The children chorus a distracted, unconvincing “Love you, Aunt Bettie!” peppered with “Love you, aging serum,” by the youngest ones.
Felix pats my head, hand heavy. Grandma doesn’t offer any hugs, but shedoesoffer me a drink from her thermos, which is a dash of coffee added to Baileys.
“So, the movie thing,” Felix cuts in. He’s got his Notes app out,Blake Lively and Ana de Armas as the nanniessplashed across the top. “D’you think you could sign off on that, give me permission so I can get this thing going, or...?”
“Not now,” Kaia growls. “She’s having a hard time, you halfwit. Bettie, I’m sorry we didn’t get the chance to say goodbye to Hall. I don’t know what’s going on between you two, but I know you can make it work. You looked so much in love.”
I sob louder, tears dripping into the thermos. Grandma observes it with a grim set to her mouth. I’m diluting the alcohol with my salt, which is wasteful.
“Don’t sayHall,” Felix loud-whispers out of the corner of his mouth. I notice he’s got lipstick on his jaw that matches the shade Marilou’s wearing. Nearly everybody has somebody, except for me. Why did I have to fall in love with an immortal mist!!
I shake Kaia’s shoulders, trying to rattle some sense into her. “Andyou.”
“Me? What’d I do?”
“Why did you let Courtney go? You loved her but you let her slip through your fingers because you’re scared.”
My bewildered sister can’t form a reply.
“Go get her back!” I exclaim. “Do you know how much I wish I could—” I stop. I can’t fully explain, so they’ll never understand. But even though they don’t understand, they close in, anyway.
“I’m okay.” I try to wave everyone off, but it’s like one of those Chinese finger traps—the harder I resist, the tighter they swell around me, until my eyes are bulging and my throat is constricted with the amount of attention they’re cramming down it. I’m snarling like a feral alley cat, but nobody is scared of me, and it’s insulting. I’m shooting offleave me alonesignals that they’re misinterpreting as emergencyplease help mesmoke flares. Hall has destroyed my family culture by imbuing these people with a caring spirit. I’ll never forgive him.
A sunburst of emotion fizzles bright inside my chest. My mind rewinds to when Hall and I first arrived at the Watsons’ house, when we were in the sitting room while everyone else congregated in the kitchen. I felt isolated, ignored, because they didn’t come to me. But I didn’t go to them, either. I hung back, lingering. Whatmight have happened if I’d walked into the kitchen? If I’d hugged someone hello?
“I love you, Mom,” I force myself to say to her now, the words thick.
Surprise and pleasure unfurl on her face in a brilliant smile. “Oh, honey. I love you, too.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t come to Thanksgiving.”
“Baby, it’s—”
“I’m sorry I don’t call enough. I’m going to start calling you all the time, and save up money so that I can visit. I’m sorry about...” My apology generator is rusty. I reflect on using her emergency credit card to buy a three-hundred-dollar vintage Ouija board so that I could talk to Rue McClanahan when I was seventeen. “A lot of things.”
My mother holds me tight, rocking me back and forth. “I will always love you, no matter what. I will always support you, even if it doesn’t look like it. Sometimes support looks like disagreeing with you or telling you that you’re on the wrong path. But your heart is in my heart, always, and all I want for you is a good, healthy life.”
Kaia begins to establish plans for us to all get together in mid-January, and I believe her when she elbows me, saying I’d better show up. I don’t fight Athena when she volunteers to pay for my airfare, because I can see now that she isn’t doing it to look superior. My familywantsme around. It’s taken my whole life to realize that not being the center of attention isn’t the same thing as being ignored.
Is this growth? I don’t care for it. It’s like wearing the wrong size clothing. I analyze their faces—well-meaning, frequently annoying, but unconditionally at my back. A support network. Nomatter what, they love me; no matter what, I truly love them. This circus is mine.
It’s something to hold on to.
The youngest children try wandering off, which sends the adults chasing after them with loud apologies tossed, that they still have packing to do. As I shout my goodbyes, Grandpa loiters behind, his gaze snagging on my kitchen table, where the record player rests. “Oh, good! You must like the birthday present I picked out for you, then.”
“Youpicked out the record player?” Usually Grandma is in charge of gift-buying for birthdays and holidays, and Grandpa simply signs the cards.
His whiskers twitch. “You’re shocked.”
It’s true. “Am not.”
He passes me a chocolate from his coat pocket, then unwraps one for himself, nodding. “I bought that at an auction, as a matter of fact, at the Magic Towne House in New York City from a man by the name of Walter B. Gibson, many years ago. I rediscovered it sitting in my closet a few months before your birthday and had to work hard to convince your grandmother that a beat-up old Kinollghy could be spruced up enough to be a fine present for our Bettie. Enabled me to do plenty of tinkering, so it was a present for myself, too. I got to lug it back and forth to an electronics shop in Greenbriar, since the one here in town said the task was beyond them, but they got invested emotionally, came along to Greenbriar to watch. You should have seen it—a room full of old tinkerers putting their heads together, making it good as new, while I threw out suggestions in the background about the color of wood stain as if I were helping. But you like it, then?”
“I love it.”
He’s pleased. “I can’t wait to rub it in that I was right. Your grandma’s vote was for a dartboard that screams when you hit it.”
“Oh, definitely get that for me next time. But thank you, the record player is perfect. You did a terrific job with those updates—I thought it was brand new.”
