“We’ve got it,” Ollie says, taking the third Christmas apron and tying it around his waist. He spins to show off the ruffles and bells.
“Oh, great. He’s never taking that apron off now,” Val mutters under her breath.
I chuckle as I set a timer on the microwave and ask them to keep an eye on it so that I can follow my brother upstairs.
True to form, Emmie spends the next fifteen minutes running away from us once we are in Scott and Gabe’s bedroom. I wait patiently as Scott tries every trick in the parenting books that he has been pouring over ever since the opportunity to adopt her came up six months ago, and he had to switch from reading baby books to toddler books to prepare for her arrival.
She turned two years old earlier this month, but her speech is delayed, so she can say dada, Drew, and sometimes “Cam,” but the rest of her speech is largely babbling. Although today she seems to have spontaneously picked up a new word, ice cream, and says it over and over until Scott finally gives in and agrees to let her have some after dinner, but only if she lets us get her into her dress first.
We help her in and out of her clothes one arm at a time, and I comment to Scott how well the vertical scar down the middle of her chest is fading from the heart surgery that she required shortly after birth. She was still with her biological family back then, so we weren’t there to witness it ourselves, but the idea of her tiny body being operated on like that still sends a shiver down my spine every time I am reminded of it.
“We’ve been using vitamin E, but I don’t think it’ll ever fully go away.”
“It’s her battle scar,” I say, and then coo, “Huh, Emmie? You’re a tough little thing, aren’t you?”
“Ice cream,” she replies, and Scott lets out a resigned sigh.
I carry my niece back downstairs in her sparkly red-and-green dress, to find that Monika and Jalen have both arrived since we were upstairs, and that the first batch of cookies has been removed from the oven and are sitting on top of the stove. I pass Emmie back to Scott and rejoin Val and Ollie to get the chocolate kisses placed before the dough fully sets up, but we all frown down at the cookies that, now baked, look more gritty than smooth.
“What happened to them?” I ask, but Ollie and Val are equally stumped.
“What’s wrong?” Cameron rests his chin on my head to peek at them.
“These don’t look right, but I followed the recipe to a T.”
Cameron sticks an unwrapped kiss into the center of one of the cookies and attempts to pick it up to eat it anyway, but the cookie crumbles into a million little pieces. He opens the utensil drawer and pulls out a spoon to scoop up the mess instead.
“Mmm,” he says, after he pops it into his mouth.
“Mmm good, or mmm bad?” I ask, keeping my fingers crossed that, even if they are ugly, they still taste good.
Cameron’s face shows it all, but Ollie is too busy getting his own spoon to notice and shakes his head in horror the second the cookie touches his tongue, spitting it straight into the trash can. “Eww, that’s disgusting!”
Cameron shoots him a look, and he raises his hands in surrender. “Sorry, Drew, but those taste awful.”
“I had the recipe right in front of me the entire time,” I exclaim. “How did I mess it up so bad?”
Cameron barely manages to swallow the bite he took. “I think the salt and sugar amounts must have gotten mixed up, but it’s okay, babe. Happens to the best of us.”
“I was promised my favorite cookies, so it is a big deal to me,” Jalen says from the living room. Cameron leans down to kiss me on the tip of my nose and then goes over to pretend to land a blow to his brother’s stomach for teasing me.
“Hey, watch it. I’m still recovering,” Jalen says with a smile, and then adds, “Hi, Drew. Nice to see you.”
“You too.” I give him a nod before turning to Monika. “Have you two been introduced yet?”
“We ran into each other at the airport, and I recognized him from pictures, so I went up and introduced myself,” Monika says, with an expression that I cannot quite place, but looks something like amusement.
“Yeah. We split an Uber over here.”
The awkward silence that follows leaves me puzzled, but instead of questioning it further, I turn back to the pre-stockedcanisters to double-check the ingredients. I use a measuring spoon to dip into the one labeled sugar and pour a little into my palm to taste.
“It’s salt!” I say, triumphantly as soon as it touches my tongue. “The homeowner mixed up the salt and sugar, not me!”
The room nods to indulge me, but I feel justified, regardless, that it wasn’t all my fault, and just a bit of hijinx, which is the word that Cameron and I now use in place of bad luck whenever things like this happen to me.
Val comes through a minute later with a tripod and ring light setup, forcing everyone to move out of the way.
“What’s that for?” I ask. “Are you filming something in the living room?”
