Page 7 of All the Way
“Indeed it is.” I hold up the box by the red and white bakery string as Jamie reaches up to snatch it away.
“Jess is home!” Jamie says, making her way into the living room. “She brought the treats she promised. And one treat she didn’t say anything about at all!”
“You have to come in,” I say, turning to Chris. “Please. Everyone would be so happy to see you.”
“I’ll stay. Just long enough to make sure your tree gets set up. Like Josh said back there, we want our customers to be happy.” He reaches down and entwines his fingers with mine, and my breath catches as I pull away, almost embarrassed to see myself like this again.
“Chris?” My mom comes around the corner from the living room, keeping a slight distance from us. “Please Chris, come in. It’s so lovely to see you. And you’ve grown up so much.” Apparently my mom thinks he’s super hot, too.
“I’d be happy to stay and visit for a while,” he says, sitting down at the bench inside the front door to remove his combat boots. He still remembers that mom doesn’t like us to wear shoes in the house, and he respectfully takes off his boots, caked with snow and salt, and slides them away and out of sight under the bench. “Something in here smells wonderful.”
“It’s really not much,” I hear my dad say as the three of us make our way through the living room and into the kitchen. Dad’s got a bit pot of boiling water with tri-color penne pasta, his oversized sautee pan sizzling with cracked garlic, diced tomatoes and white wine, and a nice loaf of warm semolina hanging out in a basket lined with a tea towel.
“Not much?” Chris and my dad shake hands as Chris looks at the small table set up for me and my sister, my parents and brother. “It’s more than my dad and I ever do. Especially for the holidays.”
Jamie takes her attention away from arranging the pastries on a big red platter and starts taking out a table setting. “Let me make another place for you. You’re staying for dessert too, right?”
“I don’t know if I can resist Kaitlyn’s,” he says with a big, sexy smile on his face. He looks genuinely happy to be here, but it’s hard for me to tell how I’m feeling.
“Pasta’s coming up.” Dad drains the pasta in a big colander in the sink and then combines it in a bowl with the hot oil, garlic and tomatoes and then grates some pecorino cheese over everything before finally adding a few anchovies and sliced black olives.
“I’m sorry it’s not a proper holiday meal, Chris,” dad says, setting down the bowl of pasta in the middle of the table, alongside the crusty bread.
“It is,” Chris says, “because you guys are together.” He hooks a hand behind his neck uncomfortably, aware that he’s brought up the fact that granddad isn’t here.
“Where’s Paul?” I say, leaning to look up the stairs. “He out? I didn’t see any lights on upstairs.”
“He should be home in a minute.” Mom starts serving everyone their pasta, and even with generous helpings for each of us, there’s still plenty left over for seconds. “Have you talked to Paul?” She looks over at Chris as she doles out a few extra olives onto his plate.
“Not really,” he says, stabbing at his pasta. “A little bit here and there.”
“What have you been up to?” Dad asks, buttering a piece of bread and popping it into his mouth. I wish there was some Christmas music on right about now, and I’m anxious to get the tree up and decorated. I’m slipping into some kind of good mood, and I want to share it with my family.
“Right now I’m helping out selling Christmas trees,” Chris says, taking a bite of his pasta. He’s devouring it, and it’s always made me happy to see him at the dinner table. “I guess that gig is just about over, though. I’ve also been making a few bucks shoveling snow, so I figure I should be able to do that for at least the next couple months.” He looks down at his plate and gets quiet.
“Do you think you’ll finish your degree?” Mom asks. “Weren’t you studying something in science?”
Chris clears his throat and takes a long sip of water. “Electrical engineering. And I actually finished my degree about a month ago. I took one semester off, but I went back last Fall and finished up my remaining credits and my thesis.”
“That’s quite an accomplishment,” Dad chimes in, popping open a second bottle of red wine. “It must have been very rewarding to get a degree in something so challenging.”
“I enjoyed it,” Chris replies quietly.
“And you’re entrepreneurial,” my dad adds. It’s clear that we’ve hit a sore subject. I knew Chris had taken off a semester to care for his own dad after his mom left them, but I wasn’t aware he’d completed his degree.
“I think that’s great,” Mom says. “And you’re still with your dad, right? He’s such a nice man.”
“Very nice man.” My dad pours another glass of wine for Mom and himself. “Good guy. We should have you both over tomorrow for dinner.”
“I’ll have to check with him,” Chris says, his eyes still cast downward.
The front door opens and the screen door shuts closed behind it as a cool gust of air whips around the corner into the kitchen. My brother Paul appears in the doorway, radiating cold. His face is red and his lips look chapped, but he grins when he sees Chris sitting at the table with us.
“Hey, man!” Chris pushes away from the table and gives my brother one of those bro-y combination handshake-back slaps. My heart feels warm when I see them getting along like they used to. “It’s fantastic to see you.”
“You are the last person I was expecting to see here, but you’ve just made my fucking day,” my brother says, tossing his gloves and hat onto the counter. “We have so much to catch up on.”
“First you need to sit down and eat,” Mom says, pulling an extra chair from the hallway up to the kitchen table, “and you need to mind your language.” She smiles, playfully swatting him on the hand as he pulls his chair up to the table and Jamie scoops some pasta onto his plate.
