“Are you coming to dinner?” I ask, though I know the answer.
“It’s a family dinner.”
Sunday is family dinner no matter what, and if you’re nearby, unless you’re deathly ill, my mother expects you to come. It’s the one time a week I see Hallie, though she always does her best to avoid me on those nights.
Because, regardless of blood, Hallie Young is family, something I’d be wise to remember if I want to make it out of this week with my head on straight.
BREAK
“How did I get stuck carrying all of this?” I ask, shifting the box in my arms filled with dishes and a tablecloth into my mom’s house. Since the girls hadn’t been outside, they decided they wanted to walk to the main house on the Three KingsChristmas Tree Farm property, which is my parents’ house and my childhood home. It’s barely a quarter mile, so I had no argument, until Hallie walked out the door holding a cardboard box filled to the brim.
“I think you offered,” Hallie says, and when I turn to her, there’s a slight smirk on her lips like she’s trying not to laugh. It brings a feeling so akin to nostalgia that it warms me up, despite the biting cold.
“Oh, yeah, definitely. Insisted, even,” Emma adds, and I sigh, shaking my head.
“Because Hallie could barely see over it,” I say, and the girls look to one another, sharing an exaggerated eye roll before breaking out in laughter.
“Look who the cat dragged in.” My dad stands on the porch of my childhood home, door opened wide with a grin on his face. Emma runs up ahead and barrels into him with a hug. “Oof!” he groans as she slams into him. The sound is Oscar-worthy since, despite nearing his sixties, the man would definitely need much more than a small-for-her-age eleven-year-old to take him down. “Oh, my! Who is this grown-up hugging me?”
Emma pulls back, and even though I can’t see it, I know she’s giving him an irritated glare.
“Grandpa, it’s just some makeup.God, you’re so dramatic.”
I look to Hallie, who is rolling her lips between her teeth, fighting a laugh. I let out a silent one, shaking my head before tipping my chin for her to go ahead.
“And my Hallie girl, gorgeous as ever.” He reaches for Hallie next, pulling her in for a hug and kissing her hair. My parents may not haveactuallyadopted Hallie when she was a kid, but they might as well have. My parents treat her no differently than they do Wren or even my brother and me. Knowing she doesn’t have that from her family but gets it here always brings me some small form of joy.
When she pulls back and steps into the house, I hear her greeting my mom, and my dad tips his chin to me. “Jess. Looks like you’re the bellhop today.”
I shake my head. “You should’ve seen her trying to bring it over. Hallie could barely see over it. She was going to trip and bust her ass, along with every single piece of china in this box.”
My dad just nods, ushering me into the chaos that is Sunday dinner at my parents’ place.
Moving down the hall, I catch Hallie greeting my brother, his arm wrapped around her shoulder, and her leaning into him, chin tipped up to smile at him as he looks down at her, and I remember the truth.
No matter how well she fits in here or gets along with my daughter, it’s because she’s meant to be Madden’s.
SEVEN
“I sit next to Hallie!” Emma yells when Mrs. King announces that dinner is ready, and we all start moving toward the dining room.
“I’m sure your grandma has the table how she wants it, Em,” I say, but Mrs. King hip bumps Emma and winks.
“Already got you two girls next to one another. Madden, you’re next to your brother tonight.”
Madden groans because when Wren is home, it’s usually Wren, me, and Madden, with Jesse and Emma on the other side of the long table, but since Wren isn’t here, it seems Mrs. King and Emma have new plans.
For the past year, I’ve dreaded sitting across from Jesse, but things seem to be a bit easier between us since I’ve started helping out at his house, so for the first family dinner I can remember, I don’t feel that nervous energy of having to sit across from him.
We’ve shared casual updates about our lives, with everyone telling Mr. and Mrs. King about the best and worst parts of their weeks, a tradition they began long before I started joining these dinners, when Mr. King speaks. “Jess, make sure you putthe plow on your truck sometime before the storm comes on Tuesday.”
I groan out a sigh. “A storm is coming?”
Mr. King looks at me with a hint of confusion, and I have to assume it’s a storm that he, and probably the rest of the town, has been tracking for a bit. Unfortunately, I am more of afly by the seat of my pants and see what the weather is when I wake upkind of girl.
Mr. King, who would probably be prepared if an apocalypse hit, can never quite understand when I say I don’t foresee things like massive storms coming, but looking ahead in the forecast only makes you think about the bad. I’d rather every day just be a fun surprise.
“A big one,” he says. “Nor’easter. Could get eighteen, twenty inches.”
