“It wasn’t kidnapping. He brought him back,” I say, looking at Nicole. “You’re leaving out parts.”
Nicole cocks her head at me, and I return the gesture.
“Please, Nicole,” I say. “I just dug up my father’s ashes from the cemetery.”
“Well, actually,” Jack chimes in, “I dug them up.”
“I suppose you did do most of the work,” I say, looking at the cemetery dirt rubbed into his pant legs.
While we stand there discussing the details of Dad’s extraction from the ground, Michael walks up beside Nicole and wraps his arms around her leg.
“What’s that?” he asks, pointing to the urn.
“It’s your granddad.” Jack kneels down so he and Dad are eye to eye to urn with Michael. “I’m your uncle.”
Nicole puts her hand on top of Michael’s head and tries to push him behind her. He doesn’t budge.
“This isn’t a good idea,” Nicole says. “I’m not even sure I’m willing to give Ray another shot, so the whole family holiday thing is more than I can do. I’m sorry.”
“Please, Nicole,” I say.
She sighs and closes the door on us.
Jack stands up and shrugs at me.
There is more noise behind the door and, after a moment, Nicole and Michael emerge with coats and hats. The five of us walk in silence to my car.
“Are we going to Pizza Hut?” Michael asks once we’re on the road.
“No, sweetie,” Nicole says. “We’re going to dinner with some crazy people.”
“And your grandfather,” Jack says, looking into the backseat and holding up the urn.
“Let’s take him to Pizza Hut,” Michael says.
When I ring the bell at Mom’s, Lola answers the door.
“You’re late,” Lola says. “Everyone is already sitting down to dinner. Why did you ring the bell?”
“I don’t know,” I say exchanging the pizza box I’m holding for the urn in Jack’s hands.
“Oh, no,” Lola exclaims. “Is that Dad?”
She looks at the urn and then at me—and then at Jack and Nicole and Michael.
“Who is that?” Lola asks, nodding to Michael, who is clinging to Nicole’s leg. “Is that him?”
Awkward silence.
“Happy Thanksgiving,” Jack says overly enthusiastically, holding out the pizza box. “Bet you didn’t expect to see me again, huh? Yep, I’m back.”
“This is going to end badly,” Nicole says. “Michael, say hello to your Aunt Lola.”
Lola gasps. An audible and beautiful gasp.
Lola steps aside to let us pass. She grabs my hand and mouths “What are you doing?” to me. I can’t answer. I just walk past her. At the dinner table, surrounded by aunts, uncles, and cousins—all the usual suspects—I put Dad down in his spot, which had been left empty as I suspected it would be.
“Nina, what is that?” Mom scoots her chair back from the table, standing up as she speaks. “Where did you get that? Have you lost your mind?”
“We’ve all lost our minds,” I say. “But I think it might still be reversible.”
“Jack?” Mom nods to him. “Nice to see you. Ray, will you please bring in another chair?”
“Thanks for having me over,” Jack says, sounding like it’s our first date. He sets the pizza box down on the table in front of Dad. “Hey, sweetie,” he says to Cassie, whose face is lit with nervous excitement. “You look lovely.”
“Dad?” she asks like he’s a figment of her imagination.
He winks, and her eyes well up with tears.
Ray stands up to get a chair and sees Nicole and Michael standing behind us. Ray freezes, mid-motion like an actor in a high school play doing a freeze-frame so the audience will focus elsewhere. But they don’t. The aunts and uncles swivel their heads back and forth like they’re at a tennis match.
I nudge Ray into motion, and he slips past Nicole and Michael, touching her quickly on the arm. Everyone scoots their chairs and plates and glasses around to make room for three new guests. There is much tinkling of china and glass and silverware. Someone knocks over the bowl of dinner rolls, and one falls to the floor. Jack picks it up.
“Here you go, Rose,” he says and hands her the roll.
Everyone looks expectantly at me.
“Nina,” Mom whispers, “get your father off the dining room table. This is very uncouth.”
“Uncouth?” I wedge my seat between Mom and Jack. “Is that what’s bothering you? It isn’t proper? Dad doesn’t fit the table décor, maybe. Should I open him up and stick some daisies in there?”
“That’s gross,” Cassie says. “Can I sit by Dad?”
“Of course,” Jack says and waves Uncle Paul over a seat.
Ray comes back with two folding chairs from the garage. He opens the chairs and brushes them off. He frowns at their condition and makes Aunt Rose and an uncle we don’t see very often get up and switch seats.
“This is just like you to try to bring your father back from the dead,” Mom says and then sees Nicole and Michael for the first time now that they have sat down. “Nicole, I didn’t see you there.”
“I brought him back from the grave,” I clarify. “There’s a difference. Can I have the sweet potatoes, Uncle Paul?”
Uncle Paul puts down the glass of tea he’s been holding and reaches quickly for potatoes.
“Can I have a piece of pizza?” Michael speaks up.
Ray jumps up and presses himself past the other people at the table to get to the pizza box. He knocks over Uncle Paul’s glass of tea. I see Nicole smile just a bit.
“Me too,” Cassie says. “After all that hospital food and Grandma’s mush diet, I want some real food.”
Nicole looks at Cassie, and her eyes widen just a moment before she looks at me, and I know she’s transforming her abstract understanding that Michael has a cousin into the real fact that she and Michael have a family.
The doorbell rings, and everyone looks in that direction.
“I’ll get it,” I shout and jump up from the table.
I know who it will be. He’s already told me he was coming.
“Hey, babe,” Chris says to Lola when I’ve shown him to the table.
Lola stands up but doesn’t move
