Shit. I hadn’t even thought about dinner. Someone was going to have to break it to the kids that Thanksgiving dinner wasn’t likely to happen today. That someone was not going to be me, though. I’d been the bearer of enough bad holiday news. In fact, I decided then and there that I wasn’t going to contribute to making this day suck any more than it had to for them. So when Crista wanted to put on her Elsa costume, complete with teeny little kitten heels, even though it was forty freaking degrees outside, I let her. And when Dylan wanted a banana smoothie as a “special” breakfast, he damn well got a banana smoothie. Who cared, at the end of the day? Life was short.
At the hospital, Aunt Linda was lying in bed, propped up by stiff white hospital pillows and the bed itself, which was raised at one end. She was missing her headscarf. Even though she’d been going through chemo for a while now, her scalp wasn’t totally bald. Instead, a few short wisps of the curls that used to tumble down her neck were left behind. Also, her face was totally clean. She never, and I mean never, went without makeup. Even if it was just eyebrows and eyeliner. Bare like this, she looked capital-S Sick.
My parents were side by side on the ugly floral love seat, and Uncle Roy slumped in the chair by Aunt Linda’s head. When he noticed us come in, he gave the kids a tired smile and held out a hand.
Crista and Dylan went straight to the bed. “I thought you were doing chemo?” Crista asked in a voice so small I died a little.
Aunt Linda’s smile was even more exhausted than Uncle Roy’s. “Happy Thanksgiving to you, too, Elsa. I felt a little sick while you were sleeping, so we came here to get me better. Don’t you worry a bit.”
“Does it hurt?” Crista pressed.
Aunt Linda and Uncle Roy exchanged a quick look, then Aunt Linda shrugged. “Nothing I can’t handle. But, Little Miss Munchkin, excuse me. Where is your coat? It’s freezing out.”
I held up the kid’s carryall. “Got it. Sneakers, too.”
“I don’t want sneakers.”
“Elsa wears sneakers after she’s done parading in those heels,” Aunt Linda said.
“She does not.”
“Believe me, she does. Elsa would need to take a Tylenol on the hour to wear those things all day. The blisters alone … And don’t get me started on the practicalities of walking on ice in pumps. Aunt Catherine tried it once. Ask her how that turned out.” Aunt Linda winked at Mom, who burst out laughing.
“That’s a story for when you’re older,” Mom said to Crista. “Much older.”
The rest of the morning was relatively quiet. The kids took their iPads off by the wall and sat on the ground, tearing through movies and games without complaining. I couldn’t imagine myself being that well-behaved when I was little, but then, these two weren’t regular kids. Dylan probably couldn’t remember a time when Aunt Linda wasn’t sick, and if Crista could, it’d be hazy. The hospital was like an extension of their home these days.
The adults rotated between trying to keep Aunt Linda company and going on their own phones while Aunt Linda napped. Her naps weren’t really deep sleeps as much as they were an inability to hold her eyes open for more than ten-minute stints. A part of me wondered if she wouldn’t prefer for the rest of us to leave her the hell alone so she could really rest for once. But then, it was Thanksgiving. You couldn’t abandon your family on Thanksgiving, even if they really, really wanted to be abandoned.
At around eleven, the kids started whining a little— which, in their defense, was an impressive stretch of good behavior. After some not-so-subtle pleading looks from my parents, I led the kids downstairs to run in the hospital gardens. I set myself up on an ornate wooden bench underneath a shockingly red sugar maple so I could keep an eye on them, and hopped back on my phone.
Snapchat was pretty much an endless stream of people cooking and showing off about it. Yay, pumpkin pie ready to go, hashtag blessed, hashtag clean eating, hashtag loljks. To be honest, it was weird to see people going about their day like normal. Like, because my Thanksgiving had gone to hell, it should somehow grind to a halt for everyone else, too.
Nothing from Will. Which was fine. He had his own life. He was probably busy with his family, and his friends, and music, and laughing, and corny games.
Totally, totally fine.
“Ollie, can we have a selfie?” Crista popped up out of swear-to-God nowhere, peeking at my phone over my shoulder. Dylan, as usual, stood on tiptoes at her side. Crista bounced backward. “Can you show everyone my dress?” As she spoke, she shucked off her thick overcoat. Beauty was pain, after all. “Hold on, hold on. I’ll tell you when to take it. Get ready.”
I brought Snapchat up and switched it to front facing, holding the phone as high as I could to get the other two in. Crista was crouching on the ground. “I’m ready.”
“Okay, go.” Crista shot up at that moment, flinging sunset-colored leaves in the air. I took the picture just as the leaves started showering us. Dylan cackled in the background, swatting at the leaves as they fell, and Crista threw a handful at his face, shrieking.
I captioned the picture “better than pumpkin pie,” which was maybe a lie and definitely petty, and sent it out to everyone but Will. If Will spoke to me, I wanted it to be because he was thinking of me, not because I prompted him. Apparently, despite how platonic we’d become, I still cared about being chased. Hashtag pathetic.
My phone buzzed. Will? Be Will, be Will, be Will.
It wasn’t Will. It was a message from Lara. Hah. I think I know those kids.
Even though Lara and I had reached a kind of truce, talking outside of group situations still wasn’t a normal thing for us. I’d added her to the Snapchat list, yeah, but I’d also sent it to about a hundred other people. After a moment trying to figure out if she was trying to set me up somehow, I sent back, They’re my cousins. A minute passed, then she replied. No shit? They used to go to my church.
“Ollie, I’m hungry.” Dylan appeared at my side again, his puppy-dog eyes gazing up at me.
Right. Yeah. It was lunchtime, wasn’t it? I considered offering to take the kids to McDonald’s or something, then I remembered Aunt Linda might not still be awake by dinner. Whatever we did for lunch was probably going to be the Thanksgiving meal for the day. We’d have to make do. I grabbed Crista and Dylan and hit up the hospital cafeteria, as well as a hallway vending machine. By the time we got back to Aunt Linda’s room we were armed with french fries, hot dogs, hash browns, lasagna, Hershey’s chocolate, a few peanut butter cups, a real slice of pumpkin pie (the last one the cafeteria had left) and bottles of Coke (Dylan insisted).
Luckily, Aunt Linda was awake, so we were able to pool the haul in the center of the bed. Crista and Dylan clearly thought the lunch’s contents were the biggest stroke of luck they’d ever come across.
Mom raised her eyebrow at me. “No vegetables?” she asked as she reached for a hot dog.
“Good luck finding any.” I shrugged. “I think this is the hospital’s profitability plan. Don’t provide anything with vitamins, so visitors get sick and need to come to the hospital. Then their visitors get sick, too. It’s a vicious cycle.”
“Why aren’t you eating, Mama?” Crista asked through a mouthful of peanut butter and chocolate.