I just hoped she didn’t lick the batter from the spoon. Sutton Mercer did not get love handles.
“Well, I’m sure he’ll love them, even if they’re a little burned,” Mrs. Mercer teased.
“Gee, thanks, Mom,” Emma groused good-naturedly. Just talking about her night with Ethan made Emma’s heart speed up. It felt like ages since their date at the movie studio, and she couldn’t wait to feel his breath on her ear and his lips on hers. She smiled at the thought of his cryptic text from that morning: N 32° 12' 23.2554", W 110° 41' 18.3012" = <3? 8PM? After a moment of puzzling, Emma had plugged the longitude and latitude notations into Sutton’s iPhone. The coordinates were for a site in Saguaro National Park. Sends me invitations in the form of riddles was something else to add to her list of Adorable Things Ethan Does.
The teapot whistled, breaking Emma from her thoughts. “He wasn’t hurt too badly in that fight, was he?” Mrs. Mercer asked.
Emma shrugged. “I think he’s okay. He has a black eye that he thinks makes him look really cool.”
Mrs. Mercer sighed. “He shouldn’t have swung at Thayer. Boys never stop to think things through, do they? People get hurt in fights like that—and not just the people in the actual fight.” Then she looked at Emma. “How are you doing with all of that, Sutton?”
Emma picked at a speck of lint on her skirt. “Haven’t you heard? I’m Sutton Mercer. I love it when boys fight over me.”
Mrs. Mercer crossed her arms over her chest. “I’ve never seen you get so pale as when those two started on each other.”
Gratitude bubbled up in Emma’s chest as she met Mrs. Mercer’s eyes. No else one was willing to believe that she wasn’t enjoying stringing two boys along. “I don’t know what to do,” she admitted. “I like Ethan, and it’s completely over with me and Thayer. I just can’t seem to convince either one of them of that.”
Mrs. Mercer sipped her tea. “You know, Sutton, the problem isn’t that you’re giving them the wrong signals. It’s that you’re so worth fighting for. You can’t blame yourself for that.”
If I could have put my head on my adoptive mother’s shoulder right at that moment, I would have. Ever since my death, Emma and I had scrambled around trying to figure out what I’d done to deserve getting murdered. It seemed I’d given so many people reasons to want me gone that the real mystery was why someone hadn’t done it sooner. It was a welcome change to hear something nice about me for once.
Mrs. Mercer opened a package of shortbread cookies and placed a few on a plate. “Well, I for one think Ethan has been a good influence on you. Your grades have improved so much since you started seeing him, and you’ve been nicer to your sister.” She gave Emma a motherly smile. “Or maybe my little girl is just growing up.”
Emma shifted uncomfortably. “Um, where did this tea set come from, Mom?” she asked, hoping to change the subject from her personality shift.
Mrs. Mercer eyed her strangely over the silver sugar tongs. “You don’t remember? This was your great-grandma’s, the only thing she brought with her from Scotland. I’m not sure how old it is—I always got the impression that it’d been handed down well before then.”
I suppressed a twinge of sadness—and anger. How many times had I listened to family history and felt shut out of it just because I thought I was adopted? I still didn’t understand why my grandparents didn’t feel that they could tell me that their stories were my stories, too, that I was related to the ancestors who had come over from Scotland with that tea set. It all came back to Becky. What had she done that had merited banishment so complete that I wasn’t even allowed to know my own heritage?
Emma looked thoughtfully at the tea service, thinking the same thing I was. Wheels started turning at the back of her mind.
She looked up. “Mom, can I ask you a question? Do you … have any regrets?”
Mrs. Mercer looked surprised. “Regrets?”
“You know, people you don’t talk to anymore, relationships you’ve cut off. Anything like that.” She almost winced at how transparent she sounded, but Mrs. Mercer didn’t seem to notice.
Her grandmother looked down into her cup. “You know, things change. People change. Sometimes you have to move on from someone you care about. It can be hard, honey.” Mrs. Mercer folded and unfolded a linen napkin embroidered with a pineapple. “Sometimes you have to admit that a relationship can’t be fixed. That no matter how much you want to, you can’t trust some people.”
Something about her words sent a little shiver up Emma’s spine. She poured more tea into her cup, a few stray leaves swirling in the hot liquid. She wished she could use them to see the future. Or even better, the past.
Mrs. Mercer frowned. “What’s this about, sweetheart?”
“Nothing,” Emma said, biting her lip. “I’ve just been thinking how you’ve always been there for me, no matter what. I guess it just got me wondering if I’ve ever pushed you too far.” Like Becky did, she thought, willing Mrs. Mercer to open up. Come on, Grandma, tell me how Becky crossed that line.
Her grandmother took Emma’s hand across the table, her bright blue eyes wide with concern. “Are you trying to tell me something? Are you in some kind of … trouble?”
Emma shook her head. “No, of course not. Everything’s fine.”
Mrs. Mercer looked searchingly into Emma’s eyes for a long moment, then let go of Emma’s hand and picked up her teacup and saucer, the porcelain clinking softly together. When she spoke again, her voice was halting and careful, as if she were still forming the words in her head.