“A minute. I’ve been up here with Henry and an onion for twenty of them.”
“I’m doing my best,” he called from the other side of the room.
“You are doing something,” Anna said. “I’m not yet ready to call it your best.”
Lyra was laughing as she tore bread into chunks, and my grandmother sat at the table, beside her, with a bowl of potatoes.
“Help peel,” she said, and put one in my hand. “Long strokes. Don’t fight it.”
“How do you fight a potato?” I glanced up at Bishop, who stood behind me with his hand on my neck.
“You’ll see,” Babushka muttered.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked Anna.
“Help your brother. He’s about to walk in here with wood, and I don’t want him idle in my kitchen for one second.”
“Idle,” Kingston said, coming in from outside with an armload of it. “I haven’t been idle since I was four.”
“You were idle when you were a teenager. I remember that,” Bishop muttered.
“You’re one to talk,” he said, carrying the cut pieces of log into the other room, where he set them in the rack near the fireplace.
Bishop sat beside me, reached for a potato, and took the peeler from my hand. “Let me do that.”
My grandmother raised a brow but didn’t say anything.
“Okay, what’s next, General Anna?” Kingston asked.
“I would think you’d be able to figure that out on your own.” She waved a hand around the kitchen.
“Come help me,” said Amaryllis, saving her husband from my aunt’s wrath.
“Is this what a normal family Thanksgiving is like?” I asked. “I’ve never had one.”
Kingston and Bishop made eye contact, and both laughed.
“What?” I asked.
“I don’t know if ours could be defined as normal,” said Kingston.
“They were definitely eventful,” Bishop added.
“Our mother started prep beforethe sun came up.”
“And our father got nowhere near it. In fact, he avoided the kitchen as much as possible. At least after the year we almost burned the house down.”
All other conversation in the room came to a stop. Even Anna dropped what she was doing and turned around to listen.
“What happened?” I asked.
Bishop pointed at Kingston. “It was all his fault.”
Kingston smirked. “Sure it was, Sparky.”
“Dad isn’t here. We could let him take the rap.”
Anna put her hand on her hip. “Are either of you ever going to tell us what happened?”
