I laughed harder.
Something cracked open in my chest.
Not pain.
Relief.
I looked at her across the dark back seat, country club lights flashing over her face as the driver pulled us away from the entrance.
“You hungry?” I asked.
“Starving.”
“Good. Me too.”
Her brows lifted. “You ate three decorative molecules and a potato smear.”
“I was pacing myself.”
“For what?”
I leaned forward and told the driver, “Find the closest Publix that’s still open.”
Isa turned slowly toward me.
Her mouth opened.
Then closed.
Then that smile came back.
Real this time.
“Oh,” she said. “We’re doing this?”
“We’re doing Thanksgiving.”
Her eyes lit.
Like I’d handed her a crown no one else could see.
“Then we need butter,” she said.
I stared at her.
“A lot of butter.”
Publix on Thanksgiving night was mostly empty except for a few exhausted-looking parents, one man buying only beer and batteries, and two employees who clearly wanted every customer dead by sundown.
Isa grabbed a cart like she had been waiting her whole life for this moment.
“Turkey?” I asked.
She gave me a look. “At this hour? Baby, we’re getting a turkey breast if we’re lucky and a rotisserie chicken if God hates us.”
“Baby,” I repeated.
She ignored me and marched toward the meat section.
