The Dance (Original Series Part 2)

Really I Don't Want To Know

*Well, this is it...:(

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Stevie had set a beautiful table for Thanksgiving Dinner. The festive fall harvest centerpiece matched the burnt orange and tan table linens, her best dishes were all ready to be topped with an amazing turkey dinner, and all that was left was to putting the individual place cards with little pumpkins and everyone's names on them beside everyone's place setting.

"I'll do that, Stevie," Robin said as she came into the kitchen, holding a glass of wine. "You have enough going on in here."

"Thanks," Stevie said, pulling the rolls out of the over just in time. "Oh and hey, tell everyone when you get back out there that dinner's on in like five minutes."

"No problem." Robin picked up the place cards from where they sat on the counter and handed her nearly full glass of wine to her best friend. "Here, take it," she said. "You need this more than I do." She smiled.

"Bless you," Stevie said, and she kissed her best friend on the cheek before taking a generous sip. "You are officially what I'm thankful for."

"I can't believe you can say that when I brought my son here to rile up the kids and tear your house up." They shared a laugh, looking out toward the living room where Matthew, sixteen and the oldest of all the kids, ran through the living room past three men engrossed in a football game on TV and two little girls and a boy followed. Jessi, of course, thought the sun rose and set in Matthew, but her cousins, Aaron and Sara, worshipped him even more. Stevie watched as her son tossed a basketball to Matthew and Stevie took her oven gloves off and threw them down on the counter. Stevie had to shout over the sound of Van Morrison's "Moondance" playing on the stereo, which drowned out the sound of the football game on TV. When Kim had mentioned that, Stevie had turned to him, a pile of CDs in her hand to load into the stereo, and simply said, "I hope so." Lindsey, who'd only been watching the game because the other two men were, had kissed her and said, "Good one."

"Aaron Morris Buckingham, no throwing balls in the house!" Stevie called out to her son, who looked instantly guilty. And to Lindsey, who sat in between Kim and Christopher, she said, "Lindsey, please tell your son to act like a civilized human being?"

"Listen to your mother, kid. She's feeding us," Lindsey told his son, and with that, Aaron followed Matthew, his hero and best friend, up the stairs. His sister Sara followed, holding hands with her cousin Jessi because both little girls had on their long velvet Thanksgiving dresses and it was hard for both of them to take their tiny legs up the stairs without tripping over the beautiful fall garland of leaves and pine cones and little moons that Stevie had strung along the stairs last night before falling into bed beside Lindsey, exhausted, making sure the kids were sleeping safely and tucked in first and that the baby monitor's volume was turned up high.

Robin came back into the kitchen holding a fussy, crying baby girl in her own, much smaller, velvet holiday dress. Stevie immediately turned her attention to the sound of her daughter's cries.

"Somebody needs Mommy," Robin announced, bouncing baby Amber to calm her down but to no avail. Stevie held out her arms to take the baby from Robin, and moved Amber up to her shoulder once she held her.

"Oh, come on, Amber Rose, it's not so bad," Stevie said softly to her baby girl in a voice she used only for her. "You're Mommy's little butterball." Neither she nor Lindsey had planned on having a third child, and it had pushed back a Buckingham Nicks tour of the south and southwest by a year, but as soon as she'd heard her baby girl's heartbeat in the doctor's office, her eyes had filled with tears and she'd looked at Lindsey, who'd been holding her hand at her side, and they knew. The Buckinghams were meant to be a party of five.