Sarah Templeton appeared on the front porch when she heard the Mustang in the driveway, and she came quickly down the steps to the stone walkway to greet Laura and Chyna. She was a lovely, girlishly slim woman in her early or mid forties, with stylishly short blond hair, wearing tan jeans and a long-sleeved emerald-green blouse with green embroidery on the collar, simultaneously chic and motherly. When Sarah hugged Laura and kissed her and held her with such evident and fierce love, Chyna was struck by a pang of envy and by a shiver of misery at never having known a mother’s love.
She was surprised again when Sarah turned to her, embraced her, kissed her on the cheek, and, still holding her close, said, “Laura tells me you’re the sister she never had, so I want you to feel at home here, sweetheart. When you’re here with us, this is your place as much as ours.”
Chyna stood stiffly at first, so unfamiliar with the rituals of family affection that she didn’t know quite how to respond. Then she returned the embrace awkwardly and murmured an inadequate thank you. Her throat was suddenly so tight that she was amazed to be able to speak at all.
Putting her arms around both Laura and Chyna, guiding them to the broad flight of porch steps, Sarah said, “We’ll get your luggage later. Dinner’s ready now. Come along. Laura’s told me so much about you, Chyna.”
“Well, Mom,” said Laura, “I didn’t tell you about Chyna being into voodoo. I sort of hid that part. She’ll need to sacrifice a live chicken every night at midnight while she’s staying with us.”
“We only grow grapes. We don’t have any chickens, dear,” Sarah said. “But after dinner we can drive to one of the farms in the area and buy a few.”
Chyna laughed and looked at Laura as if to say, Where is the infamous Look?
Laura understood. “In your honor, Chyna, all wire coat hangers and equivalent devices have been put away.”
“Whatever are you talking about?” Sarah asked.
“You know me, Mom—a babbling ditz. Sometimes not even I know what I’m talking about.”
Paul Templeton, Laura’s father, was in the big kitchen, taking a potato-and-cheese casserole out of the oven. He was a neat, compact man, five feet ten, with thick dark hair and a ruddy complexion. He set the steaming dish aside, stripped off a pair of oven mitts, and greeted Laura as warmly as Sarah had done. After being introduced to Chyna, he took one of her hands in both of his, which were rough and work worn, and with feigned solemnity he said, “We prayed you’d make the trip in one piece. Does my little girl still handle that Mustang as if she thinks it’s the Batmobile?”
“Hey, Dad,” Laura said, “I guess you’ve forgotten who taught me to drive.”
“I was instructing you in the basic techniques,” Paul said. “I didn’t expect you to acquire my style.”
Sarah said, “I refuse to think about Laura’s driving. I’d just be worried sick all the time.”
“Face it, Mom, there’s an Indianapolis 500 gene on Dad’s side of the family, and he passed it to me.”
“She’s an excellent driver,” Chyna said. “I always feel safe with Laura.”
Laura grinned at her and gave a thumbs-up sign.
Dinner was a long, leisurely affair because the Templetons liked to talk to one another, thrived on talking to one another. They were careful to include Chyna and seemed genuinely interested in what she had to say, but even when the conversation wandered to family matters of which Chyna had little knowledge, she somehow felt a part of it, as though she was, by a magical osmosis, actually being absorbed into the Templeton clan.
Laura’s thirtyish brother, Jack, and his wife, Nina, lived in the caretaker’s bungalow elsewhere in the vineyard, but a previous obligation had prevented them from joining the family for dinner. Chyna was assured that she would see them in the morning, and she felt no trepidation about meeting them, as she’d felt before she’d met Sarah and Paul. Throughout her troubled life, there had been no place where she had truly felt at home; while she might never feel entirely at home in this place either, at least she felt welcome here.