“Not happy to see us?” my brother asks, kissing the top of my head before dropping into the chair next to the couch with a grin and a wink. He’s wearing a Pittsburgh Lightning T-shirt and athletic shorts, his hair still damp from what was probably his post-workout shower now that he’s gearing up for his own preseason to start. Even though my dad is a former professional hockey player, Tyler’s dad—my uncle Asher—is a former NFL quarterback, and I now spend my days around professionalathletes, it still never fails to amaze me that my own brother is one of those professional athletes.
Life is so weird.
“Confused to see you,” I say, surveying them. “It’s Monday. Family dinner is on Saturday.”
“Not anymore it’s not.” Tyler reaches over and steals my orange soda, taking a long sip. “You told me Saturdays are going to be busy for you, checking in with all of us and making sure everyone is game ready. We’re pretty needy.” He gives me a cheeky smile, and I choke out a laugh. “Players are off on Tuesdays, so it’ll be a lighter day for you, which makes Monday night the perfect night for dinner.”
“And you all decided this?” I ask, looking around the room.
“Of course we did,” Sarah says, reaching up and grabbing a handful of popcorn. “It’s not family dinner without you.”
“What she said.” Jack takes a couple pieces of popcorn out of Sarah’s hand, and she elbows him in the ribs. He just grins at her and focuses back on me.
“What about Tyler and Oliver? We’ve never changed family dinner for them, and there are stretches during their seasons when they can’t make it for weeks at a time.”
Sophie snorts. “If we changed family dinner because of their ridiculous schedules we’d never see each other. We don’t need them as much as we need you.”
Tyler lets out a low whistle, but his eyes are full of humor. “Harsh, Soph. Fucking harsh.”
Emmy shrugs. “Harsh but true, Ty Ty. No one on earth can keep up with the schedules of professional athletes.”
“And also, we just don’t want to,” Maya says breezily, and out of the corner of my eye, I see my brother scowl.
“Definitely not,” Caitlin says, shaking her head. “We love you both to the moon, but we’ve long since given up on keeping track of where in the world you guys are at any given time. When you’re here, we love it. When you’re not, we live to fight another day. But you, on the other hand”—Caitlin leans hershoulder into mine—“you we’re keeping track of, and where you need to be is right here, with us, for family dinner. Saturdays don’t work for you anymore, so we’re making a change.”
My throat tightens with emotion. I’ve been in this family for more than two decades. I know what it means to be a part of it. To belong. To be known and understood by the very best people in the world. But the scars from the seven years I spent moving from foster home to foster home before I finally came to live with my parents have never fully disappeared, and sometimes—like now, when my cousins and best friends change our longest standing tradition so I can still be a part of it—my brain takes me back to being a desperately sad, lonely kid who never felt like she had a place, and I feel those scars acutely.
My brother looks over at me and gives me a smile full of meaning. He may be younger than I am, but I know he gets it. That he understands this complexity that’s been a part of me as long as I can remember. The one that’s mostly quiet but every now and then is very, very loud. “Besides, you’re the best cook,” he says with a grin. “If you’re not here to make our tacos, we’ll probably starve.”
I give him a grateful smile, appreciating the way he changed the subject in my head just as much as I appreciate his quiet understanding. “I mean, I didn’t know we were family dinnering tonight, so I didn’t cook.”
“Don’t worry,” Jack says with a grin. “I called in reinforcements for tonight. They should be here any minute.”
“What kind of reinforcements?” I ask. Family dinner has pretty much always only been the eight of us, with the occasional appearance of a younger sibling or one of our Boston relatives when they’re in town.
Before Jack can respond, the door to the townhouse opens again, revealing who I assume are the reinforcements Jack was referring to.
“Hi, my babies!” Rachel Parker, in all her glory, strolls in with two grocery bags in each hand and a wide smile on herface as her eyes bounce around the room, taking us all in. Rachel is Jack, Caitlin, and Tyler’s actual grandma, but she’s grandma to the rest of us too, having long since claimed us all as her own. “I heard you have some dinner that needs to be made.”
“Did someone say tacos?” My dad, Jeremy, strolls in behind Rachel, carrying more grocery bags in one hand and a travel pitcher of what looks like margaritas in the other. He flashes me a grin and a wink just like Oliver did earlier, and the way my little brother is a carbon copy of my dad never fails to make me smile.
“You called in Grandma and my dad to make us dinner?” I ask Jack.
“Fuck yeah, he did.” Tyler hops up to grab the bags from Rachel, kissing her on the cheek and turning towards the kitchen.
Maya grins at me. “Your dad makes tacos that are almost as good as yours, so obviously he needed to be our resident chef, and Grandma happened to be at your parents’ house when Jack called. Her FOMO kicked in and she insisted on coming.”
“I go where I want to go,” Rachel says breezily, walking around the room and dropping kisses on everyone’s heads before settling into the chair next to Sophie’s. “And where I wanted to go was right here, with all my favorite grandchildren for taco night.”
“Are you helping me make dinner?” my dad asks as he strolls back into the room. Even in his fifties, Jeremy Wright is an imposing presence. He still looks every inch the professional hockey player he once was, but to me, he’s just Dad. The man I met when I was seven, who built me blanket forts and taught me how to make tacos. Who read me bedtime stories and introduced me to ice skating and coached my hockey teams. Who gave me my first real nickname and loved me without reservations.
He is, undoubtedly, the best man I know.
Rachel scoffs. “Jer, you should know me better than that. Idon’t cook when there’s a man around to do it for me. I’m just here for the entertainment.”
My dad laughs, hugging Oliver and then walking around the back of the sofa to wrap his arms around me from behind, kissing the top of my head.
“How you doing, Little Red?” he asks.
