Head Above Water

23. Thanksgiving

“Mom, what time is Tom coming?” I asked as I joined her in the delicious smelling kitchen.

My mom had been casually dating someone for a couple weeks and it was apparently going really well. She’d asked a few days prior whether I minded her inviting him to Thanksgiving dinner, as she really wanted to introduce him to me. She had always had the policy for potential boyfriends that they had to gain my approval before she’d get serious about them, so tonight would be Tom’s big test. I could tell she was already really into this guy though, so I was hoping he was a keeper.

“Six,” she answered. “I asked him to come before your friend so you can get a little one on one time first.”

It was five now, so that gave me half an hour to prep the apple crisp I was making for dessert and half an hour to get ready. I’d told Rick to come at 6:30, so that gave me another half hour to interrogate Tom. “Cool. I’m gonna start the apple crisp now then. Will I be in your way?”

“Nope. I’m just about done here,” she said cheerfully. My mom was a total wiz in the kitchen. I wasn’t bad, but I was mostly just good at baking and desserts. She was good at everything. She’d already made stuffing, green beans, a sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes and gravy, and she had a gorgeous looking turkey currently baking in the oven. She was a goddess. I had no idea how she juggled everything, not to mention making it look effortless.

The one thing my mom could not make as well as me though, was my apple crisp. We had an old family recipe that I’d tweaked in secret one year and everyone had loved it. Since I refused to tell her what the changes were, she insisted that I just have to bake it myself every year then—and I’d done just that for the last three years.

My mom placed one final dish into the oven before standing and wiping her hands on a towel. “There. Kitchen’s all yours.”

“Thanks. So you want to tell me a bit about Tom before he gets here?” I asked as I gathered my ingredients from around the kitchen. “You told me he’s an engineer and you met him at Starbucks. That’s about it.”

“Sure,” she smiled, taking a seat at the bar. “He’s two years older than me. He has a huge family—four brothers and two sisters and all except one are married, so there are 12 of them including him. Then there are the kids. I think he said he had 17 nieces and nephews.”

I looked up from the bowl where I was sifting flour and brown sugar together, my jaw gaping. Our family was tiny in comparison. My mom had been an only child, just like me, and all four of my grandparents were gone. I’d known my grandmothers before they passed away, but I’d never met my grandfathers.

“I know,” she laughed. “His parents are both still around and apparently they’re all a very close-knit family. Instead of people switching off holidays and stuff, everyone goes to his parents’ house—even the in-laws—so their gatherings are huge. I don’t know how they convinced everyone to do that. Maybe the in-laws are kind of like us,” she mused. “No big celebration to of their own really.”

“Wow. So what are they? Irish? Italian? Who else has huge families?” I joked.

She nodded. “Irish.”

“I can’t even picture that household during the holidays,” I said with a grimace. I loved the holidays—especially the food part—but I wasn’t a fan of huge gatherings. Small and intimate were more my speed.

“Well try to, ‘cause if it works out between us, we’ll be going to his next year,” she said. “As it is they’ve threatened to excommunicate him for ditching them this year.”

I chuckled, picturing a large, boisterous family like the one in My Big Fat Greek Wedding or something. It could be entertaining—for one year maybe. After that I’d have to find a way to beg out of it if she and Tom worked out. I loved spending time with family, but one-on-one, not all at once.