Since I’d missed one big family Thanksgiving, I’d already gotten kind of a handle on doing Thanksgiving dinners on my own. For this year, with everything at stake, I’d taken a few short cuts, ordering pies and a few side dishes from a catering company I know makes them well, while focusing on the turkey and stuffing and cranberries and a couple of odds and ends of my own. I’d spent the last couple of days prepping things at my apartment, while watching Riley, and now all I have to do is make sure the turkey comes out the right way, and the stuffing gets cooked through.
I make sure the turkey is doing what it’s supposed to be doing, and then find my father, seated in the living room. He’s been looking sulky and discontented ever since I arrived the night before, but he manages to give me a smile.
“If you want I can cut into one of those pumpkin pies for you,” I say, sitting down on the other end of the couch from him.
“I think I’ll hold off a bit,” Dad says, shifting in his seat and taking a sip of his coffee. The Parade is on, and he’s watching it, but I’ve never seen him looking quite as lonely as he does right now. I have a moment where it hits me again just how desolate my father’s life has gotten since my mother died and then my sister. Apart from me and Riley, who does he really have? A couple of friends he talks to, and my mother’s sister, who’s busy with my cousins’ lives.
“It’s going to be good to have everyone together, and do this for Riley,” I say, keeping my voice as light as possible. If I can keep a fight from happening before Ethan, his parents and Riley get here, I want to make sure to do just that.
“I don’t want to see Ethan or his parents,” Dad says sullenly.
“But you want to see me and Riley, right?” I raise an eyebrow and Dad nods.
“If that’s the only way I get to have my family around me for Thanksgiving, I’ll do it,” he says.
“Dad, I want to talk to you, before anyone gets here,” I say. I take a deep breath, my heart’s started pounding in my chest again. I don’t know, for about two seconds, if I can really go through with this.
“I figured you would,” Dad says. He gives me a slightly chilly smile and sets down his coffee.
“I need you to withdraw the case against Ethan,” I say firmly. I keep my face as neutral as possible, and hold my dad’s gaze as I tell him.
“I’m not going to do that, sweetie. He doesn’t deserve to be a father to Riley after everything he’s done. If it weren’t for him, Riley wouldn’t be getting shuffled between the two of you and Alexis would still be alive,” he says.
I count to three in my mind, controlling my initial reaction as best as I can.
“If it weren’t for him, Riley wouldn’t even exist,” I counter.
“He did one good thing in a slew of terrible ones. That doesn’t give him a pass,” Dad says sullenly.
“He’s Riley’s father, and he loves her. Would you have just sat by while someone tried to take me or Alexis away from you when we were kids?” I raise my eyebrows, giving my father a long, significant look.
“Of course not, but I didn’t rip apart a family to start my own,” Dad insists.
“Ethan’s goal wasn’t to rip a family apart, and if you’re going to blame him for that you need to blame Alexis just as much,” I point out.
“What?” Dad stares at me in shock.
“Alexis wasn’t some puppet. She made a choice. Just as much as Ethan made a choice,” I say. I don’t dare mention the one-night stand. Perhaps my dad knows or guessed, perhaps he doesn’t, but it is certainly not my place to say anything about the parents of his granddaughter.
“Choices that destroyed lives,” Dad says.
“The point stands that she could have told him no, and pushed him out of her life out of loyalty to me, and she chose not to. She ripped this family apart just as much as Ethan did. And she’s dead now, so what does that even matter at this point? The person who’s pulling what remains of this family to shreds is you.”
“I’m trying to re-consolidate my own family,” Dad says to me. I shake my head.
“I need to make something really, completely clear to you, Dad,” I tell him. I am suddenly aware that I have become the parent and he is the one behaving like a child. I take another quick, deep breath. My phone buzzes in my pocket and I’m pretty sure that it’s Ethan letting me know he’s on his way from his parents’ house.
“What’s that, Lara?” I hold my father’s gaze for a long moment, gathering my courage. No matter what I told Ethan the other day when we finally and firmly committed to this course of action, I’ve been having my own doubts too. My own cold feet. But we have to do this, and I know it.
“If you keep this suit up, then I’m going to testify in a way that will guarantee that you can’t have custody of Riley,” I tell him.
“Why would you do that?”
I press my lips together and swallow against the tight feeling in my throat
