Page 38 of Unbearable
Trying not to think about him coming over, I turn my attention to cooking. By the way, I’m not good at it. In fact, I usually don’t cook at all but it certainly never stops my mom from trying to make me her little Betty Crocker.
I’m good at math and organization. Organization and my mother have never been friends. I’m too methodical for my mother’s style of cooking because she doesn’t use measuring cups. I can’t handle not being precise.
As I measure out the right amount of salt for the mashed potatoes, mom frowns in disappointment. “What are you doing, Raven? I just use a pinch.”
A pinch?
I look at Lenny. “A pinch is a teaspoon, right?”
She shrugs, hiding a grin and mixing the gravy on the stove, entertained by my weirdness. Most people are.
Just as I hear the front door open and voices in the family room indicating the arrival of someone I probably don’t want to see, mom pushes me toward the dining room. “Okay, let me handle the potatoes. How about you show Nova how to set the table?”
She’s not asking me, she’s telling me.
Nova’s staring at the china cabinet when I walk into the dining room, her hands on her hip. “Why are they kept in a cabinet?”
Reaching on the top of the cabinet, I bring down the key and unlock it. “They’re fancy dishes that Grandma wants to keep pretty so she puts them in a cabinet.”
Nova shrugs and reaches for one as soon as I open the cabinet. I help her so she doesn’t break them and within a minute we have the table set. Tears sting my eyes when I set the plate down where my dad would have been sitting. It’s the first Thanksgiving without him and it hurts. Bad. I can’t imagine what mom is going through today but the sensation stinging my chest is awful as I stare at the head of the table.
“What’s wrong?” Nova asks, curiously watching me. “Do you miss Papa?”
Looking down at Nova I see an understanding no five-year-old should have. I brush the falling tears aside and hand her the forks. “I’m okay. Here, put a fork next to each plate but make sure it’s straight.”
She doesn’t. I mean, she puts the forks by the plates next to the knives I place on the neatly folded napkins, but they’re at odd angles and it’s just not acceptable.
Each time I adjust one, I find them slightly twisted in another direction when I come back around the table. I know who’s doing it and lift the table cloth up to find Rawley underneath of the table.
“You’re a dick. Get up.”
He falls back on the floor laughing. “Took you long enough. Nova had all those knives straight the first time.”
Nova crawls on her knees and high-fives Rawley under the table. “Told you she’d fall for it.”
I have a distinct impression I was set up from the beginning. “Jerk.”
He grabs my ankle when I try to get away from them and I end up falling face first on the floor. Kicking at his head but missing, the two of us wrestle until he tickles my side and has Nova sit on my head. “Don’t let her up, Nova.”
“Tap out!” I scream, trying to move a forty-pound kid off my head.
“What does tap out mean?” Standing up, she stares down at Rawley and me.
“It means stop.”
“Tap that means—”
I slam my fist into Rawley’s side. “Don’t you dare tell her that.”
He laughs, or attempts to. I knocked the wind out of him with my punch.
Footsteps draw my attention over my shoulder as I frown at my twin brother. “You’re such a child.”
After shoving me into the table, Rawley walks away. “You started it.”
Turning my head, I wish I wouldn’t have. I’m not sure what to expect seeing Tyler today but he’s here, his back to me as he stands in the kitchen next to my mom.
Heat pricks my chest seeing him and being in the same room. “Thanks for inviting me,” he says to my mom, wrapping his arm around her shoulder.
