Page 43 of Wintering with George

Again, there was the looking back and forth before he reiterated his question. “How?”

“Perhaps I’ve watched Mr. Harcourt make it once or twice, and the last time, I asked for specific amounts of seasoning, measurements, and how long it should fry.”

He nodded. “He’s a very nice man. And patient.”

I growled at him.

My chicken—or more specifically, Jory Harcourt’s chicken—was a hit, and I liked Kurt kissing on me and putting his hands all over me whenever he got close.

“This is the best Christmas Eve ever,” Dennis pronounced, and his mother looked sad.

“You like your other Christmas Eves too, don’t you, buddy?” Kurt asked him, because he had seen her face crumple as well.

“I hate caroling,” he said in that no-nonsense way kids had where they couldn’t give a crap about your feelings. “And we have gross stuff like green-bean-whatever casserole that’s disgusting, and weird stuffing with water something in it⁠—”

“Water chestnuts,” Kurt chimed in.

“Yeah, what you said, and cranberry. I dunno, it’s like”—he looked at his brother for help—“what even is that?”

“Everyone calls it salad,” Toby answered his brother, “but there’s no lettuce in it or tomatoes, so I don’t get it.”

“Whatever it is, it’s not the good kind in the can like at Gran’s house,” Dennis explained to me. “This is gloppy and looks like what they use for somebody getting shot in the movies.”

“You know,” Brad began gently, “your mother puts a lot of thought and time into preparing meals for you both, and even if you don’t love them, you need to be respectful of the effort she put in.”

They were quiet a moment.

“Yeah, okay,” Dennis agreed, glancing at his mother. “Thanks for thinking of us, Mom, and I love you and all, but could you put your effort into making stuffing without any nuts in it?”

She pressed her lips together so she wouldn’t smile.

“I love you too, Mom,” Toby chimed in, “but you could make less stuff, and maybe we could just have fried chicken again—you can ask George how to make it—and Tater Tots or hot dogs. That’d be good too.”

“These are excellent, helpful suggestions,” she concluded. “I will keep them in mind.”

“In the movies?” Kurt asked, hung up on that from the comment about cranberry salad.

“What?” Dennis was confused, and I would have been too, but I could follow a conversation better than a nine-year-old.

“You said the cranberry salad—that’s what it’s called—looks like what they use for somebody getting shot in the movies.”

“Well, yeah, ’cause after yesterday, I know that’s not real.”

Which brought the conversation to a screeching halt.

“Maybe we should talk about all that,” Kurt said gently, sitting down on the couch, close to where the boys were seated on the floor beside the coffee table with their plates. We were watching movies, currently on Home Alone, which was paused at the moment.

“Do we hafta talk about it?” Dennis asked him, then gestured at me. “George didn’t let anything bad happen to us, and I was only scared that the guy was gonna shoot Toby or the dogs. I was super worried about the dogs.”

Toby nodded. “Me too.”

Kurt glanced at his sister, then back at the boys. “You weren’t worried about your mother or your father or me?”

Dennis shook his head. “Once you guys were there, I wasn’t scared anymore. Dad wouldn’t let anything happen to us.”

Which was the end of poor Brad. He rushed over to his son, picked him up and wrapped him in his arms, crying as he hugged him.

“It’s okay, Dad,” he soothed his father, his arms around his neck. “We’re all fine now.”