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They were married in the clubhouse, a week before Thanksgiving.
Not long ago, Jenny would have sworn up and down and all over that she’d never even step foot in the Bulls’ clubhouse again, much less hold her wedding ceremony in the party room, next to the bar and the pool table and in full sight of the obscene pinball machine.
After the night that she’d told him she was pregnant and they’d decided to hurry the wedding up, they’d spent about a day talking about the wheres and hows. Maverick had suggested they just go to the courthouse, but he’d visibly flinched when he’d said the word, and Jenny didn’t want their marriage associated with his other experiences in that place—she had her own bad memories of the last time she’d been in the courthouse.
So then where? It was November, and the blush of warmth they’d had when they’d moved had faded. The weather was grey and cold, so they couldn’t exactly go to a park or something like that. A church was out of the question. When he’d suggested a banquet hall, some generic, tacky box of a place, Jenny had seen the obvious: there was only one place they could get married.
He’d been surprised when she’d suggested the clubhouse, and he’d resisted for reasons not unlike hers for resisting the courthouse. He didn’t want her to be uncomfortable. He wanted their memories of this event to be only good.
But she wasn’t uncomfortable with the Bulls anymore. She didn’t love them all, but she’d found friends—Willa and Leah, and Gunner, too. Even Rad. Mo was...Mo, and Jenny had some rough history with her, but she was being nice. Everybody was being nice and not overly condescending or suspicious.
What was more, she herself was less suspicious and tentative. Maybe it was just that she’d been on her own and lonely for such a long time, but she felt less vulnerable to judgment and, consequently, she felt less judged.
Whatever it was, she’d noticed it on the day she and Kelsey had moved in with Maverick, when the entire Bulls family had helped. Watching Maverick with his brothers, with the other old ladies, watching them all love Kelsey and show that love freely, she’d seen it: they were her family, too.
So they got married in the clubhouse, with Gunner and Willa standing with them, and Kelsey standing between them, holding their hands. And Mr. and Mrs. Turner standing right up front.
Jenny wore a crème lace dress that she found at the mall, and a pair of simple pumps. Kelsey wore a mint-green dress with shiny black Mary Janes. They’d had their hair done together that morning, matching updos, and tendrils fell in little airy ringlets down the back of Kelsey’s neck. Maverick wore jeans and his kutte, over a black button shirt.
The Reverend Matilda Fielder, of the Glory to the Savior Fellowship Church, the storefront church at the other end of the block, presided, and after the five-minute exchange of vows and plain gold bands, after Maverick kissed the shit out of her while their daughter looked on and the club cheered, the Bulls opened the doors to the neighborhood, and they all partied.
It wasn’t the kind of wedding that magazines featured on their covers, but it was just the right wedding for them.
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~oOo~
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“Hey, Mo.” Jenny stepped beside her at the Delaneys’ huge dining room table and picked up a stack of china plates. “I’ll help.”
Mo gave her a sidelong look. “Thanks, love.”
The warm rumble of family chaos filled the silence as the women set the table. With all its leaves in and a folding banquet table at the end, the table extended through the large dining room, well into the living room. The whole thing was covered with crisp, smooth white linen, and would hold the entire Bulls family and then some. Mo Delaney did not think small when she entertained.
Jenny had made a decision, but now that she meant to act on it, her brain had seized up. But this was a good time. It was Thanksgiving, and they were, for now, alone together, almost in private. Finally, after she had circled the table, placing a plate before each chair, while Mo laid out silverware, she screwed up her courage and said, “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Sure.” She answered without looking up, arranging a knife on a folded linen napkin.
“No.” She put her hand on Mo’s arm to stop her work. “I mean really talk.”
Mo stopped and stood up straight. She met Jenny’s regard head on and waited.
Before her brain could fail her again, Jenny jumped in. “I want to tell you I’m sorry. Truly sorry.”
“For?” Mo asked, but Jenny knew she knew.
“I said something terrible to you once. I think it’s the meanest thing I’ve ever said to anyone. God, I hope it is. I hope I’ve never been worse than that. It was terrible, and I’m sorry. I know you and I are never going to be great friends, but I just...I just want you to know that I hated myself for saying it then, and I’ve always been sorry.”
Jenny had no idea how old Mo was. In her fifties, maybe? Something like that? She was a severely beautiful woman—a striking kind of beauty, all in contrasts. Fair skin. Dark, nearly raven-black hair. Black, arching brows. Pale, piercing blue eyes. Cheekbones for days. There was nothing at all approachable in that beauty. To Jenny, she looked almost exactly like the Evil Queen in Snow White.
The expression that Jenny’s words had provoked was a picture of the Queen’s imperial contempt, and she instantly regretted opening her mouth.
Mo set her handful of silverware on the table with a tinkling clatter. “Do you know why Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, Jenny?”
Jenny shook her head, afraid to make more dangerous words.
“It’s the only holiday of the year that’s truly about family. However you make up your family, Thanksgiving celebrates it. You don’t have to have a picture-postcard life to bring the people you love into your home and feed them and be grateful to have them. There’s no one relationship that’s more important than the others. Christmas—that’s about the children. Halloween, too. Valentine’s Day is for lovers. Mother’s Day. Father’s Day. They’re all about one kind of love or another. Thanksgiving is for all kinds of love, and however you love, whoever you love, whatever kind of family you made, you can have them with you and love them and feel their love back.”
She swiped at her cheek. Jenny wouldn’t have known she was crying otherwise. Just that one brisk swipe, and she continued. “I don’t have the picture-postcard family. The Bulls are my brothers and sons. Their women are my sisters and daughters. Their children are my grandbabies. We don’t fit on any card you can buy at the Promenade, but we’re family just the same. I had to make mine up all on my own, and I love them just as hard and deep as anybody ever loved anyone. The Lord didn’t see fit to let me have babies of my own. He let me hope, but He didn’t let me keep them. That was a source of bad pain for a very long time. So aye, what you said that day was awful. But I know why you said it. You wanted me to stay away, and you knew I wouldn’t unless you hurt me enough. You were right about that. You were wrong to do it, but you were scared, and it’s hard to do the right thing when you’re scared.”
Mo paused, and Jenny got the feeling she was giving her a chance to respond, but there wasn’t anything she could say.
“You say we won’t ever be great friends, and perhaps that’s true. But that won’t be because I harbor bad feelings, or because I don’t want to love you like a daughter. You answer me one question, and, for my part, you and I are squared up fine.”
“Okay.” The word barely came out.
Stepping closer, so there was only the width of a high-back chair between them, Mo crossed her arms. “Are you all in? Whatever happens, are you in with Maverick, and with all of us? Not on the edges, but right here in the heart. Are you family?”
Jenny looked down at the gold band on her finger. Nothing flashy, just simple, gleaming gold, a match to Maverick’s. The only ring he wore. The only ring she wore.
She lifted her head and met those arctic blue eyes. “I didn’t have the picture-postcard family, either. Mav gave me the best family I’ve ever had. He gave me Kelsey.” She spread her hands to indicate the huge table dressed for a feast. “He gave me and Kelsey this. I’m all in, Mo.”
Mo was quiet, studying her. Then, her red lips curving into the slightest smile, she tilted her head. “Well, then. We’d best get this table set so we can give our family a proper Thanksgiving feast.” She picked up the bundle of silverware again.
Just that head tilt. No hug, no heartwarming moment of tearful reconciliation. Just acceptance.
It was exactly right.
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~oOo~
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Twenty-four people sat at that long table—eleven on each side, and Mo and Delaney at the ends. All of the Bulls, all of their old ladies, Gunner’s father and sister, Wally, the prospect, and Kelsey. Zach was down for a nap. Kelsey sat between her parents, her eyes wide and her head swiveling all around, trying to keep up with all the talk and laughter.
When all were seated, Delaney put his fingers in his mouth and whistled, and everyone quieted down. Keeping with Mo’s longstanding tradition, starting with Delaney, they went around the table and told something they were thankful for. For most, it was mundane stuff—they were happy for their families, for a new bike, for some good news they’d gotten. When it was Maverick’s turn, he cleared his throat.
“I got a lot of things I’m thankful for, and I’m thankful even to be able to say that. I’m thankful to be free. I’m thankful to be at this table.” He grinned and looked around at his brothers. “I’m thankful for all you assholes.” Chuckles rose up around the table, as well as a few middle fingers.
He reached around Kelsey’s back and brushed his fingertips over Jenny’s cheek. He looked at her as he said the rest. “But most of all, I’m thankful for my wife and child. This beautiful woman, and the perfect little girl she made me.” He winked then, and Jenny had that flash of a second to know what he was about to do. “And I’m thankful that she’s making me another one as we speak.”
They hadn’t even told Kelsey yet. Jenny stared at him, stunned. All around them, their family shared the same stunned silence.
“Wait,” Gunner finally said. “Jen—he knocked you up again?”
“Damn, bro,” Maverick laughed. “Leave it to you to kill the magic.”
As the table caught on and erupted with good cheer, Jenny turned to Mo. After the talk they’d had less than an hour earlier, it seemed like the wrong time to announce her pregnancy. But Mo returned her look and gave her that same accepting tilt of the head, this one with a fuller smile.
“Well done, love,” she said under the din.
Willa and Leah and the other women converged on her at once, and she accepted all their hugs.
Kelsey tugged on her sleeve, and Jenny turned. “What is it, pix?”
“I don’t know why everybody’s hugging you and hitting Daddy’s hand.”
“They’re happy. When Daddy said I was making him another one, he meant that there’s a baby growing in my belly.”
“Now?” She frowned at Jenny’s flat stomach. “In there?”
Jenny picked up her daughter’s hand and set it on her belly. “Right inside there. It’s just tiny right now, but it’ll keep growing and growing, and in the summer, maybe close to your birthday, you’ll have a baby brother or sister.”
“Really?” She patted Jenny’s belly. “Is it a boy baby or a girl baby?”
“We don’t know yet. We’ll find out in a few months. And then you can help us decorate the baby’s room and get everything ready.”
The table was settling down again, and Kelsey turned away from Jenny and pulled on Maverick’s arm. “Daddy! I want to say a thankful, too! Can I?”
Maverick picked her up and set her on his lap. “Sure, pix. Go ahead.”
She looked all around the table, like a queen surveying her realm. Then she took a big, serious breath. “I’m thankful that I have a mommy and a daddy and we all live together in a house with a princess house and Mommy is making a baby and I used to want a boy baby but now I want a girl baby ‘cuz Maisie got a boy baby and he pees in the air.” She swooped her little arm up high, drawing a fountain spout in the air, to demonstrate.
When the table erupted yet again, this time with laughter, Jenny saw Kelsey startle and frown. She reached over, meaning to ease her daughter’s mind, but Maverick tucked his face close and spoke to Kelsey until she grinned.
A storm of happy tears loomed on Jenny’s horizon, and she knew she’d make a mess of herself when the table settled again and it was her turn to be thankful. But that was okay. She knew just what she’d say.
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~oOo~
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On their way home that evening, they stopped at the nursing home to see her father on Thanksgiving.
Maverick waited in the Cherokee. He would never budge on his feelings about her father, and Jenny would never expect it of him. He didn’t understand why she’d want to visit, and he wasn’t happy that she wanted to bring Kelsey with her, but they’d talked it out, he’d listened, and he hadn’t pushed her to change her mind.
But he didn’t want her going alone, so he was there, waiting in the car. Jenny knew that that was pressure as much as protection. More than protection. There was nothing her father could do anymore to hurt her. But Maverick waiting outside meant that they wouldn’t linger inside.
A little manipulative, yes. But first they’d had a full, fair talk; he’d listened, and he’d conceded. That was such an improvement over before that Jenny was content to let him have this small measure of influence on the situation.
The home they’d found was a good one—in a decent suburb just west of the city proper, with up-to-date facilities and resources, and pleasant, thoughtful décor. On her own, she’d never have been able to afford it. It didn’t even smell. Every place they’d visited had had the same odor in the air—disinfectant, bland food, and decay, with a persistent hint of human waste. In the cheaper places, that smell had been nearly overpowering. In this place, it was there, but only noticeable if you tried to smell it.
He shared a room with another man, an elderly gentleman with dementia, and Jenny knew that he hated that. But a private room was beyond their means without unduly burdening their own life. She’d brought as many of his things as she’d been allowed, and she’d hung his favorite pictures on the walls around his bed. She’d made it as nice as she could for him, and it was nicer than the house they’d moved out of, except that it wasn’t his.
As they walked through the halls, Jenny smiled at the staff they passed, and Kelsey pointed out all the decorations—lots of construction-paper turkeys and headdresses and pilgrim hats. The home had arrangements with a few nearby preschools for children to visit and spend time with the residents, and they did art projects together.
His room was empty, so they went down to the cafeteria, which doubled as a recreation room when meals weren’t being served. They found him in his chair, in front of the television.
“Granddaddy!” Kelsey let go of Jenny’s hand and skipped to her grandfather. She stood at his side, where he could see her, and patted his hand. “Hi, Granddaddy. Did you have a good Thanksgiving? I did. We went to a big house and had a big turkey and there was chocolate pie and I don’t like pie but this was good and had white stuff on it that tasted like marshmallows and Mommy is making a baby!”
Jenny’s father flapped his hand, and Kelsey caught it and held it. “I hope you got turkey and pie like I did.”
“Jen.”
“Right here, Dad.” She came up on her father’s other side and bent to kiss his cheek. It was smooth, and he was dressed in khakis and a plaid shirt. Somebody had dressed him for Thanksgiving. “Happy Thanksgiving. Did you have a good day?”
“Now. Now. Jen.”
With so few words in his vocabulary, it wasn’t easy to know what he meant. Jenny had gotten as adept as she thought it was possible to be in ‘Dadese,’ but he could have been saying that it was a good day now, because she and Kelsey were there, or he could have been asking her to take him away right now. She elected to hear the first one.
She smiled and pulled up a chair to sit beside him. “I’ve got some news to share. Kelsey told you that we’re having a baby. Next summer. And Mav and I got married last week.”
“Yeah, Granddaddy! I got a pretty dress and had my hair like Mommy’s and then Daddy kissed her and everybody clapped.”
Her father’s eyes moved back and forth from daughter to granddaughter, and his mouth moved, but he didn’t speak. Knowing that news wouldn’t bring him happiness, she changed the subject.
“I heard from Darnell. He got promoted. He’s in administration now at the service. And Carlena’s got a new assignment. They’re both doing good. I’ve decided not to sell the bar. I’m going to keep The Wayside. Is that okay with you?” She knew it was. The only thing in life he truly loved was that bar.
“Jen.”
“I’m not going to run it day-to-day anymore, though. I made Dave the full-time manager, and I’m hiring more staff. I’m going to stay home with Kelsey and this new one, but The Wayside is a neighborhood institution, and when it comes down to it, I can’t sell it to somebody who’d change it up too much. Russ and the others, they’d practically be homeless if they couldn’t camp their butts at the bar.”
His hand flailed out and grabbed at hers. She let him catch it. “Jen. Jen.”
She remembered the day she’d brought him back to the house, after his insurance had cut off his hospital care. On that day, when Kelsey was only two months old and still colicky, Jenny had known utter despair and felt nothing for her father but furious, hateful resentment. There had been no pity for his circumstances, no hint of the tormented love she’d grown up feeling for him, no glimmer of hope. She’d only hated and despaired, and she’d been sure she’d never feel anything else.
The television had caught Kelsey’s attention, and she’d taken a couple of steps toward it. Jenny turned her hand so that she held her father’s, rather than the other way around, and she brought it to her mouth and kissed it. “I’m happy, Dad. Things are the way they’re supposed to be now. I know you don’t want to be here, but taking care of you was crushing me, and Kelsey, too. In just the few weeks you’ve been here, everything inside me is lighter. How I feel about you, about the kind of father you were, that’s lighter, too. I can forgive you now, Daddy. I do forgive you.”
How much could he understand? Jenny didn’t know. But he grew calm, and he stared back at her, and his hand seemed to squeeze around hers. “Jen,” was all he said. The word he’d said more than any other in the past four years.
Her name.
“I love you,” she was able to say, and to mean, for the first time in years.