Page 24

"Where's Hudson?" I ask instead and take in the tasteful chaos my mom calls her décor style.

"Here," he shouts from the kitchen, then pops his head around the corner and waves at me. Hudson is the oldest sibling and the only one aside from me who sports some sort of red in his hair. His is a copper toned brown though I’m the only one where Mom’s hair genes fully came through.

"And Jamie's taking a dump," Evan feels the need to add, and promptly gets a pillow thrown at his head by said Jamie.

"I've been back for ten minutes. Shut the fuck up."

"Oh, the joys of a full house," Mom says musingly and brushes past me to the dining table. "Sit down, everyone."

"Thank God," I mumble and take my birth-assigned seat next to Evan.

Like every ordinary dinner as we grew up, we sit around the table in order of birth. Mom and Dad at the ends. To Mom’s left and opposite me sits Hudson, the oldest by five years.

"It's good to see you," I tell him as I sit down. "How's the lawyering going? Did Mrs. Bernard reach out?"

"She did. And well, the lawyering is..." He searches around the room for the perfect word. "Going." He clears his throat. "You know, same old, same old and client confidentiality."

“Right.”

Next to him sits Jamie. His blonde hair has gotten longer and falls into his face. He’s five minutes older than Sam, his twin, which he always has to point out, makes him the second oldest. He’s the only one of us five who's here all the damn time because he works at my parents' maple- and apple farm.

Next to him is Sam, Kinstead’s best—and only—florist. They’re fraternal twins, faces eerily similar, but that’s where it ends. Jamie is about half a head taller than Sam, and his hair is a good bit lighter, a nice golden blonde, though not as curly as Evan’s.

Said Evan sits to my right, playing around with his fork. He’s sporting another tiny finger tattoo, a smiley right below the knuckle of his middle finger. He must have been bored in his tattoo studio again.

Then there’s me, the youngest of the bunch, the only complete redhead and some days I dare say, the only sane one of the bunch. And to my left is Micah.

With his almost black hair, he certainly stands out from our blonde and red-haired family. He started working on my parent’s farm ten years ago. Apparently, my uncle knows his parents. When some of my parents’ trees had issues and they were searching for arborists, he connected them. Micah moved into one of the cabins on the property, and ever since then, he's our resident expert on all things trees.

He tends to keep to himself, most times so quiet you barely realize he’s there, silently getting shit done.

Jamie keeps the maple farm activities, such as taffy tasting or the influencer photo spots, up and running. Mom does the admin and Dad handles most of the logistics side, but by now, Micah is the brains behind my parents' actual maple syrup.

My parents took the farm over before I was born. With four boys and then me, they decided the city wasn’t a safe spot to raise us. They wanted a huge place where we could run and play to our hearts' content without being hit by a car or kidnapped by evil people.

From what they're telling me, Hudson was pissed about the move. Maybe that's why he returned to the city for university and stuck around there after becoming a divorce lawyer.

Currently, he’s leaning in to whisper something into Jamie’s ear, who promptly builds a catapult out of his spoon, thumb and a lone, cheesy macaroni. Before I can warn Evan, the noodle already sticks to his cheek, and he subtly reaches for a green bean to retaliate.

"If you need me to distract them so you can sneak out, just say the word," I whisper to Micah, subtly leaning away from Evan so they’ll leave me out of their little war.

He shoots me a thankful glance.

He's not much of a talker. In fact, he's almost painfully shy. It's awakening some kind of protective instinct in me. As if he’s a stray I'm trying to coax out of his shell, and the first order of business is to gain his trust.

In the ten years I’ve known him, he never returned home, not even for holidays. But I know better than to pry. My parents basically accepted him as one of their own at this point, and it’s kind of nice to have a calm presence in the whirlwind that is my family. Or, my brothers, to be more precise.

"Oh my God, Mom, the turkey smells amazing," Sam exclaims, voice full of wonder as Dad heaves it onto the table with a loud clank.

"Damn," Evan says in awe, his eyes sparkling. "What a beast."

“Right?” Mom hands Dad the knife. Like the well-practiced machine this table is, we hand each other the bowls with sides.

Although I am contemplating hiding the mac and cheese on my lap because my brothers are insatiable monsters, and I know exactly I'm not going to get a second serving of it if I leave it in their sight. After all, they're Mom's ‘she-only-makes-it-for-Thanksgiving’ recipe.

She never divulged to me what makes it so special, but I'm not too determined to find out. It's the one little piece of childhood magic I still allow myself to have. Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Sandman's childhood magic bubbles have obviously been popped a long time ago, so it’s all I have left.

Before digging in, we all take each other's hands.