“Sure thing, Lara,” she says, and I know she’s probably less than thrilled to help me, but it at least gets her out of the room. I’m pretty sure that Ethan can handle just his dad and mine for a few minutes while I finish setting things up with his mom.
“I appreciate that you were willing to come to Dad’s house for Thanksgiving, for Riley’s sake,” I say as I get the last of the place settings down on the table and start pouring water into glasses. Riley’s in her high chair, playing with the dolls I got for her, almost oblivious to what’s going on, but I can almost see the tension in her shoulders, in her jaw, like she’s waiting for something to change.
“We wanted to be with our granddaughter on the holiday, and this seemed like the easiest way,” Josie says.
“I’m glad that we can all be here, be around Riley, on a day like this,” I tell her. It’s stilted and awkward, but it’s what I can manage at a moment like this.
Finally, I call the others into the dining room. I figured that any discussion over who would carve the turkey would just be an opening to a fight, so I have the meat fork and the carving knife in my hands before anyone can even make a claim.
Ethan takes the dolls away from Riley to start serving her food, and she fusses. At first it just seems like the normal fussing that kids do when they have to put their toys down for anything, but when Ethan’s dad makes a sharp comment to my dad, something about toys being taken away, Riley’s upset deepens.
“I think this is enough white meat and dark meat to start with,” I say, pitching my voice as lightly as possible and just loud enough to cut through whatever my dad was about to say back.
“Let’s all get settled in, and have some of this delicious food,” Ethan suggests. I agree with him and he and I end up settling ourselves at the end of the table, on either side of Riley, while his parents take up a position opposite my father, and all three of the older people in the room have this vibe of tension between them.
“Where Mommy?”
I look at Riley quickly. It’s been weeks, maybe even months, since the last time I can remember her asking for her mother.
“She’s not here, peaches,” I tell her softly. “But we’re all going to have a good Thanksgiving, right everyone?” I turn away from my niece and send a hard look around the table to remind these grown men and woman that their two-year-old granddaughter is watching them and reacting to them.
“We are surely going to try,” Josie says.
I make sure that Riley has a little bit of everything, and Ethan takes over helping her get the food to her mouth, while I serve myself. His parents and my father take pretty ample portions of everything, but I notice right away that Dad’s barely taken enough of anything that Ethan’s parents brought to qualify as a serving. Ethan’s parents, in turn, have skimped on the turkey, of all the things they could have gotten as little of as possible.
I start in on my food and try to rack my brain for what to say, how to get a conversation going that won’t have anything to do with the court case or the vicious, toxic drama going on all around us as a family.
“These greens are excellent, Josie,” I say.
“Thank you, Lara, I know you’ve always liked them,” she replies.
It’s so tense at the table that you could almost chisel through the stony air between my dad and Ethan’s parents, and Riley starts to notice it again. I can almost sense her realizing the atmosphere without knowing how to explain it or what’s going on. Instead she just slows down in her eager eating and, once again, asks where her mother is, which of course just tightens everything around us all even more.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Ethan
If I thought that it would have been any easier to deal with the situation between my parents and Lara’s dad without Riley being involved, I never would have agreed to the Thanksgiving plan. Of course, now that we’re trying to make that plan happen, I almost feel like we both should have realized that our parents wouldn’t be able to hold it together enough for Riley not to notice.
“Where’s Mommy?”
I look at Riley and then at Lara. There’s nothing that we can tell my daughter that we haven’t already told her a dozen times, at least.
“She’s not here anymore, sweetie,” I tell Riley, the same as I’ve told her every time the question has come up. It hasn’t come up in weeks, not since a little bit before her birthday, even, but it always catches me off-guard because there’s no really good answer that a two-year-old can accept.
“Why?”
I look at Lara again.
“She can’t be here with us, baby girl,” Lara says.
“Why?”
If I thought it was awkward dealing with my parents and my father-in-law, it’s even more awkward dealing with my daughter’s sudden insistence in knowing what’s going on with her mother and why Alexis isn’t here.
“She’s gone, Riley. You remember how we saw the bug outside the other day, curled up and not moving, and we buried it in the park? It’s like that,” I tell her.
I know it doesn’t make any sense to Riley, and it’s probably appalling for everyone else at the table, but I have to give my daughter some kind of explanation, even if it’s one that she doesn’t really have
