“Was this at your house?”
“My parents’. In Cape Cod,” she said. “It’s so funny. I look at all those children in the front row, and they’re all parents themselves now. And all my aunts have passed, of course. But everyone still looks so familiar, even as they were then. Like it was just yesterday.”
“You have a big family,” I told her.
“True,” she agreed. “And there are times I’ve wished otherwise, if only because the more people you have, the more likely someone won’t get along with someone else. The potential for conflict is always there.”
“That happens in small families, too, though,” I said.
“Yes,” she said, looking at me. “It certainly does.”
“Do you know who all these people are, still?” I asked.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Every one.”
We were both quiet for a moment, looking at all those faces. Then Elinor said, “Want me to prove it?”
I looked up at her. “Yeah,” I said. “Sure.”
She smiled, pulling the photo a little closer, and I wondered if I should ask her, too, the question for my project, get her definition. But as she ran a finger slowly across the faces, identifying each one, it occurred to me that maybe this was her answer. All those names, strung together like beads on a chain. Coming together, splitting apart, but still and always, a family.
Despite Cora’s concerns, when dinner did hit a snag, it wasn’t her fault. It was mine.
“Hey,” Jamie said as we cleared the table, having told Cora to stay put and relax. “Where are the pies?”
“Whoops,” I said. With all the time in the closet, not to mention the chaos of turkey for eighteen, I’d forgotten all about the ones over at Nate’s.
“Whoops,” Jamie repeated. “As in, whoops the dog ate them? ”
“No,” I said. “They’re still next door.”
“Oh.” He glanced into the dining room, biting his lip. “Well, we’ve got cookies and cake, too. I wonder if—”
“She’ll notice,” I said, answering this question for him. “I’ll go get them.”
It had been bustling and noisy at our house for so long that I was actually looking forward to the quiet of Nate’s house. When I stepped inside, all I could hear was the whirring of the heating system and my own footsteps.
Luckily, I’d set the timer, so the pies weren’t burned, although they were not exactly warm, either. I was just starting to arrange them back on the cookie sheets when I heard a thud from the other side of the wall.
It was solid and sudden, something hitting hard, and startled me enough that I dropped one of the pies onto the stove, where it hit a burner, rattling loudly. Then there was a crash, followed by the sound of muffled voices. Someone was in the garage.
I put down the pies, then stepped out into the hallway, listening again. I could still hear someone talking as I moved to the doorway that led to the garage, sliding my hand around the knob and carefully pulling it open. The first thing I saw was Nate.
He was squatting down next to a utility shelf that by the looks of it had been leaning against the garage wall up until very recently. Now, though, it was lying sideways across the concrete floor, with what I assumed were its contents—a couple of paint cans, some car-cleaning supplies, and a glass bowl, now broken—spilled all around it. Just as I moved forward to see if he needed help, I realized he wasn’t alone.
“. . . specifically said you should check the keys before you left,” Mr. Cross was saying. I heard him before I saw him, now coming into view, his phone clamped to his ear, one hand covering the receiver. “One thing. One thing I ask you to be sure of, and you can’t even get that right. Do you even know how much this could cost me? The Chambells are half our business in a good week, easily. Jesus!”
“I’m sorry,” Nate said, his head ducked down as he grabbed the paint cans, stacking them. “I’ll just get it now and go straight there.”
“It’s too late,” Mr. Cross said, snapping his phone shut. “You screwed up. Again. And now I’m going to have to deal with this personally if we’re going to have any hope of saving the account, which will put us even more behind.”
“You don’t. I’ll talk to them,” Nate told him. “I’ll tell them it was my fault—”
Mr. Cross shook his head. “No,” he said, his voice clenched. “Because that, Nate, is admitting incompetence. It’s bad enough I can’t count on you to get a single goddamned thing right, ever, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to have you blabbing about it to the clients like you’re proud of it.”
“I’m not,” Nate said, his voice low.
“You’re not what?” Mr. Cross demanded, stepping closer and kicking a bottle of Windex for emphasis. It hit the nearby lawnmower with a bang as he said, louder, “Not what, Nate?”
I watched as Nate, still hurriedly picking things up, drew in a breath. I felt so bad for him, and somehow guilty for being there. Like this was bad enough without me witnessing it. His voice was even quieter, hard to make out, as he said, “Not proud of it.”
Mr. Cross just stared at him for a moment. Then he shook his head and said, “You know what? You just disgust me. I can’t even look at your face right now.”
He turned, then crossed the garage toward me, and I quickly moved down the hallway, ducking into a bathroom. There, in the dark, I leaned back against the sink, listening to my own heart beat, hard, as he moved around the kitchen, banging drawers open and shut. Finally, after what seemed like forever, I heard him leave. I waited a full minute or two after hearing a car pull away before I emerged, and even then I was still shaken.