“Where is my mother?” I asked.

“Over at Oak Hill.” A pause. “Helping your sister.”

Jo, being Jo, had taken a casual approach to her wedding. She and her love, Eric Bhaer, were already living together. They had three kids—baby Rob and two teenage sons from Eric’s previous marriage. It was only now that Eric’s ex-wife was deployed and his younger son, Alec, was coming to live with them that Jo decided it was finally time to get married. “I don’t need a poofy dress and a big, fancy wedding,” Jo said when she called me. “I just want to marry him.”

So. No bachelorette parties, no bridal showers, no save-the-date cards or hair and makeup trials. “No fuss,” our mother would say. It wasn’t quite an elopement—our great-aunt Josephine had offered her big old house at Oak Hill for the wedding, and all the family would be there—but it was pretty close.

Still, there must be a million things to do before the ceremony on Sunday. Food. Eric was a chef. And maybe I could help with the flowers or something.

“I guess I’ll go give them a hand,” I said.

Because nothing says I’m so sorry I slept with your old boyfriend like a flower arrangement. Anyway, spending time with my sister couldn’t be more awkward than hanging out here with Silent Sam.

With a little wave, I got back in the car, flipping down the visor to check my lipstick (Parisian Red). The little flick of eyeliner I’d applied so carefully this morning was only slightly smudged. Good enough, I decided. It wasn’t like I was going to see Trey. And Jo didn’t care.

But Aunt Phee would, I thought as I turned in the long sandy lane toward Oak Hill. Nothing mattered more to our great-aunt than appearances.

Our father grew up in the big white house on the hill. Not that we girls ever lived there. When Daddy deployed to Iraq, Momma refused to move in with our father’s aunt Phee, moving us instead to her parents’ small farm. Over the years, the land had been sold off, but Oak Hill manor and some of the original outbuildings remained. Too much space, Aunt Phee said, for one old lady. Our father had moved into the carriage house after Momma kicked him out.

I could see signs of recent activity as I approached. The dark magnolias had been trimmed back from the house, the columned porch freshly painted, and the grass mowed all the way down the long slope to the duck pond. Azaleas and early roses bloomed everywhere, clouds of pink, red, and white, transforming the scrubby gardens into the perfect wedding venue.

I pulled into the long circular drive behind our mother’s battered blue pickup. A white van with the Taproom logo—Eric’s new restaurant in town—was parked by the side of the house.

And there was my sister Jo, laughing and chasing Robbie over the grass. He was grinning at her over his shoulder as he pushed a toy lawn mower, his fat little legs moving as fast as they could go, a wake of bubbles rising in the air behind him.