“I know. Is it really all from the trip? Did we spend that much?”
“The trip was about ten grand.”
She flinched. “Kip, why didn’t you say something? That’s a ridiculous amount to spend on a week’s vacation.”
“I wanted you to have a good time.”
“We could have spent less. At the very least, I could have paid for part of it. You shouldn’t be paying for everything. We’re engaged. We need to be a team.” She hesitated. “Twenty thousand plus the car?”
He slumped in his seat. “Maybe a little more. We’re nearly at my folks’ house. Could we talk about this later?”
No! She wanted to demand the truth, but knew that wasn’t a good idea. “Sure. Let’s talk preliminaries when we get home and then go over the details by the end of the week.”
He didn’t look enthused at the prospect, but nodded.
They arrived at his parents’ house. For the first time, Harlow really looked at the neighborhood. The homes were relatively small and close together. No water views—not even a canal. Most were well maintained, with bikes and skateboards tucked up on the porches.
She thought about the house where she’d grown up with the oversized rooms and ocean view. After the divorce, her dad had bought a luxury condo. Obviously the family business was successful, which was a good thing, but Harlow found herself unexpectedly aware of the financial differences between herself and Kip. She’d always thought he hadn’t been interested in going to college, but now she wondered if there were other reasons he’d skipped furthering his education.
She doubted his parents could have paid for it. Maybe they’d expected him to move out when he turned eighteen. Maybe no one in his family had ever gone to college. As Kip parked, she thought about all she didn’t know about her fiancé and vowed to start asking more questions.
They went inside and greeted his parents. Harlow was relieved not to see Zafina or her dad. While Kip watched sports with his father, Harlow went into the kitchen with Judy.
“How can I help?” Harlow washed her hands at the sink.
“Maybe finish up on the salad,” Kip’s mother said.
Harlow began slicing tomatoes. “Thanks for inviting us over for dinner,” she said with a smile. “You’re such a great cook.”
“Just easy things.” Judy glanced at her. “Not like when we had dinner with your mother. That was a fancy meal.”
Harlow tried to remember the menu. There had been cheese, crackers and nuts to start, a simple, cold cucumber soup, followed by grilled fish and salad. She and her mom had worked on the menu together to find the right mix for the first meeting with the in-laws-to-be.
“I guess it’s going to take time for us to find our way with each other,” Judy said with a smile. “Blending our traditions. How we celebrate birthdays, opening presents on Christmas Eve, that sort of thing.”
Harlow set down the knife. “You open presents on Christmas Eve?” she asked, hearing the outrage in her voice. She cleared her throat. “I mean, is that really what you do?”
“Of course. After our ham dinner.”
“You eat ham on Christmas Eve?” She shook her head. “Never mind. It sounds nice, but why presents on Christmas Eve? Santa hasn’t been there.”
“We’ve never really been into the whole Santa thing. It’s a bit ridiculous, don’t you think?”
Harlow thought of the beautiful stockings Lillian had needlepointed for everyone and how even now, her mom filled them with silly things like pens and candy and socks.
“No stockings?” she asked, trying not to let her disappointment show.
“Your family celebrated Santa?”
“We went to midnight services, then home to bed. In the morning, we opened presents from our family and had stockings from Santa.” I love Santa. But she didn’t say that because she knew it would sound ridiculous.
Harlow continued slicing the tomatoes, doing her best to sound cheerful instead of horrified. “Different traditions are interesting. In some ways, your Christmas Eve tradition will solve the problem of what part of the holiday we spend where.”
“Oh, after you’re married to Kip, we’ll spend the entire holiday together,” Judy said firmly.
Harlow swallowed hard and made a mental note to add the holidays to her list of things to discuss with Kip.
When dinner was ready, the men turned off the game and joined them at the table. Harlow thought about how Kip always helped her with dinner when it was just the two of them, but here only the women cooked. She now added sharing chores to the list she and Kip needed to work through, then took some salad and passed the bowl to Judy.
“This is nice,” her future mother-in-law said. “Having you here. I want you to be comfortable in our home, Harlow, running in and out whenever you want.” She served herself some of the chicken casserole. “I’ve been getting lots of calls from your cousins, Kip. Everyone is excited about the wedding.”
He looked at his mom. “They can’t all come. There’s too many.”
“We’ll have to see, won’t we? How can you invite only part of the family?” Judy turned to Harlow. “I have three sisters, and Hank’s from a big family, too. We’re the only ones in Florida, but between the Iowa branch and the Texas folks, Kip has about twenty cousins.”
Harlow stared at Kip. “Twenty? You never, ah, mentioned that.”
“I know it’s a lot. Most of them are older than me, so they’re married, with kids.”
Harlow didn’t want to think about that. “We haven’t firmed up the guest list,” she murmured, “but we were trying to keep it under two hundred.”
“Now that you’re not having your wedding at that ridiculous country club, you can have it in a park,” Judy said cheerfully. “Your mom and I could cook a simple menu, so it wouldn’t cost much. That way, you can invite everyone.”
Harlow did her best to keep from shrieking. “I’m not sure.”
“The park makes sense,” Hank told her. “Why wouldn’t you want to do that? Isn’t it fancy enough?”
Judy turned on her husband. “Hank, don’t.”
“You told me about that country club. Fifty thousand for a deposit? Come on, that’s highway robbery.” Hank picked up his beer. “I say have it at the park and be done with it. We’re talking about one day. What does it really matter where you get married?”
Harlow tried to keep breathing. “It matters to me.”