“Justin, are you excited to try your homemade stuffing?” My mom smiles at him.
“Yes, Mrs. Stanworth. I can’t wait.”
Her brows drop, and she laughs. “Mrs. Stanworth? So formal for Thanksgiving.”
He glances at me, and I shake my head, whispering, “Just Marty and Janet.”
My dad eyes the leather bag at Justin’s side. “Why don’t you guys set your stuff down, and you can help peel potatoes? I have ten more pounds to go.”
“Actually, I need to get some work done before dinner. Is there a quiet place I can go to work?”
My mom’s eyes bounce from me to my dad. “A quiet place?”
I know what she’s thinking. She’s thinking,why on earth is this guy working on the second-greatest holiday of the year? And she’s also thinking,in about thirty minutes, when all eight grandchildren are here, there won’t be a single quiet place in this entire house.
“Sure.” I pull on Justin’s arm. “Let me get you set up in my old bedroom upstairs.”
My mom shakes her head. “Cora and Berkley are in your old bedroom, and Erin wanted to put the girls down for a quick nap before dinner. And the other room has Erin and Tommy’s things in it.”
“He can’t have my room,” Aunt Carma says behind us. She’s sitting at the kitchen table again, but this time, she’s knitting. “I don’t want him snooping around my stuff.”
Justin's brows dive into a deep V as he watches my aunt. It’s as if he has no clue who she is, even though I know I’ve told him a million times that my Aunt Carma moved in with my parents three months ago.
He finally drags his eyes away from her. “What about the basement?”
My dad’s lips twist downward. “I don’t think it’ll be very quiet down there. That’s where all the kids go to play.” He looks at my mom. “I guess he could use our bedroom.”
“Eh.” My mom’s not even trying to hide the annoyance in her eyes. She has a weird love affair with her bedding. For as long as I can remember, her king comforter and decorative pillows have been off-limits, and letting my boyfriend, who she barely likes, lounge on her bed while he works on Thanksgiving is not going to fly.
“No, that’s okay.” I shake my head. “We’ll find somewhere else.”
My mom shrugs. “Well, that only leaves the laundry room downstairs, and there’s nowhere to sit in there.”
Justin smiles at my parents. “Don’t worry about me. I can work anywhere.” He points behind him to the front room. “I’ll just set myself up out in the living room, and then it will be like I’m still here and in on the conversation.” He shifts his smile to me, and I do my best to match his enthusiasm.
“Great. I’ll just make sure you have all that you need.” I walk out of the kitchen, but not before I catch my mom’s eye roll to my dad, and I know all the progress from yesterday has suddenly been erased.
CALEB
* * *
“Mama,dear, can you please pass the mashed potatoes?”
Instead of just passing me the bowl, she jumps out of her seat and carries it to me, spooning a pile of the creamy food onto my plate.
“You don’t have to do it for me.” I laugh.
“Dadgummit, Patsy. What’s next? Are you going to hand-feed the boy?” My dad’s words come off as harsh, but really, he’s just a big teddy bear.
“I know.” My mom shakes her head, a sheepish grin smeared across her face. She sets the bowl down and returns to her chair. “I’m just so happy Caleb’s home for Thanksgiving. I could cry.” I smile back at her, noticing the fresh prick of tears she blinks away.
I feel bad that I haven’t come around more. I’ve been really selfish with my time. I know that now.
She’s skinnier than the last time I saw her. She’s always been a slender woman, but the older she gets, the more her thin frame carries a fragileness that scares me. There’s also a shakiness in her movements that wasn’t there before. Or maybe it was there, but I was too busy thinking about my next big trick that I missed it. But with everything that happened with Lars, now I’m constantly looking for the warning signs of death, as if I can somehow stop it from taking another person that I love away from me.
My mom dabs at her eyes with her linen napkin. “I just wish that Justin and Summer could be here too. Then we’d be together as a family for the first time in four years.”
“I wonder how Thanksgiving is going over at Summer’s house,” my dad says.
