Chapter 5 - The Thanksgiving Table
The dining room of our Bellevue townhouse was filled with the warm, rich scent of roasted turkey, rosemary potatoes, and pumpkin pie.
It was late November, exactly one year since the night my family had turned on me.
Our dining table was a beautiful, solid oak piece that Daniel and I had chosen together. It was surrounded by people who actually loved us—Sarah Jenkins, Daniel’s adoptive parents, who had flown in from Chicago to spend the holidays with their granddaughter, and a few of our closest friends.
Clara, now a happy, chubby ten-month-old with a mouth full of two tiny front teeth, was sitting in her high chair, happily smearing mashed sweet potatoes across her tray.
Daniel stood at the head of the table, holding a carving knife. He looked at me, his eyes filled with a deep, quiet warmth that made the cold winter wind outside the windows feel a million miles away.
"I’d like to make a toast," Daniel said, raising his glass of sparkling cider.
The table went quiet, everyone looking at him with bright, happy faces.
"To family," Daniel said, his gaze locking onto mine. "Not the one we are born into by chance, but the one we build by choice. The one that stands by you when the tires are flat, the one that drives through the storm, and the one that shows up when the lights go out."
"To family," the table echoed, the glasses clinking together in a beautiful, ringing chorus.
After dinner, while the guests were in the living room playing with Clara, I stood by the kitchen window, looking out at the quiet, snowy street.
My phone buzzed on the counter.
It was an email from a private investigator I had hired to keep track of my mother’s movements, just to ensure she never tried to approach our home.
The email contained a single photograph.
It was Carol, looking older and much more fragile, sitting on the porch of a tiny, run-down trailer in a park outside of Phoenix. She was holding a plastic cup, looking out at the dusty desert road, completely alone.
There were no flowers. No fake smiles. No daughters to control.
May you like
I deleted the email. Then, I turned off my phone, walked back into the living room, and sat down on the floor next to my husband and my daughter, wrapping them both in my arms.
We were finally home. And the doors were locked tight.
