MARCY INVITES DAD, MEREDITH, AND ME OVER for dessert two days before Christmas.
In the past, we’ve spent Christmas Eve at the Holdens’, playing board games and devouring a feast of prime rib, twice-baked potatoes, roasted asparagus, and Victorian Christmas pudding (brown sugar and almonds and currants and spices, among other flavorsome things). Until last year, Bill dressed up in a Santa costume and handed out gifts to his kids, me, and, more recently, Zoe and Brett’s son. Before my family walked back across the street for the night, Dad would produce his childhood copy of “The Night Before Christmas” as if by magic, then read it aloud, his deep voice reciting the verses with perfect, rhythmic cadence.
This year, we’ll miss Christmas Eve with the Holdens. Meredith has suggested we travel a few hours south to Portland, where we’ll spend the holiday with her too-old-to-travel parents. Dad protested because lately, that’s what Dad does, but Meredith won the battle—she is pregnant, after all.
Today in the kitchen, I dip a sampling spoon into the nearly done sweet-potato filling I’ve spent half the afternoon working on. Soon, it’ll fill the flaky, from-scratch pie crust that’s chilling in the fridge. The filling tastes smooth and rich and sweet; I added a couple of tablespoons of bourbon pilfered from my dad’s liquor cabinet in hopes of intensifying the flavor, and it’s perfect.
Any pastry chef worthy of her rolling pin knows how important it is to check for taste and texture and doneness. Baking is a science: measuring and mixing, a series of actions and reactions, separate parts of an aspiring whole. Heat is almost always involved because heat forces change, melds the ingredients into something different. Something better.
Meredith appears in the doorway, assessing the kitchen with her hands on her bloated waistline, back arched, the way I’ve only ever seen pregnant women do. She frowns at the mess I’ve made but, to her credit, refrains from complaining. “How’s it going?” she asks instead, brushing a few spilled sugar crystals into the sink.
“Okay. The pie’s almost ready for the oven, the cranberry tartlets are nearly done, and the peppermint sugar cookies are already in Tupperware.”
“Do you think you’ll be ready to head to the Holdens’ in a few hours?”
“Should be. When will Dad be home?”
She glances at the microwave clock. “Hopefully by five. I told Marcy we’d be over at six, and I don’t want to be late.”
I pour the sweet potato filling into its chilled pie shell and ask a loaded question. “What’s he doing at the office again anyway?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Meredith says with annoyance that makes my ears ring. Sighing, she lifts the lid of the Tupperware housing the peppermint sugar cookies and inhales their cool scent. “May I?”
I nod, using an offset spatula to smooth the pie filling.
She snags two cookies before toddling out of the kitchen.
I slide my favorite ruffled pie pan, loaded with sweet potato goodness, into the oven, trying not to stress about Dad and Meredith and tonight, our first attempt at a Holden-Eldridge gathering in the wake of Bill’s stroke, and the first time I’ll see Max since our awful outing to the tree farm.
*
Dad walks through the front door at six fifteen. Meredith leaps down his throat, lecturing him about punctuality and consideration and good manners. He takes it in stride until she mentions the strict meal/medicine/rest/therapy regimen Bill is on. That’s when he demands that she “Lay the hell off!”
They’re not speaking when, at six thirty, we step into a sad drizzle and cross the street.
All’s forgotten when Marcy opens the front door. She hugs Meredith, then Dad, and everyone’s smiling and schmoozing like my parents weren’t just bickering like stray cats over a discarded can of tuna.
It’s mind-blowing, how well they hide the truth.
Marcy leads us past the living room, where the Douglas fir we picked up the other day sits in a corner, trimmed and twinkling with white lights, to the kitchen, where most of the Holdens have gathered. Zoe sits at one end of the big kitchen table, surrounded by an array of coloring books and crayons. Brett and raven-haired, innocent-eyed Oliver, a two-year-old facsimile of his uncle Max, sit across from her. Bill’s at the table, too, his wheelchair parked below its surface, wearing a mask of contentment and a collared shirt that fits too loose on his once robust frame. He’s studying his grandson in this introspective way that’s contrary to the rousing ambiance he used to lend to gatherings. I watch as Zoe leans over to pat her dad’s arm.
Ivy, who I’ve spoken to exactly zero times since she interrupted Max and me in my dad’s study, stands at the stove. She’s stirring a copper-bottomed pot of hot cocoa in a striped dress and knee-high boots, her long hair blown out straight and sleek. I recall what Max said about her being jealous and mentally roll my eyes. Confidence wafts off Ivy Holden like heat from an open flame.
I turn away before she notices me—I don’t have the energy for spitefulness—and begin laying out the treats I brought. Marcy’s confections are already displayed on the counter, buffet-style. She’s made a caramel apple torte cake, a pecan pie, and an apple pie with a gorgeous honeycomb crust. The kitchen smells amazing, and the selection is worthy of the finest patisserie, and I’m in heaven—until I spot Ivy closing in.
“Jillian,” she says briskly.
“Ivy,” I reply, glancing over my shoulder to be sure there are witnesses. I have a feeling she’s going to confront me about what Max told Becky—the kiss, the betrayal, my involvement—and it’s probably going to get ugly. But Marcy, Dad, and Meredith have crowded around the table, and no one’s paying any attention to the two of us.
Great.
Ivy smooths her bangs and says, quietly, “Have you heard from my brother today?”
There’s a good chance this is an attempt at entrapment—some scheme she and Becky cooked up to nail Max for a crime he’s yet to commit. I unwrap my platter of cranberry tartlets and reply impassively, “He’s not here?”
“We don’t know where he is. Mom told him to be home before you and your parents came over, but he hasn’t even called.”
I place my sweet potato pie atop a stand, my heart faltering.… Max is missing? “Have you talked to the guys?”
Ivy nods. “He’s not with Jesse or Kyle or Leo. My mom’s going crazy worrying about him. I can’t get ahold of Becky, so … Maybe they’re together?”