The House on Honeysuckle Lane by Mary McDonough Page B

long for this world.
    Daniel’s lips tightened. He would never forget the final days of his mother’s life. Anna Maria had been a blessing, supportive, kind, willing to do some of the less pleasant work of caring for a dying person when the wonderfully competent private nurse they had hired for Caro took her breaks.
    â€œDo not go gentle into that good night. / Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” There had been no rage in his mother’s final moments, no protest against the imminent arrival of death. The nurse had left the room to give Daniel and his mother privacy, allowing them to be alone together when Caro breathed her last. She was still beautiful at the end, still the elegant woman Daniel had always loved and even at times had adored.
    The nurse, as if sensing her patient’s passing, had come back into the room immediately. “I’ll close her eyes,” she had said softly, but Daniel had refused. “I’d like to do it,” he told her, and he had, gently and finally. He remembered thinking, I’ll never see those eyes again. My mother will never look at me again, with all the love she had for me. It was only then that he had broken down in a wave of hot tears.
    Daniel felt his hands tighten on the wheel. He wondered if an adult could be considered an orphan. That’s how he felt, orphaned and unmoored now that the anchors of the family, Cliff and Caro, were gone.
    His children missed their grandparents, too. Cliff and Caro had been a fixture in their lives since the day they were born. Never a week went by without Sophia and Marco spending an afternoon at the house on Honeysuckle Lane; never a week went by without Grandma and Grandpa having dinner at their son’s home. That is until illness and death had gotten in the way.
    Not surprisingly, at least to Daniel, Rumi was the grandchild most affected by her grandmother’s death; Caro had in some ways been a second mother to her, both before and after Andie’s escape from Oliver’s Well. If Rumi was a bit spoiled by the attention she got from family members seeking to make up for Andie’s absence, well, that was understandable. Daniel had come to feel very protective about his niece. In some way he regarded Rumi as his own child.
    Daniel turned onto Little Rock Lane and a moment later pulled into the driveway of his home, noting that Anna Maria’s car wasn’t there. He looked at his watch. Of course, he thought. She would be taking the kids to pageant practice. He got out of his car and realized he was looking forward to a good cup of espresso before dinner that night with his family. Sometimes, he thought, inserting his key into the lock of the front door, it was the little pleasures that helped soothe the deepest pain.

C HAPTER 12
    â€œR umi.” Andie smiled and enfolded her daughter in a hug.
    â€œIt’s so good to see you.”
    Rumi put her arms around her mother for about a second before she pulled away. “It’s been a while,” she said, not quite meeting her mother’s eye.
    â€œYes,” Andie said, closing the front door. “It has. You look well.”
    Rumi shrugged. “I’m okay.” She turned then to greet Emma, with, Andie saw, a lot more enthusiasm than she had shown her mother. Sophia and Marco then gathered around their cousin, each vying for her attention, Sophia with a braided bracelet to present to her, Marco holding up his finger to show Rumi a new blister. Rumi told Sophia the bracelet was awesome and squealed in mock horror over Marco’s blister, which was exactly the response he seemed to have wanted. It was good to see her daughter so loved and appreciated by her family. Andie remembered what Daniel had told her about Rumi’s determination to keep Caro’s George Bullock Regency desk in the family. The Family. It mattered differently to mother and daughter, Andie mused. But that was all right. Rumi was her own