Free Regrets Only by Nancy Geary

him paranoid?
    He rubbed his eyes. It was late, and he was tired. Ultimately the truth didn’t matter. The job was hers instead of his. The only way to avoid the inevitable was to convince her not to take the position. And short of having her drop dead, David could think of no possible strategy that could achieve that end.

6
    Sunday, April 13th 4:15 p.m .
    L ucy, can you bring the mint jelly in for me? It’s on the pantry sideboard,” Mrs. O’Malley called out in brogue as she navigated around a boisterous game of jacks and placed a steaming bowl of mashed potatoes on the buffet. She rested her hands on her hips and surveyed her Easter table. She’d been starching and ironing linens for days in anticipation of the family gathering. The cut-glass goblets had all been washed by hand, and her mother-in-law’s china unpacked from the attic for the annual celebration. She’d even Pledged the cherrywood chairs, although she’d had to add some metal folding ones from the basement to accommodate several extra guests. Home magazines might put a premium on the visual beauty of the table arrangement, but hospitality had always been her concern. She wasn’t about to turn anyone away on a holiday.
    “Could one of you smokers come get these candles lit?” she called out. Although she could hear voices and laughter in the adjacent room, no one responded. “You’d think I was the only one here for all the work I’m doing,” she muttered.
    Meghan, her eight-year-old granddaughter, threw a red Super Ball up in the air and scrambled to collect the metal jacks, but she was too slow. The ball bounced off the back of her hand and rolled under the table. On all fours, she followed it, bumping her head as her sister, Tara, giggled uncontrollably.
    “You two have exactly thirty-seven seconds to pick up those jacks,” Mrs. O’Malley warned, shaking her finger at both girls, “or I’ll tan your hides—Easter or no Easter.”
    “Give it up, Mum,” Lucy said as she entered the dining room holding a crystal dish filled with mint jelly. “Your threats have never been taken seriously.” She smiled. “Anyway, it’s my fault. The jacks were a present from me.”
    “I dusted your championship trophy in that game not long ago,” her mother remarked, and then paused as if lost in thought. “Speaking of which, we’ll have to clean out your room one of these days. If you’re really planning to stay in that Southern state after all, your father wants your room for an office.”
    “Dad’s retired. And Pennsylvania isn’t the South.”
    “Whatever,” Mrs. O’Malley said, waving her hand dismissively. “It’s too far, that much I know. No good can come of leaving your family. At the end of the day, that’s all anyone’s got. But you’ve wanted an adventure since the day you were born.” Turning her attention back to her granddaughters, she said in a louder voice, “Girls, did you hear me about those jacks?”
    “Do you remember how much Aidan and I loved to play?”
    Mrs. O’Malley crossed herself at the mention of her deceased son, but said nothing.
    For Lucy, being home meant being with Aidan. It wasn’t just the visible reminders—the formal studio portrait that sat in a silver frame on the mantelpiece or his racing bicycle that gathered dust in the garage. It was that each room held memories of games, stories, and the daily events that marked the passage of life with a sibling. She could still hear his voice from upstairs accusing no one in particular but everyone in general of taking his Dire Straits tape. She could visualize the anxiety on his face when he left for his algebra exam in the seventh grade. How many nights had they lain side by side on a giant beanbag in the basement, watching reruns of
The
Mod Squad
and dreaming of being undercover cops? “Hippies,” Mrs. O’Malley had muttered accusingly whenever she saw Linc, Pete, and Julie on the television screen, but to Lucy and Aidan the threesome were