"She knows you pretty well," Jaden observed. "Yeah," Malcolm said. "She does." Viven arrived the next day with sweet potato pie and a poise that Malcolm deeply respected. Because walking into a Carter family Thanksgiving for the first time was not for the faint of heart.
His mother, Eleanor Carter, had opinions about everything about Malcolm's work schedule and Jaden's bedtime and whether the gravy was thick enough and every decision Malcolm had made since approximately 1987. She was also underneath all of it, the woman who had held her son together in the worst year of his life, who had driven from Colombia every weekend for 6 months after Denise died to make sure Jaden had consistency and Malcolm had at least one meal a day. She loved fiercely and expressed it loudly. And she was going to have thoughts about Vivien Sinclair. She took one look at Viven in the doorway, the pie, the composed smile, the direct handshake, and said, "Hm, just that."
Hm. Malcolm felt his whole body brace. Then his mother stepped back and said, "Come in and let me see what you know about a kitchen." Viven glanced at Malcolm. He gave her absolutely nothing.
You're on your own. She walked into the kitchen. Malcolm hovered near the doorway for 20 minutes, ready to intervene until Jerome physically moved him away and said, "Stop hovering. Let it happen." What happened was that Elellanar Carter asked Viven 12 questions in a row while they worked, covering her childhood, her mother, her faith, her intentions, and whether she understood what it meant to be in a relationship with a man who was also a father.
And whether she understood that Jaden came first, always no exceptions. And Viven answered every single question directly, without deflection, without trying to be charming, without performing anything. At question 12, Elanor stopped, looked at her, said, "You're not scared of me." "A little," Vivian said honestly. "But I think that's appropriate.
He's your son." Elanor looked at her for a long moment. Then she handed her a spoon and said, "Stir this." Viven stirred. Malcolm found out all of this from Jerome, who had been listening from the hallway the entire time and reported back with the thoroughess of a field correspondent.
"Your mother likes her," Jerome said. "My mother doesn't like anyone on the first meeting." I know. Hence why I'm telling you. Thanksgiving dinner was loud and chaotic and completely entirely full.
The way Malcolm's house hadn't been full in 6 years. He sat at the head of his table and looked at the faces around it and felt something settle in him that had been suspended for a very long time. Not healed exactly. Grief doesn't work that way. It doesn't resolve into completion.
It just becomes something you carry more gracefully over time. But something in the Carter household that had been holding its breath since Denise died finally quietly exhaled. Viven sat between Jaden and his sister Renee, who spent dinner interrogating her about real estate with the particular aggressive curiosity of a woman who had been watching her brother be alone for too long and was doing due diligence at an accelerated pace. Viven handled it with a patience and good humor that impressed Malcolm from across the table. After dinner, when the family had migrated to the living room and the card game had begun and Jaden was showing their cousin Marcus something on his tablet, Malcolm found Vivien in the kitchen.
She was washing a serving dish, just quietly washing it in his kitchen on Thanksgiving night like it was natural, like she belonged there. He stood in the doorway for a moment. She turned, saw him, didn't say anything. He walked to the sink, picked up a dish towel, started drying. They worked in silence for a few minutes side by side.