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The following night at dinner, the Benjamin-Mitchell-Kazansky family gathered around the dining room table. Tom sat at the head of the table like usual with Penny to his left and Pete to his right. Amelia sat beside Pete, as they were both secretly feeding Theo under the table like usual.
“I can’t wait until Bradley’s home tomorrow,” Penny stated, taking a quick sip from her glass of wine and swallowing. “It feels like it’s been forever since he was home, doesn’t it?”
“Hey,” Pete laughed, holding his hands up teasingly. “Don’t look at me, Pen. It was all Ice’s idea for him to take some time away, not mine. I suggested he and I head up to the hanger.”
“You and that damn hanger of yours,” she huffed.
“You have the bar, sweetheart; I have my hanger.”
“And Pops has his office he hides in,” Amelia said with a giggle, joining in on the fun.
“I hardly hide inside it, Angel,” Tom drawled, forcing a quick cough and clearing his throat.
“Oh, that reminds me. Thank you, honey,” Penny commented, patting Tom’s knee lightly. Her eyes shifted to her daughter. “How’s Ethan today?”
Tom glanced over the rim of his wine glass, shaking his head, while Pete snickered.
“Seriously, Mom?” Amelia sighed, giving her a pointed look.
“What?” The corner of Penny’s lips trembled as she tried like hell to fight off her smile.
“He’s better. His dad took him in, and according to Devon, he’s on the good drugs now.”
“What did it turn out to be anyway? You know, just so we can prepare ourselves for when it starts in our household next,” joked Pete, jumping in his seat at obvious swift kicks under the table.
“Bronchitis. He must have been sicker than he let on. His dad says he has a habit of doing that unfortunately. Supposedly, we should be okay, though. Whatever virus that caused it was already out of his system before it turned into this.”
“He had it a few times as a kid,” Penny sighed, recalling the frantic phone calls she’d receive from Beau over it. “He’d be sniffling one day, coughing like there was no tomorrow the next. Would scare the hell out of Beau every time.”
She made a mental note, though, to wipe down all the frequent touch points in and outside the house with sanitizing wipes just in case after dinner, knowing Tom or Pete would try to beat her to it otherwise just so they could tease her over beating her. She wouldn’t take any chances with their family’s health even if Tom was now cancer free again.
“How about for tonight’s topic,” Tom announced, “we talk about a time where we visited a pumpkin patch in honor of Halloween coming up?
It was a silly little thing they would do some nights to pass time at the family dinner table. Penny regrettably wasn’t here most nights for it, so it was always extra special when she was. Jimmy thankfully had told her that he and their new bartender could handle the crowd if she’d come in later to close. She had, of course, jumped on Jimmy’s offer within seconds.
“Pumpkin patch?” Pete repeated before he shrugged. “Yeah, I got nothing.”
“Didn’t you used to go with us, Dad?” Amelia asked, glancing at him skeptically.
Pete grimaced, scratching at the back of his neck for a moment. “Um, no, sorry, Tomcat. I’m usually either busy with some mission I’m heading out on or . . . elsewhere around this time of year. I think the last two years are actually the first times I’ve been with your mother during this time, in fact.”
And they hadn’t gone to a pumpkin patch as a family yet, Penny realized with a start.
In 2019, he had been training for his mission with the Dagger kids, so his time was occupied with them and her occasionally. And she hadn’t felt like celebrating Halloween on the off chance that he wouldn’t be coming home ever again.
In 2020, their attention was solely on their youngest after Amelia was drugged and nearly assaulted at an after party she had no business being at.
She didn’t know what their excuse was this year. Them all being too busy, she supposed.
“I feel like Grandpa took us to one once, didn’t he, Mom?”
Penny nodded. “He took us a few times actually. You never really enjoyed it ever, though, so we stopped going. You were always my sweet tooth child.”
“Get that from your dad’s side,” Tom teased, winking at Amelia who giggled.
“Uh, no, that’s all your influences, thank you, Thomas,” Penny scoffed back. “As if people don’t see your candy bowl on your desk that has to be refilled constantly.”
“Seeing as how I beat cancer, I think I’m entitled to a few pieces every now and then.”
“Uh-huh,” Penny replied, patting his cheek fondly. “Face it. You’re a candy addict, Kazansky.”
“Did you ever go to a pumpkin patch, Pops?” Amelia asked.
“Regrettably, no, I didn’t. We tried to take your brother one year, but . . . the cards weren’t in our favor that year unfortunately.”
“Bradley ended up gorging himself on Ice’s secret candy stash,” Pete explained, “so we stayed home and took care of him instead.”
“Way to go, bird brain,” Amelia scoffed, rolling her eyes.
“What about you, Pen? Any favorite memories of going with your dad? Or Tomcat?”
“Well, actually, yes, I have one.” She laughed softly, feeling their eyes focus solely on her. “The first time I remember going was with Dad. He wanted me to have as normal of a childhood as possible, so he found this farm outside of base and told me to pick out any pumpkin I wanted. Mind you, I was seven or eight at the time, I think, so I didn’t know what I was looking for exactly. So, we wandered up and down the rows of wagons full of pumpkins before I found the perfect one that I just had to have.” She laughed softly as she recalled the memory more. “It was the saddest, most pathetic pumpkin there. But to me, it was perfect because of all of its imperfections, its bumps and bruises. Dad, of course, didn’t have the heart to tell me that it wouldn’t last long in the California sun, so we brought it home. It took me forever to decide on the right pattern to carve. But when I poked it all out, Dad carved it up for me and we put it out on the front step.”
“Do you remember what the carving was?” Tom inquired.
“I think just a regular smiling, toothy pumpkin.” She smiled inwardly. “He took a photo of it before it rotted a few days later. Showed it off anytime he had any meetings on base during that time. I didn’t get why he did that until I had my Amelia. Hmm. Funny how that goes, isn’t it?”
Maybe next year they could visit a pumpkin patch. They thankfully had time nowadays.