A Heartwarming Thanksgiving

by Amy Vastine

  Maybe because the natural slowing down of their initial passion, the settling into a love that was taken for granted to be for a lifetime, had highlighted, for her, his secrecy.

  She did know that he’d been shuffled around to various foster care homes in the LA area from the time he was twelve until he won a full ride scholarship to UCLA, where they met. She didn’t know a single name of a single person he’d lived with during those foster years.

  She’d asked. She’d told him all her secrets. She’d tried to explain how badly she needed to see his inner self. He’d given her nonessential answers.

  But, “You seemed to care less,” was all she said.

  She didn’t want to do this. Not now. Not ever. Didn’t want to tear down the tenuous bond that would allow a lasting friendship between them.

  He must have felt the same, because he let the matter drop.

  * * *

  Joe had just finished carving the turkey when the phone rang. He was closest and picked it up. Out of habit. Cor was mashing potatoes.

  “Joe? It’s me, Janie. Oh, Joe, is Cor there, too? Put me on speaker phone….”

  Corinne’s glance was curious. “It’s Janie,” he said, his thumb on the button that would bring their friend’s voice into the room. “She’s crying,” he warned softly. The show wasn’t due to air for another half hour. They were going to eat first, and then watch.

  At Cor’s nod, he pushed the button and said, “We’re both here.” If the news were bad, Cor would handle it. She always did.

  “Cor?”

  “Yeah? What’s wrong? Is it Dawson? Do you need us to come down?”

  “No! Oh, you guys, I just can’t believe it…” Her voice trailed off on an obvious sob and Joe exchanged a glance with Corinne. “I just…I just have to get a hold of myself. But…I never thought…”

  “Janie,” Cor’s voice was firm. And yet still sounding like sunshine. “Where are you?”

  “I’m at the studio. They told us to be here two hours before the show aired. It’s a live show, but I didn’t know they actually tape it before it goes on. It’s over already. I won!”

  The last words were so loud they’d have heard without the speaker magnification.

  “I won, you guys! I’m going to be a contestant on the next season of Family Secrets! Can you believe it? And if I win that, Dawson and I are home free. My little guy will be able to have years of extra therapies if he needs them and…”

  “You won?” Cor’s mouth hung open after the last word. “You really won? I mean, I know you’re the best when it comes to cooking, but…national TV, Janie? You made it! Oh my gosh, I’m so proud of you, sweetie! Are you on your way home, now? How’d Dawson do?”

  The questions and answers flew back and forth while Joe listened. Dawson did great. He didn’t like the bright lights on stage, but when Janie picked him up and stepped back out of the lights, the little guy had grinned and waved non-stop and the audience loved him. They’d been invited to a private dinner with Natasha Stevens and some of her people, to discuss the upcoming season, and she’d call whenever they were through. She told them to be sure and watch the show.

  They’d both assured her they would.

  And then Janie was gone, leaving her good news floating around the room with only Joe and Corinne to corral it.

  He waited for her to do so.

  To say something.

  To get them back on an even keel and into dinner.

  She mashed the potatoes when they were ready. Stirred gravy. Didn’t say a word.

  The tension that had been building within Joe all day—and maybe for months—was excruciating.

  He needed to leave. To move forward. To not look back.

  But for once in his life, he couldn’t.

  CHAPTER SIX

  She had to say something. As she stirred the gravy, thinking about what bowl to put the potatoes in, Corinne tried to find her joy.

  She had Janie’s joy to lean on. But for some reason Joe looked unhappier than she’d ever seen him. It was her job to cheer him up. To focus on good so that bad didn’t get them.

  So that drama didn’t overwhelm them. So she could think, maintain homeostasis, be in control…

  Of what? A condo she lived in all alone?

  The gravy blurred before her eyes. Joe couldn’t see her cry….

  “After Dawson was born, that’s when things really changed.”

  She heard his words. Couldn’t look up yet. Not until she blinked another time or two. Slowly. So that the tears didn’t spill over onto her cheeks.

  “How so?” she asked, just curious.

  “It became obvious to me then that you wanted to have a baby.”

  She did not. She… Wait. He was…venturing into territory they didn’t travel. Not out loud.

  “I agreed with you before we ever got married that I didn’t want children, Joe,” she stated the obvious. Trying to figure out what he was doing. “That was a pretty key point for both of us. And one of the things that made us so right for each other.”

  “I know. But we don’t stay the same forever….”

  What was he really telling her? That he wanted kids? He was great with Dawson, but…

  “Do you want kids?” she asked. Hoping he couldn’t see how badly her hand was shaking, she clutched the spoon tighter. Stirred more deliberately. And held her breath while she waited for his answer.

  She didn’t care what it was. Just wanted him to give her something of himself again. Something real.

  “No,” he said. And her stomach dropped. “I, unequivocally, did not change my mind. But I knew you had.”

  So he was saying that was why he’d pulled away from her?

  “Maybe you should have let me decide that.”

  “You were always going to stick to your word, Cor. To our agreement. You were always going to make the best of not having children. But you weren’t going to be truly happy. You’re meant to be a mother.”

  She thought of her years growing up. Of being ten and having to hold her baby siblings while her mom cooked. Having to play with toddlers instead of kids her own age so her mom could do laundry and nurse and clean toilets. The years she’d cleaned toilets so her mom could run a kid to one of a gazillion places. And the years when she and Janie would be in her parents’ car, running kids places, instead of out with the rest of the kids.

  She thought. And tried to remember how out of control it all felt. How trapped she’d been. Tried to remember the panic. The headaches.

  And wondered when those feelings had been replaced with a sense of joy in the midst of the chaos.

  “Why, Joe? Why don’t you want kids?”

  She’d asked. A long time ago. His answer had been typical of him. Something about his drive to succeed. His promise to himself that he’d never bring a kid into the world who didn’t come first. Back then those reasons had made sense.

  But now? They weren’t kids anymore.

  And Dawson…

  He’d turned around. Was going to leave the room.

  “Joe?” Her voice broke. He stopped. “Please, Joe. I need to know.” She was blinking furiously, but the tears fell anyway.

  But one thing was very clear to her.

  There wasn’t a smidgen of joy in them.

  * * *

  He could walk away. His legs worked. The door was only yards away. Joe knew when to hold his cards. When to fold them. As the old song said. He knew when to walk away. His uncanny ability to predict how things would go had made him a success beyond his own expectations in the field of finance. He knew when to buy. When to sell. So much so that some of the state’s richest men trusted his judgment over their own.

  He’d fought his battle and won. He’d overcome.

  He wasn’t going back. That had been his promise to himself. It was how he’d survived. Escaped his genetic heritage.

  He could hear Cor behind him. Could hear a spoon against a pan. And a bowl. She was serving up the potatoes.

&nbs
p; He knew she was crying. But wouldn’t turn around to verify.

  He was standing on a precipice. A double edged sword. If he went back, death awaited. And ahead felt like death, as well.

  He recognized the point, though he’d never been there before. It was going to define the rest of his life.

  “I lied to you, Cor.” The words burned his throat as they passed through.

  “About what?” She continued to move around the kitchen. Set the pan down. Opened a cupboard. He heard her.

  “My parents didn’t die in a boating accident.”

  All movement behind him ceased. Inside, civil war had broken out. In his mind’s eye he saw the sun, the blue skies. Felt the cool spray of the Pacific Ocean on his twelve year old skin.

  They were on another adventure. He and his parents, who’d been in college in the sixties and thrived on adventure. They’d just returned after leaving him home alone for a couple of days….

  “How’d they die?” Corrine sounded calm. Ordinary. Still far enough behind him.

  He bowed his head. “They didn’t.”

  He waited through her silence while she found her joy. Though goodness knew how she’d find joy in this one. But if he was going to live, or die, he was going to do it as himself.

  He was done running.

  Running was living like his parents did. Being them. Why he hadn’t seen that before, he didn’t know.

  But Cor had. On some level, she’d known. She’d loved him enough to see. And on that same level, he’d known she’d known.

  He turned, afraid, and lost, and yet, found at the same time. Wearing everything openly, letting her see into his soul, he faced her…back. Her hands were on the sink, she was leaning against them. Frozen there.

  “They’re in prison, Cor. For the rest of their natural lives. While I’d thought they were traveling on business for the first twelve years of my life, it turned out neither of them had ever held a job in their lives. They were a modern day Bonnie and Clyde.”

  They’d been wanted for a string of robberies all over the continental US that had spanned more than a dozen years. Had been so good they’d been on the FBI’s most wanted list. What had gone wrong, how they’d finally been caught, he’d never been sure.

  What he had been sure of was that he wasn’t going to be like them. He was going to learn how money worked. How to make it honestly. And then to make enough of it that he’d never ever be the least bit tempted, or find himself in any way desperate enough, to even think about being a chip off the block.

  “And this is why you don’t want children.”

  He needed her arms around him like he’d never needed them before. She still hadn’t turned around.

  “Yes,” he said, knowing that in her distance, he was getting what he’d earned. And determined that he would pay for the wrong he’d done her. Give her what she needed—the truth. “It’s horrible growing up knowing that you were born to a family of criminals. To either have to lie about your family, or have people react with fascinated horror. And then judge you accordingly. To spend your whole life trying to escape what you are. To prove to others, and mostly to yourself, that you aren’t what you are.”

  It was what it was. Too bad it had taken him half his life to realize that. It had taken him losing the one thing he’d valued most, to show him that in a way, he was just like his parents.

  And in another way, he wasn’t like them at all.

  “This one foster mother I had,” he said now, slowly. “Her name was Bella…she told me that environment is much more impactful on who a person becomes than heredity.”

  He’d done a lot of studying on the genetics versus environment theories. And hadn’t been able to confirm or dispute her findings. There’d been sufficient theory to substantiate both sides.

  Cor turned then. She didn’t reach for him, take him to her heart as he’d hoped. She stood there, tears in her eyes, and shook her head, before asking, “What do you want from me, Joe?”

  He wanted…her. All of her. Her love. Her life. And probably her children, too.

  But couldn’t find the words. Didn’t have the courage to ask. And maybe didn’t find himself worthy. Even now.

  * * *

  When Joe turned around and left the kitchen, left her standing there, Corinne thought she felt her heart crack in two. She sank down to the floor and cried. Really cried. With a complete absence of joy.

  She’d failed Joe. Failed herself.

  And it hurt.

  She knew the world wasn’t ending. But a lifetime was.

  She’d be fine. So would he.

  But she also faced the fact that sometimes life existed without joy. And that unless she could accept that, deal with the unjoyful times, she was only going to be half alive.

  And very much alone.

  Corinne didn’t hear Joe leave the condo. But figured he must have done. Until she stood up and saw his keys on the counter.

  Had he walked out without him?

  Walked away without them?

  Called a cab?

  Had he…

  Moving in slow motion, she glanced at the food getting cold on the counter and headed toward the living area. Maybe he was still outside. On the porch. Maybe she could catch him.

  She got two feet into the room and stopped. Joe stood there, hands at his sides, staring at her. She couldn’t look away from his eyes. They were saying so much, more than she could comprehend. She was afraid to move.

  “I need the food,” he said aloud. Definitely not one of the conglomeration of messages she was reading.

  “Okay.” Through her confusion she was getting a couple of key points. He hadn’t left. And still planned to eat with her.

  She glanced at the table, out of habit, to make certain it was set with everything they’d need.

  It wasn’t set at all.

  Like her life, the table was completely bare.

  He needed the food. To take with him? Corinne was going to turn back to the kitchen. Pack up Thanksgiving dinner for Joe to take home with him. To eat on his own. Just as soon as her legs would move.

  His glance toward the television reminded her that they had to watch Janie’s show. She glanced that way, too, wondering if they were too late.

  And stopped.

  The coffee table had been moved aside. Her grandmother’s tablecloth was there, spread open upon the carpet. The dishes were there, too. The good silver from the drawer in the bedroom. Napkins. Napkin holders.

  “Happy Valentine’s Day,” he said. For a split second she was confused. And then she knew.

  The first time he’d hurt her so badly she’d cried had been the Valentine’s Day in their first home. She’d made it a celebration. He hadn’t.

  “Happy Thanksgiving.” He said next, as they both stood there, staring at that tablecloth filled with dishes. And so much more.

  “I’m a reticent man by nature, Cor. But I love you. And I’m done running.”

  Corinne ran to him. Throwing her arms around him, she burst into tears. Slobbering and messy and…alive.

  “I’m done running, too,” she promised him, hardly daring to believe she was getting this second chance. She pulled back enough to look him straight in the eye. “I want the drama, Joe. The bad with the good. If I could handle it when I was ten, I can handle it now. Life isn’t perfect. I might panic now and then. Get tension headaches. I might yearn for children. You might never be okay with having any. But that’s real. It’s living. And I want to live, Joe. With you. Forever.”

  “I want that, too,” he told her, meeting her gaze head on, letting her see a hint of the deep emotion lurking inside him. “I don’t ever want there to be mention of divorce in the context of us again.”

  She smiled even though she was trembling. “Maybe with the number of times we’re cancelling the signing, they’ll ban us from asking….”

  He was holding her so tight, she could have passed out and still been standing upright. She held as securely on to him. And had
a feeling that they’d both be holding on to each other that way for the rest of their lives.

  Joe kissed her. Long and with a passion she didn’t remember from the past. Promising a future better than anything she’d ever imagined.

  “We need the food,” he said, when he finally lifted his head.

  She’d forgotten about the food.

  “I set the table,” he told her. And she heard the vulnerability in his voice. He needed to know she could forgive him. And needed to know, too, that what he had to offer was enough.

  “Tell me. Why the green beans and mushroom soup out of a can?”

  “It’s how Bella made them.”

  With fresh tears in her eyes, Corinne took his hand and led him out to collect the dinner with which they’d offer their thanks. Maybe next year they’d be in Chicago. Or have a baby. Or be in Chicago with a baby.

  Maybe Janie and Dawson could go with them.

  She was open to it all. To whatever the next year, the next years brought. Because by accepting all that life had to offer, she had a bare table, but a life that was, for the first time, completely filled with joy.

  * * * * *

  Be sure to check out the books in Tara Taylor Quinn’s FAMILY SECRETS miniseries!

  FOR LOVE OR MONEY

  HER SOLIDER’S BABY

  Available now from Harlequin Heartwarming.

  And look for the next FAMILY SECRETS story from Tara Taylor Quinn, THE COWBOY’S TWINS, coming in January 2017!

  Thanksgiving Turkey Dressing by Tara Taylor Quinn

  I make this dressing from scratch every year—and it is featured in my novella!

  Ingredients

  16 ounces dried bread cubes (bagged or homemade)

  6 stalks celery, finely chopped

  1 medium-sized Vidalia onion, finely chopped

  Turkey drippings, either from the pan the bird is cooked in or from cooking the gizzard, enough to moisten but not saturate (amount depends on what kind of bread crumbs are used). I let a little turkey meat slip in, as well.

  1 teaspoon sage

  1 teaspoon cumin

  Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 300 °F.