Lock and Key(77)

He shook his head. “June tenth. But we got together on Turkey Day. It was our first anniversary, you know, before the wedding one. It was, like, our first real date.”

“Who dates on a major holiday?”

“Well, it wasn’t exactly planned,” he said, pulling the bread toward him and taking out a few slices. “I was supposed to go home for Thanksgiving that year. I was pumped for it, because, you know, I’m all about an eating holiday.”

“Right,” I said, taking a bite of my own sandwich.

“But then,” he continued, “the night before, I ate some weird squid at this sushi place and got food poisoning. Seriously bad news. I was up sick all night, and the next day I was completely incapacitated. So I had to stay in the dorm, alone, for Thanksgiving. Isn’t that the saddest thing you ever heard?”

“No?” I said.

“Of course it is!” He sighed. “So there I am, dehydrated, miserable. I went to take a shower and felt so weak I had to stop and rest on the way back in the hallway. I’m sitting there, fading in and out of consciousness, and then the door across from me opens up, and there’s the girl that yelled at me the first week of classes. Alone for the holiday, too, fixing English-muffin pizzas in a contraband toaster oven.”

I looked in at my sister, who was now consulting a cookbook, her finger marking the page, and suddenly remembered those same pizzas—English muffin, some cheap spaghetti sauce, cheese—that she’d made for me, hundreds of times.

He picked up the knife out of the jelly jar. “At first, she looked alarmed—I was kind of green, apparently. So she asked me if I was okay, and when I said I wasn’t sure, she came out and felt my forehead, and she told me to come in and lie down in her room. Then she walked over to the only open convenience store—which was, like, miles away—bought me a six-pack of Gatorade, and came back and shared her pizzas with me.”

“Wow,” I said.

“I know.” He shook his head, flipping a piece of bread over. “We spent the whole weekend together in her room, watching movies and eating toasted things. She took care of me. It was the best Thanksgiving of my life.”

I glanced back at Cora again, remembering what Denise had said about her that night at the party. Funny how it was so hard to picture my sister as a caretaker, considering that had been what she was to me, once. And now again.

“Which is not to say,” Jamie added, “that other Thanksgivings can’t be equally good, or even better in their own way. That’s why I’m excited about this year. I mean, I love this house, but it’s never totally felt like home to me. But tomorrow, when everyone’s here, gathered around the table, and reading their thankful lists, it will.”

I was listening to this, but still thinking about Cora and those pizzas so intently that I didn’t really hear the last part. At least intially. “Thankful lists?”

“Sure,” he said, pulling another piece of bread out and bringing the peanut butter closer to him. “Oh, that’s right. You guys didn’t do those, either, did you?”

“Um, no,” I said. “I don’t even know what that is.”

“Just what it sounds like,” he said, scooping out a glop of peanut butter and putting it on his bread. “You make a list of everything you’re thankful for. For Thanksgiving. And then you share it with everyone over dinner. It’s great!”

“Is this optional?” I asked.

“What?” He put down the knife with a clank. “You don’t want to do it?”

“I just don’t know . . . I’m not sure what I’d say,” I said. He looked so surprised I wondered if he was hurt, so I added, “Off the top of my head, I mean.”

“Well, that’s the great thing, though,” he said, going back to spreading the peanut butter. “You don’t have to do it at the moment. You can write up your list whenever you want.”

I nodded, as if this was actually my one hesitation. “Right.”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “You’ll do great. I know it.”

You had to admire Jamie’s optimism. For him, anything was possible: a pond in the middle of the suburbs, a wayward sister-in-law going to college, a house becoming a home, and thankful lists for everyone. Sure, there was no guarantee any of these things would actually happen as he envisioned. But maybe that wasn’t the point. It was the planning that counted, whether it ever came to fruition or not.

Now, as Cora and I sat in the closet, we heard the doorbell ring downstairs. Roscoe perked up his ears, then yelped, the sound bouncing around the small space.

“That’s me,” I said, pulling off my sweater and grabbing another one off a nearby hanger. “I’ll just—”

I felt a hand clamp around my leg, jerking me off balance. “Let Jamie get it,” she said. “Just hang out here with me for a second. Okay?”

“You want me to get in there?”

“No.” She reached over to rub Roscoe’s ears before adding, more quietly, “I mean, only if you want to.”

I crouched down, and she scooted over as I crawled in, moving aside my boots so I could sit down.

“See?” she said. “It’s nice in here.”

“Okay,” I told her. “I will say it. You’re acting crazy.”