Grandma looked confused. “Kahlúa?”
“You’ve heard of Kahlúa, Grandma. It’s a liquor,” Travis explained.
Grandma dropped her fork like it was on fire. “Liquor! Someone should have told me.” She scowled at Sunny.
Sunny could feel her face catching fire. Was it too late to bolt and go to her parents’ house?
“Lips that touch liquor will never touch hers,” Harry murmured, and Grandma shot him a look that said, “You are in trouble, young man.”
“There’s no alcohol in there, Grandma,” Travis explained.
“You just said there was,” his grandmother huffed. “What a thing to bring to Thanksgiving when there are children present.”
The only children present were in college.
Oh, good grief, enough of this...bullying. “The alcohol bakes out,” Sunny told her. “I got this recipe from my mother and I love it, but please don’t feel you need to eat it just to be polite.”
Grandma Hollowell blinked in surprise at Sunny’s stern tone of voice, then harrumphed. “Pass the potatoes, please, Jeanette.”
“And pass me your yams,” Grandpa Hollowell said to his wife. “I’ll eat ’em.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” Grandma snapped.
“So, the Seahawks are doing pretty good this year,” said Uncle Joe, taking his turn calming troubled waters.
Thank God the family had a couple of diplomats in it. Conversation lightened up and the stuffing and potatoes disappeared from their serving bowls. So did the yams, and Sunny bit back a smile when she saw Grandma Hollowell sneak another bite of hers. Travis squeezed her hand under the table and winked at her.
“You handled Grandma just right,” he said when they drove home.
“You could have warned me what she’s like,” she said. Thank God the old bat hadn’t been at their wedding.
“Didn’t think to. Anyway, it’s good for people like my grandma to get hauled out of their comfort zone once in a while.”
“I guess. I don’t like being the one to do the hauling, though.”
“Yeah, but you did it so well.”
“I’m tired of trying to make everybody like me.” She’d jumped more relationship hurdles in the past few months than an Olympic runner.
“You don’t have to try, babe. You’re great just the way you are.”
She smiled. “Thank you. And now you don’t have to get me anything for Christmas because what you just said was the best gift ever.”
It had been a year of gifts in spite of the relationship challenges. Thinking about the good changes she’d seen in her relationship with her step-kids, thinking about the new member of the family that would be arriving in the new year, of the good friends she’d made, she couldn’t help but be thankful.
Thankful...hmm. Now there was an idea for a perfect activity for the next day’s Christmas-in-November celebration.
It had been a quiet Thanksgiving for Mia, Arianna and Sophie. Mia couldn’t swallow more than butternut bisque and Arianna hadn’t felt like cooking. She’d done a turkey breast and made Stove Top Stuffing and gravy, along with a small fruit salad for Sophie and herself and had called it good with that. Sophie had been up for trying the bisque, which her mom had made earlier and posted on the website, but one spoonful had been enough to convince her that she preferred stuffing.
“And fruit salad,” she said, helping herself to more.
After that it was time to build a fire in the fireplace—making sure to pull out the damper—and watch the Grinch steal Christmas, with mother, daughter and granddaughter all curled up on the couch.
For a moment Ariana found herself wishing Alden was with them. He’d become such an integral part of their lives the picture seemed incomplete with him missing. But he had a family of his own. He couldn’t be with them all the time.
He’d offered to take them to his parents’ for the day, but Mia was so exhausted Arianna knew that wouldn’t have worked. She didn’t want to do anything to make her mother weaker. And the idea of putting on a happy face and socializing felt overwhelming.
She looked over to where Mia sat, her eyes drifting shut, Sophie cuddled against her. Mia was getting worse. God only knew how many more moments like this one they had left. Arianna found herself clenching her fists as if she could somehow hang on to it.
