4. Lizzie
FOUR
LIZZIE
Holidays had always been chaotic in my family, and Thanksgiving was no exception. My elder brother Aaron and his wife Emily were hosting this year, but I’d been asked to make the turkey and two sides. I’d done my best to prep what I could during the week, but with Zach recovering from his illness, Hazel being cast in the school Christmas play, and my own work schedule, I was behind.
Thankfully, the kids were in a great mood. Hazel smiled at me as she pranced out of her room, giving me a twirl of her rust-red dress.
“Beautiful,” I told her, leaning down to kiss her head.
“It floofs!” She twirled again, giggling at the way the skirt flew up and danced around her.
“Your aunt Emily chose well,” I said, then turned to the hallway. “Zach! Are you almost ready?”
A muffled, “Yeah,” was the only response I got, so I hurried to the kitchen to check on my stuffing prep. I’d perfected my stuffing recipe over the years, which had been passed down from my maternal grandmother, and it was one of my favorite things about Thanksgiving. Pork, turkey gizzards, sage, and apple came together with breadcrumbs and the bird’s juices (and lots of butter) to create pure magic. There were never any leftovers. I couldn’t wait to have some—but I needed to make it first.
While the stuffing got going, I worked on peeling potatoes. The turkey had been dry-brined overnight and was ready to start cooking. Oven space was limited at Aaron’s house, so I had to be efficient.
I checked the time. Tight, but it should be okay as long as I could head over to Aaron’s within the next half hour.
After cooking like my life depended on it, I checked on the kids. Hazel had her shoes on and a bow in her hair, and she was keeping herself busy with a princess coloring book in the living room. Zach was watching football on our TV while he held a ball.
“Zach, get dressed. We’re leaving soon.”
He looked down at himself, then dragged himself to his feet and shuffled to his bedroom. I decided to take my own advice. I jumped in the shower and scrubbed myself down in a record two minutes, slapped on some concealer, mascara, and lipstick, then pointed a blow dryer at my head for a few minutes. The children started bickering, so I sighed and wrapped my still-damp hair in a claw clip. It would have to do.
I would’ve loved to doll myself up, but another glance at the clock told me that I needed to get the food and the kids in the car so I could head to my brother’s place and make sure everyone ate at a reasonable time. I threw on a wine-colored wrap sweater and the only pair of jeans that still fit and called it a day. I’d be running around all day, anyway, probably with all kinds of cooking splatter all over me, so there was no point in being too precious about it.
Ten minutes later, the car was loaded, the food was secure, and the kids had decided to make peace. I pulled up to my brother’s house only fifteen minutes behind my self-imposed schedule and let myself inside. The house smelled like warm spices and vanilla, and the sound of conversation mingled with sportsball announcers talking about sportsball things on the television.
“Hello, hello!” I called out, and heaved the turkey in the direction of the kitchen.
I found Emily there, dumping chips into a bowl. My sister-in-law gave me a hug and waved at the oven. “Have at it. Do your thing!”
I smiled. “Of course. How’re Jacob and Levi?”
“Jacob’s excited for the game,” she said. “Levi’s Levi.”
“Playing LEGO in his room?”
She gave me a side smile. “If you have a minute and you feel like coaxing him down to be with everyone, I’d appreciate it. You do seem to have a special way with him.”
“Sure,” I said, turning the knobs on the oven to start preheating it. I checked my watch for the thousandth time and allowed myself one deep breath, then headed back out to the car.
The potatoes and extra casserole dish of stuffing had been secured in the footwell of the passenger seat, so I was once again face down, ass up when Sean Hardy pulled up behind me. I heard a door open, and expecting my middle brother Kyle, I spun around and thrust the gigantic pot of peeled potatoes at the body exiting the vehicle.
Sean blinked but, to his credit, grabbed the pot. “Happy Thanksgiving,” he said.
“Oh,” I replied. “Same to you. I thought you were my brother. I can bring that in.”
“It’s fine,” he said. His son came around the car and stood next to him. I watched him study my hair and decided that we didn’t need to address whether or not it looked shiny enough in his eleven-year-old opinion, so I grabbed the casserole dish and closed the car door with my hip.
“Everyone’s in the den getting ready for the game to start. You want a drink?”
“Sure,” he replied. “Mikey, grab the pies from the back seat.”
“Pie!” I beamed at the two of them. “How wonderful!”
“Store-bought,” Sean clarified. The sun’s rays slanted against his face, gilding his skin and causing his eyes to look particularly striking. He wore a button-down and dark-wash jeans under an open wool jacket, and he looked both casual and put-together. And utterly edible.
I tore my gaze away. “If it’s got a crust, and it’s got a filling, it’s called pie to me,” I told him, then led the two of them inside to the kitchen. When Sean put the pot of potatoes down on top of the stove, his shoulder brushed against mine and I got a whiff of a delicious-smelling cologne. My lady bits went wild.
Forcing my expression to remain neutral, I thanked the two of them and checked the oven, then got to work.
“You need help?”
Surprised that Sean was still there, I spun around with oven mitts on my hands and gave him a smile. “It’s all under control. Turkey’s in, so we’re on track. Beer’s in the fridge, and I know Emily had some snacks out in the den. You just enjoy yourself.”
He watched me for a moment, then knocked his knuckle on the countertop and grabbed himself a drink. I may have watched him walk away, but only because his jeans fit really nicely, and the sight of them made me feel a little woozy.
Which reminded me. I hadn’t eaten anything yet.
I grazed while I cooked, and when things were under control, I finally poured myself half a glass of wine and followed the sounds of conversation to the den. People had moved in and out of the kitchen for the past hour and I’d gotten to say hello to everyone, so I snuck into the room and smiled at Emily, who nodded at me from her perch on the sofa.
I began to lower myself onto a chair and reached for a chip from the depleted chip bowl. My legs were already aching, and there was a lot more cooking and cleaning to do.
Emily glanced at the empty plate on the table. “Would you mind putting on some more of those pigs-in-a-blanket, Lizzie? And where’s Levi? Have you had a chance to talk to him?”
My hand stopped halfway to the chip bowl. “Shoot,” I said. “I’ll go see him now.”
“Anyone need a drink?” Emily asked, and made as if to get up. As she did so, she glanced at me, brows arched, and I waved her back down.
“I’ll grab them,” I said, and took everyone’s order. When it came to Sean, I resisted the urge to avoid eye contact by staring at his chin the whole time and forced myself to meet those beautiful green-blue eyes. “Still working on that one?”
He checked the level in his bottle. “Nearly done. I’ll help you.” He began to stand.
“She’s got it under control, believe me. Lizzie is everyone’s mom. She loves it,” Aaron told him, slapping a hand on Sean's shoulder and shoving him back down to his seat. “I haven’t seen you in two years. We gotta catch up, man!”
I bristled, but…was Aaron wrong? I did like to play hostess, and I was already headed to the kitchen anyway. And Sean was a guest.
Sean nodded at my brother, and I noted the tightness of his smile. For a moment, I wondered what had happened in the years since he’d been in high school—and then duty called.
My brother shot me a grin and a thumbs-up, and I forced a smile onto my lips that dropped as soon as I stepped out of the room. It wasn’t that he was wrong, exactly. I was the mom of the group. I’d been the mom of every group, and when I became an actual mom, that role seemed to cement itself in all aspects of my life.
It did cross my mind that I was doing a lot of work for an event that wasn’t actually being held at my house. As I refreshed everyone’s drinks and got the pastry-covered mini sausages warming, a traitorous, wriggling thought made its way to the forefront of my mind.
I would love to sit in the den with everyone and catch up. I’d love to be like Emily and have my head on my husband’s shoulder while I sipped a glass of wine. I’d love to be seen as an actual adult who had interesting things to contribute to the conversation and not just the de facto cook and nanny for every family event.
But I was good at it. And I did enjoy seeing everyone loving my food. And it made me happy to care for my kids—and my nieces and nephews. So could I really complain? Lots of people didn’t have what I had.
I wiped my hands on a dishtowel and headed for the stairs. Levi’s room was at the end of the hallway upstairs, and his door was ajar when I got to it. I knocked lightly and poked my head in.
Levi glanced up, then went back to the LEGOs spread out on his desk.
“Whatcha working on?”
He pointed to the box propped against the wall. On it, Batman rode a LEGO Batmobile. I could see the beginnings of the project taking shape in front of Levi.
“Very cool,” I said, leaning over his shoulder to watch him snap a tiny piece onto an array of other pieces that I thought would turn into the engine. “Do you ever try to do them without following the instructions?”
“Sometimes,” he admitted. Levi was a year older than Zach, but the two boys had never really gotten along that well. Zach enjoyed action and sports, like Levi’s brother Jacob. Jacob was nine years old, but he often dominated his brother.
I’d watched Aaron try to coax Levi into enjoying football and baseball and fishing, but the boy never really took to it the way Jacob did. And Aaron didn’t really enjoy finicky things like LEGOs, so there was a growing disconnect between them. Emily seemed content to let them figure it all out, but she also seemed to slightly favor Jacob. It was easier to get along with the kid who was gregarious and charming over the one who preferred quiet solitude.
I knew how that felt. I’d been the youngest and the only girl, and I often felt like the odd one out. Instead of retreating the way Levi did, I’d coped by making myself pleasant and accommodating. Days like today, I wasn’t sure if that had been the right approach.
“What do you think about coming downstairs to say hi to everyone?” I asked.
My nephew shrugged a shoulder. “Maybe.”
“I’ll let you mash the potatoes.”
Levi’s lips curled into a tiny smile, and he shot me a quick glance. “Okay,” he said, and slid off his chair and followed me out. We hung out in the kitchen for a while, and I made him a fancy mocktail with a maraschino cherry that put a big smile on his face. When Zach came stomping in from the backyard and invited Levi out to play catch with the rest of the kids, Levi slithered off his chair and ran out behind my son.
A pleasant warmth filled my chest as I watched the kids through the back window. Sure, sometimes I felt a little neglected and invisible, even with my own family, but wasn’t it worth it for moments like this?