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Peg set out stuff for mashed potatoes, and then she looked straight at him. “That’s because you don’t know her like I do. If you knew what she looked like when she was really feeling good, then you wouldn’t think that.”
He was glad she turned her back to him to cut up potatoes, because he didn’t think she would appreciate the mystification on his face. “When was she ‘feeling really good’?” he asked, knowing he wouldn’t like her answer.
“Back before she got sick, nothing stopped her. Nothing.”
Did she realize that just five minutes ago she had been complaining about Mina not knowing when to quit? “Did getting sick change her that much?” Or did it change how you thought of her?
“She’ll always be my little girl,” Peg said, as the knife sliced through potatoes on the cutting board.
But now she is your sick little girl.
Levi couldn’t wait too long for Mina to decide if she had faith in them and their relationship, but this conversation with Peg Clements meant he would wait a little longer.
“You’re right. I didn’t know her before her illness, but I know her now. And now she seems pretty great. I can’t imagine her being better.”
Peg stopped cutting potatoes and looked over her shoulder, a smile on her face. He glimpsed Mina in that smile.
There were some quiet footsteps and a little shuffling behind him. Mina had woken up from her nap and stood, her head cocked and a thoughtful look on her face, in the doorway. When he caught her gaze, she smiled and mouthed, “Thank you.”
He smiled back.
* * *
THANKSGIVING DINNER HAD been a heavily negotiated affair. Mina had done most of the negotiating, though Levi had needed to step in when Brook had announced that she didn’t want to intrude, and they would just have a family dinner in Bozeman.
As Dennis seated their son at the table and Brook seated their daughter—managing the entire negotiation without saying a word to one another—Levi wondered if letting his sister and Dennis stay in Bozeman would have been a better idea. The legs of Levi’s chair bounced against the floor as he scooted toward his dinner, which was more noise than had passed between his brother-in-law and his sister since they’d walked through Mina’s front door.
They hadn’t said so much as one word to each other, from what Levi could tell.
“Would someone like to say grace?” Peg Clements asked.
“I will,” Brook offered.
Everyone around the table bowed their heads. “Our Heavenly Father. We thank You for the food we are about to eat and for the blessings of family. We are grateful for the bounty of Your love and pray that You continue to bless us with good health and keep us safe from harm.”
Levi’s head snapped up. Across the table, he caught Dennis’s eye. Brook had volunteered to give the Thanksgiving blessing every year of her life since she was eight years old, and she’d been giving the same one since she was twenty-one.
The reference to health was new.
He shook off the strange thoughts bouncing around his head. Dennis’s health was still probably on Brook’s mind. The reference was nothing more or less than that. Plus, even a person who hated change as much as Brook did was allowed a shift or two in her life.
“Thank you,” Peg said. “What a wonderful blessing. Before dinner, we always go around the table and say what we’re grateful for. If you don’t mind...” Her voice was gentle but still firm enough that everyone around the table knew they were expected not to mind. “Mina, why don’t you start?”
“I’m grateful for my move to Missoula.” Her hand landed on his knee, and she squeezed. “The move has been everything I’d hoped it would be and more than I could have imagined.”
“How nice.” Peg beamed as she looked between Levi and Mina.
“I’m grateful for the chance to have gotten to know Mina,” he said. Her grip on his knee loosened, and her fingers slid off as the mediocre words came out of his mouth. There was more he meant to say, more he could say, but he hadn’t had enough time to think.
Peg didn’t seem to notice the hollowness of his words. She continued to beam as she moved on to Solstice, and Levi felt a little sick. Last night, when he’d been talking with Mina about going through with their Thanksgiving dinner, he hadn’t thought about what it would feel like to sit here, next to her. To have talked about how wonderful she was with her mother and then not be able to say something similar, in public, in front of his sister.
