CHAPTER NINE #2
It was, I sometimes thought, as close as he’d ever come to telling me what he thought of getting a daughter instead. I never asked him outright. Some questions felt too large to survive the answer.
He looked at Riley. “She with you?”
Riley’s jaw went tight. He put an arm around me, hand gripping my shoulder. “Yep.”
“Good for you.” Pete laughed. “Long as it’s been since anyone’s seen you with a woman, I was starting to wonder if you’d gone queer.”
Riley was out of his seat before I fully registered it, fists clenched. “Time for you to get in your truck and head back to Tucson,” he said, in a voice I hadn’t heard from him before. “Keep that mouth running and this gets ugly.”
“Pete.” Antonio’s voice dropped. “You’re out of line.” Then, to Riley: “Sit down, son.”
“I’m not letting him insult me in front of—”
“I was just messing around,” Pete said. “Didn’t mean anything.”
“That’s where I draw the line,” Della said, standing, arms crossed. “You want to talk like that, the bar on Tangerine’s open. I hear they serve lunch.”
Pete mimed tipping a hat he wasn’t wearing. “My apologies, Adella.”
“Sit down.” She smoothed her dress. “I’ll get you a plate.”
“Ate a little at a buddy’s place already.” He eyed the pies on the sideboard. “I’ll take a slice of that pecan, though.”
“Not till everyone’s finished eating.” Riley tore a dinner roll in half and put most of it in his mouth. “Probably another hour, at least.”
Pete checked his watch. “Not waiting that long.”
“There’s a 7-Eleven,” Riley said, flat. “Klondike bars, Sour Patch Kids. Get something sweet on your way out of town.”
Pete ignored him and looked at Antonio instead. “We’re doing rules now because there’s company? No pie till everyone’s plate is clean?” He glanced at the sideboard again. “All I want’s a slice.”
“Della’s house, Della’s rules.”
“I remember when men ran their own households,” Pete muttered, dropping into the chair across from us, next to Addy. He ran a hand through his hair and eyed the food. “Things have changed.”
“It’s the twenty-first century,” Riley said. “Catch up.”
“Just saying a man ought to be able to have a slice of—”
“Probably why your wife left you,” Riley said.
“She didn’t leave. I divorced that bitch. I left her.”
Della’s eyes cut to Antonio like a blade.
“Language,” Antonio said. “It’s Thanksgiving, brother.”
Pete looked at him, a beat behind, genuinely confused. “What’d I say?”
“You’re being disrespectful,” Riley said.
“To who? Her?” Pete tipped his head at me. “She won’t be around in a week. Who cares?”
Riley came across the table before I understood he’d moved.
His fist caught Pete square in the face—I heard it, the wet crack of cartilage giving—and the table went with them, dishes and wine and half the side dishes hitting the floor in one long crash.
He hit him twice more before Antonio got an arm around his chest and hauled him back.
Pete wiped his face with the back of his hand, blood already running from his nose. “You little prick.”
“Antonio,” Della said. “He needs to leave.”
Antonio walked Pete out through the hallway. Della stood and started righting what was left on the table without a word, and Addy and I joined her. Riley disappeared toward the bathroom, still muttering.
We ended up carrying the tablecloth into the kitchen whole, using it to catch what had spilled off the platters.
“We gave our kids as much freedom as we could,” Della said, dropping a handful of silverware into the sink. “We wanted them to know we trusted them. Only had three rules in this house.”
“Don’t lie. Apologize when you’re wrong. Everyone on this earth is equal unless they give you a reason to think otherwise.” Addy recited it like a prayer. “Male, female, brown, white. Nobody’s better or worse.”
Della picked the carcass up off the ruined turkey platter, looked at what was left of it, and shook her head. “It’s impossible for Riley to sit there and listen to Pete talk about women like that.”
“He was being pretty rude,” I said.
“He’s despicable when he drinks, and he’s always drinking.” She dropped the carcass in the trash. “I suppose every family has an Uncle Pete.”
“Isn’t that the truth,” I said, though I didn’t have one to compare him to.
We put what was salvageable in containers and did the dishes together. Della washed, Addy rinsed. I dried. Somewhere in there the conversation drifted from stains and recipes to what we actually wore day to day. Della’s answer was a dress.
“I could probably count on one hand how many times I’ve worn one,” I admitted.
“I could count on one hand how many times I’ve worn jeans,” Della said.
“I never really have a reason to wear dresses,” Addy said.
“I feel more like myself in jeans,” I admitted. “I’m not much of a girl, I guess.”
Della glanced over her shoulder. “You’re beautiful. That dress suits you.”
I pinched the fabric between two fingers. “I bought it for today.”
“Wear it more, then. It fits like it was made for you.”
“Nothing fits me,” Addy said. “I’m built like a board.”
“You’re not,” I said. “I’d give anything to be tall and thin.”
She looked me over. “I’d give anything for a figure like yours.”
“I’m convinced I’ll get fat the second I stop moving,” I said. “Ten pounds on someone my height looks like twenty.”
“How tall are you?”
“Five-two,” I replied, kind of lying just a little. “In the right shoes.”
“I wish I was five-two.”
“No, you don’t. Believe me. There’s always something I can’t reach.”
Riley put his head around the doorway. “Sorry about all that, Mother.”
“He got what he deserved,” Della said. “Seems like we all do, eventually. Need something?”
“You need help?”
“Go find your father. We’ll be out in a minute.”
“You sure you don’t need—”
She gave him a look. “We’re having women’s time, thank you. Stay if you feel a burning need.”
“What’s women’s time?”
“Removing stains from soiled laundry. Recipes. Hairstyles. Makeup application.” She said it entirely straight. “That kind of thing.”
He glanced down at his swollen hand. “I’ll go find Pop.”
“Get the pies ready.”
He grinned and left. We finished the dishes and stood around with fresh coffee talking about none of that—high school sweethearts, first kisses, how we’d each met the men in our lives, what we actually believed about love.
Pete’s name didn’t come up again. We had pie, talked about movies coming out, agreed we all hated spiders and loved Christmas, and Della promised to make me a stocking to hang beside everyone else’s.
After that we played Monopoly at the kitchen table, and Antonio won, and it felt like the kind of night I hadn’t had since I was small enough not to remember it clearly.
When the clock in the living room struck the hour and the day was officially over, Riley and I left, later than we meant to. I spent the whole drive home hoping I’d see all of them again. Soon.
I’d waited a long time for a holiday like that one. It was the only Thanksgiving I could remember having with an actual family. When we pulled up next to my Jeep, I decided Della had it right.
Eventually, we all get what we deserve.