“Really, Patrick,” says Gloria, “you don’t have to do this.” She goes over and sits down next to them and pulls Luna onto her lap. “Sweetie, it’s okay. Look, it’s just Patrick. See?” Gloria says, “May I?” and she touches Patrick’s face. So then Luna peeks out from between her fingers.

“Oh, for goodness sakes,” says Fritzie. “Come on, everybody. We’re all touching Patrick’s face! Everybody touch everybody’s face!”

She runs over and climbs on him and runs both her hands over his face, and then Luna does the same thing, laughing, and so does Tina. I hold my breath. “Come on, Laramie,” Fritzie says, and pretty soon all the kids are touching him and ruffling up his hair. And even though I’m nervous for him, he’s smiling at them and touching their faces, and then they’re rolling around on the floor, and the twins are giggling and Gloria is tickling them very gently.

“Thank you,” says Gloria. “Tell Patrick thank you.”

I have such a lump in my throat, because I always hope that stuff like this is going to be what heals my sweet, wounded Patrick, and I am like a little child anticipating Christmas watching him take it in. And when I can see that he’s not fixed from this at all, that he’s probably even annoyed some, I have to turn the music up even louder and dance around the kitchen with Marco on my hip, while I wait for the next possible healing thing to come along. When the bell rings, meaning that the rolls are browned and it’s time to take the platters into the dining room, I go in and juggle the baby and the pans, and I call everyone to eat.

“Dance line!” yells Fritzie, and she, Laramie, and the twins all join in an impromptu conga line to the dining room—but of course because it’s being led by Fritzie, it first goes to both the bedrooms and through the bathroom and the kitchen and is about to head out to the apartment/studio when I stop her, and at last I can persuade everybody to sit down and not stare at Patrick, so we can eat.

It’s chaotic and noisy—finding enough cushions to be booster seats for the littlest ones, and then all the passing of the potatoes and the cutting up of the turkey portions and the questions of white meat or dark meat, and the explanations for why there are marshmallow things on the sweet potatoes and fried onions on the beans. Nobody under the age of ten is even going to consider eating these things.

Bedford stations himself under the table right by the twins. He knows who’s likely to send some turkey his way.

I’m still discussing marshmallows when my cell phone rings from the kitchen.

“It’s probably just my parents wishing us a Happy Thanksgiving. I’ll call them later,” I say loudly.

But it rings again after it has stopped for a second. And then the whole series starts up again. And again. And again. Patrick gives me a pointed look.

“Oh, dear,” I say. “Maybe I’d better get this after all.”

“When you come back, can you bring the butter?” calls Patrick.

“And the milk!” yells Fritzie.

Marco rides on my hip into the kitchen, where I pick up my phone. It’s my mother’s number, I explain to Marco. He gazes at me steadily, as if he already knows we’re going to need to gird ourselves for this one.

“Hey, Happy Thanksgiving!” I say when I click the green button. “Are you at Natalie’s? We’re just sitting down to dinner, so can I call you back in about twenty minutes? We can all FaceTime.”

“Marnie?” she says in a staticky voice. “Marnie?”

“Hi, Mom. Our connection doesn’t seem all that good. Happy Thanksgiving!”

Marco tries to relieve me of my phone, but I twist it around so he can’t get it.

“Oh, sweetie. There you are,” my mother says.

“Yes, here I am. Listen. Can I call you back? We’re just sitting down to eat, and I’ll get everybody together in a few minutes and we can FaceTime. Are you at Natalie’s?”

“What?”

“Bobobobobo,” says Marco, and he now takes both of his wet hands and tries to wrest the phone away from me.

“ARE YOU AT NATALIE’S?” I yell.

“Bobobo.”

“Am I . . . what? Is there a baby on the line?”

“AT NATALIE’S, Mom. ARE YOU AT NATALIE’S?”

Marco laughs at my yelling.

“No, sweetie. I’m not. So your dad didn’t call you?”

“No! I mean, I don’t think he did.”

She laughs. “This is going to be a real shocker then, I’m afraid. But, honey, I’m outside your house; at least I think I am. I’m in an Uber. You are on Berkeley Place, right? I told the driver Berkeley Place, but then I wasn’t sure. What’s the number of the house?”

“Yes, it’s Berkeley,” I say in a daze. I give her the address. “You’re seriously right outside my house?” I start walking to the front door. When I pass the dining room, Patrick gets out of his chair and follows me.

“No, no, no,” he says. “This isn’t happening.”

I tilt the phone out of the way so she can’t hear. “I think it is happening.”

“Your mom is here? Like here here? Shit, Marnie.”

“I think like in front of the house, here.”

The Porcupine gathers his mental faculties and smooths out his features. He squares his shoulders and says in a stage whisper, “Okay, then. Let’s just go outside and meet her. I’ll bring in her bags. You know what, though?” he says. “At some point down the road I think we really need to examine what kind of life we have going on, that people keep surprising us on our own doorstep. Like, are we somehow asking for this?”

I open the door. “I don’t know why it’s happening, to tell you the truth. But there she is.”

My mother—wearing a fuzzy black coat, sunglasses, a black beret and leggings and boots, and with her blonde hair cut in a side-parted bob—is standing outside of a Lincoln Town Car. The driver gets out and opens up the trunk and hauls out three suitcases and puts them on the curb.

“Surprise!” she says and flings out her arms. Big smile. “Bet you never expected this on your Thanksgiving Day!”

“Hi,” says Patrick, heading down the stoop, looking manly and in charge. My mother smiles at him, and then when he reaches her, she grabs his arm and poses like they’re on a parade float.

“I would have called!” she yells to me. “But then I decided it would be so much more fun and spontaneous to just show up! To see the expression on your face! This is what you’re all about, right? Spontaneous?”

“It’s very spontaneous!” I call back down to her. “The height of spontaneity, if you ask me! Come on up!”

She gets busy talking to Patrick and hugging him. He picks up two of her suitcases in his hands and tucks the other one under his arm and comes up the steps. She waves the driver off and picks up her enormous handbag and comes right behind Patrick, talking the whole way up.

“Darling, I’m so glad to see you—and I feel like I’ve done the most crazy, most out of character thing of my whole life! Isn’t this fun, though? Oh! And who are all these adorable children? Do they all live in the building, too? Now which one is Fritzie?”