Chapter Thirty-Four

ETHAN

If I thought that it would have been any easier to deal with the situation between my parents and Lara’s dad without Riley being involved, I never would have agreed to the Thanksgiving plan. Of course, now that we’re trying to make that plan happen, I almost feel like we both should have realized that our parents wouldn’t be able to hold it together enough for Riley not to notice.

“Where’s Mommy?”

I look at Riley and then at Lara. There’s nothing that we can tell my daughter that we haven’t already told her a dozen times, at least.

“She’s not here anymore, sweetie,” I tell Riley, the same as I’ve told her every time the question has come up. It hasn’t come up in weeks, not since a little bit before her birthday, even, but it always catches me off-guard because there’s no really good answer that a two-year-old can accept.

“Why?”

I look at Lara again.

“She can’t be here with us, baby girl,” Lara says.

“Why?”

If I thought it was awkward dealing with my parents and my father-in-law, it’s even more awkward dealing with my daughter’s sudden insistence in knowing what’s going on with her mother and why Alexis isn’t here.

“She’s gone, Riley. You remember how we saw the bug outside the other day, curled up and not moving, and we buried it in the park? It’s like that,” I tell her.

I know it doesn’t make any sense to Riley, and it’s probably appalling for everyone else at the table, but I have to give my daughter some kind of explanation, even if it’s one that she doesn’t really have the ability to get. My daughter nods but I can tell she doesn’t get it, she just wants someone to tell her something.

Riley turns her attention onto her grandparents, and I try to get her to get back to eating, pulling her attention onto the cranberry sauce I know she loves, or the turkey. My parents and Lara’s father are still eating, but the sheer level of the tension in the room is making even me uncomfortable.

“I have to say, I’m really grateful we could do this,” Lara says, trying to do her best to get through it, and I have to admire her ability to just keep going.

“Why Gramma mean?”

My mother pauses in her eating to look at my daughter.

I look sharply at Riley.

“What do you mean, little lamb?”

“Gramma mean face,” Riley insists, frowning at my mother. I know what she means, but of course, none of us can say anything about it. It’s that sour look that Mom gets every few moments, glancing at either Nathan or Lara.

“Why don’t we get you a little bit of pie, sweetie?” Lara says trying to change the course of the conversation.

Riley’s eaten just enough of her actual dinner to justify giving her dessert, and I want her out of the room as quickly as possible. In any case, she needs a nap, and she needs to get away from the tense atmosphere.

Lara gets her some pie, and we manage to get through the next few minutes as Riley makes pumpkin and pecan paste on her plate and finally gets some into her mouth. Mom and Dad talk about everything but the family, and Nathan is silent. Lara and I have to just try to focus on Riley without making it weird.

“Isn’t it good?” Riley nods in response to Lara’s question.

“Yummy!” She beams at Lara and I catch just the briefest glimpse of that sour look on my mom’s face again before she asks Dad about one of his clients at work.

“Can you say ‘pumpkin’, Riley?” I ask.

Riley screws up her face into a twisted expression of concentration, as she thinks about my question. “Punkin!”

“That’s pumpkin, that’s pecan,” Lara says, pointing them out.

“Punkin! Pee-kin!” Riley giggles, and I’m starting to think that we might just get through this, that things might be getting back to normal at least for an hour or two, long enough for us to finish the Thanksgiving meal.

Riley finishes her slices of pie and Lara looks at me as she finishes her own plate of food. We’ve been taking turns eating and supervising Riley’s eating, and I’ve managed one helping of the dinner. I want a little more, but first we need to get Riley down for her nap.

“I’ll take her if you want,” Lara says, once we’ve got Riley cleaned.

“Let’s both go,” I suggest. I know it’s probably not that great an idea, leaving my parents alone with Nathan, but I need to get out of the room as much as my daughter does, even if I understand the situation while she doesn’t.

Lara gives me a look, but after a moment, she nods for me to follow her into Alexis’ old room. Riley’s already looking sleepy, and as soon as we’re out of the grandparents’ company, she begins to relax in a way she hasn’t since we arrived.

“Nap time?” Riley yawns hugely, in spite of the tone in her voice that tells me that she wants to argue.

“Yes, it’s time to have a little sleep,” Lara tells her. Riley frowns but then yawns again, and I think to myself that it’s only going to take a few minutes to actually get her down.

We get her onto Alexis’ old bed. It’s awkward again for a minute or two, and I’m pretty sure that Lara is thinking of her sister, just like I’m thinking of my wife. But the moment passes as Riley asks for a story. Lara looks at me and then curls up on the bed next to my little girl, relaxing.

“There once was a smart, beautiful little girl named Haley,” Lara says, starting in on a story. I’ve heard her tell Riley stories before, but every time I see it, it’s just beautiful to me. Alexis would read to Riley, but never made up stories like Lara, just out of the blue.

It’s a little bit of magic in a stressful day, watching Riley’s eyelids get heavier and heavier, listening to Lara while I sit at the foot of the bed, watching them both. If I didn’t know better, I’d almost think that Riley was Lara’s daughter, instead of my wife’s. That opens up a thought that I should probably not be thinking. What would my life be like if Lara and I never broke up, or if Alexis and I hadn’t got together years after Lara dumped me?

Before too long, Riley’s given up any fight with nap time, and she’s not quite snoring, sprawled out on the bed with a little blanket covering her. I silently put up the barrier to keep her from falling off the edge while she naps, and Lara and I creep out of the room as quietly as we can.

By the time we get downstairs, though, it’s obvious just how bad an idea leaving our parents alone was, we barely get to the bottom of the staircase and I hear my mother’s voice, raised almost to a shout, and Nathan’s voice cutting through hers. Obviously, we’ve been away just long enough for them all to get into a fight.