Before Sara got out of her car, she sat in the front seat and just plain stared at the house looming before her.
Yup, there it was. Sara's Place, her childhood home. The home of her parents' dreams, the home that her mother always hoped would be filled to the brim with children. The home Sara had been named after.
Sara got out of her Denali and went into the back seat to retrieve her laptop and suitcase. She stood quietly, just admiring how fresh the front of the old house looked. The exterior had been repainted—it had been robin's egg blue for years, now it was now pale yellow.
The wooden sign still hung outside the porch with the ridiculous slogan her father, a man with an odd sense of humor, had come up with: Sidle On Down To Sara's Place. It looked restored and sturdier.
She walked up the clean, white brick pathway leading up to the creaky but freshly painted wooden steps and onto the oversized gallery complete with porch swings and rang the bell. Moments later, following a sing-song, "Coming!", Sara's mother opened the door.
The fourth out of twelve children of Irish immigrant parents, Eavan Siobhan Sidle was fifty-eight years old but really didn't look much older than Sara. She had the body and face of one years younger than she. Her hair, the same color as Sara's, reached her rear end and her eyes were such a shimmering gray that Sara's father swore they were really silver. Eavan stood only five feet, three inches and was small-boned. She wore a soft green sundress with a beaded trim, with the hem hitting in the middle of her calves. Her face broke into a wide smile when she saw who was standing on her gallery.
"My God! Hell froze over!" she exclaimed happily and held her arms out. "Sunshine!"
"Hi, Mom," Sara grinned and gave her mother a hug. "How are you?"
"Oh, Sara Sunshine, I can't believe you came! This will mean so much to Wiley."
Sara reddened at the sound of her middle name. Sara Sunshine. If word at CSI had gotten out that her middle name really was Sunshine, not just a cutesy sobriquet her parents had made up, she'd never hear the end of it. Especially from Greg and Nick. "Is Wiley here?"
"No, not at the moment. Come in, come in!" Eavan grabbed Sara's suitcase and dragged it into the foyer of the house.
Sara looked around as she slipped her sneakers off. The interior of the old estate hadn't really changed at all. The decor still whispered of the sixties and seventies and gave off a very homey feel. The windows were open and Sara heard the sound of seagulls, even though they were a couple miles from the ocean.
"This is so exciting!" Eavan squealed. "Sunshine, I've even opened up your old room!"
"Really? You didn't convert it into a guest room?" Sara smiled. How weird, she'd be staying in her old bedroom.
"Are you kidding? I wouldn't let Daddy touch it!"
"Mom, where's Wiley? I really want to see him."
"He's out on the town with his lovely bride-to-be," Eavan replied as she ducked into the doorway of the kitchen, just to Sara's left. "Come talk, Sunshine. Are you hungry? Thirsty? I didn't know what time you'd be coming in, I'm already starting on dinner. But I've got some Greek pasta salad left over from lunch if you're interested. Or I can make you something else. Mac and cheese? A sandwich? I made soda bread last night—"
"Calm down, Mom," Sara laughed, following her mother into the kitchen. "No, I'm not hungry, but I'll take a glass of water."
"Water. Pshaw, you didn't come all the way from Nevada for water. No, I've got some homemade lemonade just waiting in the refrigerator to be passed through your lips," Eavan replied and flitted around the kitchen, getting a tall drinking glass and pouring the yellow liquid into it from a plastic pitcher.
"Where are the girls?" Sara asked, referring to her nieces.
"Elizabeth is at the beach with Cousin Phoebe," Eavan said, handing Sara her lemonade and going to the stove, stirring something in a large pot. "Sophie and Megan arrived this afternoon and are at the hotel with their mother. They'll be coming here tomorrow morning. And Kirya will be arriving late afternoon tomorrow. Veronica put her in another beauty show."
"Ah, I see," Sara nodded. Her ex-sister-in-law Veronica was the pageant nut. "Has Kirya has been on a winning streak?"
"Oh honey, I wouldn't know. Kirya is a gorgeous little girl, of course, but I turn a deaf ear whenever they chitchat about these pageants. It isn't right, I think. Have you seen the headshots they take of this little girl? They pile so much makeup on her, she looks like she's as old as Elizabeth. A little girl of five years old does not need all that to be beautiful. Little girls are always beautiful. I know you sure were."
Sara rolled her eyes and drank her lemonade so no words would escape her mouth. "What are you making?" Sara asked between sips.
"Gazpacho, for dinner tonight. Too darn hot to really cook anything, we're eating outside and Dad's barbequing."
"How many people are staying here? It's so quiet."
"Oh, honey, we're filled up, guests for the wedding. They were booked weeks in advance, so we didn't have to turn anyone away. And you know how I hate to do that."
"And where's Dad?"
"I sent him to do some food shopping . If I'm going to feed all these people for the next five days, I'm going to need a lot more than what I have."
"Are you cooking for the wedding?"
"Oh, heavens no. Cecilia and I hired a caterer."
"Cecilia? Is she staying here?"
"No, she's in a hotel, too," Eavan sighed after a pause. Even though the two women liked each other enough, the situation of both Cecilia and Eavan being under the same roof was a little uncomfortable.
"So, Mom," Sara said after a beat of silence, "you gotta tell me about Wiley's fiancée. I don't know anything about her."
"She's a wonderful girl. She and Wiley met on a trip to Australia. They were in the same tour group. Her name's Polexia Woulfe."
Sara nearly choked on her lemonade. And she thought Sara Sunshine was bad. "Polexia, huh?"
"Polly for short. Oh, but she's an intelligent thing, she is. So quick. You know she majored in philosophy?" Eavan took the pot of tomato soup and put it in the refrigerator to chill.
"Really. Well, there's a high demand of philosophers these days. They're looking for someone to fill Aristotle's position. He left a big gap at the Roman forum—"
"Sunshine, you're a terrible tease," Eavan sighed. "Be nice to Polly when you meet her tomorrow, huh? After all, you are going to be one of her bridesmaids."
"It's true? That wasn't a line Wiley used to get me down here?" Sara winced.
"Of course it's true," Eavan came to sit down at the kitchen table with her daughter. "It was a stroke of luck, really. One of Polly's friends can't make it to the wedding, she has a photo shoot in France this weekend—she's a photographer—and Polly was just so upset. So, Wiley suggested that she put you in the wedding party."
"Great, another ugly dress to add to my collection."
"Oh, Sara. I've seen the dresses. They're not ugly. They're quite tasteful and festive and...and cheery..."
"They're pink, aren't they?"
"Yes. But you look great in pink. Really. Brings out your cheeks," Eavan stroked her daughter's face.
Sara groaned.
Eavan looked at the clock on the kitchen wall. "Oh! Poor thing, you must be exhausted!" she stood up quickly. "Let me take you to your room!"
"Oh...okay then..." Sara scrambled up out of her chair to catch up with her mother.
Eavan took Sara's suitcase from the hallway, lifting it with ease. Sara took her laptop and followed her mother throughout the house, to a separate wing closed off from the living room by a set of double doors, consisting of three bedrooms and a bathroom—the family wing. The Sidles had put this addition onto the house when Sara was four, so the family could have privacy from the guests. The extra bedroom was Wiley's to use when he spent his month in California.
"So you haven't touched it?" Sara asked.
"Well, I've been in there to dust and to air it out when I'm doing my spring cleaning," Eavan said, "but otherwise, no."
With a large smile, Eavan swung open the big white door of Sara's bedroom and the pair stepped in. Sara was awed at how immaculate it looked.
Sara's white wooden daybed was against the western wall and still sported a bright purple duvet and an array of puffy decorative pillows in rose, red, purple, indigo and green. Posters for Blondie, Robert Palmer and Joni Mitchell were still on the walls, above the daybed, as well as a collection of photographs and postcards. The color of the walls had remained a sweet lavender, a color that had been there since the room was built.
Her purple butterfly chair was still wedged beside her bookshelf—stuffed to the rafters with mystery, fantasy and sci-fi novels—at the foot of the bed. At the head was a white wicker night table with a pink butterfly-shaped clock/radio, a red princess phone and a mason jar of silk peonies.
Her desk was on the wall opposite to her bed, and it was one her father had made when she was ten. It consisted of a six-foot-long, two-foot-wide white Formica kitchen counter that stretched almost across the entire side of her room, mounted on top of two white cabinets that contained three drawers each, one at either end. It was so large that it held her television, typewriter, small stereo and an empty aquarium.
"Wow," Sara said. "You weren't kidding."
Eavan was beaming with pride, "I take good care of your room."
"It shows, Mom." Sara dragged her suitcase into the room and
Eavan sighed, "Well, I'll let you unpack, set up for the week. Everyone should be due back for supper at seven o'clock—we're having a backyard barbeque—so if you want to nap you might want to set your alarm."
"I'll do that, Mom, thanks."
Eavan beamed widely and kissed Sara's forehead, "Sara Sunshine Sidle, you are the sunshine of my life," she said before leaving the room.