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Despite the activity and mess, the kitchen is a relief, a calm oasis compared to the rest of the house, already bursting at the seams with family even though Thanksgiving isn’t until tomorrow. It’s just the two of them at the moment, and she thinks this might be her favorite part of the holiday.
“’Scuse me,” Ben mutters, reaching for the cabinet above her. Phee tilts her head slightly to the left and keeps peeling while he retrieves whichever dish he was after and carefully closes the cabinet door. She reaches under his arm to rinse her hand at the sink as he deposits a mixing bowl there and turns the water on. They skirt around one another almost like a dance.
“Something’s missing,” he mutters and offers her a spoon. Phee tastes hums, brow furrowed as she considers. “Ginger, I think?”
“Yes! You’re brilliant. Thanks, Mom,”
He freezes, face paling then suffusing with color. “Uh, um…”
She just smiles. “It’s what moms are for, right?”
Clyde doesn’t like him. That’s what he keeps grumbling. Except she knows it’s not true, not really. He likes the young man just as much as she does. Even likes the way he looks at their little girl.
What he doesn’t like is that it will mean more changes. Rey has a big, bright future ahead of her. One hopefully full of the kind of love Phee found with Clyde, a family of her own if that’s what she wants, a career, a whole, big life.
They don’t know it yet, but it’s there, in the shy smiles, the glances when the other isn’t looking.
The way Rey hauled him home with her, so upset he didn’t have anywhere to go. “His parents aren’t even in the country. And they could have been! Who does that Mama?”
“Ben, can you hand me that box, please?” Phee asks, pointing at the top of the refrigerator. He grabs the tin easily and hands it to her, making sure she has it before he lets go. She pops off the top and pulls out a card. The paper is yellowing, writing spidery and beginning to fade, notes in a different hand in places.
“I think we’re almost done,” her son-in-law says. “I’ll start washing up. Promise I’m not stealing any family secrets,” he quips with a boyish grin.
“Actually, I was hoping you would help, this year.”
There’s a clatter as whatever he was washing falls back into the sink and he turns. “But, I’m not—” he begins, and she just waits.
“Clyde suggested it,” she says, softly.
Phee pinches lightly at the skin just above the waist of Clyde’s pants, where his shirt is riding up. She leans in, and Clyde automatically tilts his head down. “Stop glowering, Mr. Logan,” she whispers, lips brushing the shell of his ear. She kisses his cheek and pats his thigh as he straightens and clears his throat, looking down with a frown as Rey passes the bowl of mashed potatoes to her friend.
She gives her husband another pat then turns her attention to their son. “Rusty, no cars on the table while there’s food on it,” she reminds, then checks on Hazel before turning back to her plate.
“Gravy, Honey?” Clyde asks, and she nods, smiling as he adds the perfect amount to her plate, on the dressing and turkey only. Just the way she likes.
They’re up early, the two of them awake before anyone else. Ben nods and silently offers her a cup of coffee in her favorite mug. She accepts with a grateful smile and closes her eyes as she breathes in the steam then takes the first sip, a happy hum escaping the back of her throat. Clyde will be in soon, and probably Dayton as well, but at the moment it’s just Phee, and Ben, and quiet.
She sits on a barstool at the counter, careful of the desserts they prepared yesterday, and Ben leans against the edge across from her, staring down at his coffee cup like he’s searching for some secret answer to a question only he knows. Then he blinks and looks up at her. “I’m sorry, if I made you uncomfortable yesterday. I didn’t—it wasn’t intentional, and—”
He sits up as soon as she steps into the kitchen, hair mussed and worry if not outright fear on his face.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,” Phee says softly.
Ben shakes his head and rubs his eyes. “Light sleeper,” he mutters. She glances at the time. It’s barely 5AM. “You should go back to sleep. Rusty crawled into our bed around three, if you want to lie down in his room. I’m sorry we didn’t put you up in there to begin with.”
“No, no, this is more than enough,” he insists.
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“No, I…I mean...”
He looks so lost and it’s all she can do not to march over and tuck him in like a small child. Instead, she presses the button on the coffeemaker, starting the pot Clyde prepped before bed. “How do you feel about pie for breakfast?” she asks, and he seems confused but perks up. He shuffles into the hall bathroom and then joins her for coffee. He eyes her favorite seasonal creamer, and she pushes the bottle closer to him. “I won’t tell a soul,” she says, and the smile he gives her makes her heart feel lighter, because she knows it was the right thing to say.
Phee sets her mug aside and straightens, holds up a hand to get his attention, then places it gently on the back of his. “It’s okay,” she insists. “You didn’t. And it doesn’t have to mean anything. We can both just forget it ever happened if that’s what you want.”
“I don’t,” he says calmly.
Phee pats his hand. “Okay then, that’s settled.”
Before she can say more, her brother-in-law shuffles into the room, ready to claim his own cup of coffee and start their day. Clyde’s not far behind, and he kisses the top of Phee’s head then starts rummaging about in the cabinets and pulling things out of the refrigerator.
Ben graduates first, the year before Rey, and it’s at his ceremony they meet his parents and uncle for the first time. They’re polite, friendly even, but there’s a distant coolness, especially between Ben and his uncle. His father makes jokes, and it seems to be an attempt to ease tension and bridge the gap, but it’s not the right gesture. Not for Ben. Rey, maybe, but it’s not the way to connect with Ben.
“Good of you to come,” Ben’s mother, Leia, says, offering a surprisingly firm handshake and a blank mask of a smile. “How do you know my son?”
“We’re Rey’s parents, ma’am,” Clyde says.
“Oh, is he a classmate of Ben’s? That roommate?”
“That was Beaumont, Princess, four years ago.”
“Rey’s our daughter,” Phee adds with a smile, and the woman’s mouth goes tight for a moment before she recovers and smiles again.
Ben is in charge of the turkey. Dayton worries over the pans of dressing. Phee chops vegetables. Clyde made them all breakfast and cleaned up, then left them to it. It’s a tradition, now. As much as Clyde might like to also hide out in the kitchen (and is a decent cook) he doesn’t enjoy it the way they do. For Phee (and she suspects for Ben as well), it’s soothing, and it means something to Dayton, being included, being able to contribute.
Grandma Sylvia’s recipe box is still out on the counter, and Phee flips through for the other cards she wants, handing one to Dayton and another to Ben. Her brother’s husband smiles, dimples showing and eyes crinkling,
Rey laughs, loud and joyous, and throws her arms around Ben’s neck as he leans down and wraps his arms around her. He lifts her feet off the ground and turns a full circle while Rey peppers his face with kisses and musses his hair.
“They been goin’ together almost three years,” Clyde says, gently, and neither he nor Phee miss the wistful sadness that crosses Leia’s expression. Her shoulders droop, a lost soul who can’t find the path.
“I see,” she says softly, and Ben’s father wraps an arm around her, tucking her into his side. Ben’s uncle mutters under his breath about decorum and public scenes, but all three of them watch the way Ben accepts Clyde’s shoulder clap and hug in a mixture of awe and longing.
Bennett perches on Ben’s lap, picking off his father’s plate, and Ben juggles managing the toddler and passing bowls and platters around the table like a pro. Lae and Dayton’s daughter, Gloria, studies them all from her highchair with a scowl and the occasional babble or coo. Sadie and Mellie entertain Rusty and Hazel at the folding card table set up at the edge of the living room.
“Do you want gravy, Sweetheart?”
“Want it, yes, but I don’t think I can,” Rey says with a wince, rubbing at her swollen belly. “I might love it, but the twins do not,” she mutters.
“I’ll make you a whole bucket after they’re born,” Ben promises, then passes the gravy boat to Clyde, not taking any for himself either. With the exception of his morning coffee (which Rey insists he needs even more if she can’t have any), he’s not been eating or drinking anything she can’t have. Phee wonders if Clyde told Ben he did the same thing when she was pregnant with Rusty, and then again with Hazel. There’s a good chance, anyway.
Rusty clings to Ben’s leg and giggles, and Hazel perches happily on his shoulders as Mellie and Sadie snap pictures with everyone’s cell phones and at least two actual cameras. They’ve even managed to get Ben and his relatives to stand together and smile, although they all look as if they might be battling various degrees of indigestion.
They try to politely decline Leia’s invitation to join the Solo family for lunch, but she’s determined. Phee has the impression that, with possibly the exception of her son, the woman is used to getting her way.
It’s tense, certainly, but they all survive, and Clyde declares that after such a meal, they should all have ice cream for supper.
The shock on Ben’s face says plainly he understands the deeper meaning behind the tradition.
After all, ice cream suppers celebrating an accomplishment are a Logan family tradition.
“Is this Granny Amelia Mae’s mac and cheese?” Jimmy asks, words garbled around a mouthful as Sylvia shakes her head at him.
“The recipe she said she stole from the diner? Yep,” Clyde confirms. “Ben made it.”
“And the cranberry sauce,” Dayton adds with a wink and a grin.
“Clyde! You let them teach Ben and still ain’t let me have Grandma Sylvia’s recipe?”
“You barely know how to turn on the stove!” Mellie calls from the ‘kids’ table.’
“Burn the bacon just fine,” he mumbles, and the three elder Logan siblings laugh good-naturedly. Jimmy scoops up a forkful of the cranberries and frowns. “Why does it taste so good?”
“Because Ben made it,” Rey says. “Face it, Uncle Jimmy, you just ain’t got the gift.”
The playful ribbing continues as they eat, and through seconds. The doorbell rings just after Ben rises to start bringing out the desserts. “Oh, I’ll get that,” he says, swinging Bennett up when the little boy tugs on his pants leg and makes grabby hands.
“Oh, wait, Ben!” Rey calls, but she has trouble getting out of her chair. She seems worried.
“Rey, everything okay?”
“Oh, Daddy, I forgot! I was supposed to tell him, but it slipped my mind and—”
“Grammy!” Bennett squeals from the front door.
“Oh, hel-lo, my love!”
“Mom? Dad? Uh, what are…what are you doing? Here? Today?”
With help from Jimmy, Rey manages to get out of her chair and takes a few steps before Ben returns with his parents in tow. “Um, Surprise?” Rey says weakly.
“My mother’s a lot,” Ben mutters. The rehearsal dinner is in an hour, and he seems more than a little stressed.
“She loves you,” Phee says, unsure what he needs to hear but knowing that much is true.
“Yeah, I guess…no, I know, I do, but it’s so hard. She’s just so—”
“The two of you are a lot alike,” she observes when he trails off almost helplessly. Ben slumps into a chair and buries his face in his hands with a groan, but he doesn’t argue.
“It’s hard, accepting someone loves you when they don’t show it the way you need. Has Rey told you anything about my father?”
He looks up slowly, confused enough about where she’s going with this that the answer is already apparent before he shakes his head.
She claims the chair beside him, fiddling with the centerpiece she’d been working on when he came in. “I was married before,” she says. “My mother died when I was very young. I don’t remember her at all. My father did the best, but he didn’t know much about children, and I don’t think he knew how to go about learning. He was older than her, a firm believer that the women did the child-rearing, and I suppose I ran a little wild. Then we moved for his job, and his new boss kept him busy, but the wife, she took an interest in me, and truthfully, I was a little starved for attention. My brother was away at school, it seemed like my father was always gone, and she took me in, essentially.”
She realizes she’s tugging at the ribbons she so painstakingly tied and forces herself to put the centerpiece down. She offers Ben a sad smile. “Her son was older, at the same boarding school as my brother, so we were around one another when he was home for holidays and breaks. He was everything I thought I was supposed to want. Handsome, smart, from a wealthy family…” she shakes her head. “We were young, and dumb, and in love, and we eloped. My father was furious. Hamlet—that was my husband’s name—Hamlet and Ophelia, I should have known we were doomed. He was supposed to marry an heiress. Someone more suitable. So when his family gave him an ultimatum, made him choose between me and their money,” she shrugs and swipes away a tear at the memory of an old pain. “Anyway, my own father was on their side. I thought my brother was as well. It was only after I met Clyde and he encouraged me to reach out, that I found out Laertes never knew. My father helped his boss cover it all up, because he thought it was the right thing.”
“It wasn’t,” Ben insists, squeezing her hand.
“Maybe, maybe not,” she says. “But I wouldn’t have met Clyde otherwise. We wouldn’t have Rey.” She pauses, looks him in the eye, because this is the part she needs him to understand, the thing he needs to remember. “And none of us would have you. Family is more than blood and legal obligation, Ben.”
Perhaps it’s parenthood, or the wisdom of experience, and the therapy has probably helped as well, but they manage a nice evening. Leia and Han have dessert with the family.
Leia even rolls up her sleeves and helps with the dishes, washing as Ben puts things away. Phee pretends not to be eavesdropping as she nurses the end of a decaf coffee. In all, it’s a wonderful—albeit exhausting—family holiday.
Laertes and his family will spend the night, and other than the three of them, Rey and Ben are the last to leave, lingering mostly because Rey fell asleep when she put Bennett down for a nap. It’s cool but not cold, and Phee’s not surprised to find her son-in-law on the porch. She pulls her sweater around her and offers him one of the mugs of warm cider.
“Thanks.” He takes the mug and holds it in both hands, even though it’s almost comically small in just one.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I think I am.”
They sip their drinks and look up at the stars.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I never should have taken her away, not even for one day.”
“You’re adults, Ben, with your own lives, and we love you no matter how far you are. Besides, you’re back now, not even a twenty-minute drive.” She bumps her shoulder against his bicep.
“I guess. I just…”
“Ben, I am going to say something, and I want you to listen very carefully. I am very happy you’re working on your relationship with your parents. And I love having you all so close by. But you are so much more than just my daughter’s husband. You didn’t take her away, you know? I mourn every day that we didn’t meet her sooner, but Rey was always meant to be part of this family. And so were you. You didn’t take my daughter. She brought me another son.”
His shoulders tremble and he leans a little more firmly against her.
“Thanks, Mom.”