“No,” I said. “You didn’t.”
She left the message unanswered that evening. The next morning, she called Derek.
I was in the garage, sorting tools I no longer needed for work, when she came to the door.
“What did he say?”
“He said they’d talk about it.”
“Did he understand you aren’t doing it?”
“He said he understood it was a lot.”
Those were different things. We both knew it.
Two Sundays before Thanksgiving, we went to their house for pizza.
Jenna and her boyfriend, Paul, were there. Rufus kept dropping a tennis ball at my feet under the table, and Derek was explaining a problem with their backyard drainage when Karen found a pause.
“Before we leave, we need to settle Thanksgiving.”
Melissa glanced toward the kitchen island, where she had fabric samples spread beside a centerpiece she was assembling.
“What about it?”
“I can make the sweet potatoes and a pie. Jenna, would you be willing to bring a side? And the rest could be ordered, or everybody could bring something.”
Jenna opened her mouth.
Melissa answered first.
“Mom, we can’t have twenty-five people all showing up with random casseroles.”
“Then assign the dishes,” Karen said.
“It’s already getting complicated.”
“It’s a large dinner.”
Melissa smiled and reached across the table to touch Karen’s wrist.
“That’s literally what you’re good at. Don’t overthink it. It’s always beautiful when you do it.”
Karen withdrew her hand to pick up her water.
I looked at Derek.
He was folding the corner of a paper napkin.
“Your mother’s asking for help,” I said.
“I know, Dad.”
“Then answer her.”
He looked up, uncomfortable now.
“We’ll help that morning. It won’t all be on you, Mom.”
“With what?” Karen asked.
“Whatever you need.”
“Who’s cooking the turkeys?”
Nobody answered.
“Who’s making the pies? The rolls?”
Melissa let out a small breath.
“We haven’t worked out every detail.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do.”
Paul stopped reaching for another slice of pizza. Jenna looked down at her plate.
I could have made a speech. I had several sentences ready.
Karen stood instead.
“Thank you for dinner,” she said. “We should get going.”
In the car, she fastened her seat belt and sat with both hands on her purse.
“I’m not doing it,” she said.
“All right.”
“No arguing until I agree to half of it. No showing up and finding out half has become all.”
“I said all right.”
She turned toward me.
“You usually say something after that.”
I started the engine.
“I’m trying something new.”
She almost smiled.
On the drive home, she told me that Pat Callaway had invited us to Florida.
Pat and Karen had met during Karen’s first year at Millbrook. They had shared a supply closet, lunch duty, and twenty-eight years of knowing when the other needed to talk without offering advice.
Pat had retired to Sarasota four years earlier.
Her Thanksgiving plans were simple: roast chicken, a few vegetables, and whatever pie looked good at the bakery. Her daughter was spending the holiday with her husband’s family, and Pat had offered us the guest room during one of their Thursday calls.
“I told her we were going to Derek’s,” Karen said.
“Call her again.”
“You’d go?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t want to spend Thanksgiving with Derek?”
“Of course I do.”
We stopped at a red light. Across the intersection, somebody was unloading grocery bags from a minivan while a small boy tried to carry a pumpkin nearly as wide as his chest.
“I don’t want you to spend it getting through a shift,” I said.
At home, Karen called Pat.
I heard her laugh from the bedroom, an easy laugh I hadn’t heard since that list arrived.
Twenty minutes later, she came into the kitchen carrying her laptop.
“Pat says the room is ours.”
“Then let’s book it.”