The Next Best Thing

Faith sat down, inhaling the scent of Goggy’s ham, salt potatoes and home.

There were two houses on Blue Heron Vineyard: the Old House, where Goggy and Pops lived, a Colonial that had been updated twice since being built in 1781—once to install indoor plumbing, then again in 1932. Faith and her siblings grew up here, in the New House, a graceful if creaky old Federal built in 1873, where Dad lived with Honor and Mrs. Johnson, the housekeeper who’d been with them since Mom died.

And speaking of Honor... “Sorry, everyone,” she said. She paused, gave Faith a brief kiss on the cheek. “You finally got here.”

“Hi, Honor.” She ignored the slight reprimand.

Pru and Jack were sixteen and eight years older than Faith respectively, and generally viewed their baby sister as adorable, if slightly incompetent (which Faith had never minded, as it got her out of a lot of chores back in the day). Honor, though... She was four years older; Faith had been a surprise. Maybe Honor had never forgiven Faith for stealing the title of baby of the family.

More likely, though, she’d never gotten over the fact that Faith had caused their mother’s death.

Faith had epilepsy, first diagnosed when she was about five. Jack had filmed a seizure once (typical boy), and Faith had been horrified to see herself oblivious, her muscles jerking and clenching, eyes as vacant as a dead cow’s. It was assumed that Constance Holland had been distracted by one such seizure and therefore hadn’t seen the car that had smashed into them, killing Mom. Honor had never forgiven Faith...and Faith didn’t blame her.

“Why are you just sitting there, Faith?” Goggy demanded. “Eat up, sweetheart. Who knows what you’ve been living on in California?” Her grandmother passed her a plate loaded with smoked ham, buttered salt potatoes, green beans with butter and lemon, and braised carrots (with butter). Faith imagined she gained a pound just by looking at it.

“So, Lorena, you and my dad are...?” Faith asked above the background noise of her grandparents bickering over how much salt Pops should put on his already heavily salted meal.

“Special friends, sweetheart, special, special friends,” the woman said, adjusting her rather massive br**sts. “Right, Johnny?”

“Oh, sure,” he agreed amiably. “She was dying to meet you, Faith.”

According to Honor, Lorena Creech had met Dad about a month earlier during a tour of Blue Heron. Everyone in the area knew John Holland had been devastated by his wife’s death, had never wanted to date anyone, was happy among his children, grandchildren and grapes. Any attempts at a relationship had been gently rebuffed in the early days until it was accepted that John Holland Jr. would remain a widower the rest of his life.

Enter Lorena Creech, a transplant from Arizona, clearly a gold digger, and not a candidate for stepmother. All three local Holland kids had discussed this with Dad, but he’d just laughed and waved off their concern. And while Dad was many things, Faith thought, watching as Lorena held the silverware up to the light, he wasn’t the most observant of men. No one had anything against Dad finding a nice woman to marry, but no one wanted Lorena to be sleeping upstairs in Mom’s old bed, either.

“So how many acres have you got here?” Lorena asked, taking a huge bite of ham. Subtle.

“Quite a few,” Honor said icily.

“Subdividable?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Well, some of it is, Honor, honey,” Dad said. “Over my dead body, of course. More green beans, Lorena?”

“This is nice,” Lorena said. “The whole family together! My late husband was sterile, Faith. A groin injury when he was a boy. Tractor backed up, squished him in the soft parts, so we never could have kids, though, hell, we sure got it on!”

Goggy was staring at Lorena as if she was a snake in the toilet. Jack drained his wine.

“Good for you!” Pops said. “Have some more ham, sweetheart.” He nudged the plate across the table toward Lorena, whose appetite was not restricted to the boudoir, it seemed.

“So, Faith,” Jack said, “Dad says you’ll be staying here for a while.”

Faith nodded and wiped her mouth. “Yep. Finally gonna fix up the old barn up on Rose Ridge. I’ll be here for about two months.” The longest she’d been back since her wedding debacle, and not just to fix up the barn, either. Both the mission and the length of time gave her a pang of alarm.

“Yay!” Abby said.

“Yay,” Ned echoed, winking at her.

“What are you doing with the old barn?” Pops asked. “Speak up, sweetie.”

“I’ll be turning it into a space for special events, Pops,” she explained. “People would rent it out, and it’d bring in some extra income for the vineyard. Weddings, anniversary parties, stuff like that.” She’d first come up with the idea when she was in graduate school—transform the old stone barn into something that blended into the landscape effortlessly, something modern and old at the same time.

“Oh! Weddings! I’d love to get married again,” Lorena said, winking at Dad, who simply grinned.

“It sounds like too much work for you, sweetheart,” Goggy said.

Faith smiled. “It’s not. It’s a great spot, and I’ve already got some plans drafted, so I’ll show them to everyone and see what you think.”

“And you can do that in two months?” Lorena asked around a potato.

“Sure,” Faith said. “Barring unforeseen complications and all that.” It would be her biggest project yet, and on home turf, too.

“So, what do you do again? Your father’s told me, hell’s bells, all he can do is talk about you kids, but I forget.” Lorena smiled at her. One of her teeth was gold.

“I’m a landscape architect.”

“You should see her work, Lorena,” Dad said. “Amazing.”

“Thanks, Daddy. I design gardens, parks, industrial open space, stuff like that.”

“So you’re a gardener?”

“Nope. I hire gardeners and landscapers, though. I come up with the design and make sure it’s implemented the right way.”

“The boss, in other words,” Lorena said. “Good for you, babe! Hey, are those Hummel figurines real? Those get a pretty penny on eBay, you know.”

“They were my mother’s,” Honor bit out.

“Uh-huh. A very pretty penny. How about some more of that ham, Ma?” she asked Goggy, holding out her plate.

Lorena...okay, she was kind of terrifying, there was no getting around it. Faith had hoped that Honor was exaggerating.

A prickle of nervous energy sang through Faith’s joints. Before she left San Francisco, she and her siblings had had a conference call. Dad was slightly clueless, it was agreed—he’d once been nicked by a car as he stood in the road, staring up at the sky to see if it might rain—but if he was ready to start dating, they could find him someone more suitable. Faith immediately volunteered for the job. She’d come home, work on transforming the old barn, and find Dad somebody great. Someone wonderful, someone who understood him and appreciated how loyal and hardworking and kind he was. Someone to take away the gaping hole Mom’s death had left.

Finally, Faith would have a chance at redemption.

And while she was at it, she’d finally be able to do something for Blue Heron, too, the family business that employed everyone except her.

Dinner was dominated by Lorena’s commentary, bickering between Ned and Abby, who really should be too old for that, as well as the occasional death threat between Goggy and Pops. Norman Rockwell meets Stephen King, Faith thought fondly.

“I’ll do these dishes. Don’t anyone move,” Goggy said, a hint of tragedy creeping into her voice.

“Kids!” Pru barked, and Ned and Abby jolted into action and started clearing.

Honor poured herself an ounce of wine. “Faith, you’ll be staying with Goggy and Pops, did Dad tell you?”

“What?” Faith asked, shooting Pops a quick smile to make up for the panic in her voice. Not that she didn’t love her grandparents, but living with them?

“Pops is slowing down,” Pru said in a whisper, as both grands were a bit hard of hearing.

“I’m not slowing down,” Pops protested. “Who wants to arm wrestle? Jack, you up for it, son?”

“Not today, Pops.”

“See?”

“You look good to me, Dad!” Lorena said. “Really good!”

“He’s not your father,” Goggy growled.

“You wouldn’t mind Faith staying with you, would you?” Dad asked. “You know you’ve been getting a bit...”

“A bit what?” Goggy demanded.

“Homicidal?” Jack suggested.

Goggy glared at him, then looked more gently at Faith. “We would love for you to stay with us, sweetheart. But as a guest, not a babysitter.” Another glare was distributed around the table before Goggy got up and went into the kitchen to instruct the kids.

“Pops, I wanted you to check out the merlot grapes,” Dad said.

“Count me in!” Lorena barked cheerfully, and the three left the dining room.

With Abby and Ned in the kitchen, it was just the four Holland kids around the table. “I’m really staying with them?” she asked.

“It’s for the best,” Honor said. “I have a bunch of stuff in your room, anyway.”

“So check this out,” Pru said, adjusting the collar of her flannel shirt. “Carl suggested that I get a bikini wax the other day.”

“Oh, God,” Jack said.

“What? All of a sudden you’re a prude? Who drove you home from that strip club when you got drunk, huh?”

“That was seventeen years ago,” he said.

“So big deal. Carl wants to ‘spice things up.’” Pru made quote marks with her fingers. “The man is lucky he’s getting any, that’s what I think. What’s your problem, Jack?” she called to Jack’s back as he left.

“I don’t want to hear about your sex life, either,” Honor said. “And I’ll return the favor and won’t tell you about mine.”

“Not that you have one,” Pru said.

“You might be surprised,” Honor returned.

“If I can’t talk to you guys, who am I gonna tell? My kids? Dad? You’re my sisters. You have to listen.”

“You can tell us,” Faith said. “So, no bikini wax, I take it?”

“Thanks, Faithie.” Pru leaned back and crossed her arms across her chest. “So he says to me, why not give it a try? Like the Playboy models? So I say to him, ‘First of all, Carl, if you have a Playboy in this house, you’re a dead man walking. We have a teenage daughter, and I don’t want her looking at fake boobs and slutty hair.’” She shifted in her chair. “A bikini wax! At my age! I have enough trouble with facial hair management.”

“Speaking of terrifying older women,” Faith said, ducking as Pru tried to swat her, “Lorena Creech. Yikes.”

“She asked Jack to sit on her lap the other day,” Pru said. “You should’ve seen his face.”

Faith laughed, stopping as Honor cut her a cool look. “It’s funny until Dad finds himself married to someone who’s only after his money,” Honor said.

“Dad has money?” Pru quipped. “This is news.”

“And he wouldn’t get married without it being someone great,” Faith added.

“Maybe not. But this is the first woman he’s ever had as his ‘special friend,’ too. And why her, I have no idea.” Honor adjusted her hair band. “She’s asked Sharon Wiles about the price of building lots the other day, so, Faith, don’t waste time, okay? I don’t have the time to cruise dating websites. You do.”