“I really wish you’d stop talking nonsense,” Nana tells him.
“You know what you need?” Lance asks.
“I’m afraid to ask.”
“You need a day to teach our girls how to cook like you. You know, just in case you get too old to fry chicken.” Lance makes a face. “I can’t believe I just said that out loud. You can’t forget how to fry chicken, right? Like, that’s not a thing.”
“Can we not talk about this?” I ask.
Hadley tries to pull her hand away, but I tighten my hold.
“You need a day with Mariah and Sienna and Hadley and I’d say Blaire, but that’s a joke,” Lance says. “She’d read you a legal brief while you fixed food.”
“I’d actually like that,” Nana says. “Not a bad idea.”
“I like this idea too,” Peck says. “It’s like having backup Nanas. I have a fear of starving, you know.”
“Would you be interested in that, Hadley?” Nana asks.
Hadley fidgets in her seat. “Um, yeah. Of course. I just, you know, don’t want to intrude.”
“I love how we pretend Machlan and Hadley aren’t together,” Lance says.
“Shut up, Lance,” I say.
“What?” He takes another bite of potatoes. “When’s the last time you had a girl over here? Never. You two need to get over yourselves and—”
“You wanna do this?” I ask. “You wanna put her on the spot like this?”
“Machlan …” Hadley touches my bicep.
“Looks like I put you on the spot, if you ask me,” Lance says, wiping his hands on a napkin as if I’m not threatening to kill him. “I’m sorry, Had, if I made you uncomfortable.”
“That’s okay,” Hadley says. “You didn’t.”
Rattling my teeth as I bite them together, I give my brother a final warning glare. Hadley pats my arm again.
“It’s fine,” she whispers.
Nana laughs out of nowhere. “Do you remember when I had you help me make macaroni and cheese on that Christmas Eve, Hadley?” Nana smiles fondly. “You forgot to add the macaroni and boiled all the water right out of that pot.”
“Not a good sign for the future,” Lance says, winking at me.
“Fuck off.”
Nana smacks my hand. “Don’t do anything to him in my house.”
“Oh, but he can kill me as long as it’s not in here?” Lance asks.
“Oh my God. Nana just authorized Lance’s death.” Peck gasps.
“I did no such thing.” She laughs. “Lance is a smart boy. If he wants to push Machlan, he knows there will be a pushback.” She turns to Hadley. “You let me know when you’re free, and we’ll have an afternoon together,” Nana says.
“Okay,” Hadley says.
“It’ll be fun. Mariah is a pretty good cook now, and Sienna is catching on. She usually gets frustrated and wants to cater everything. But between the three of you, maybe I’ll turn over Thanksgiving and see how you girls do.”
Hadley stares at her chicken as though it’s the most interesting thing in the world. She pulls her hand away again, and this time, I let her.
I think about Thanksgiving and how we all pile in here for the day. We watch football, eat all fucking day, and then, before we go home, we get out Nana’s Christmas decorations. It’s my favorite holiday, and I look forward to it all year. But as I look at Hadley and realize she won’t be here, Thanksgiving doesn’t seem that exciting.
“You know,” Nana says, “I always wanted a daughter. Got two boys instead, but I did want a girl. Someone to teach all my tips and tricks. Someone to give the little love notes that your granddad sent me when we were young.”
“You have Blaire,” Peck offers.
“And Blaire is too busy for all that. Such a smart, industrious girl, she is.” She sets her glass down, the sweat along the outside creating a ring on the tablecloth. “But now I have your girls. And you’ve all picked very good girls.”
“As long as Peck doesn’t wind up with Molly,” Lance says.
Peck throws a napkin at my brother. “I’ll get her even if it takes a hundred years.”
“Your dick won’t work in a hundred years. Sorry, Nana,” Lance says.
“Stop it,” Nana says. “Let me tell you something. Things work out when they’re supposed to. I hear all the time these newfangled ideas about making things happen and forcing your way through stuff, and let me tell you, you can’t do that.”
“I might disagree,” Lance chimes in. “If you don’t press for what you want in life, it’ll never happen.”
“True. But you can press and press all day long, and if the time is not right, it won’t matter.” She settles back in her chair, wincing as she moves. “When you get to be my age, you can look back on life and see it. Things happen when they’re supposed to. You get a little distance between yourself and a situation, and you can see how if you got everything you wanted when you wanted, how wrong it all would’ve been.”
Hadley swallows. “What do you mean, Nana?”
“I wanted a baby as soon as we got married. All I’d ever wanted to be was a mother, and I couldn’t figure out why on earth God would deny me that. Now, I look back and see all the things I would’ve missed if I’d been caring for a baby then.” She smiles at some memory we can’t see. “Staying up late with my husband, talking all night. I got to know him in those years before we had the boys. Being available to travel with him when he worked for the oil company. We made so many memories going from state to state in our beat-up truck. The one we had to stop every couple of hours and add coolant to.” She chuckles. “Or when my husband, back before we were married, asked and asked me to go out on a date with him, and I refused. I was so smitten with Johnny Lindsfeld.” She laughs. “Oh, dear. I forgot about him.”
“Did you date him?” I ask.
“In a roundabout way.”
“So, you slept with him,” Lance deadpans.
Her eyes light up like a little girl. “No. Well, maybe, but that’s not the point.”
As everyone laughs and Nana gets flustered, I peek at Hadley. She’s watching Nana tell her story with rapt attention. I wonder what it’s like to be her with no family but Cross. No stories to listen to, no holidays to share traditions with.
“The point is, I learned a few things from Johnny that served me well later in life, and I would’ve missed out if I’d have dated your granddaddy right away.”
“So, he taught you how to—”
“Don’t you dare,” Nana cuts Lance off, her face flushing again. “Oh, Lance. What am I going to do with you?”
My family breaks out into a conversation about Molly again. I take Hadley’s hand and hold it on my lap, wondering if what Nana said is true. And if it is, does that mean there is hope for me?
Twenty-Six
Hadley
The truck kisses the curb and rolls to a stop. The leftovers Nana sent home with Machlan perfume the air, and I could sit here for the rest of the day and be content. Belly full. Heart fuller. If only things could stay this way forever.
Machlan’s fingers tap against the steering wheel to a tune I can’t hear. His gaze is settled off into the distance, an almost forlorn look written into his skin.
He’s been quieter since Nana got sick at dinner. Even his smiles don’t quite seem as genuine or as wide as they were before.
“Hey,” I say, resting my hand on his arm. “You okay?”
“Me? Yeah.” He pulls his gaze to me. “You?”
“Yeah.”
He gives me a half-smile, one his heart isn’t fully into. “Do you wanna take some of this food? She gave me enough to feed an army.”
“I think you asked for that much.”
“Only so Peck didn’t get it.” His smile slips wider. “I’ll share with you, though.”
“I couldn’t eat any more. I’ll pop.”
He turns the heat down, then fiddles with the radio. Taking his chew can out of his pocket, he turns it over and over in his hand.
I hate seeing him like this. Nana is so special to him. Even as a teenager, he’d check on her. Make everyone promise not to tell her about his shenanigans. Mow her lawn. Help her with her garden. I don’t know how he’ll cope if something happens to her.
“She’s going to be fine,” I say softly.
“Yeah.” He clears his throat. “She’ll be fine. I’m not worried about it.”
“It’s okay to worry about it, you know.”
“I know. But I’m not. There’s no sense in it.”
The can lays in the palm of his hand. He moves it so the light reflects against the metal lid and shines a light in the air.
My heart sinks for him, and I just want to ease his burdens, if only for a minute.
“Thanks for a fun day.” The slices along my forearms from the rose bushes are bright red from the irritation of the dishwater at Nana’s. I hold them up for Machlan’s viewing pleasure. “It’s been a blast.”
Machlan tosses the can in the cupholder. “You look like you’ve been in a fight.”
“The question is: do I look like I won?”
He laughs. “You look like you took a hell of a beating, but there’s hope the other guy looks worse.”
“He does. I chopped that rose bush to pieces.” I laugh too. “Seriously, though. Thanks for a fun day. I really did enjoy it.”
“Me too.” He looks out the windshield again. “It’s kind of weird, huh?”
“What’s kind of weird?”
“Spending a day together.”
His head turns to me first, and then he angles his torso to me. He stares at me for a long while, biting his bottom lip. This typically has me squirming in my seat because I don’t know what he’s going to say. But, today, I don’t squirm at all. Not a bit.