30. Giving Thanks
GIVING THANKS
FAITH
T he air in Palm Desert is warm and dry, a subtle balm against the chill that still lingers in my bones from Oregon.
Everything is sun-drenched and slow-moving. The shadows stretch long in the late afternoon. People speak softer, as if to match the pace of the earth beneath them.
Cain’s parents live in a sprawling stucco home with a terracotta roof, whitewashed walls, and a courtyard that blooms with bougainvillea in shocking fuchsia.
There’s a fountain bubbling quietly in the front walkway. It looks like a dream.
Elaine greets us at the door and hugs me like I’ve always been hers.
We’ve met a few times, but this is the first where we’re going to be together for a whole week. She smells of lavender and butter, and calls me sweetheart.
Robert, Cain’s father, is tall and broad like him. He has Cain’s kind eyes.
They’re a handsome family—the kind that looks like they belong in a catalog for something expensive and effortless.
The women are all blonde, the men dark-haired, every one of them with piercing blue eyes.
I feel like a smudge on a clean page, out of place with my mixed background and skin several shades darker than theirs.
I don’t even know who I inherited it from.
It doesn’t take long for me to settle in.
There’s no awkwardness, no sizing me up. Just warmth.
I’d been nervous for no good reason.
Cain’s parents’ home hums with life and smells like Thanksgiving. The kitchen is a flurry of motion—pots bubbling on the stove, spices in the air, music playing from a Bose speaker.
I help Elaine chop carrots while she tells me embarrassing stories about Cain’s teenage years. He rolls his eyes. Robert laughs out loud.
They’re so full of love I could cry.
Paula arrives later, her car tires crunching on the gravel driveway. She has a job now. She’s a barista. She had the morning and afternoon shift.
Elaine tells me that Paula is taking her new chance at life seriously.
I see Cain’s sister through the kitchen window before I hear the door open.
She comes in, looking nothing like the woman who tried to ruin me. Her hair is shorter now, tucked behind her ears.
She’s wearing a plain navy sweater and jeans. Her makeup is almost nonexistent. No designer shit on her body. No expensive goop on her face.
She looks stripped down.
Real.
More beautiful than before.
When she walks in, there’s a beat of tension. But I go to her. Embrace her. She’s Cain’s sister. I love him and he loves her. I have already forgiven her.
“How can you just let it go?” Cain asks when I tell him I’m okay with seeing Paula at his parents’ place.
“Carrying it is a burden. Letting it go means I don’t have it weighing me down.”
“Sometimes I feel like you’re older than me,” he admits.
“Not older but definitely wiser,” I tease.
“Faith,” Paula whispers when I step back. “I’m so sorry.”
I stare at her, and for a moment, the room fades.
I see the woman who had me arrested. Who weaponized her proximity to Cain. Who treated me like I was disposable.
But I also see her guilt. Her effort to be a better person.
I shrug. “It’s forgotten. Let’s move forward. Tell me about your job.”
Her eyes fill with tears. This time, she hugs me .
It doesn’t feel like performance. It feels like someone trying to be human again.
We eat Thanksgiving Dinner together at a long table on the back patio, the sun dipping behind the low mountains in the distance. The sky is all dusky golds and burnt orange.
Elaine has made enough food to feed a small village—roast turkey, yams drizzled with brown sugar glaze, stuffing rich with sage and apples, confit tomato with green beans, mac and cheese, and three different pies lined up like soldiers on the kitchen island.
I sit between Cain and Robert. Paula sits across from me. There’s no undercurrent of hostility, no faked civility. Just harmony.
At one point, Onyx sends a video of Ricky in a turkey hat, flipping the bird with both hands, singing Friends in Low Places . I laugh so hard I nearly spit out my wine.
I share the video with my new family, telling them about my co-workers.
“See, this is why I can’t convince her to come back to Ripley’s,” Cain argues.
“Hey, this seems like a fun place,” Robert says.
“It’s a strip club, Dad.”
“My point exactly. A fun place,” Robert argues.
Cain and I fall asleep on the couch after dinner, curled together under a plush throw. His hand rests on my hip, his breath warm against the back of my neck. When I wake, the house is quiet, dark except for a single lamp left on in the hallway.
We move quietly to the guest bedroom.
The room is painted in pale creams, the windows cracked to let in the cool desert air. We settle into bed, and he wraps himself around me like a blanket.
“You having fun, sweet thing?” he murmurs against my shoulder.
I stare at the ceiling for a moment, collecting my thoughts. “I don’t want to talk about any of it anymore.”
He stills. “About?”
“The arrests. The past. Melody. Jamie. None of it. I’m done dragging it with us into the future.”
He holds me tighter.
“I don’t want you to apologize again,” I whisper. “You’ve done it enough. I’ve heard you. I’ve seen it in everything you’ve done since. I want to let it go now. For good.”
“Okay,” he agrees softly.
I turn in his arms and look up at him. The room is dim, the only light is a spill of moonlight through the window.
He strokes my cheek. “Then let’s talk about the future.”
“Huh?”
“Move in with me.”
It’s too soon!
“Cain—”
“You’re always at my place. My bed smells like you. My kitchen has your favorite tea in the cupboard. Just make it official.”
He has a point. “Alright.” I pause, smile. “But only if you get rid of that terrible armchair in the living room.”
“Deal.”
He kisses me. Soft. Reverent. “And come back to Ripley’s,” he murmurs against my mouth.
I snort. “No way.”
He pulls back. “Why not?”
“I run a bar full of drunk men and glitter bras, Cain. It’s chaos and whiskey and bad music. I’m not leaving that.”
He groans. “But the health code violations?—”
“—are part of the charm,” I say, grinning.
He shakes his head, but he’s smiling, too.
Outside, the desert wind moves through the palms.
And inside, I’m finally, irrevocably…home.
“Fine.” He huffs. “But I reserve the right to grumble about it.”
We fall asleep like that—tangled and warm, the past finally laid to rest, the future cracking open around us like dawn.