“In the meantime,” Eli went on, putting away his debit card and gathering up his purchases, “I’d like to wish you a genuinely happy New Year.”

CHAPTER TEN

BRYNNE FOUND SARA in her kitchen, at the epicenter of holiday chaos.

Sara’s young daughter, Hayley, was seated at the table, carefully sprinkling coconut flakes onto a white layer cake, while her friends, Melba and Dan’s daughters, Jill, twelve, and Carrie, nine, supervised.

Eric and Dan could be heard all the way from the den, on the other side of the house, shouts of jubilation alternating with bellows of protest as they battled it out on their video game.

Sara smiled a greeting and rolled her eyes. “Sit down and make yourself at home, if you dare,” she said.

Brynne laughed, though she felt a familiar pang of loneliness as she shed her coat and hung it from one of the pegs next to the back door. She couldn’t help comparing this happy cacophony to the silence of her apartment.

“What can I do to help?” she asked.

Dan had left the wine she’d brought on a nearby counter.

“You could pop those bottles into the wine cooler,” Sara replied, stirring something in the giant bowl she held. She was wearing a colorful cobbler apron over her jeans and bright green sweater, and she looked about twelve years old.

“Mom,” Hayley said, backing away from the cake to consider it solemnly. “Does this look okay?”

“It looks fabulous,” Sara said. “Thank you.”

Hayley resembled her mother, with her dark hair and gray eyes, and she seemed to have inherited Sara’s good disposition. “Can we go to my room and watch a movie?”

“Use the TV in the living room,” Sara replied, setting the bowl down, opening the oven door and bending to peer inside, her long braid dangling. The lovely aroma of roast beef filled the steamy room. “This is a holiday and I don’t want you holed up in your bedroom all day.”

The three young girls trooped out of the kitchen, and Sara heaved a great sigh, though she was smiling.

Brynne had slipped three of the four bottles she’d brought into the built-in cooler, a small under-the-counter refrigerator with a glass door, but she waggled the fourth enticingly. “Shall I pour?” she asked.

“Please do,” Sara responded. “Every year, when New Year’s rolls around, I wonder why I don’t just spend the day in my bathrobe with my feet up.”