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Bayley laughed. “Well, let’s add this to the table. Food is almost done. Just waiting on the turkey to finish.” She managed to keep up a constant stream of chatter as we headed inside.
It was like walking into a wall of scents. Sage tickled my nose first, followed by the warmth of butter and onions. That had to be freshly baked bread. My mouth watered instantly as we put the pies in the kitchen. The counter had been completely covered with bowls and dishes of food ready to be served.
“This all looks delicious,” my dad remarked as we added our pie to a section filled with some other desserts. There looked to be a cake cut into small squares, and some kind of apple crisp, but with cranberries in it. There were some cookies too.
“Mom likes to try to feed an army,” Micah said.
“Shush.” Bayley glared at her son. “I love cooking and Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday. The concept of thankfulness and family coming together.”
I shared a glance with Micah, knowing exactly where her thoughts were. As someone who thought they weren’t going to live much longer, each year was a blessing, each dinner with family a reason to celebrate.
Bayley’s thoughts must have aligned with ours because she suddenly stopped talking, closing her mouth in a firm line as she glanced over at her son.
I reached out and grabbed her hand, not thinking too hard about it. “This will be my first Thanksgiving in a long time.” I glanced at Dad before giving Bayley a smile. “I have a lot of things to be thankful for, the first one being that you’re letting me join you and your family for such a precious holiday.”
“You are too good,” Bayley said and pulled me into a strong hug. “Any time, any day of the year, you’re invited to come over. I wasn’t lying about giving you a room.”
“Mom,” Micah said. “Let her breathe.”
“Sorry.” Bayley jumped back, her eyes shining as she blinked furiously. “Now, go off. The others are in the living room. Let me finish this up. We should be ready to eat in like thirty minutes or so. And thank you for all the pies. They look delicious.” She turned away from us. I knew it was to gather herself together. She had cracked and she needed the moment.
“Looking forward to it,” Dad said before herding us out of the room.
Micah led us into the living room, where it seemed his dad, Justin, Bryan, and Laura were already in the middle of some kind of game.
“What are you playing?” I asked.
“Thanksgiving danger word,” Bryan answered as he glared down at a card in his hand.
“He’s going to explain something and we have to guess what it is,” Justin said. He had a few cards in front of him, flipped down.
Micah’s dad had some too. Bryan only had two. There were more cards next to Micah’s dad and once Micah sat down, I realized it was his cards.
“Let’s start over,” Bryan said. “So Cadence and her dad can join us. We aren’t doing teams. Just the person with the most at the end wins.”
“Simple enough,” I said, finding a spot between Bryan and Justin. My dad sat next to Micah’s dad, both of them giving each other friendly smiles.
Micah gathered all the cards and discarded them. “We already did these so I think it’s fair we don’t do them again. There’s a bunch of cards here anyway.” He grabbed an amount that looked to be about two decks worth of cards combined and quickly mixed it up.
“I’m going to opt out for this one,” Laura said. “I’ll go help Bayley.” She stood up, squeezing Justin’s shoulder before leaving the room.
“Cadence can go first,” Bryan said after he put the stack of cards face down in the middle of the table.
“You just want to see me flustered,” I said, giving him a friendly glare.
“You aren’t wrong. Now pick a card and get us to guess. We have thirty seconds. If we don’t get it, the card is discarded. If you accidentally say the danger word, you have to discard one of the cards you’ve won as punishment.”
“All right.” I gave everyone a suspicious look as I picked my card. Sugar. That one wasn’t too hard. I cleared my throat and nodded at Graham since he was holding a stopwatch.
“And go!” He started it.
“It’s grainy and sweet,” I started.
“Sugar!” Justin called out.
I gaped at him. That was practically instant. Everyone chuckled as Justin held his hand out. I sighed and handed the card over to him.
Bryan went next. Before I could even process the fact that he had said starchy root vegetable, Micah had called out potato.
