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“You were about to.”

“I was going to ask about these gloves.” Becca picked up a pair. “Very practical.”

“Becca.”

“He looked at you like...”

“Don’t.”

“...like you were the only person in the room. There were four people in that room.”

“That’s how he looks at things. He’s focused.”

“He’s focused on you.”

“He was being polite.”

“Uh huh.” Becca set the gloves down. She looked at the workshop door. Then at Allison. “Okay,” she said, in the tone that meant she was choosing her moment. “Tonight. Wine. Full story.”

“Fine.”

“All of it.”

“Fine.”

“The festival. Halloween. All of it.”

“Fine, Becca.”

Doug watched them leave with the expression of a man who had witnessed something significant and was going to be thinking about it for the rest of the afternoon.

* * *

Thanksgiving in Merrybrook was not what she’d expected, which meant it was exactly what Merrybrook always was... something she hadn’t known she needed until it was in front of her.

The community dinner was in the Merrybrook Elementary gym.

She found this out Thursday morning when Nora called (she hadn’t known Nora had her number, which she probably should have stopped being surprised by) and said “gym, noon, bring the soup.” And then hung up.

The gym had been transformed in the way only small towns could transform institutional spaces, folding tables pushed end to end in long rows, mismatched chairs from what appeared to be every home in Merrybrook, tablecloths in assorted plaids and florals that had no business being next to each other and somehow worked anyway. Someone had strung warm white lights along the ceiling beams, dozens of them, and the result was that the gym, which on any other day smelled like floor wax and PE class, smelled tonight like every good thing anyone had ever brought through its doors.

People came with things. Donna Brennan arrived with two casseroles and an expression that dared anyone to not eat them. Joseph brought three pies, which caused an immediate and reverent silence when he set them on the counter. Margaret Finley brought rolls she’d been making since six in the morning, which Harold mentioned only once and Margaret acknowledged not at all. Lauren brought a green bean situation that she described as aggressively midwestern and was gone in twenty minutes. Rory brought what turned out to be a historical pamphlet about the origins of harvest festivals in northwestern Montana and also a very good cranberry sauce.

Allison had made soup.

She’d stood in her kitchen Wednesday night second guessing it, soup felt simple, maybe too simple, maybe she should have done something more ambitious, and Becca had said the soup is perfect, stop and she’d brought the soup.

Nora had looked at it when she arrived and said white bean? and Allison had said yes and Nora had said good and that had been that.

The dinner was loud in the way of a long table full of people who knew each other and had things to say. She sat between Becca and Lauren and across from Earl, who had brought wooden spoons he’d carved, not food, just spoons, which he left in a basket by the door for anyone who wanted one, which turned out to be everyone. She watched the table do what the town did, fold newcomers in without ceremony, include without announcement, make space without making a point of it.

Becca was talking to Margaret Finley by the end of the appetizers, which Allison had not engineered and which Becca was handling with the alert pleasure of someone who had just found a primary source.

Margaret, for her part, was delighted.

Harold, sitting across from them, caught Allison’s eye at one point and gave her the measured nod of a man who approved of something and wasn’t going to make a speech about it.

She looked down the long table.