Than to Have Never Loved at All

True Love is Pie

Thanksgiving with my family that year was pretty typical. On Thursday, we drove three hours north to visit my mom's family. They were right-leaning and just bigoted enough to be irritating. If I covered my legs, focused on the football game and ate pie I could survive unscathed.

Friday was the fun day. Every year my aunt, hungover from cooking her own giant Friendsgiving meal the day before would drag all of the leftovers she could manage to our house and spend the entire day bickering with her brother and telling Lei and I ridiculous stories about my parents. While she talked, I got to eat an entire second Thanksgiving meal, and that was my ideal holiday.

That year, my aunt told us how my parents met and after Lei finished asking important questions about flowers and where they went on dates, my aunt started telling the better, more embarrassing stories. I found out that my parents had shamelessly shown up in matching chicken costumes to their first Halloween party as an official couple. "That's where you get your don't-give-a-damn attitude from," my aunt said, pointing a fork at Lei who was wearing a gaudy batman costume and a tutu.

My parents decided they had had enough of story time and went to the kitchen to do dishes and avoid Aunt Penny.

I dug into desserts.

We were sharing the last few slices of an apple pie out of the pan from my lap, when my aunt turned to my little sister, looked her square in the eye and asked,

"How's Josie's new boyfriend?"

I thought it was a little low to ask my sister, but in the past four weeks, she hadn't gotten much information out of me so I could see why Lei was her only remaining option.

"He's fat," Lei said.

"Lei!" I looked accusingly at my little sister.

She gave me a look that said, "he is!" then looked back at my aunt and added, "and very cute."

"Is he nice though?" My aunt prompted her with one perfectly raised eyebrow.

"He bribed me with chocolate to like him, so yes." Lei nodded decisively.

I was confused.

"When did that happen?" I asked.

"When he came over to pick you up to go see that stupid pirate movie." Lei said. "He brought you a tiny chocolate cake and then I stole it."

"Does he know he bribed you?"

"Yes." Lei shrugged. "He seemed resigned to the fact that I would need to be bribed."

I chuckled, "Yeah, well, that sounds about right." I watched my little sister lick apple filling off her spoon and wondered if she would describe her "relationship" with Reid in the same way she described the one I had with Clinton.

"Hey, LeiLei." She looked up at me with her big brown eyes.

"Is Clinton as nice as Reid?"

"Yes." Lei said, "and he's always looking at you all dopey and in love like." She put the whole spoon in her mouth trying to get every last drop of pie filling off of it.

My aunt smirked at me. "All dopey and in love, eh?"

Lei popped the spoon out of her mouth. "Don't get sappy Aunt Pen. Jojo never looks at him like that. She only looks at food like that."

"I do not!"

"Jojo, you love food and sleeping, but that's it." Lei pulled the glass pie pan out of my hands, (my grip had been loosened by my surprise) hopped off her chair and wandered into the living room to watch Christmas specials with my dad.