19. Jack #2
“Come on, Jack!” June calls. “We made White Russians, and Kathleen won’t play with us anymore. She says we cheat.”
“You do,” we all chorus together.
We’re about to head into the living room when the front door slams open, and my sister, Annie, is wearing a pair of orange sunglasses, the number “43” painted on her cheeks. Her curly hair is tied back into two messy buns, and she’s wearing a turkey costume.
“Gobble, gobble, bitches.”
“Language, Annie,” Nana yells from the living room.
Annie pivots her attention to Izzy, then me. “Well, the two newest lovebirds are here. I’ll send a full report to Nolan later.”
“Why don’t we call him?” My mom comes to the doorway, her eyes hopeful. She doesn’t talk about Nolan much, my dad either, for that matter. I think their hearts broke when he moved out west. He travels all over to wildfires but never seems to make it back to Merritt Point.
“Kid, you forgot all your shit in my truck,” Brooks says, gently nudging her aside to dump a plastic Market Basket bag at her feet. “Happy Thanksgiving, guys.”
“Stay, Brooks. We saved you a seat at the table,” my mother says.
Brooks basically grew up with us, just like Sloane. He never liked going home, and he and Ethan have been inseparable since kindergarten. For better or worse.
My sister whirls around, wagging her finger at his face. It’s a little funny considering she’s short and he towers over her, and he has a neck tattoo that makes him look like a certified badass, even if it is a butterfly.
“Sure, thanks, Kathleen,” he says, sidestepping my sister.
“If you fucking call me ‘kid’ one more time, Brooks…”
Izzy makes a face at me, and we try to stay quiet.
“You’ll what? Gobble?” He pinches one of her buns, and she stomps on his boot. Hard.
“Shit, Annie. That hurt!”
“Next time, I won’t be so nice, kid.” She takes two big steps away and tosses her orange sunglasses onto the table. “Now, who’s ready to eat some turkey? I’m starving.”
As I expected, Thanksgiving at my parents’ house is chaotic in the best way.
Loud, warm, and full of my favorite people.
I’m honestly sad to leave. It’s the first time in years I haven’t spent the holiday with my team.
We almost always have a game on Thanksgiving, or we’re traveling to one.
This year, I’m home, and next week starts a long homestand after one last game in Montreal.
I reach over and take Izzy’s hand in mine over the center console. “You okay? You got quiet.”
She twists the tassels on her oversized plaid scarf. “Just… preparing myself.”
“For?”
“My family.”
There’s something in the way she says it that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I’m already nervous. I never meet the parents. Ever.
“How?”
“Just…” She peeks over at me, the dashboard lights sparkling against her pink satin skirt. “Don’t take anything my mom says personally, okay?”
I squeeze her hand but don’t push, even as we turn onto her mother’s street, and she inhales like she’s about to skate out to face off for the Cup.
We pull up to the large mint-green Victorian duplex. The aluminum siding is puckered and faded. One side is already strung with Christmas lights. The other has a collection of Halloween inflatables in a heap in the yard.
“Remember when I brought you birthday pancakes in bed this morning?” she whispers, her fingers tightening around mine as we walk up to the house.
I spin her around and gently grip her chin. “Haven’t forgotten all day.”
“Good. Keep doing that.” She kisses me, and when we break apart, she says, “Don’t hate me. Please.”
“Nope, impossible. Remember? Already told you, I’m keeping you.”
My attempt to lighten the mood falls flat.
Izzy knocks, but there’s no answer. She peeks over her shoulder at me before opening the door. The TV blares a football game no one is watching. People talk over each other in another room, voices sharp and overlapping, like everyone’s shouting into different voids.
“We’re here,” she announces.
Before I can say anything, a toddler in Bluey footie pajamas barrels around the corner.
“JAAAAAACK!”
Luca launches himself at me. I barely have time to crouch before he crashes into my chest. I scoop him up, and he smacks a drool-damp hand against my cheek like he owns me. He practically does, almost as much as his aunt owns me.
Izzy brushes her hand through his blond hair, scrunching her nose. “Straight for Jack, huh?”
Luca pats my face again, delighted with himself. I grin. “Missed you too, buddy.”
Izzy blushes, and the way she looks at him in my arms—soft, unguarded—does something to me I couldn't name if I tried. “I get it. I like him too.” She strips off her coat and scarf, then grabs mine as well, and tosses them over the back of a recliner. “I guess everyone…”
Her mom barely glances over her shoulder when we walk into the kitchen.
“Oh, you made it. Good.” Jessica wipes her hands on a dish towel, gives me a two-second once-over, then turns straight to Izzy.
“Can you help with the green beans? And tell Peyton to get off her phone. Jack, nice to see you again.”
Izzy’s shoulders drop.
“Like we don’t know who fucking Jack Murphy is.” A tall man walks in from the hallway, a beer in his hand. “Nice to meet you, man. Phil.”
He holds out his hand to shake mine. He has beady blue eyes and a thinning patch of blond hair on top of his head, the sides shaved close. He’s wearing a Patriots sweatshirt and paint-smeared jeans.
“Get out of the kitchen, Phil. For fuck’s sake.”
Izzy cups her hands over Luca’s ears, glaring at her mother and Phil. “Peyton and I have both asked you to watch your language around him.”
Jessica scrunches her face, flicking her hands. “He’s gonna hear it eventually. Phil, I swear to fu—God.” She makes a point to stare at me before meeting Izzy’s glare. “There? Happy?”
“Leave the girls to it, Jack. Let’s watch the game.”
I don’t want to leave Izzy, especially as her smile falls and she moves toward the stove before I can even put Luca down.
It happens that quickly. I lose her in a slip of a minute.
Suddenly, she’s clearing space on the counter, taking out dishes, and preparing the rest of Thanksgiving while everyone seems content to bitch and moan.
She’s a one-woman rescue squad, and no one seems to notice she’s doing the work of five people.
Izzy asks Peyton and Jessica to set the table, but as far as I can tell, they don’t budge until Jessica mutters something about needing a smoke and disappears.
Peyton, with wide-set gray eyes, freckles along her cheeks, and pale pink lips, doesn’t look up from her phone.
Phil yells for me to join him again. But I’m left feeling useless as Luca tugs on the leg of my jeans.
“He’s tired,” Peyton shouts from her spot on the couch out in the living room. “Come here, baby.”
Finally, Riley races down the stairs and flashes me a smile. “Hey,” she says coolly. She tosses me her new driver’s license before dashing into the kitchen. “I’ll help you set the table, Iz.”
Izzy spins at Riley’s voice, catching her hand on the oven rack, and curses under her breath as she removes the turkey from the oven.
I scoop up Luca, take him out to the living room, then grab Izzy and run her hand under cold water from the kitchen faucet.
When she glances up at me, I swear she’s about to cry.
“We can leave right now,” I whisper.
“It’s fine.” She yanks her hand away, wiping it on the towel.
“It’s not going to bother me,” I say. “Give me a signal—anything—maybe scratch your earlobe, and I’ll get us out of here. We can go back to your house and eat pie in bed and watch You’ve Got Mail.
She shakes out her hand, avoiding my gaze, but finally gives me a stiff nod. “Need to finish up here…”
I don’t push for more. I help Riley set the table instead, feeling out of place and increasingly pissed off.
Dinner is worse.
Izzy serves everyone else before she takes a bite. Every time she starts a sentence, she’s interrupted.
Where’s the salt? You said you were coming earlier. I don’t like pumpkin pie.
“Thank you for having us,” I say finally. I welcome it when Phil starts quizzing me about the season, making a point to laugh at how hard I fell at the opener.
“Really got your bell rung, huh? Never played hockey. Couldn’t figure out skates. Now, fighting, on the other hand.”
Jessica laughs. “Bar brawls don’t count toward an athletic career.”
Izzy pokes at her plate, not eating much. Riley does the same. Somehow, I’ve ended up with Luca in my lap as Peyton takes another call.
“Mike is refusing to pay child support this month,” Jessica adds, breaking the silence. “They’ve been at it all day. I told her to go to court, and she refused to listen. This is why, but she never listens to me. No one does..”
“I’d love to have you all come to a game sometime.” I’m desperate to change the tone of the evening, but if I watch Izzy make herself any smaller, I might flip the fucking table.
But Izzy just smiles through it. A tight, polite smile. One I’ve never seen before, and if I’m being honest, one I don’t ever want to see again.
When Peyton returns, she leans across the table, mid-turkey bite. “Can you watch Luca this weekend?”
“We have a lot going on at the shop with the holidays,” Izzy says quietly. “It’s a busy weekend…”
“Come on, Izzy. You never help out.”
Except, I know she does. There’s a reason her small guest room has a pack n’ play and a whole hamper of clothes and diapers. She loves Luca, and it’s not that she doesn’t like helping her sister.
I know she wants to help. But this is bullshit. Absolute fucking bullshit. There’s a difference between helping and being taken advantage of. And Izzy’s big heart seems to be an open invitation to her family.
Her smile freezes, then she nods. Pretends she didn’t just get guilt-tripped into something she doesn’t have time for.