as she stretched out the used plastic bags on the same pebbled glass table where she used to eat peanut butter and banana sandwiches, hand-ironing them as flat as possible before folding them into obsessively neat litt
le squares. “That’s right, I am.”

  “You don’t sound like Aunt Magda, though.”

  “That’s probably because I’ve been speaking English since I was little, whereas my aunt didn’t learn it until she was already an adult.”

  “So how long are you staying this time?”

  The words lashed across the spacious room like a whip, one wielded by a deeply wounded child still unsure of her footing in her fragile new world.

  “A few weeks. I’m just here for a visit.”

  “Do you have a boyfriend back where you live?”

  The absurdity both of the question and the situation almost made Lili laugh. And wouldn’t that be a huge mistake? “No. I don’t. Not there or anyplace else.” She paused, empathizing with the fear behind the questions. The threat Lily represented to a child who’d recently lost a parent, to whom the idea of replacing that parent was far more odious than the void left in her absence. No matter how ungrounded her worries.

  “Your father and I are old friends, Claire,” she said gently, not surprised when the intelligent, slate-blue gaze sharpened behind her glasses. “Hardly that, even, since we haven’t seen or talked to each other in so long—”

  “And you’re cousins, too, right? Like, family?”

  “Only by marriage, not by blood. But cousins can be friends, too—”

  “Ten pages,” Tony said from the doorway, “and Daph was gone…” Frowning, he looked from Claire to Lili, then back to Claire. “What’s going on?”

  Claire pushed herself away from the counter. “Nothing. I’m going to read for a while, if that’s okay.”

  “Sure, honey.” Tony watched her leave, then turned back to Lili. “Did I miss something?”

  “Only the glaring overhead light and the two-way mirror.”

  “What…oh.” Tony sighed. “Gave you the third degree, did she?”

  “Apparently my bringing leftovers set off alarms.”

  “Yeah, well, those alarms have hair triggers. Anything and everything sets them off these days. I’m sorry. I guess it’s that protective thing kicking in again.”

  “So I gathered.” Lili hesitated. “She reminds me a great deal of myself, after my father died. The rampant distrust, I mean.”

  “Didn’t seem that way to me,” Tony said, and she frowned at him. “Sure, you were kinda withdrawn, after you first got here. But I never felt like you were on guard or anything.”

  That’s because I never felt I had to be on guard around you, Lili thought, saying, “I was pretty much over it by then.” She nodded toward the wall. “She’s having trouble with changes, I take it?”

  That got a dry chuckle. “There’s an understatement. I keep trying to get her to pick a color, she keeps nagging me to paint it back the way it was. Been going on for months.”

  “Her mother chose the colors?”

  “Yeah,” he breathed out. “So I thought maybe it would help, you know? Keep Marissa’s spirit alive, or something.” He cleared his throat; when Lili looked over, every muscle in his face had tensed. “Shows how much I know.”

  “Give her time.” She paused. “Give yourself time.” Feeling suddenly awkward, Lili gathered her stack of obsessively folded bags. “I should go,” she said, starting out of the room, only to jump when Tony caught her arm.

  “You saved my sanity that summer, Lili. I don’t know if I ever told you in so many words, but you did.”

  She let his gaze wander in hers for several seconds before saying, “And…I suppose this might seem like a good opportunity for a repeat performance.”

  Tony’s brows crashed over his nose. “Is that what it was? A performance?”

  Oh, no, you won’t, she thought, her spine tightening. If she’d held on to her self-respect as a naïve fifteen-year-old, damned if she was going to let it go now. “If by that you mean, was it a chore, keeping your company? Of course not. After all, you helped me through a bad patch, too.”

  He seemed to relax, if only just. “Even though it couldn’t’ve been much fun for you. I was pretty much a pain in the ass, as I recall.”

  “Not any more than my brothers,” she said with a smile, which he briefly returned. Lily weighed her options, skittering away like a frightened mouse ranking high on the list. But he had steered her through the worst of her grief that summer, and turning her back on him now wasn’t sitting well. After all, she was only there for a few weeks, she might as well make herself useful.

  “You were a good listener, too, Tony. Then, I mean—”

  “Seems to me I didn’t have a whole lotta choice,” he said with a rueful smile. “What with my leg being in a cast and all.”

  “Oh, you had a choice. And I’m serious—if you need someone to talk to, I’m happy to return the favor.”

  “Like you don’t have anything better to do than listen to a guy bitch about his sucky life?”

  “Depends on the guy,” she said, immediately regretting it.

  Tony’s eyes darkened slightly before he turned toward the refrigerator, sighing when he opened the door. “Man, FEMA would have a field day in here.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Never mind,” he said, shutting the door again to lean heavily against it. Frowning. Obviously thinking. Then, “You ever sometimes feel like you’re shoveling sand? That no matter how fast you dig, the hole just keeps filling back up?”

  Fifteen years earlier Lili’d experienced firsthand the devastation the untimely death of a parent wreaks on a family. Now, the haunted look in Tony’s eyes, in Claire’s, brought the memories flooding back. But she imagined Tony wasn’t seeking solace as much as a sounding board. So instead of a lame, “I’m so sorry,” she instead zeroed in on the practical. “Do you have help? With the house and such?”

  “On a PE teacher’s salary? No damn way. I mean, I manage—of course I manage—and the girls spend at least part of every weekend with Marissa’s parents, giving me a chance to get the place cleaned up without bein’ interrupted every two seconds. In fact,” he said with what could only be described as guilty relief, “Susan and Lou are comin’ for the girls after church tomorrow, bringin’ ’em back Monday night.”

  “You? Clean house?” She smiled, remembering Rhea Vaccaro’s telling tales on her poor, immobile son, in particular about the assorted disgusting things she’d found growing in his room over the years.

  “Since it’s not gonna clean itself, yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Although I kinda let things slide there for a while, after the funeral. Kids got away with murder for those first few weeks, too. Well, the younger two did. Claire basically took over until her sorry father realized crawling into a corner and ignoring the rest of the world wasn’t an option.”

  Another flash of pain crossed Tony’s features before he pushed away from the refrigerator to grab a glass from the drainboard, filling it at the tap. “But I had no idea how exhausting it was, taking care of three kids, keeping track of everything they’re supposed to do and doctor’s appointments and…all of it. Don’t get me wrong,” he said, turning, “before Marissa died, I pitched in, of course I did, changing diapers and doing the shopping sometimes and folding laundry. But didn’t take long to see that my ‘helping out’ was nothin’ compared to what Marissa did, day in and day out.”

  “But…you were working, weren’t you?”

  He smirked. “Makin’ a buncha teenage boys run laps or shoot hoops isn’t exactly what you’d call strenuous. Keeping three kids alive and a house off the condemned property list?” Staring blankly at some spot past Lili’s shoulder, he took a long gulp of the water. “I’ve never been so tired in my entire life—”

  “Daddy?”

  They both turned to see a very sleepy Josephine toddling toward them in shortie pajamas, her blond hair all rumpled, a very strange, long-legged bird clutched in one arm. “Hey, cupcake,” Tony said, immediately squatting to gather the tiny girl into his arms. “Whatcha doin’ up?”

  “Firsty,” she said, yawning. “It’s
hot.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Tony said, balancing her on his hip while he refilled the same glass he’d just used. “Daddy’s really gotta do somethin’ about the air conditioner, huh?”

  Solemnly nodding, the toddler took a single sip of water, then shook her head. “That’s ’nuff,” she said, sinking against Tony’s chest with her thumb plugging her mouth. Not a second later she’d fallen back to sleep. Lily smiled.

  “She’s absolutely precious,” she whispered, not even trying to ignore all the broody feelings rising up like warm yeast inside her.

  “Like this, she is,” Tony said, but with such tenderness in his voice it brought tears to Lily’s eyes. Then he began inching toward the door. “Well. I need to get her back to bed—”

  “Yes, of course. I’ve stayed longer than I should have, anyway.” She followed father and snoring daughter out of the kitchen, signaling to him to go on, she’d let herself out. But as she was leaving, she turned to catch Tony watching her, his gaze steady and questioning in a way that made her stomach jump. Because whatever else was, or wasn’t, going on, he certainly wasn’t looking at her the same way he had that summer.

  Which, she thought as she stepped out into the soupy night, only made her question her sanity, that she was even considering the idea that had come to her a few minutes ago…

  Chapter Four

  Shortly after noon the next day, Tony opened his door to find Lili again standing on his porch, this time brandishing a mop and bucket filled with cleaning supplies, and he thought, Please, God, no. Ed did his happy dance and peed on the floor. In another life, Tony might have done the same thing. The happy dance, not the peeing. In this life, however…

  Lili calmly dug into the bucket, ripped off a paper towel and handed it over. Tony dropped the towel on top of the pee, only to realize he was barefoot. He squatted to wipe up the mess, while Ed madly licked the air a half inch from Tony’s face, sorry as all hell.