MY MUSCLES AREsore and aching when we clomp our way back up the hill and into the house, shucking off our skates into a big pile on the snow-soaked rug covering the back porch.
Mom, Kaia, and Grandpa are bustling in the kitchen, clattering plates out of the cabinets to set the dining room table for butternut squash soup, lemon garlic chicken, and risotto. When Grandpa turns to look at us over his shoulder as Hall and I enter the room, something like amazement flits across his lined features. “Smells good in here.”
His stare lingers on Hall for a few seconds more, then breaks. Did he forget about Hall? I study my grandfather, fairly youthful still, bright-eyed and suntanned, in a Denver Broncos sweatshirt. Mismatched socks, because it amuses his wife for some reason. He’s still got a thick crop of gray hair, but he’s climbing up there in age. I hope his memory isn’t playing tricks on him.
But he turns to me as if nothing’s amiss and crushes me with a hug. “Grandpa,” I wheeze. “My liver.”
“You don’t need it.” He chuckles that familiar rusty laugh I love so much, and predictably, passes a ten-dollar bill into my palm. “Some pocket money for you. Buy yourself a Tamagotchi.”
“Thanks!” Grandpa doesn’t know it, but all the money he gives me during my visits has been a lifesaver. Last Christmas I walked out of here with five hundred bucks, and this past summer he Venmo’d me fifty for no reason, which helped with my phone bill and a few other necessities. I’d never ask him for financial help, and he isn’t aware that I need it, so I’m grateful beyond words that he is such a generous grandfather.
“And something for your boyfriend. What does he like?”
Before I can respond, he cranes his neck. “Hall, do you ever take my Bettie to the shopping mall? Take her to the pretzel place at the food court. They’ve always got the pretzel place, any food court you go. Bettie loves pretzels.”
Hall blinks. “Oh?”
“It’s all right that you don’t know. You’ll learn.” Grandpa slips Hall a folded bill, too. “What do you like to do for fun?”
“Mini golf,” Hall responds at once, his gaze straying over Grandpa’s shoulder at a calendar on the wall depicting cats playing mini golf.
“Bettie, he likes mini golf,” Grandpa booms. “There you go. Have yourself a nice date with mini golf and pretzels.” He hums his way over to the sink and starts washing lettuce. Hall and I exchange a curious look behind his back.
We dive into our meal, and if anybody notices the basket of bread appearing, or the spontaneous dish of sugar cookies, they don’t wonder aloud where they came from. Hall can’t stop smiling,pleased with himself, listening to Grandma wax lyrical about skating at Rockefeller Center years ago for a movie and how glorious it was when Jane Fonda slipped and fell. This turns into an estimation of whether it’s likely she will outlive Jane Fonda, and assurances from me that I will never agree to play the daughter of Jane Fonda in a movie. Since I am allegedly an actress now.
“I wouldn’t ever cast her, myself,” Felix offers, sucking up.
Grandma snorts at him. “Darling, you couldn’t afford her.”
A sullen Felix stabs at his chicken.
The rest of dinner, which began harmlessly enough, snaps back into its usual routine. Athena holds her four-month-old baby on her lap and feeds him mashed potatoes while Mom watches with pursed lips (“You should really hold off on solids until the baby is six months, and start with rice cereal”). Sean hears one of his offspring, Avenue, calling for him but pretends not to hear, scrolling through his phone under the table. Then he gets pissy when Kaia checks on Avenue, because that “makes him look like a bad dad.” He points out to everyone that Kaia is vaping at the dinner table, which usually earns her a lecture, but Mom’s too busy being annoyed with Dad for massaging his temples.
“Why do you have to go out of your way to look annoyed with us?”
“I have a headache. Am I not allowed to have a headache?”
Felix remembers that he’s in method mode for his Rochester role, responding to everybody in clipped, guttural growls that I laugh at. Athena purses her lips at me, a startling clone of our mother. “Can’t you be nice?”
Felix, angry that I’m not paying him the respect he is owed as Serious Filmmaker, tells Hall that he should pull his film so that it doesn’t get bashed by critics for copying Felix’s. “Can’t you besupportive?” Mom groans. Athena’s baby sneezes mashed potatoes onto Dad’s plate. He shoves to his feet.
“You can’t get mad at a baby, James.” Grandma, who has never liked babies and whose upbringing of my mother in a big, lonely house as an only child scarred her in such a way that Mom brought four children into the world and then told them they were all beautiful, perfect cherubs, says to Dad, “That’s your grandson!”
“I’m not mad at a baby! I’m getting Tylenol. Am I not allowed to get Tylenol?” Under his breath, he adds, “And never come back.”
Mom notes Athena’s wineglass. “Are you breastfeeding?”
Athena’s husband looks up, his brain registering only the wordbreast. Grandma pinches his arm. He yells. His baby cries. I’d cry too if my name was Fang.
“Can you just not?” he asks his unfortunately named infant.
“Don’t snap at my great-grandson,” Grandma tells him.
“He’smyson, I can talk to him however I like.”
Grandpa rises from his chair, as well, taking his turn to be the one who gets to dramatically exit dinner. It’s a coveted role. Sean smirks at him, but I wouldn’t be so confident. Grandpa was a Marine, briefly.
“Does anybody want a cookie?” Hall asks frantically, thrusting the dish at everyone in turn. The magic of ice skating has already worn off, and now we’re all poking each other. The only person who accepts a cookie is the four-month-old.
