His phone buzzed and displayed a picture of a pretty brunette with green eyes. Emma. At least once a day, every day.

Though Emma’s call never irritated him, today he wanted to watch Annika. “Hey, Em.”

“Did you eat?” The beauty of siblings was that you could forgo the niceties, like Hello. How are you? Or so Emma believed.

“I’m eating now.” He glanced toward the kitchen. He would be eating soon.

“Great.” Pause. “So, Daniel, how about coming up this weekend, taking Charlie fishing? Michael’s away and I don’t know anything about fishing.”

“Sorry. I can’t. Working.” He cringed inwardly at his lie. Whatever, he’d pick up another shift and then it would be true.

“Yeah, okay.” She sighed deeply. She knew he was lying, but Daniel knew she wouldn’t press it. “Make sure you eat.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

“Call Mom sometime.”

“I just talked to her.” Big sisters were so bossy.

Annika was laughing at something Bobby said. That green monster reared its head in Daniel’s belly. He barely registered Emma’s voice.

“Last week.”

“Mmm. Okay. I’ll call them.”

“Love you.” She hung up.

It wasn’t unusual or even unexpected that Emma was concerned about his eating, since he had gone a period where he routinely forgot to do even that. She also believed that Daniel would heal if he spent some time with his nephew. But even seeing Charlie once or twice a year at a family function that he forced himself to go to was too hard. Come to think of it, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Charlie. Was it last year or maybe the year before? Jeez. He was a crappy uncle.

Charlie had been born a week before his Sara. The little boy was like a little clock, marking the passage of time. Right now, Charlie’s clock had wound through ten years. Sara’s clock had stopped five years ago.

CHAPTER FIVE

ANNIKA

ANNIKA PUT IN the soup order, then tended to her regulars. They didn’t study her; they were so involved in escaping their own sad lives they couldn’t be bothered to pay any more attention to her than was required.

She refilled drinks and wiped off tables, her head filled with so many thoughts that she didn’t hear Mrs. P. banging the bell to indicate the soup was ready. It wasn’t until Phil was standing in front of her that she looked up.

“What’s going on, Anni? Still letting that bigoted parent get to you?”

No one called her Anni. Her name was Annika, and she always insisted people take the extra millisecond to say the last syllable. But when Phil said it, he filled those two syllables with so much affection that Annika couldn’t yell at him. Though right now it made her want to cry.