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Luke hovered in the center of the living room and stuck two fingers up. Casey, Abby, Nicole, Kristine, and Nate pulsed forward, hyper-focused, as Nicole called out, “Two words!” The opposite team sat with their arms crossed, watching the charade game with amusement. As it stood, the opposite team, with Heather, Bella, Donnie, Melody, Evan, and Maddy, was ahead by three points and no longer nervous about whether or not Luke grabbed this point. Casey felt out of her element and not like she contributed to her team. She had other things on her mind at the moment but continued to try to do her best anyway
Luke then insinuated that the two words made up a film title. Nicole clapped her hands together in excitement. “Genre! Give us the genre!”
At this, Luke dropped his shoulders back and made a kissy-face while Kristine howled, “Romance!” Luke pointed his finger at Kristine excitedly and nodded.
“A two-worded romance...” Abby muttered. “Are you kidding me? There are so many.”
Casey glanced toward the opposite team, where she found Heather’s dark blue eyes piercing her. She scowled strangely, and Casey had a hunch this had nothing at all to do with the game. Casey arched her brow toward Heather, who just mouthed, “Are you okay?” Casey rolled her eyes in response and returned her attention to Luke.
Luke was now on all fours. This seemed silly and unclear. He tore around down there for a moment while his team members yelled various ideas above him.
“Lion King?” This was Nate, who was maybe too intoxicated to catch the “romantic genre” thing.
Luke shook his head violently.
“Sweet Home, Alabama?” Abby tried.
Kristine arched an eyebrow toward her and said, “Two words, Abs.”
“Oh, shoot. I just thought he was maybe a horse?” Abby returned.
“Where is the horse in Sweet Home, Alabama?” Kristine asked.
“Focus! We’re losing time!” Nicole cried.
Luke then lifted his hands from the ground and formed what seemed like claws. Casey barked out, “The Lobster?” which was a terribly sorrowful but almost romantic movie she’d rented with Grant once around Valentine’s Day— something she’d regretted renting, as it had seemingly pointed to the idiocy of looking for love in the first place.
Luke gestured toward Casey, excitement flashing across his face, as though she was on to something. Casey balked. She hadn’t expected to get anywhere close to the answer. These had been her first words in at least an hour.
“So it’s a lobster?” Casey asked tentatively.
Luke nodded as his eyes widened.
“Oh gosh. Um. What has a lobster in it?” Kristine demanded.
“Mystic Pizza!” Nate cried.
“I think that’s mostly just pizza, Nate,” Melody returned with a laugh.
“Hey. Stay on your own team!” Nate returned.
“Lobster. Lobster!” Nicole cried as she smashed her palm against her forehead.
“Mom. We won’t be able to win if you have a concussion,” Abby pointed out.
“Oh, I just got it,” Kristine cried as she jumped to her feet. “It’s Annie Hall!”
Luke popped up from the floor and howled, “That’s it!”
Nicole shrieked and sprung to her feet to grip Kristine’s hands and jump around. The edges of Casey’s lips twisted upward. She slightly remembered the scene where Woody Allen’s character and Annie Hall struggled through cooking a lobster meal, only for Woody to attempt the whole thing a bit later with another girlfriend. Was that all life was? An attempt to recreate what had come before?
“I don’t know if that’s a particularly romantic movie,” Heather pointed out as they all settled down and grabbed more to drink. “Who wrote that one down?”
“I did,” Bella admitted.
“I knew you were the one who wrote it,” Kristine returned.
“Ah, look. Now I see why Kristine got it,” Evan said playfully. “It’s that twin thing.”
“No! I got it because Casey understood Luke was a lobster,” Kristine countered. “That was brilliant, Aunt Case.”
Kristine gave Casey a genuine and beautiful smile. Casey tried to drum up some response about it, but her tongue felt as thick as sandpaper. In a flash, someone suggested that they have more slices of pie, that there was no such thing as too much pie on Thanksgiving. Someone else gave a resounding, “I agree!” and it was settled. Casey remained weighted on the couch.
She felt suddenly pulled into a memory of a different Thanksgiving.
It was the year Nicole had come to Bar Harbor and another year when she, Grant, Melody, and Donnie had flown out to Montana to meet up with Quintin, Henrietta, and Izzy, their last remaining daughter. At this time, Izzy had been twenty-six, and Frankie had been dead for two years after a horrible horseback riding accident. Izzy had been divorced and had a toddler, aged four. It had been strange to watch these gorgeous girls grow up and grow older, only to be marked with such tragedy and loss.
It had also been bizarre to sit within the dining room that Casey herself had designed at the age of twenty-two. She’d walked down the grand staircase and wandered through the hallways, genuinely amazed at her creative prowess from back then. At this time, age forty-four, the memory of her past self had felt like a dagger through her belly. She’d already betrayed her former being.
But also by this time, Grant had formulated himself as one of the top-selling businessmen in his field. Quintin, who’d grown into one heck of an alcoholic at this point, with a belly to boot, had greeted him warmly with, “I always knew you could do it, little brother.” Grant had beamed at that, as though all his life, he’d just wanted praise from his older brother.
Casey had to wonder now: had Quintin belittled Grant for being a stay-at-home dad for all those years? Had Quintin pointed out that Casey had been the “more successful” one of the two of them? Had that possibly been the first crack in their marriage?
Suddenly, Heather sidled up against Casey on the couch. There was the clink and clang of countless spoons and forks in the next room as the others tore into pie and ice cream.
“It’s almost like they’ll go hungry or something,” Heather said playfully, even as her eyes grew shadowed.
“They very well might,” Casey countered as she shifted away from her youngest sister. Heather was the emotional one, the one more in-tune with her heart and her ever-billowing “feelings.” Casey had never been that way. She almost regretted to say that, in many ways, she felt that sort of thinking was foolish. It sold Heather’s books, though, that was for sure. But that’s all it was really good for.
Silence brewed between them. Nate suggested that they soon do another round of karaoke in the kitchen, which Maddy Snow was “totally up for.” Some of the cousins whooped while others groaned. It would be another long night at the Keating House.
“What’s up with you?” Heather finally breathed. “You’ve hardly talked all day. And Nicole said she found you at the kitchen table at five-forty-five with a half-drunk pot of coffee.”
“I couldn’t sleep,” Casey replied firmly.
“Yeah?” Heather sucked her cheeks in. “I’ve probably told you how little I slept after Max...” She closed her eyes tightly as emotion took hold of her.
Here we go, Casey thought now. In a way, she was grateful. Heather could take all the energy of this pain and put it squarely upon her shoulders. Casey wouldn’t have to fess up to her true feelings. She would remain in peace.
But now, Heather’s eyes snapped open once more. “You’ve been pretty cagey about Grant the past few months. I know that I’ve been in my head about a lot of my own stuff, but I’m here for you, Casey. I hope you know that. Whatever you’re going through, whatever you want to say. You can trust me. I’m here for you. Okay?”
Casey placed her hand near her throat, surprised at Heather’s articulate and nurturing way. She’d expected her to fall into tearful words. Instead, she found a powerful woman before her— a woman who’d dove into the depths of despair and come out stronger than ever.
“Thank you, Heather,” Casey murmured. “I appreciate that.”
The others returned to the living room for a round of twenty questions, which Casey forced herself to pay attention to. The large grandfather clock told her it was now five-thirty, yet both of her children seemed too caught up in the chaos of Thanksgiving to ask her again where their father was. He’d probably been gone so much the previous few years that it seemed second nature to them to count him out— what a funny thing. The four of them had been thick as thieves. Casey could have sworn it would last forever.
Perhaps Aunt Tracy would have said the same about the four of them— Tracy, Casey, Nicole, and Heather.
The night continued on. At various times, Casey found herself in conversation with Maddy, who informed her about her recent selection of paintings, all of the dreadful variety, or Nate, who made a hilarious impression of Will Ferrell that almost made Heather pee her pants. Abby appeared soon after, a little bit too drunk to speak properly, even as she tried desperately to articulate just how grateful she was for Casey giving her a place to crash after she lost her job in Providence. “You don’t know how dark those days were for me, Aunt Casey,” Abby explained as her eyes glittered. “I thought I was so screwed.”
Casey longed to tell the poor girl how much she had felt that Abby saved her from the anxious, stirring thoughts of her own lonely soul. But it felt too vulnerable, especially in front of so many other people. So she just placed her hand over Abby’s and said, “I’m just so happy we’re all together now. Bar Harbor is a dream.”
Around nine, Nicole forced everyone to sit in front of the television for another viewing of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, which was their Aunt Tracy’s favorite film. As Nicole settled in on the couch beside Casey, she whispered, “I just want to feel like she’s here with us. I don’t even know if that makes sense.”
Melody cozied in beside Casey on the couch and folded her legs beneath her. Heather hustled in with a big bowl of frosted Christmas cookies, which Nicole scolded her about. “Are those store-bought?”
“Guilty. I just thought, you know, good little snacks for tonight?” Heather tried.
Nicole rolled her eyes as Nate and Donnie popped up to grab two each. Melody cried, “Hey! Pass me one!” And soon, nearly all the cut-out frosted Christmas treats were eaten.
As the first of the movie’s soundtrack rolled over them, Melody lifted her chin toward Casey’s ear and whispered, “I tried to text Dad earlier, but I noticed the text didn’t go through?”
Casey’s heart nearly stopped. “I’m sure he was just in the air, honey.”
“I don’t know. When was dad’s plane supposed to land?”
“Shhh,” Nicole murmured. She’d needed everyone to focus on the task at hand.
“We can talk later,” Casey murmured to her daughter.
Casey had never given less attention to a film, not even the silly movies her children had asked to watch around the age of three or four, the ones that taught you to count or spell your name. As John Candy and Steve Martin whisked their way cross-country to try to reach Sweet Home, Chicago, in time for Thanksgiving, Casey wracked her brain for some sign in her life with Grant, anything that clued her into what Stacy’s words had alluded to.
Did Grant have a secret life somewhere else that Casey wasn’t aware of?
Was he perhaps having an affair with Stacy herself?
The thought curled through her mind and threatened to poison her. She closed her eyes as Nicole howled with laughter beside her in such a way that made the couch shake.
Somehow, against science itself, Casey fell asleep during the film. Perhaps this was due to her lack of rest the previous night; perhaps it was due to all the stress. It was difficult to say. When she blinked her eyes open, she found herself witnessing Luke and Evan in the midst of a conversation about the roads in downtown Bar Harbor and how someone really needed to fix the potholes. Men always resorted to conversations like this, didn’t they? It was their comfort zone.
Nate was distracted in the corner with his cell phone. Melody read a fashion and art magazine, presumably for a better idea of what to sell next. Casey stood and wandered toward the kitchen, where she found Nicole, Heather, Kristine, and Bella at the kitchen table with mugs of coffee, gossiping about Bella’s recent on-and-off boyfriend. If Casey closed her eyes and shifted her mind just so, she could half-imagine that Nicole and Heather were actually the same age as Kristine and Bella. It wasn’t really long ago— was it?
“There she is. Our sleepy lady,” Kristine teased.
“Ha,” Casey returned.
“You needed it. You said you couldn’t sleep last night,” Heather countered.
“Yes. Not exactly my plan to sleep in front of everyone on Thanksgiving, but...”
“It happens to the best of us,” Nicole replied. “Abby still won’t let me forget how I did that in front of Michael’s family about ten years ago. It was embarrassing for everyone. Right smack dab in the middle of the carpet.” Nicole now shivered with laughter, even though the memory was probably very painful for her. “I am so grateful I never have to see that family again.”
“What about Abby and Nate’s weddings?” Kristine asked.
Nicole’s eyes flashed. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“With Evan Snow on your arm, I have a hunch you’ll win whatever war that is,” Heather pointed out.
Nicole’s lips twisted. “I don’t know what you’re talking about...”
Evan Snow appeared in the doorway and peered down at Nicole lovingly as though he'd sensed his name. “Maddy’s informed me it’s about time for us to go.”
Nicole’s face paled. “Oh shoot. That’s too bad.”
“I could come back after I drop her off...” Evan tried.
“Oh. Would you?” Nicole asked brightly as she popped up.
“Sure.” Evan had no eyes for anyone else in the kitchen.
Casey, Heather, Kristine, and Bella exchanged humorous glances as Evan gave Nicole a firm nod and then stepped back. “I’ll see you later, then,” he said before he walked away.
The women in the kitchen held the silence for a long moment until they heard the click of the front door as it closed behind Evan and his daughter. On cue, Casey and Heather burst into laughter as Kristine imitated Evan. “I’ll see you later, then,” she mimicked in a sing-song voice.
“Gosh, you guys...” Nicole’s blush was crimson. She fled the room as the others cackled.
Nate couldn’t get the others in on Thanksgiving Karaoke despite his best efforts, as everyone felt too exhausted to sing cheesy songs into a makeshift microphone. Donnie flicked through the channels as night drifted toward midnight. Before long, many in their group made little excuses and fled up the stairs to sleep. Soon, even Donnie, Melody, and Nate were slumped in their designated living room sleeping areas— and only Casey remained awake, refreshed from her earlier nap on the couch.
Just as she turned for the staircase, there was a light knock at the door. Surprised, yet not wanting to wake the others, Casey hustled for the door and peered out to check on the late-night visitor.
The man who stood on the porch was familiar, all right.
Her heartbeat quickened as her mouth grew dry. Unable to breathe, she slowly drew the door open to find him before her— the man who, so long ago, she’d pledged her life to. The man she had known to be the love of her life.
“Grant. Hello.”