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Her fingers curled around the back of it, but she didn’t sit. She stared at me instead. Close enough that I could see the question in her face. “Gage…”

Before I could answer, Maisie buttered another roll without looking up. “Sit down, Frolic. He’d like you there. He’d love you. Like we all do.”

Jubilee broke down. So did Mom. Nana immediately started crying, too, because emotional restraint has never been hereditary in this family.

“Oh, fuck,” Jubilee whispered. That did it.

Mom was out of her chair first. Nana followed. Jubilee disappeared between them, and I stood before I consciously decided to. Within seconds, all four of us were tangled together beside the table.

Maisie continued eating her roll. I reached over, caught the back of her sweater, and dragged her into the pile. “Absolutely not,” she said flatly.

“Family moment.”

“I hate family moments.”

Jubilee wrapped an arm around her anyway. “High factor-one traits, my ass.”

“That is not how the diagnosis works.”

“Shut up and be hugged.”

Maisie sighed like we were putting her through unimaginable hardship, but she stopped trying to escape.

Eventually, Jubilee sat in Grady’s chair. Not because anyone had forgotten him. Not because she was taking his place. Because we weren’t waiting for him to come through the door anymore.

We’d brought him home. Because of her.

That was our final dinner with an empty chair.

Tonight is Thanksgiving.

And since my mother and grandmother view holidays as competitive endurance sports, they spent twelve straight hours cooking enough food to feed an infantry division before leaving my house with around thirty percent of it in containers. Nana does not understand the concept of leftovers remaining in the home where they were created.

Maisie tried to leave with four containers, three bottles of wine, and Tartlet tucked beneath one arm. Tartlet did not object. Traitor. I retrieved her at the door.

Now, the house is quiet. Mostly.

I spent roughly ninety minutes restoring the kitchen to its original state before my matriarchs commandeered it.

Jubilee stands barefoot in my kitchen wearing a burnt-orange sweater, a dark skirt, and the expression of a woman about to commit an offense against civilization. Especially with those goddamn stockings with ridiculous turkeys stitched all over them. Fuck, I know what she’s doing.

“No.”

She freezes two inches from the refrigerator. Then turns slowly. “I haven’t done anything.”

“You’re thinking about it,” I point out, inching toward the spatula on the counter.

“That is extremely invasive,” she tells the refrigerator door.

“You’ve been negotiating with that pumpkin pie for forty seconds,” I say.

“I’m reflecting.” She props one hip against the counter and folds her arms, the picture of a woman with nothing but time.

“You already had two slices.”

“They were small.”

“No, they weren’t, and that pie is working tomorrow.”