Grey introduces himself to Rhys and me and tells us both to quit working.
Jonas gives a friendly wave and heads through the kitchen toward the stairs at the far end of the room, between the living room and kitchen. I haven’t been to the upper level, but that’s where Zen headed with Henry, so I assume that’s where all of the kids are.
“Grey’s right,” Jack says as he and Theo join the rest of us in the kitchen. “You two—quit working. Margie, you see the back patio yet?”
“Yeah, go out to the patio,” Lucky agrees as he trots down the stairs. “See if you can draw a moose in. I still want to see a moose.”
“You’ve seen a moose,” Jack says.
“Have not.”
“You have to have seen a moose,” Decker insists.
“Nope,” Lucky repeats.
And that’s how I end up on the back patio, under a wide porch umbrella on a cushioned outdoor couch between Laney and Sabrina, with Emma in a matching chair beside us and chips and guacamole before us, and my half brothers in the loveseat and other chair rounding out the sitting area.
A massive Saint Bernard is lying on the ground behind us with a chocolate lab beside him, and Jack’s dog is resting by his feet too.
Rhys is with Zen and the husbands at the grill on the other side of the patio, their voices low and indistinct as they tackle grilling the meat while two of them now hold babies and keep an eye on the two toddlers and one preschooler playing on a very small playset just beyond the patio.
“Want all of the tea on the triplets?” Sabrina asks me.
“You spill our tea, we spill yours,” Decker says.
She dips a chip in guac and laughs. “Ooh, I’m so scared now.”
Henry runs up to her. “Mama dip?”
She pulls him into her lap and shares her chip, and soon Laney and Emma also have kids in their laps sharing food while the six of them—the triplets and the three women—tell me stories about their childhood together, with the occasional interruption from Theo at the grill anytime he’s made out to be the bad guy.
It’s easy to convince myself I belong here.
That I’m soaking up stories about family I didn’t know I had, getting caught up on their lives.
But the lie about my identity is eating at me.
Especially anytime Laney squints at me, or when Jonas shoots looks at me down the table while we’re eating the famous Hatch green chile burgers, or when I tell a lie about growing up in Iowa.
It’s honestly giving me a headache.
Even with Rhys speaking up at the other end of the table every time—every time—I have to lie or feel on display, asking questions about the retreat center or Snaggletooth Creek or about how soon ski season starts to draw attention away from me.
Finally—finally—dinner’s over, we’ve all had dessert, and the under-five crowd is uniformly melting down.
Rhys rises and stretches, then looks at me. “We should get out of their hair, Marg?—”
I blink at him.
He put the hardgon the end of that.
And now everyone’s looking at him.
My face gets hot.
His is going pink.
“Margs,” he finishes.
