The House on Honeysuckle Lane by Mary McDonough

herself five, and Daniel just three. Daniel had only met William and Martha two or three times and probably had little if any recollection of them, either. “After all the grandparents were gone,” she said to her sister, “it really was just the five of us, wasn’t it? We were a fairly insular family.”
    â€œAnd now it’s just the three. Well, we should include Anna Maria and the three cousins. The next generation. The Reynolds family’s future.”
    â€œYes. Oh, look! Remember this?” Emma reached onto another shelf and picked up a small brass elephant from a group of small sculptures in the shapes of animals. “Mom and Dad got this in a flea market in Paris, wasn’t it?”
    â€œYes, I think so.” Andie laughed. “Remember how Danny used to mispronounce elephant? ‘Ephelant’ he used to say.”
    â€œThat was pretty adorable, actually,” Emma said, returning the elephant to the company of his friends.
    â€œYou know, I always wished I could go with Mom and Dad on their adventures,” Andie said suddenly. “Even when I was very young I knew I wanted to be somewhere else . Though it took me long enough to act on that desire.”
    Emma smiled. “There were obstacles in your way. Like those parental expectations.”
    â€œWhat about you?” Andie asked. “Did you want to jet off with Mom and Dad?”
    â€œNo,” Emma said. “Not really. But at the same time I felt kind of abandoned when they left. And I absolutely hated having a nanny here with us when Mom and Dad were gone. I felt angry all the time, like what right did this stranger have to tell me what to eat and when to go to bed. They were all nice, I suppose. Still, I couldn’t wait for Mom and Dad to come home.” Mostly Dad, she thought. It was always Dad for me when I was young.
    â€œDanny didn’t like when Mom and Dad went away, either,” Andie said. “I remember one time when he cried for three hours straight. He was little, of course. In fact, it might have been the first time Mom and Dad took a really long trip. I guess the poor kid thought they were never coming back. I remember I felt so bad that I couldn’t comfort him. I tried, but nothing seemed to work.”
    â€œYou didn’t mind the nannies, did you?” Emma asked.
    â€œNo,” Andie said. “I didn’t. I did what they told me to do, but I never made any sort of personal connection with them. They didn’t even register enough for me to dislike them. I suppose that’s odd.”
    â€œI think it sounds smart,” Emma said. “It was an effective way of coping with a stranger in the house who suddenly had the authority to send you to bed without your supper if you acted up. I wish I had been able to detach like you did, instead of feeling so grumpy about it.”
    Andie smiled. “You felt what you felt. You were only a child.”
    â€œSo were you,” Emma pointed out. “But you were already on the right path, weren’t you?”
    Andie shrugged and pulled another paperback from the bookshelves. “ The Count of Monte Crisco: A Chrissy Clarke Culinary Mystery ,” she read aloud with a laugh. “Now, who do you think was reading this?”

C HAPTER 11
    â€œH i, Jack,” Daniel called, though with his window up there was no way Jack Wiseman, driving past going the other way, could hear him. Still, Jack would have seen his wave, as Daniel had seen Jack’s tip of his ubiquitous Greek fisherman’s cap. It was one of the things Daniel loved about life in Oliver’s Well, the strong sense of community.
    Daniel was driving back to his home on Little Rock Lane from a private cooking lesson for a young woman recently out of college and sick of eating takeout for dinner. “I can’t even make pasta properly,” she had moaned. “It always comes out in a lump! My mother tried to teach me the