The Oleander Sisters. Elaine Hussey

moon and was planning to go again.

       Two

      EMILY DIDN’T NEED AN alarm clock to wake up. She loved sunrises and rituals and the small, everyday miracles of family. When dawn pinked her lace curtains she hurried to the window to admire the sky, and then she raced back to the bedside phone to call Sis.

      “Sis, are you awake?”

      “I am now, Em.”

      Emily grinned. Sis might try to act like an old grump, but she counted on their early morning phone calls as much as Emily did. When you love a sister, you know her songs as well as her secrets. You know what makes her shatter and what it takes to put the pieces back together. You understand her as if you were standing inside her skin, counting the beats of her heart.

      “I’ve decided to have a summer garden wedding,” Emily told her sister. “In Sweet Mama’s backyard.”

      “It’s a disaster area.”

      “It’s beautiful. All we need are a few chairs and some white satin bows, and it will be gorgeous.”

      “Good Lord, Emily. Are we talking about the same backyard? It’ll take a ton of fertilizer, six weeks of rain and a flat-out miracle to get Sweet Mama’s backyard even halfway decent.”

      “It might take all that if I didn’t have you, Sis.”

      “Are you trying to flatter me?”

      “Is it working?”

      “A little bit.”

      Sis’s sigh was audible, and Emily felt a prick of guilt.

      “Listen, Sis, I don’t want to cause too much trouble. You need to spend time with Jim instead of fretting over a garden wedding.”

      “If you want a garden wedding, that’s what we’ll have. Jim’s going to be fine. I won’t have it any other way.”

      “He didn’t seem so fine to me, Sis. Bring him to the café today so we can feed him and fawn over him.”

      “I don’t think he’ll come.”

      “Why wouldn’t he want to come down to the café so he can be with all of us?”

      “Because...” Sis hesitated. “Because he’s as stubborn as I am.”

      What had she been going to say? Emily was certain it was something frightening Sis had edited out in order to protect her.

      “You’re not stubborn, Sis, just certain. I wish I had more certainty.”

      “If you’re not certain about Larry Chastain, don’t marry him.”

      “I’m not talking about Larry.” Or was she? Emily felt a vague sense of dissatisfaction, as if she’d gone to the store for a carton of ice cream only to get home and discover the container was empty. “Let’s not be serious today, Sis. We have so much to celebrate!”

      “That we do, Em. See you at the café.”

      Emily dressed quickly, then went down the hall to check on her son. He was out of bed, wearing his Superman suit. It was from last Halloween and too short, but he didn’t care. A little boy planning big adventures with his favorite teddy bear, Henry, didn’t worry about things like dressing to the nines and combing his hair.

      Andy hadn’t seen her yet, and Emily stood in the doorway, watching as he picked up the picture from his bedside table, Captain Mark Jones, smiling at his son from a silver frame.

      “I love you right back, Daddy,” Andy said, then planted a big kiss on the picture.

      That was her fault. She’d told Andy that Mark Jones loved him best. Was it wrong of her to tell such a lie? Wrong to let her son believe his natural father had wanted him, had loved him more than anything in the world?

      She hoped that having a real daddy in the house would cause Andy to let go of the phantom father.

      Andy spotted her and raced to hug her around the legs. When she knelt to fold him close, she put her face in his hair and inhaled the scent of shampoo and summer and little boy dreams.

      “You think my daddy heard me?” Andy wiggled out of her grasp.

      “I don’t know, Andy.”

      “Maybe Heaven’s got big speakers like the ice cream truck.”

      “Maybe so.” Emily picked up the pajamas Andy had dropped on the floor. “Did you comb your hair?”

      “I forgot.” Andy raced off to the bathroom and turned on the faucet, making so much racket he sounded like a Little League baseball team. “I got important things to do, Mommy,” he called.

      “Like what?” Emily shook out his sheets and tucked the corners into his bed.

      “Build a rocket ship.” He poked his head around the door frame, his freshly wet hair sticking out at such odd angles he looked as if he’d had a big surprise. “If Nell Arms Strong can go to the moon, I can, too.”

      “Why, yes, you can. You can do anything you set your mind to, Andy.”

      “I might see my daddy up there.”

      The weight of being a single mother descended so quickly Emily had to struggle against defeat. Where was that line between making sure your son felt loved by his natural father and letting him live in a fantasy world?

      “Let’s not talk about that right now, Andy.” She caught her son’s hand, and he grabbed his old teddy bear. “Pretty soon you’ll have a real daddy in the house.”

      Andy balked in the doorway, digging his heels into the shag carpet and sticking his head around the door frame with the anxious posture of a child searching for monsters.

      “Andy, what are you doing? We don’t have time to lollygag.”

      “Looking for a Larry Alert.”

      Emily sighed. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get Andy to warm up to Larry. Heaven knows, Larry had tried, too. He’d promised to take Andy fishing and to get him a new baseball mitt. He’d even said they could build a fort together in the backyard.

      “We’ve talked about this, Andy. Until the wedding Larry will always sleep at his house, and then after, he’ll sleep here and we’ll be a family.”

      Andy crossed his eyes, his way of saying I don’t want to listen to this. Maybe she’d been wrong to let him spend so much time at the café. Sis and Sweet Mama and Beulah encouraged every little thing he did. But still, what was she to do? Day care cost too much, and in her opinion, if you didn’t have family, you didn’t have anything worth talking about.

      She went downstairs to her kitchen, which was her favorite room in the house, and began to fix breakfast while Andy raced around with his arms spread and his red cape flying out behind him. In a minute she heard him digging around in the pantry.

      “What are you doing, Andy?”

      “There’s a ginormous box in here. Big enough for me and you and Henry to go the moon.”

      He dragged out the box their new television set had come in. A gift from Larry. Just one more piece of evidence that Emily knew what she was doing by marrying a man who could not only provide for her family, but was generous besides.

      Andy raced back into the pantry and came out with an empty Tide box.

      “I’m gonna take Aunt Sis, too. She knows ’bout boats and baseball and putting worms on hooks.” Andy heaved the Tide box into the TV box. “You got any more boxes? It’s gonna take lots for a rocket ship.”

      “I’m sure there are some at the café. We can bring them home this evening.”

      “I’m gonna