Page 31 of Surrender

“Are you going to see your mom at Christmas?”

“No. She spends the holidays with her new family. They invited me to join them for Christmas once, maybe fifteen years ago, so I flew back to Ohio. But I felt like an outsider, so I ended up leaving after just a couple of hours. They didn’t invite me again.”

“What about your brother and sister? Where are they now?”

“They’re both married with two kids apiece, and they live three blocks from each other in New Mexico. I haven’t seen them in years.”

“Do you miss them?”

“I don’t even know them. I reached out over and over again when I was younger, but they never made the slightest effort to be a part of my life. Finally, I gave up.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It is what it is.” We both fell silent again. After a while, I asked softly, “Do you think there’s really such a thing as a happy family?”

“I know a happy found family, and so do you.” Tracy turned to look at me. “Vee and all of his housemates think you’re great, and they’d love to make you a part of their inner circle. I assume they invited you to Thanksgiving dinner.”

“They did, but I’d signed up to volunteer at the shelter on Thanksgiving. A lot of your coworkers wanted the day off, and you were going to be short-handed.”

“I’m planning to do both, and you should, too. Their celebration will run later than the one at work.”

“Okay, I’ll let Vee know. Do you think I should plan on bringing anything?”

He grinned at me. “Not those cookie bars.”

“You haven’t even tried them yet!”

“That’s because they look like dry roofing tiles.”

I picked up a bar and dunked it in my tea as he pretended to recoil. After I took a bite, I told him, “See? It’s edible.”

“That’s a pretty low bar. Technically, a piece of cardboard is edible, but that doesn’t mean you should actually eat it.” He picked one up though, and dipped it in his tea like I had. Then he took a bite, and his eyes went wide in alarm. Tracy asked, around a mouthful of grains, “What’s that flavor?”

“Which one? The quinoa is fairly pronounced, and so is the spirulina extract.”

“What’s spirulina?”

“A type of edible algae with amazing health benefits.”

He choked down the bite in his mouth, then took a large swig from his teacup before saying, “No wonder it tastes like swamp water.”

“It’s good for you, though. It’s high in protein with antioxidant properties, and?—”

“Nope. Don’t care.”

“But it?—”

“That shit could add five years to my life, and it still wouldn’t be worth it.”

“It’s not that bad,” I insisted. “But if you hate the taste, next time I’ll leave it out and use cricket flour instead to boost the protein.”

His voice rose in alarm. “You’ll use what?”

“Cricket flour. Don’t worry, it’s all perfectly sanitary. What they do is dry the crickets and?—”

Tracy slammed his hands over his ears. “Stop talking! And never, ever feed me anything with crickets in it!”

“Okay, but they’re?—”

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