I’m on my third round of hugging all of her toys—including the individual puzzle pieces—and I’m getting very cozy and sleepy by the fire when James comes thundering down the stairs again. “Gwamma! Gwamma! I see Gwamma!”
“James, ask Lila to help you with the door,” Tripp calls.
I’m still disentangling myself from Emma’s toys when a soft breeze flows through the room. “Gwamma, I gots three new twucks, and Emma knocked over the humdidifiyah, and it got water on the carpet and Daddy says da duck could swim in it! Isn’t that funny?”
“You’re keeping your daddy busy, aren’t you?” someone replies.
But that doesn’t sound like Donna Wilson.
And the woman James is tugging into the living room doesn’t look like Donna Wilson. She’s tiny, with a gray pixie cut, a turkey sweater that matches mine, and a date.
“Hello,” she says as our eyes meet. She starts to smile. “Are you the new nanny?”
“No, Gwamma, Unka Way-on’s our nanny. That’s Miss Vowa-tine. Daddy calls her Wi-wa.”
“Gamma!” Emma hollers.
Grandma.
Oh, god.
Tripp’s dead wife’s parents are here.
I trip over a unicorn as I try to step around the couch. Emma zips through the toys and launches herself at the older woman, who picks her up and squeezes the little girl until she grunts. “Ow, Gamma. Come hug fuck.”
“Hug the truck,” I interpret quickly, then wonder if she’s already fluent in Emma.
“But don’t hurt my twuck,” James says. “Gwampa, you too.”
Once again, Grandma eyes me. “Is there room for more people to hug the trucks?”
“I was just finishing.” I smile and hope my panic doesn’t show. Or that the heat in my face doesn’t mean I’m visibly blushing. “I’m Lila Valentine. Tripp’s boss. With the Fireballs.”
“Homer. Yvette.” Tripp stops in the doorway to the dining room, looking almost as bewildered as I feel, except he’s wearing sweet potatoes across his apron and gets the joy of doing a double-take as he realizes his mother-in-law and I are wearing the exact same sweater. “I…welcome.”
“I told you to call him, Yvette,” Homer sighs. He’s a big guy, broad-shouldered, with gravity weighing down the skin under his chin, and he’s in a dark wool sweater and jeans. Without a turkey on it, thank god.
“I did call,” Yvette insists.
Tripp’s patting his pockets, and once more, his gaze lands on James, who sucks in his own lips, eyes going wide, and darts for the stairs.
“But I suppose we should’ve called earlier,” Yvette says hesitantly, and gah, now my heart’s twisting for these two who don’t have any other family either.
Do they?
I don’t know.
Tripp reaches out to give her a one-armed hug. “No, no, not at all. Come in. You’re welcome anytime.”
“We got a hotel,” she says quickly.
She glances at me. Then at Tripp, who also looks at me, and back to her. “You’ve met Lila? She inherited the Fireballs. We’re—”
“Wi-wa wikes ducks,” James says as he races back down the steps with Tripp’s phone in hand.
“Fucks!” Emma cries.
And every last adult in the room smiles indulgently at her.
Including me.
Even though I’m totally on to her now.
“Ducks, hm?” Yvette asks.
“It depends on the day,” I reply. “And the ducks.”
“Is that edible turkey I smell?” a male voice says behind the older couple as another breeze wafts through from the foyer. “He finally figured out how to cook one without burning it? I’m shocked. Shocked, I say. Oh. Hey, Yvette. Homer. Happy Thanksgiving.”
The kids erupt in squeals all over again, which are magnified when Levi produces Thanksgiving presents. Donna Wilson follows them in, and other than everyone eyeballing my shirt, then Yvette’s, no one seems the least bit uncomfortable with either Tripp’s in-laws—former in-laws?—nor with me invading Thanksgiving.
“You play poker, Lila?” Levi asks after the other two women bustle into the kitchen to oversee Tripp’s dinner preparations.
“Like a boss.”
“You cheat?”
“Only when I have to.”
His blue eyes light up. “I’ll give you ten thousand dollars to cheat while Tripp’s watching.”
“No deal. I’d do that for free.”
“She’s on my team,” Homer says.
And I have to swallow back a lump in my throat.
For the first time in decades, I think I’m finally home.
28
Tripp
All through dinner, Mom drops hints that if Levi’s seeing Violet again, he can plan on being disinherited. I’d feel bad for him, except he brought my kids cheap starter musical instrument sets, and since I’m going to have to listen to that for the next forty-three years, he can endure an uncomfortable dinner that comes with a lot of questions.
“Do you really need your mom’s inheritance money?” Lila asks him at one point.
I laugh so hard I almost fall out of my chair as Levi goes red and stutters that it’s not money.
“I think the whole table needs to know exactly what you’re planning on inheriting, Levi,” she continues.
“Agreed,” Yvette says over her sweet potato casserole.
We don’t tell them, because a family needs some secrets.
Plus, it’s more fun to make them guess.
And I’m going to whisper it to Lila as soon as I get her alone anyway, because she’ll think it’s just as hilarious as I do.
I was worried about Thanksgiving. Holidays have been rough since Jessie died. But today’s not stressful, and while there’s a part of me that will always wish she could be here, I finally feel like we’ve all arrived at a place where we can let ourselves be happy without her.
And where I can move on with the woman currently charming her parents, just by being herself.
She was gorgeous the day I met her, but I swear she glows now, even when she’s sporting subtle bags under her eyes from the hours she’s been working. She’s like an overinflated balloon of secrets and stories that she’s never been able to share, and I’m more than honored that she’s letting me into all of her life. Watching her come alive, come into owning who she is, watching her figure out what she wants—it’s a special kind of magic.
I know Yvette and Homer aren’t blind, and I haven’t been keeping my hands to myself. Or my eyes.
I’m across from Lila, who’s between Emma and James—at their insistence and her agreement—and we’ve been playing footsie under the table since we sat down.
I’m closer to forty than I am to thirty, with two little kids, and I’m getting turned on at the Thanksgiving table by footsie.
I am such a goner.
My family is too, and that’s not heart-shaped blinders talking. Mom’s enthralled with Lila’s commitment to reviving the Fireballs Little Sluggers Foundation, which is the league I first played in. My kids can fall in love with anyone who gives them a little attention and doesn’t have Cash’s nose. Yvette is completely smitten over finding out Lila loves romance novels, and I don’t know what happened between Levi, Homer, and Lila while I was making dinner, but the three of them keep arguing over who’s on whose poker team during naptime.