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“Of course not I’m not unrealistic But yes, Low Risk for Early Death is on the list” Nurins, and I continue “The fact reuy, is just not forabout, because you’ve told h you’d make a beautiful fa around”

Parker smiles “Did you know he moved back to Mackerly?”

I pause “Ethan?”

“Yes, dummy”

“What do you mean?”

Parker takes another bite of cookie “He took a job with International Food’s headquarters in Providence so he could be closer to Nick Around all the time, not just on weekends”

“Oh,” I say, ht…heto tellnews”

“Mmm Anyway He’ll be back permanently as of this weekend”

“Well That’s good” I pause “Good for Nicky, certainly”

“Mouy charges out of the kitchen, the lower half of his face stained with blue from the hideous fondant Rose uses to frost her cakes (I’d only use butter cream, but Rose is the cake decorator at Bunny’s, no ht be)

“That’s great, buddy!” Parker says “Give me a blue kiss, okay?” She leans over and puckers, and Nicky laughingly obeys

“Want one, Aunt Wucy?” he asks Though he’s lately mastered his L sound, he still calls me “Wucy,” which I find utterly irresistible

“I sure do, honey,” I answer He clies, and I breathe in his sht for second, relishing his perfect little forles down to play with his Matchbox cars

“I gotta get going Books to write” She sighs dramatically

Parker is the author of a successful children’s series—The Holy Rollers, child-angels who come down froood choices Parker hates the Holy Rollers with a hty passion and wrote the first one as a farce…stories so sticky-sweet that they made her teeth ache However, her sarcasm was lost on an old Harvard chu couages

“What’s this one about?” I ask, grinning

She s Mean Bully, in which the God Squad descends to beat the shit out of Jason, the seventh-grade thug who steals lunch money”

“Beat the shit out of Jason!” Nicky echoes, zipping his car along the

“Oops Don’t tell Daddy I said that, okay?” Parker asks her son, who agrees amiably

“Wantup Nicky’s little cars into her buttery leather pocketbook

“For what?” I ask

“For your new husband?”

“Oh Sure I guess,” I say

“Now there’s a can-do attitude!” she says with a wink, then takes my nephew by the hand and breezes out, her blond hair fluttering in the wind

CHAPTER FOUR

ETHAN WAS TWO YEARS BEHIND ME at Johnson & Wales I didn’t know hirown up in Mackerly, the Mirabelli family had e They heralded from Federal Hill, the Italian section of Providence, and their restaurant was an instant success I’d eaten there a time or two, but I hadn’t met any of the fa on the grass at school, sketching out