But for some reason, Oriana fought her instincts to call off her professional relationship with Larry. Isabella’s case around him was flimsy at best. They still didn’t know what had happened to Henrietta. Perhaps it was best to ask Larry point-blank. Maybe it was best to let him explain the situation for himself.
Chapter Nine
It had been a very long time since Jasmine had celebrated a Thanksgiving that wasn’t blueskied and beachy and perfect. In fact, it had been a long time since she’d been allowed to sit down for a proper Thanksgiving dinner. She often had to work on the holiday, serving up coffees and snacks to tourists who’d skipped out on big family dinners at home to sit on the beach and watch the waves roll in. They didn’t know how good they could have had it. They didn’t know how to appreciate their big, boisterous families and their chilly, cozy dinners.
But this year, Jasmine traded shifts with Regina so she could attend the dinner at her daughter’s place. Jasmine had agreed to bring three pies: apple, pumpkin, and pecan. She finished the last of the pies the evening before Thanksgiving and woke up at the crack of dawn to do a yoga video, shower, pick out an outfit, and drive over. When she rang the doorbell, Jade opened the door and said, “We’re watching the parade!”
Jasmine set the pies on the kitchen counter, surprised by the state of things. It looked as though nobody had prepared a thing for the Thanksgiving feast yet. There was no sign of a turkey, either. Jasmine left the kitchen to find her grandkids in theliving room, where Chase was telling Jade that she was too old to watch a stupid parade.
“Where’s your mom?” Jasmine asked.
Chase, Jade, and Alyssa turned to look at her. They looked as though they’d been caught in a lie. Jasmine gestured vaguely toward the kitchen and added, “Where’s the turkey?”
“She started it last night,” Jade said, her voice meek. “But something went wrong.”
Jasmine’s heart thudded. “What happened?”
She sensed that her grandchildren had been told not to relate this story to her.
“Where’s your mom?” Jasmine asked. “Where’s your dad?”
Chase, Jade, and Alyssa exchanged cryptic glances.
“You aren’t going to get in trouble if you tell me,” Jasmine said gently, sitting at the edge of the chair nearest their sofa, rubbing her knees. “Did they go to the grocery store to get supplies?”
Jade raised her shoulders. Her lower lip bobbed, as though she were about to cry.
“Last night, Mom burnt the rolls, and all hell broke loose,” Alyssa said, then snapped her hand over her mouth. “I mean, heck,” she corrected herself, because she knew better than to swear, especially in front of Jasmine. “Dad got really mad about the smell, and yeah. She never started on the turkey. Jade and I looked up a YouTube video to try to do it ourselves, but by then, Dad had thrown the turkey in the garbage and driven away.”
Jasmine couldn’t help it. Her jaw dropped.What a toddler, she thought of her son-in-law. He can’t handle his own emotions.
“Do you know where he drove off to?” Jasmine asked, trying to keep her tone even. She didn’t want to frighten her grandkids even more.
“Who knows? Who cares?” Chase turned the television channel to a football game, put his socked feet on the coffee table, and cozied up against the cushions. “I think we should just order tacos and be done with it.”
But Jasmine wasn’t going to miss out on Thanksgiving with her family. Realizing that her grandkids hadn’t told her what happened to Jenny yet, she tiptoed upstairs and searched the bedrooms for her daughter. Every room was empty, the beds messy, and clothes strewn across the floors. There was a sense of chaos to the house that, Jasmine suspected, was a result of Jenny and Walton’s tumultuous relationship. Why hadn’t they gotten divorced yet? How often had they bickered like this? And what had that bickering done for her grandkids’ emotional states?
When Jasmine didn't know what to do, she always called Cynthia. It had been that way since the dawn of her time in Hawaii. Cynthia always answered on the first ring.
Standing at the top of the stairs, Jasmine explained to Cynthia that she couldn’t find Jenny and was worried. “I have three hungry grandkids, three pies, and nothing to feed them,” she said. Every year, Cynthia invited her to her family’s traditional Hawaiian Thanksgiving dinner, but Jasmine hadn’t gone since Jenny was a little girl. Maybe it was time again.
Cynthia told her to come right over. “We’re getting started on hors d’oeuvres now,” she said. “There’s plenty of food to go around.”
Jasmine carried her pies back to her car’s trunk and told the grandkids to get ready. “We’re going to Aunt Cynthia’s,” she explained, smiling a little too widely. The kids loved Cynthia. They saw her as a woman of big laughs and incredible stories, many of which had been passed from generation to generation on the island. Because Walton was a transplant as well, there wasn’t a drop of real Hawaiian blood in them. But Jasminewas grateful that they loved the island enough to care about its history, both real and imagined by its native population. They never dismissed the past.
Just as she’d known she would, Cynthia welcomed the kids with boisterous hugs and took them around to re-introduce them to her loud and funny family. The party was on a beach in front of the home her father had built by hand in the forties, a traditional place that seemed to fit organically among the trees, the rolling beaches, and the verdant hills. At the sight of Jasmine’s pies, Cynthia’s cousins cried out with excitement, saying it was rare that they had a “mainland celebration.” One of the cousins had a slice of pumpkin pie for an appetizer and said it was divine.
Jasmine had always loved to bake. She’d forgotten that for a little while, but she’d relearned her love for it when she became a grandmother.
As the day went on, Cynthia’s family ate and danced and played music and swam in the ocean. They taught Jade, Alyssa, and Chase how to play their favorite family games and introduced them to their Thanksgiving tradition of roasting Hawaiian sweet potatoes and pork. Jasmine’s cheeks hurt from smiling so much. Frequently, she checked her cell phone to see if Jenny had called her or texted her back, but there was no word from her. Jasmine found herself nauseated with worry, but she found smiles for her grandkids. She found a way to celebrate the day.
At eight thirty that evening, Jasmine sat in the living room of Cynthia’s long-gone father’s home, watching television with Cynthia. Through the window, they could see the bonfire raging on, as well as Jade, Alyssa, and Chase, who danced and laughed around it. They seemed to fit easily into the structure of Cynthia’s life. It stood to reason, given Jasmine and Cynthia’s past. They were family.
“We should have been doing this for years,” Cynthia said sleepily.
Jasmine hesitated, stopping herself from telling Cynthia that Jenny had always wanted a tiny Thanksgiving dinner, a nuclear-family-only celebration. She’d wanted to create their own traditions. But apparently, Jenny immediately threw those traditions out when Walton got upset. Jasmine wondered how often this had happened through the years.
Had Walton gotten worse in the past few months? Was that why Jasmine’s head rang almost constantly with alarm?
