"Good memories or bad?"
"Oh, both. But I've always liked the area, the mix of styles in the houses, kids everywhere."
He pulled into the already crowded drive of a lovely craftsman-style home, with its big front yard tidily mowed and edged with flower beds. "Me, too," he said.
He came around the car to take her hand. She heard the shouts and shrieks of children, the motorized thunder of a lawn mower. She smelled peonies, and meat cooking on someone's backyard grill. She'd grown up like this, she thought, for the first little while. Then everything, everything had changed.
The screen door opened with a happy slam. The woman who stepped out onto the big front porch was hugely pregnant, with skin the color of semisweet chocolate and hair in a glossy profusion of dreads. A boy dashed out behind her, scabs riding both knees. "Dune,
Dune, Dune!" He shouted it as he streaked like a little bullet down the walk. "Catch!" And flew.
Obviously an old hand at the game, Duncan caught the boy in midair, then flipped him upside down. "The strange creature you see below is Ellis."
"How do you do, Ellis?"
"Hi! Do it again, Dune."
"Ellis Tyler, you let Duncan get in the house before you start jumping all over him."
The boy might've been upside down, but he managed a dramatic eye-roll. "Yes'm." When Duncan flipped him to his feet, he grinned.
"We got cherry pie. Come on in, Dune. Come on! You can come, too, ma'am." With that he made his dash back into the house.
"My son likes to be the welcoming committee. You must be
Phoebe. I'm Celia. I hope you came hungry." She tipped her face up for Duncan's kiss. "I know you did."
"How many cherry pies?" Duncan asked.
"Just you wait. Duncan's here!" she shouted as she scooted them inside.
There was an army of them, Phoebe realized, in all shapes and sizes. Babies, toddlers, gangly teens, and an ancient old man they called Uncle Walter, men, women, and all the noise that went with them.
Most were congregated in the backyard, sprawled in chairs, on the grass, chasing kids, pushing them on the bright red swing set. A couple of men stood by the grill, watching it smoke with all the pleasure and delight they might have shown were it a centerfold.
By Phoebe's estimate five generations were represented here, but the center of power, the magnetic north, was obviously the woman who stood supervising as younger family members hauled two picnic tables together to form one long space.
She was comfortably round in the way that made Phoebe imagine every child would want to crawl into her lap, would want to rest their head on her breast for comfort. Her handsome face with its deep-set eyes, strong nose and mouth, was capped off by a puffball of ebony curls. Both hands fisted on her generous hips, and when a big yellow dog streaked by after the blur of a gray-striped cat, she threw back her head and laughed so her whole body shook with it.
Then she turned toward the ancient old man, her hands moving. It took Phoebe a moment to realize she wasn't merely gesturing but signing. The old man wheezed out a laugh, signed back.
Duncan's arm draped around Phoebe's shoulder, and when she glanced up to smile at him, she saw he was looking over at the laughing woman. On his face, deep in those soft blue eyes of his, was absolute and unconditional love.
It struck her suddenly, and with a little curl of terror, that this was a moment. Not just a backyard barbecue.
She had to fight the urge to streak away like the cat when Duncan led her forward. "Ma Bee."
Bee took hold of him first, her big arms going around him, pulling him into a hard, full hug. When she pulled him back, she patted his face with both hands. "You're still skinny, and you're still white."
"You're still the love of my life."
She gave that full-body laugh, but her eyes were tender on his face. Then they shifted, turning speculative, to Phoebe.
"Ma Bee, this is Phoebe MacNamara. Phoebe, Beatrice Hector."
"It's wonderful to meet you, Mrs. Hector. Thank you for having me today."
"Somebody's ma raised her right." She winked at Duncan. "You're welcome here," she told Phoebe. "You brought me daisies? I've got a fondness for daisies, thank you." She took them, cradled them. "They've got such happy faces. Tisha? You take these daisies in for me, and get that blue glass vase Arnette gave me last Mother's Day. It's in the rightside cupboard under the big server. That blue vase is just what these daisies want."
Bee made introductions as one of the teenage girls came over for the flowers. Phoebe got a polite if measuring look-Duncan a wistful one. "Uncle Walter here's been deaf since he got hurt in the Korean
War," Bee explained, and signed Phoebe's name for him. And snickered when he signed back. "Says you're prettier than the last one this skinny white boy brought by."
With a smile, Phoebe gave the sign for thanks. "It's one of the few I know," she said as Bee pursed her lips. "Hello, goodbye, thanks."
"You decide you need to converse with him, he can read lips if you talk straight to him, and slow. Mostly, he's going to sleep anyway. And this here's my daughter-in-law, my second boy Phin's wife. Loo-"
"I know you," Phoebe and Loo said together. "Lieutenant MacNamara."
"Louise Hector, for the defense. Small world."
"Seems like, and previously we've been on opposite sides of it. Welcome to Ma's."
"Since you're acquainted, you get Phoebe what she drinks, and in troduce her round the rest of the way." Bee lifted her chin toward the picnic tables. "We've got to get food out on the tables here." Excellent, Phoebe thought, busywork. Just the thing to ease herself into the social. "Is there something I can do to help?"
"Guests don't haul out the dishes. That's for family. Duncan, we need some more chairs."
"Yes, ma'am. Get you ladies a drink first?"
"We'll take care of it," Loo told him, and led Phoebe away. "What do you drink?"
All right, alcohol, another way to ease into the social. "What's handy?"
Phoebe ended up with a plastic cup of chilled chardonnay, and so many names in her head she tried to alphabetize them to keep them straight.
"I didn't put the Phoebe Duncan talked about together with the lieutenant from the Hostage and Crisis Unit." Loo glanced over as they crossed the lawn edged with cheery flower beds and chunky shrubs. "I'm sorry to hear you were hurt a couple weeks ago."
"I'm doing fine now."
"Well, you look fine. Love the dress. Let me introduce you to the grill masters. Phoebe MacNamara, my brother-in-law Zachary, and my husband, Phineas. Phoebe's a cop, so watch yourselves."
"Off duty." Phoebe lifted the wine cup as she shifted to avoid the smoke billowing from the grill.
"Can you fix speeding tickets?" Zachary asked, and had Phin punching him in the arm.
"Pay him no mind."
"I'm not kidding. Tisha's had two since the first of the year."
Zachary sent Phoebe a wide grin. "After you eat my chicken, we'll talk about it. You'll be softened up."
"Your chicken?"
"Boy, you couldn't boil the egg this chicken started out as. That right, Loo?"
"I take the Fifth."
"Couple a city lawyers," Zachary said to Phoebe, wagging his thumb between them.
"The lawyer with the empty wallet," Phoebe said.
"You will never live that down." Loo belted out a laugh, did a shoulder and hip wiggle as she wagged a finger at her husband. "Deadbeat."
"I thought the story illustrated his innate sense of honor," Phoebe put in, and had Phin flashing his teeth.
"I like her. Leave her here. You"-he pointed at his wife-"can go."