A grin spreads slowly across his whole face, like I’ve handed him a thing he’s going to keep. “Okay.”
We start walking again.
Okay?
Okay!
We come out through the sliding doors into the cold as I call my dad. He says almost there, and then his truck noses up to the curb three minutes later. He sees us through the windshield, and his whole face opens up. A lump comes up in my throat so fast it surprises me.
And just like that — like a switch thrown somewhere behind his eyes — the Stanley Ermington I know comes back on at full wattage.
“Coach!” he hollers, like a man who’s spotted land after a year lost at sea.
My father’s grin gets wider through the glass. Stanley pulls the front door open for me, and I lift a hand at my dad with my heart going a hundred miles an hour. Stanley loads our bags into the back, then drops into the back seat, reaches over, and grabs my father by both shoulders like he means to shake him out of his skin.
“How are ya, Coach? You look rested. Retirement suits you.”
“I’m not retired, Stan.”
“You will be, once you see how I’m playing this year.”
My father throws his head back and barks a real laugh, the kind that only a few real ones get out of him. I sit very still in my seat and stare out the windshield, because I know how it is between him and Robert Ermington. But I did not know my father was this way with Stanley as well.
He pulls into traffic and goes quiet for half a mile.
“Flight okay?” my dad asks.
I nod.
“Yes, sir,” Stanley says. “Smooth one. Aspen got some sleep.”
“Good. She doesn’t sleep enough.”
Stanley agrees. “She works too hard.”
My father glances at me. “That she does.”
I press out a small smile and look at my hands. It feels so hot in here.
“Bigger crowd than usual this year,” my father says. “Mac, McCallister, Hodge and Beth, Ricardo and the family, the Lindbergs, Pete and Marie. Your folks. And my brother.”
I stop breathing.
My uncle Pat has not come to a Linwood Thanksgiving in eight years. He doesn’t, as a general rule, leave the state of Maine. Which means that something happened, and I don’t know about it.
“Sounds like a great day, sir,” says Stanley, who doesn’t know the difference.
“Should be. Aspen — your mother’s been in that kitchen since five. She’s going to want the both of you out of it the second you’re through the door. Don’t fight her on it.”
“Yes, Dad.”
“Stan. Your folks are already at the house. My brother flew in last night. And I had Carolyn put a shirt out for you in the guest bath. In case you want to change before people start showing up.”
Stanley’s head turns, just slightly. “You did?”
“Navy Oxford. Tie. Hanging on the door.”
And Stanley pauses before he says, “Thank you, sir.”
