Lauren
My mother tossed two sleeping bags at my children and the thing that broke in that hallway was not the sleeping arrangement. It was the last excuse I had left for staying loyal to a family that only loved me when I was useful. Let me back up two hours, because you need to understand what we drove into.
We left Rochester at three in the afternoon, Ryan and me and Owen in his green turkey sweater and Ellie clutching the stuffed rabbit she brought everywhere. Two and a half hours on the highway with the sun going flat behind the tree line and Ellie asking from the back seat whether Grandma had cookies. I had a pie in the trunk.
Pumpkin, from scratch, my father’s recipe, the one with the brown butter and the extra pinch of nutmeg he said was the secret nobody earned until they’d spent enough years standing next to him in the kitchen to deserve it. He taught me when I was fourteen, on a stepstool because I couldn’t reach the counter. I had been making it every Thanksgiving since he died.
Four years, four pies, same recipe, same rolling pin, same pinch of nutmeg measured into my palm before it went into the bowl. I also brought a tablecloth. Ivory linen with scalloped edges, forty-six dollars from an online shop, ordered three weeks earlier because Mom had mentioned her old one had a stain.
I did not think about the forty-six dollars. I never thought about the dollars. Ryan carried the suitcases.
I carried the pie. Owen carried the gift bag with the tablecloth inside. Ellie carried her rabbit.
The four of us on the porch, loaded up like people arriving somewhere they belonged. The door was unlocked. It always was when Ashley got there first.
My sister’s red puffer hung on the hook inside. Her daughter Mackenzie’s pink jacket. Her son Jordan’s dinosaur hoodie.
My mother’s gray cardigan. Five hooks, five coats, none of them ours. I hung our coats on the banister and tried not to count the hooks.
The guest room door was closed. Through it came the sound of Mackenzie and Jordan already giggling, settled since Tuesday, shoes lined up by the bed, suitcases unzipped, Jordan’s iPad charging on the nightstand. My mother came out of the kitchen wiping her hands on a dish towel, smiled, kissed my cheek.
“There’s my girl. Oh, you brought the pie. Set it on the counter, honey.” She picked Ellie up and bounced her once, called her pumpkin, set her down, and turned back to the stove.
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