Taking a Chance. Janice Johnson Kay

Jo felt as if Emma were the ghost at the feast. Two ghosts now, she thought morbidly, both children. Every time she looked at Ginny, who ate with tiny, careful motions, taking sips of milk only after shooting wary glances around, Jo was sorry. Happy children were bad enough, but unhappy ones were worse, she was discovering. She longed for the pathetic girl to bound out of the chair and interrupt the adults with a noisy announcement that she was going to go play Nintendo. Loudly. In the next room.

      “What good spaghetti!” her mother said. “Thank you, Emma.”

      Everyone murmured agreement. Emma smiled with apparent pleasure and offered seconds.

      Kathleen tapped her glass of milk with her spoon. “I propose that we have a round-table discussion after dinner. We can talk about rules, expectations, pet peeves…whatever anyone wants.”

      Jo shrugged. “Sounds good to me.”

      “Why don’t we clean up first?” Helen said, in the first minor burst of initiative Jo had seen from her. “Emma cooked. She shouldn’t have to wash dishes, too.”

      Wash dishes? Aghast, Jo took a more comprehensive look at the kitchen. No dishwasher? Was it possible?

      It was.

      She dried while Helen washed and Kathleen put food away. Emma, shooed from the center of activity, sat with Ginny and murmured to her, her head bent and her ash-blond hair forming a curtain that hid both their faces. Twice, though, Jo caught sight of Ginny peeking around the teenager to fix anxious eyes on her mother. To make sure she was still there, Jo supposed, and hadn’t slipped away.

      As her father had.

      Helen didn’t say much as they washed, but she seemed…normal. Present. She gave Jo a couple of shy smiles, apologized when she bumped into her, and asked once, “Are you all moved in?”

      Jo thought of the pile of boxes in the corner of the upstairs bedroom and the larger pile of boxes and furniture she’d left in storage in San Francisco and shook her head. “I meant to get here earlier in the afternoon, but traffic into Seattle was awful.”

      They had one of those innocuous conversations where they discussed the rush hour and the respective traffic jams in the Bay area and Seattle. If she didn’t look toward the starving teenager and terrified first grader, Jo could almost feel reassured.

      The women were just pouring cups of coffee and herb tea—soda for Ginny—when a knock on the front door made Jo jump. Seeming unsurprised, Kathleen said, “I’ll get it,” and left the room. She came back a moment later, followed by a man.

      And what a man, Jo thought with a burst of pure, disinterested admiration. Well, okay. Maybe not disinterested.

      Broad shoulders, heavy-lidded, smiling eyes, thick, dark-blond hair streaked by the sun, and a craggy, intelligent face interested her very much.

      “Jo, my brother, Ryan Grant,” Kathleen said, rolling her eyes. “He gets lonely and can’t stay away.”

      “Don’t make fun of me,” the man said mildly. Gray eyes met Jo’s for a strangely electric moment before he turned to hug Emma. “How are you, kiddo?” he asked in a low, gruff voice in which Jo recognized gentleness.

      “Uncle Ryan!” Emma’s pixie face brightened. “Cool! Are you lonely?”

      “Nah. I just like all of you.” He touched Ginny’s shoulder. “Hi, Hummingbird.”

      Hummingbird? The tiny bird’s quivering energy seemed the farthest thing from Ginny’s repressed, frightened self.

      But the name provoked a small smile, quickly hidden but startling.

      The man—Kathleen’s brother—smiled in return, seemingly content, and said, “Do I get a cup of coffee?”

      “There’s spaghetti left,” Emma told him eagerly. “I can warm some up for you if you want.”

      “Thanks, but I’ve eaten.”

      “We,” his sister said sternly, “were just going to have an official round-table meeting to discuss rules.”

      “I can make up rules,” he said obligingly.

      “You don’t live here. Contrary to appearances.”

      “I’ll referee.”

      With a tartness Jo appreciated, Kathleen said, “Unlike men when they get together to play, women rarely need a mediator.”

      Jo could see the resemblance between sister and brother, both what she thought of as beautiful people. Kathleen, though, had the carriage and confidence of someone who had grown up with money—the easy poise, the natural ability to command, the chic French braid—while her brother had shaggy hair and wore faded jeans, work boots, and a sweat-stained white T-shirt under a torn chambray shirt, hanging open. His hands were brown, calloused and bleeding on one knuckle. He looked like a working man. Intrigued, Jo continued to watch their byplay as Kathleen told him with mock firmness that he could stay and eavesdrop, but not contribute—unless he wanted his name on their chore list.

      Ryan chose to pull up a chair just outside the circle when the women sat back down at the table. He hovered behind Ginny and Emma, elbows resting on the backs of their chairs, his quiet murmurs eliciting giggles that Emma let peal and Ginny buried behind a hand.

      Kathleen had grabbed a pen and spiral notebook, now open in front of her. “Well, let me say first that I’m really glad you’re both here.” She smiled warmly at first Helen and then Jo. “I think this is going to be fun.”

      Jo had thought so, too, until she’d nearly chickened out before knocking on the front door. Despite her apprehension, she let herself believe that it really would be. Both girls still knew how to laugh. Whatever troubled them, they weren’t beyond hope. Sure, she hadn’t wanted to live with kids, but they weren’t hers. She’d probably see them only at meals—and apparently Emma wouldn’t be sitting down with them for hers, if she ate any at all.

      “Now,” Kathleen continued, “I genuinely don’t want to be in charge. I hope we can agree on how we want to run the house, the levels of cleanliness and noise and privacy we all find acceptable. It’s one reason I chose both of you, women close to my own age. I thought we’d be likelier to enjoy the same music, have the same…well, standards, I guess.” She looked around. “I’ll start. I figured we should divvy up chores.”

      They decided each would cook dinner two nights a week, with Sunday either a joint effort or an everyone-on-their-own day. Other meals, they’d take care of individually. The two who hadn’t cooked would clean the kitchen together after dinner.

      “Unless Ryan invites himself,” his sister said dryly, “in which case he can clean up. By himself.”

      “Hey!” he protested. “I’ve been known to bring pizza. Or Chinese takeout.”

      “You should see his refrigerator at home,” Kathleen told the others. “Beer, cheese, mustard… Classic male on his own.”

      The question, Jo decided, was why such a gorgeous man was on his own at all. He had to be in his early thirties. Guys with wicked smiles and tall powerful bodies like his had been snapped up long before his age. So…what was the catch?

      Oblivious, thank goodness, to Jo’s speculation, Kathleen added, “And I hope everyone will clean up after themselves in the morning and after lunch?” The question was more of a tactfully phrased order.

      Jo and Helen murmured assent.

      Otherwise, they agreed that everyone would pitch in on Saturday mornings to clean house. Bedrooms would be sacred to their owners—knocks were mandatory, and a closed door should be interpreted as a desire for privacy.

      Very conscious of Ryan Grant’s interested gaze, Jo said, “We should discuss our schedules as we know them, so we’re not all trying to use the bathroom at the same time. Fortunately, my first class isn’t until 9:00 this semester, but that may change.”

      She’d