Beer successfully delivered.
Mission accomplished.
“I saw that.” My mother didn’t lift her eyes from the sweet potatoes she was mashing.
“Saw what?”
She made a noise in the back of her throat but didn’t argue further. My dad opened his can and the click of metal and his subsequent, “Ah,” echoed through the house.
My mother made another disgruntled snort.
I couldn’t help but smile.
“If it bothers you, you should say something,” I teased her.
She threw me a look over her shoulder. “If I made it known every time your father did something that bothered me, we wouldn’t have made it through our first year of marriage.”
“But if you said something now, he would listen to you.” For some reason, I couldn’t let it go. I had to make her see that she needed to stand up for herself. My dad wasn’t completely unreasonable. He would do what it took to keep the peace.
“Katherine, your father has known who he is and what he’s wanted since the very first day I met him. If he wants to have a beer before lunch, by god, he is going to have one.” I opened my mouth to argue, but she held up her spatula and silenced me. “I respect that. I respect him. I don’t have to like it, but I do have to trust him. And I trust him to take care of me, this family, and himself. That’s all I need.”
Sufficiently chastised, all I could come up with was a soft, “Oh.”
“But it would help if my children weren’t accomplices to his every heathen whim.”
This time I laughed. “I thought I was sneaky enough to get away with it.”
She gave me a pointed look over her shoulder, “Child, I see all. I know all.” My smile broke into a wide grin and I laughed until she said, “Now get over here and melt the butter so I can mix it with the marshmallows.”
“Yes, ma’am.” But inside I was doing a happy dance because we were having sweet potatoes.
Nick would have been so disappointed if he knew he missed my mother’s famous sweet potato casserole. It was his absolute favorite and she made it for him at least once a month.
It was the only way we could convince him to keep coming back here for Sunday lunch.
I shook my head of thoughts of Nick. Clearly I was having issues letting go of my marriage.
Which was to be expected, right? We had been together for a long time. He had been engrained in my thoughts, tattooed on my soul, etched into my bones. Our relationship was the only adult relationship I knew. I was not used to making decisions without him. I had never spent so much time alone. And it had been a very long time since I had to deal with my family by myself.
He had been by my side through so much that I physically couldn’t imagine my life without him.
At the same time, I couldn’t imagine continuing to live with him or be with him or fight with him over every little thing.
I was doing the right thing, it just took adjustment.
I needed adjustment.
A few minutes later Josh and Emily arrived with the girls and it felt like a hundred more people had shown up. The girls were everywhere, running around to say hi to everyone, asking for bites of food and in general, just being their cute, crazy selves.
“Why don’t you take them in the back yard, Kate,” my mom suggested. “They’ve been dying to see you and that way I can get lunch on the table without stepping on them.”
“Sure,” I said. I had officially been kicked out of the kitchen. It was no secret that Emily was better at the domesticated woman stuff than me and I suspected my mother was tired of hovering over my shoulder to make sure I did everything just right.
“Laney, Addy! Come outside with me!”
I started walking toward the back door and they abandoned their plight to steal leftover marshmallows and followed me. I knew they would. I was an awesome aunt.