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Thirty-One
DAKOTA
“You’re not giving them enough dough. Cut more dough!”
My father elbowed me playfully, as I rolled the next couple of cocktail wieners into slightly wider strips of Pillsbury crescent rolls. Carefully, I placed each one onto the greased cookie sheet.
“They’re called pigs in a blanket for a reason,” my father smiled. “If you don’t give them enough blanket they’re not nearly as good.”
My mother was her frantic, usual self, running around the well-decorated house like a chicken with its head cut off. She’d already cleaned, prepped, cooked, and then cleaned again, but as always she was checking on every last detail before people started getting here.
“How many do we have this year?” I asked, just to slow her down.
“Counting all your aunts and uncles, your cousins, the boyfriends and girlfriends of cousins, plus the children of the boyfriends and girlfriends and cousins?”
I rolled my eyes as I rolled my next pig into its blanket. “Yes, mom. Everyone.”
“Then sixty-eight.”
My father laughed maniacally, then dumped a pot of boiling water through a steel colander in the sink. Steam exploded through the kitchen, billowing against the ceiling until only a pile of ziti shells remained.
“It’s a new record,” my mother added, and not without a measure of pride. “But it’s Christmas Eve, so…”
Christmas Eve. Traditionally it was the biggest day of the year in my house, and with good reason. It was roughly five times more important than Christmas day, and was bigger than Thanksgiving in terms of the sheer number of people in the house at once, if not quantity of food.
Thank God for Italians.
“Oh my God!”
I whirled at the sound of the deep, yet mocking voice. My brother’s voice.
“You’re lettingDakotamake the pigs in the blanket?”
I frowned as my brother was enveloped in hugs, first from my mother, then from my father as well. Still wearing his oven mitts, the old man patted him on the back gruffly.
“You know she never uses enough blanket,” Tyler grinned.
I hugged him anyway. I hadn’t seen him in weeks.
“Nice to see you too, big bro.”
His long arms enveloped me aggressively yet lovingly. “Hell yeah.”
Tyler pushed back from me for a moment, then stepped aside. Behind him, another figure stepped up.
“And you’re not gonnabelievewho I bought with me!”
The smile on my face faded into pure, abject shock. My heart all but stopped.
“Hi, everyone.”
Jace stood in the entrance to the kitchen, wrapping his two big arms around my mother. She hugged him for so long I thought she might keep him, and then finally he was shaking hands with my father. Their grip was so tight, so vigorous, for a moment I thought he might keep him too.
“Welcome home, Jace!”
Jace’s expression was a mixture of excitement, emotion, and nostalgia. He hugged the rest of the way through the kitchen until he was eventually standing before me.
Looking at him was the most awkward thing in the world.
