Patrick appeared in the door frame then, his smile watery. “Photo time,” he said, just before Julienne followed him into the room, the kids and Rafael behind her.
“Mom!” Teddy’s face looked flushed as he trotted up to her. “Miguel and Rafael do soccer drills every Wednesday afternoon at the park with some Liston Heights Premier kids, and Miguel said I could come. Can I come? That would be off the hook.”
Alice blinked at him. “Um,” she murmured.
“They’re a year older!” Teddy jumped a little, his whole body filled with excitement. “It would be such a good opportunity, especially since I don’t have a team right now. Can you even believe my luck?”
Rafael ruffled Teddy’s hair and said, “We’re having a special session tomorrow morning since we don’t have school.” He raised an eyebrow at Alice, who took two steps backward and ran into one of the dining room chairs.
“Oh my God, Teddy!” Miguel said. “You should sleep over! We can play COD and then go to soccer. I’ll let you borrow one of my practice jerseys.”
“Yes!” Teddy high-fived him. He didn’t even look at Alice for permission.
“I don’t think—” Alice glanced at Patrick, who shook his head subtly.
“Should we stand on the front porch?” Patrick forged ahead with the photo.
“Fine.” Alice gulped her wine.
In the foyer Julienne put her arm around Alice’s mom. “Where would you like everyone to stand?” Her voice was expansive and generous. The two of them touched their temples together in a side hug. Alice frowned.
Her mother shook the navy pashmina, which Alice had draped over the bannister, to unfold it. On the front steps, Laura had begun arranging people. “Why don’t you stand in the middle, Evie, since this is really your photo.”
Evie? Alice fought an eye roll.
“Who’s Evie?” Adrian asked.
“That’s what we call our grandma!” Laura pulled Adrian to a spot at Alice’s mother’s left. “You can call her that, too.”
“Do you like that better than Nana?” Adrian looked at her grandmother, who seemed not to hear.
“Should we put the other kids around her?” Laura asked.
“I think so,” “Evie” said. “What do you think, Julienne?”
Alice clenched her teeth. “Do you have a lot of experience in photography, Julienne?”
“Alice, come here,” her mother said. Come here? Her mother held out the pashmina as Alice stepped toward her. She bent down and wrapped the scarf around her like a hair salon cape, covering her entire torso and also her arms, including the hand in which she held her wine. “There,” she said. She took a step back and scanned her. “Now, I wonder if you could perhaps stand behind Teddy and Adrian.” She put a finger to her lip and squinted. “We’ll hide the red.”
“I think—” Julienne broke in, her smile magnanimous.
“Fuck it,” Alice said before she could finish.
She felt Patrick’s hand clamp down on the back of her neck, but she evaded him. The pashmina fell to the ground in front of her, and Alice stepped on it, not caring that it was cashmere. “I’m not going to hide in the back of this picture because you don’t like my fucking dress.”
“Mom!” Adrian yelled, her little voice high with alarm.
“Alice,” Patrick said, trying again.
“It’s fine.” Alice turned toward the backyard. Even as she left the group, she wasn’t sure where she was going. To the trampoline? “Why don’t you arrange everything,” she shouted over her shoulder, “and then when you’ve got it, maybe I’ll come back to be the goddamn photographer.” She pictured herself standing in front of the blue-green family, the women with their perfect blond hair, matching heights, and pink cheeks. She pictured Julienne’s perfect teenagers. She heard her mother’s disappointed voice in her head: Blue or green. That’s what I asked for.
This was really it, Alice thought. The final failure. She already had kids who couldn’t cut it in school. Her work was limited to brainless mudroom remodels. And now she’d alienated her mother and her mother’s new family. Without thinking, Alice raised the hand in which she held the wineglass and hurled it, its liquid sloshing from the rim as the goblet smashed against Julienne’s siding, sprinkles of crystal showering the dogwood shrub below. She stood frozen for a moment, agog at the mess she’d created, and wished fervently for the last few seconds back.
Instead, she heard shouting behind her—Patrick’s voice above them all—but she didn’t look. Instead she veered into the backyard and jogged toward the sliding glass door. Her cornbread rolls still lay on the counter. She grabbed both them and her purse, which she’d hung on one of the kitchen stools, and turned back outside. The family was coming in the front now; she could hear some uneasy laughter. Patrick was saying something about pictures of the grandchildren, and Alice fumed thinking about Laura and Miguel flanking her mother, on equal footing with Adrian and Teddy. She waited for a moment for Patrick to reappear, and when he did, she waved him into the backyard.
“What is wrong with you?” he asked her. “You need to fix this.” He seemed in equal measure concerned and bewildered.
“But I hate it here.” Alice’s face burned. She put the rolls down on the grass and palmed away hot tears.
Patrick put his hands on his hips. Alice could tell he was trying not to lose it himself. He hardly ever did. He’d never throw a wineglass against someone’s house. She wouldn’t have, either, before today. “Okay, fine,” Patrick said, “but could you, like, get it together? Set a decent example for the children? You’re basically having a temper tantrum.”
“I have to go.” Her crying had intensified, and she heard herself emit a little wail.
“You have to go?” Patrick put a hand on his brow. “You can’t go. That’s going to make everything worse.”
“I have to,” Alice said. She took a few steps toward the car. “I’m really sorry. I can come and pick you up when it’s over.” And then she stalked past the trampoline and back to the Volvo, realizing only when she’d gotten there that she’d left the cornbread rolls on the Martíns’ lawn.
Sadie Yoshida
Thanksgiving felt like both a relief and a giant bummer. Usually, Sadie and her dad ran the Winona Turkey Trot when they were at her grandmother’s house, but he hadn’t mentioned registering this year. In fact, she and her dad hadn’t really talked much at all since she’d sent that Snapchat, except when her mom made her tell him at the dinner table about an article she’d read for social studies or a math problem she’d finished.
“Your dad will help you with your current events project,” Meredith had said one night last week as Sadie cleared her plate.
“You need help?” Her dad had already put on his reading glasses, had already grabbed his laptop from the counter and loaded Twitter. Sadie caught a glimpse of his usual political news.
“I’ve got it,” she’d said.
When Sadie had stood in the kitchen on Tuesday night, the night before they left for her grandmother’s, she pictured last year’s Turkey Trot T-shirt and almost started to cry.
“Can I help you with something?” Her dad sounded like he did when he was on a call for work.
The question was on the tip of her tongue—“Are we going to run the Turkey Trot on Thursday?”—but instead of asking it, she just filled a mug with water and took a long sip. “No,” she said. “Just thirsty.”
* * *
AFTER THANKSGIVING DINNER, Sadie stood at the sink, an orange dish towel in hand. Sadie’s grandma playfully hip-checked her. “Did you like the yams?” she asked. Sadie had loved marshmallow yams since she was tiny. Her mom always said it was because they were candy, not vegetables.
“I loved the yams, Grandma.” Her grandmother had already put on her dish gloves. She wore her famous Thanksgiving sweater-vest over a plaid flannel. The
vest featured an appliquéd cartoon turkey, its feathers a mix of fall colors. Grandma’s earrings were mini cornucopias. “Kids and my patients appreciate my enthusiasm,” she always said when Sadie’s mom teased her about her holiday-themed attire. Sadie herself loved her grandmother’s holiday spirit. A card arrived in the mailbox for each of the minor holidays, usually with a five-dollar bill tucked inside.
“So . . .” Grandma’s voice trailed off, and Sadie watched as she peered over her shoulder into the adjacent family room. Grandma had folded her crocheted afghans over the back of the couch. Sadie’s mom fiddled with the remote, and her dad scrolled on his phone. “What’s up?”
The question sounded both casual and loaded. “Nothing,” Sadie said automatically.
“Skating? Junior high? Everything’s going well?”
Sadie’s stomach dropped. She thought about her decision to quit the team. “Well,” she said, softly, “actually, I’ve been thinking of spending some time working on something else. I told my mom I’m quitting skating. Maybe she told you?”
“Quitting?” Her grandmother dunked a wineglass into the cloudy dishwater and rubbed the rim with a blue sponge. “But don’t you love skating?”
She handed Sadie the glass to rinse and grabbed another. “I—” Sadie thought about the cool air on her cheeks as she jumped, the times she and Mikaela did dryland practice, moving through their routines in their sneakers. “I used to love it,” Sadie said.
Grandma shrugged. “We all change as we get older. Interests change.” She bumped her hip against Sadie’s again. Sadie was almost as tall as Grandma was now. By summer, she thought, when her mother measured them standing back to back as she had a few times a year since fifth grade, Sadie would have passed her. “I recently took up beading,” Grandma said as she handed her another glass. “Did I tell you that?”
“I still like skating.” Sadie felt her face heat. She opened the cabinet for the glasses.
Grandma stopped washing. Sadie stared at the pumpkin socks she always wore on Thanksgiving, afraid that she’d say too much if she made eye contact.
“If you still like skating, then why are you quitting the team?”
Sadie felt her eyes fill, and no matter how hard she blinked, she couldn’t exile the tears. “The uniforms are too tight.” As she breathed in, she felt her bra strap digging into her back. “That’s stupid.” She wiped her eyes with the dishcloth and then worried immediately that it was gross.
“Get over here,” Grandma said. Sadie returned to the sink, and Grandma threw an arm around her, her glove dripping on Sadie’s sweater. Sadie put her head against Grandma’s shoulder and sniffed. “Now,” Grandma said, “I’m going to attack the yam pan, and you’re going to tell me what exactly you’re talking about. Because, to be honest, I don’t really get it.”
Sadie laughed and grabbed a Kleenex from the counter. Grandma had put her favorite holiday Beanie Baby right next to the box, a turkey wearing a pilgrim’s hat. “You can have my Beanie Baby collection when I move to Arizona,” she’d told Sadie last year. Sadie’s mom had rolled her eyes, but Sadie had touched the turkey’s wattle. She could imagine it in the Yoshidas’ kitchen next to the refrigerator.
“I’ll tell you,” Sadie said. “But it’s a little bit of a long story, and you might not—” She paused and looked over her shoulder again. Her parents were on the couch, an afghan over their legs, both watching what Sadie assumed was football. “You might not think of me the same way afterward.”
“Honey, nothing you could say would change the basic facts. Grandparents are professional lovers. That’s what we do. If you think there are any grown-ups alive who haven’t made big mistakes, you’re wrong. So, let’s hear it.”
Without looking at her—while staring mostly at her pumpkin socks—Sadie told the whole thing. She told about the homecoming game when she thought she’d be with Teddy, but Teddy chose Alexandra. She told about how she’d wanted to go to Chloe’s party, and her mom had said no. She told about making the Quiz Bowl team and then her massive choke at the final match. She told about Douglas Lim’s smug smile from the front row, knowing he’d take back his spot. And she told about the picture. About Tane’s message, “Show me your Ts,” and her wild, reckless response.
When it was all over and the yam pan was rinsed and in Sadie’s hands, ready to put away, Sadie finally looked up. Grandma’s gaze was on the archway between the kitchen and the family room, her eyes wide and her head cocked. Sadie followed it and saw her mother standing there, tears in her eyes and her body sort of hunched.
Alice Sullivan
When she got home, Alice slammed the front door, kicked off her shoes, and ran upstairs to her bedroom. She yanked the zipper of the red dress down, wriggled out of it, and balled it up. She threw it in the back of her closet next to her summer sandals and grabbed a pair of black leggings. Her Elm Creek Soccer sweatshirt lay in front of her nightstand, where she’d thrown it off the night before. Once she’d turned the sleeves right-side-out and forced it over her head, she collapsed onto her bed and pushed back the hairs that had fallen into her face. She took a few breaths, felt her heart rate slow, and involuntarily replayed the scene at Julienne’s. She saw the glass smash against the siding. She watched the crystal leave her hand and heard the explosion as it shattered. There had been a big leftover piece of glass in front of the dogwood. Alice remembered a thick unbroken section from the bottom of the goblet, a razor-sharp parabola rising out of the woodchips. Had Adrian cried?
Alice would have cried if her mother had thrown a glass. She had cried when her mother had locked herself in her room that one time after the divorce and repeatedly slammed something—her fists?—against the wall. Alice had been five minutes from calling her grandmother for help when her mother had finally emerged from her room, her eyes red but her face calm. “Let’s order Vietnamese,” she’d said then. The next morning she’d muttered about the importance of emotional release.
Alice had left Julienne’s with the car. She pictured the Volvo in the garage and then imagined Patrick standing outside Julienne’s house with his Uber app open. All this chaos, and Thanksgiving was usually her favorite holiday. Guilty, Alice padded down to the mudroom, where she’d thrown her handbag on the bench next to a pair of pink stretchy gloves that hadn’t made it into their assigned basket. She grabbed her phone.
“I’ll come and get you,” she typed to Patrick. She stared at the labeled bins on the shelves.
Her phone buzzed. “We’re having pie,” Patrick wrote back. “Rafael said he’ll drive us home later. I’ll drive Teddy back tomorrow morning for soccer. No need to sleep over.”
Alice collapsed onto the built-in bench and tucked her stockinged feet into the extra storage shelves beneath her. They were all there—her whole family and her mom—eating pie at Julienne’s. While her first inclination was to pour an overflowing glass of wine, she decided instead on action.
She’d left pandemonium at Julienne’s, but she could stem it at home. She’d start her organizing in Adrian’s room. She’d clean out her bookshelves, find the lost reading logs, make some kind of spreadsheet. She couldn’t take back that glass. She couldn’t even pick up the shards herself, as she’d run out of the house like a teenager, but she could be ready for when the family got home.
And sure enough, when she heard them pile into the mudroom an hour and a half later, she had rearranged all of Adrian’s drawers and reorganized her bookshelf by genre. She ran down the stairs to greet the family, though a little knot of anxiety gripped her as she intercepted them in the kitchen.
“I’m so full,” Teddy was saying.
“Yeah,” Patrick added. “Can’t believe Mom missed the pecan pie.”
“There was pecan pie?” she asked, her voice softer than she’d meant for it to be.
Adrian stopped short when she saw her. She put her little hands on her hips. “You left!” she said.
“And you broke that glass. I can’t believe you did that.”
Teddy raised an eyebrow at her and walked by. “Beast mode, Mom.”
Patrick shook his head, though she could tell he’d already halfway forgiven her. “That’s going to be hard to repair,” he said. “You’ll have to send something from Arts & Flowers. Maybe a new glass.” He reached for her. “Or a set of them.”
Evelyn Brown
Evelyn let Alice’s first call that night go to voice mail. She had been drying the last of Julienne’s wedding china when it came in. Evelyn ignored Alice’s second call, too. Instead, she hugged the Martín family at the door. She apologized for what seemed like the fiftieth time to Julienne and Rafael for Alice’s behavior.
“Hey,” said Rafael finally, with conviction. “First, you’re not responsible for Alice’s choices; and second, these things—all these relationships—are going to take time.” This from the one adult in the room who didn’t have a degree in psychology. Evelyn knew he was probably right, and yet still, when she got to her car, she drove down the block, pulled over, and pummeled the steering wheel with her fists until the pads of her hands hurt. Tears dripped off her jaw onto her new blue sweater. Alice had been selfish and immature. She had wrecked Evelyn’s whole reunion. And she’d abandoned her family at a virtual stranger’s house for Thanksgiving dinner.
A virtual stranger’s house.
It was that phrase that compelled Evelyn to pull over again on the next block when Alice called for the third time.
“Yes?” she said. Her voice sounded cold, which matched how she felt.
“Mom.” Alice was breathless. “Thank God you picked up. Mom, I’m so sorry.”
Are We There Yet? Page 28