Jerome was Marcus' cousin. And big laugh. Easy warmth. The kind of person who made you feel within 4 minutes like you'd known him for years. His wife, Tamara, pulled Victoria into the kitchen immediately on the grounds that anyone who didn't know the layout was on vegetable duty, and Victoria found herself dicing sweet potatoes next to a woman she'd met 7 minutes ago, talking about the school system in Mil Haven versus Atlanta with the ease of a conversation that had been waiting to happen.
At some point, she looked up and found Marcus watching her from the doorway. Not. He was not watching the conversation. He was watching her the way she'd settled into the kitchen. The way she was laughing at something Tamara had said, the way her shoulders had come down from wherever she kept them on ordinary days.
She caught his eye. He looked away first. She smiled and went back to the sweet potatoes. Ava spent most of Thanksgiving attached to Victoria's left side in a way that was not clingy. It was proprietary, which was different.
This was Ava's person. Ava had decided. The rest of the family could get acquainted at their own pace. Ava had already completed the evaluation process. At dinner when they were all around Celeste's table and plates were being passed and three conversations were happening simultaneously and Jerome was making a case for his sweet potato pie being superior to Celeste's which Celeste rejected with the confidence of someone who had been winning this argument for 15 years.
Ava leaned over to Victoria and said in a voice that was meant to be quiet but was not. Do you like it here? The table didn't go quiet, but Marcus heard it. She saw him hear it. "I love it here," Victoria said.
Ava nodded with supreme satisfaction. "I thought so," she said. "You have the face. " "What face? The one people get when there's somewhere they want to stay," Ava said and went back to her sweet potatoes. Celeste, who had caught all of this, looked across the table at Victoria with an expression that communicated that the two of them were going to have a full conversation at some point, probably over dishes, and that Celeste was looking forward to it.
They did over dishes while the men were in the living room and the children were doing something involving couch cushions that Celeste was strategically not investigating. He hasn't been like this in 4 years, Celeste said. She was washing. Victoria was drying. The choreography had been established without discussion.
After Dana, I watched him close himself up like he was winterizing a house. Put everything valuable inside and boarded the windows. Victoria dried a plate and put it where Celeste pointed. He never stopped being a good father. Celeste said that part he kept open for Ava.
He kept everything but for himself. She shook her head. I'd stopped thinking he was going to let anyone back in. He didn't let me in easily, Victoria said. No, Celeste said he made you earn it.