“I need a drink.” She placed her half-eaten cinnamon roll on the platter and wiped her sticky fingers on a napkin, then went to the bar and poured them each a tumbler of scotch. The sun was high outside the large windows. She turned to him, holding both glasses in her hands. “I never saw my mother dance. Not once. Not even that last Christmas when Roma was still with us and you asked Mom to dance with you. And she could never refuse you anything. Do you remember?” Rubbing his eyes, he nodded, his voice low. “She said she’d rather watch us dance.” Sutton felt the sting of regret, remembering. They’d danced near the tree to the Emmy Lou Harris Christmas album—her mother’s choice. She saw the room as it had been. Sutton was twenty-three that year and Declan had just turned twenty-five but they’d come home for the holidays like salmon swimming upstream. Declan was living and working in Seattle; Sutton was in her first year of pastry school.
