The Best Kind of Trouble

  Point made, Sharon changed the subject back to the project. She was sneaky, and Natalie liked that about her. She cared about her family and her community, and she was a strong woman. There wasn’t much not to like about that.

  On the way out, Sharon paused. “Since Paddy might have forgotten, we’ll sit down to eat at one or so. But in the way of things, we’ll start eating at ten or so while the games start, so don’t bother with breakfast. We’ll be at my house this year.”

  Confused, Natalie racked her memory and finally just admitted it. “I’m sorry?”

  “Thanksgiving dinner. Paddy did remember to invite you, didn’t he? He and I just talked about it two weeks ago.”

  “Oh! Yes. Yes, he did. Thank you for having me. I’d offer to bring something, but we’ll all be better off if that doesn’t happen. How about I bring some flowers and stuff to drink?”

  “That’d be perfect. I’ll be seeing you soon enough. On Thursday, if not before.” Sharon kissed her cheek and headed one way while Natalie headed back to work.

  * * *

  “PATRICK, THERE YOU ARE. Come over here and help me unload all this stuff.” His mother waved to him from where she stood at the back of their truck.

  He jogged over, shooing her from the way. “I’ll get it all. You just point where you want it.”

  “In the mudroom, please. It’s donations for the family shelter. I have a few more things to pick up, and then I’ll meet someone who’ll take it to them.”

  He stacked boxes. “I can do that for you.”

  “I think you can come with me, just to lug things. Natalie is helping with a collection center at the library, too, so she’ll most likely need you to help her get what she collects to me.”

  He gave his mother a look. “What have you been up to, Sharon Hurley?”

  “I’ve been doing my civic duty, Paddy. And you?” She planned to dodge his real question until she was good and ready to answer it.

  He sighed. “I’ve been out looking at trees and checking for fungus after a morning spent working with your sons, who are all pains in the butt.”

  She laughed. “Come on in and have some tea with me. I know Natalie isn’t done with work for another hour, so that means you’re not off to see her just yet.”

  “Not off to see her for a few hours more, if at all. We’re still working on trying to finish a song, but we needed a break before we got into a fight. But I always have time for tea.”

  “Is that because I have pecan sandies?”

  He grinned and walked her into the kitchen, his arm around her shoulder. “You wound me. So maybe to make it up to me, a cookie or three might help.”

  “Lordy, you’re full of it. You get that from your father, by the way.” She pointed at the cookie jar and he headed over, jamming two in his mouth before putting a few more on a plate.

  “I had lunch with Natalie today.”

  There it was. Fear made his skin clammy. “Oh, God.”

  “Why you looking nervous, boy?”

  “You almost got into a brawl with Mary’s mom. I just worry about you sometimes.” The time Mary broke things off with Damien, and their mother went with him to Mary’s house and got into a confrontation with Mary’s mother was sort of legendary in his family. Mary’s mother was a hell of a lot like Sharon, so they were great friends now, but back then, well, Paddy was sorry he’d missed seeing that in person.

  “That was a misunderstanding. She was protecting her child, and I was defending mine. However, I doubt I would be so close with Natalie’s parents. Sounds to me like they both need to be driven over with my truck a few times.”

  “She told you?” That surprised him, though his mother could have worked for the military the way she could get secrets out of people.

  The anger on his mom’s face softened. “A little bit. She’s so strong, but she’s hurt inside. She needs some mothering.”

  He went to his mother and hugged her, bending to put his head on her shoulder. She rubbed circles on his back just like she’d done when he was a kid, and it worked just fine when he was an adult, too.

  “Thank you.”

  She kissed his cheek before he straightened and resumed being half a foot taller than she was.

  “She’s a good girl. And she has a big heart. I was worried you’d end up with a moron with big boobs and a tiny brain.”

  He winced. “Why? Why not big boobs and a big brain? I’m an overachiever.”

  She used the hand towel to whack his behind. “You. Anyway, she’s going to help me on this project of mine. She has some excellent ideas. I invited her to Thanksgiving. She said you already had, so that’s good.”

  “I just assumed she’d know she was invited. When I started talking about it like it was a done deal, she was all shocked. Tuesday is heading to San Diego. That’s where her sister lives with her family. Natalie usually spends the various holidays in Portland or Seattle with her group of friends from college, I guess. I claimed her this year, told her she’d be expected here at Christmas, too.” Though he did want to meet the rest of her 1022 group at some point since they were all so important to her.

  * * *

  SHE PICKED THE phone up, smiling at the tone. “Hey, Zo, what’s up? You callin’ from the road or are you back home?”

  Zoe Marsden was one of Natalie’s favorite people, a close friend of many years. She and her partner, Jenny, another member of their 1022 group, lived in a great old house in West Seattle where Jenny taught school. Zoe’s job sometimes took her all over the world to study whales. She’d recently been in Norway.

  “I’m home at last. I’ve missed you guys like crazy. You’re coming up for Thanksgiving? Jenny will make something vegetarian, but I’ll have turkey, I promise.”

  Once back in college, Jenny made them all tofurky for Thanksgiving dinner. Natalie actually liked tofu, but she was of the opinion that it didn’t need to be shaped like pretend meat, especially when it didn’t actually taste good. Over the years, though, Jenny had remained a vegetarian and her cooking skills had improved, so turkey day with them usually meant something awesome not pressed into a loaf.

  “I’m actually not this year. I’m...I’m going to my boyfriend’s house. Well, to his family’s house.”

  “Boyfriend? Wow. When did this occur?”

  Zoe made sure Jenny got on the other line to listen in as Natalie filled them in.

  “So bring him on Friday. We’re having leftovers and watching movies as we always do. We want to meet him,” Jenny said.

  That might actually be good. Natalie’s friends were people whose opinions she trusted. Paddy would no doubt charm them all, but she’d be able to see how he related with people outside his circle who weren’t fans or whatever.

  “All right. I’ll ask him. They’re working on a new album right now, so I don’t know what his schedule is.”

  “Even if he can’t, you can,” Zoe reminded her. “It’s been since the Fourth of July when we had my farewell dinner before I left on my trip.”

  “Yes. I’ll definitely be there. I’ve missed you guys.”

  “Yay! You have to look at lots of pictures and pretend to be fascinated with dorsal shape and marking.”

  “Always.”

  They talked awhile longer before hanging up. The house was quiet. Tuesday had already left for her sister’s in San Diego, so Natalie was alone. She headed downstairs to make some tea. It was cold, and she wasn’t sure if Paddy was coming over or not, so she may as well tuck in and get warmer.

  She put the kettle on the stove—after all, it was something she could do without damaging the stove or the teakettle—and put a bag in a mug. She considered digging out the bag of cookies hidden in the pantry but decided against it.

  The phone rang again, and she picked it up expecting it to be Jenny or Zoe calling back.

  “Natalie, it’s your grandmother.”

  She held back a heavy sigh. She’d known this call was coming after all this stuff with her father. He’d h
ave run up to Bellevue to whine to his mother, who had neglected him as much as he’d neglected Natalie. Now her grandmother would try to manipulate her.

  Thing was, she’d reached a stage in her life where she was pretty over being manipulated by people.

  She took a deep breath and searched for her manners, though. “Hello, Grandma. How are you?”

  “I’m calling to invite you to Thanksgiving. Your father is in town, so it’ll be the three of us.”

  “Thank you but I have plans.” And she sure as hell didn’t plan to spend an entire day watching her grandmother drink herself into oblivion while she fretted about Bob and what a waste of Natalie’s life it was to work for such little pay at a library.

  “With family? This is a family holiday, Natalie. Not a day to wear sweatpants and lay around with your roommates.”

  Natalie gritted her teeth for a moment. To be lectured by a person who knew what her life was like and never worked to get her out of it was unbearable.

  “Yes, actually. With family.”

  “How can that be? I’m your family. Your father is your family, and we are both here inviting you, and you’re rejecting us. I don’t think you were raised to be so ungrateful.” Her grandmother piled on the haughty, and it only strengthened Natalie’s resolve not to give in.

  “It can be because family is more about what you do than who you are.” Natalie knew her tone had gone frosty, but it was better than saying something she couldn’t take back.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I’m spending the day with people who are there for me when it counts. Someone isn’t your family simply because they contributed to your DNA. Family is how you act. These people are my family and it would be terribly rude of me to cancel at the last minute.”

  “That sounds like something you read in one of those self-help books. But we’re your family. Surely these friends can understand that. Why would you hurt my feelings to protect someone else’s?”

  Ah, there it was. And suddenly, it was just too much to bite her tongue yet again, even if she was an elderly woman and Natalie’s grandmother. Because she’d spent a lifetime the victim of people who never acted to put anyone’s feelings first.

  “Understand what, exactly? I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but it’s time we were honest with each other, don’t you think?”

  “I think it’s time you got over your silly, infantile anger at your father. He loves you. He’s trying to do right and your refusal to let him do that is hindering his recovery.”

  It was just...enough. Years and years of just letting it pass. Of taking it to keep the peace and suddenly, she had nothing left to do it anymore.

  “Well, here’s what I think. I’m not responsible for his recovery. He is. I think it’s time you realize that he spent my entire childhood in a drugged-out, drunken stupor. I think it’s time you realize that those times when I begged you to let me live with you and you sent me back to keep an eye on my father and keep him safe, you turned your back on me and made me raise him when that was your job to start with. I think it’s time you realize that I had to step over used needles and pools of vomit strangers left in my living room. I think it’s time you realize that he’s done his I’m clean now routine seven times now. I’m done. I’m done with all of it. I’m not coming to your house on Thanksgiving to listen to how nothing is his fault. Jesus! He’s not the only person on earth who has gotten clean. He’s got money in the bank and more chances than most addicts ever will. They can do it. They do it every damned day because they work on it. I think he’s not interested in working because that means he’d have to, for once in his life, stand up and accept what he has done and really want to change it.”

  There was a knock at her door, and she was so mad she just let Paddy in, not caring that he might hear this silly bullshit.

  He leaned to kiss her forehead and rustled through cabinets to get tea ready, getting the hot water poured in her mug and one for himself, too.

  He smelled good. Like late fall. Crisp air, wood fires, the cold. He was real, and he was good.

  “I had no idea you had so much anger in you. Robert told me about it, of course, but you’ve never said.” Her grandmother was a top-notch guilt artist, right down to the wobble in her voice.

  “I think it would be more appropriate to say you’ve never listened to me when I attempted to talk to you about it.”

  “I can see this boy your father says you were with has had some negative influence on you. You have responsibilities to your family. No one is perfect, Natalie. Your own mother certainly wasn’t.”

  She slammed her hand down on her counter, and Paddy stilled, his eyes going wide and then narrowing.

  “I’m done paying for everyone else’s transgressions! She left. Why, I don’t know. But I do know I sure as heck wanted to leave plenty of times. Maybe he drove her away. She’s selfish and a terrible mother regardless, but she’s not me. I’m me, and I’m done with this conversation. I hope he is truly clean once and for all, but I want no part of any of this. I am not his rock bottom, I am not his keeper. I am not his rock or his reason to be clean. He has to make his own damned life choices. Good night, Grandmother, and have a good Thanksgiving.”

  “You want that money.”

  It shouldn’t have hurt, her grandmother had done much the same to her father. But it did. It also took that flame of anger and simmered it, allowing her to withdraw from the conversation without any more damage.

  “It came to me, legally, on my twenty-first birthday. If you didn’t want me to have it, you should have challenged it instead of pushing me to take it. I won’t let you manipulate me like this. I need to go. I do love you, and I hope you and Bob have a nice Thanksgiving.”

  She hung up and turned the ringer off.

  * * *

  PADDY LOOKED AT HER. “I don’t know whether to give you a hug or a high five. I take it that was your grandmother?”

  “Yes. Inviting me for Thanksgiving. I’m sort of embarrassed you heard that. I’m not usually like that with her.”

  “Sounds to me like she said a lot of stuff to provoke a response like that.”

  “She does it on purpose to poke at me and back me into a corner. I’m stupid to have let her do it.”

  He stepped close and pulled her into a hug. “You’re lots of things, but you’re not stupid. And I don’t even know your family, but holy shit, I don’t like them one bit. No one gets to upset you like this.”

  She smiled, snuggling into him. “I think I shocked her. I’ve never actually told her off like that. Jeez, all she did was call to ask me to Thanksgiving dinner. I’m going to hell.”

  He leaned her back so he could look her in the face. “Baby, hush. I heard part of that. I know you. It is not a child’s fault that a parent leaves, and your dad and your grandmother both seem to use that to hurt you. That’s not right. And you’re not going anywhere near Thanksgiving dinner with them. Unless you really really want to, in which case I’ll be coming along.”

  “Wow, you must really like me to volunteer for what would most assuredly be a pretty nightmarish day for you. But I said no and it wasn’t hard. I don’t go there for holiday dinners and I haven’t in some time. I do see my grandmother a few times a year, usually at really stilted lunches where she drinks too much and tells me things I’m not supposed to know. But I don’t need her to be my family. The fact is, when I needed her to be, she wasn’t. I can forgive that, like I can forgive my father. But I can’t forget, and I won’t let them ever get close enough to hurt me like that again.”

  “I want to punch someone on your behalf.”

  “To be fair, you’ve been with your brothers all day, so you’d want to punch someone, anyway.”

  “Ezra made me and Vaughan sit on opposite sides of the studio today.”

  “You’re really cute when you pout about not being able to fight with your brother.”

  “I tried to remember what you said about how he wanted me to respec
t him and be proud of him. You’re probably right. Even if he is a lazy fuck.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “I’m hungry. I have Mary leftovers in my fridge, so I think you should pack a bag and come to my place. Spend the next few days with me.”

  “I have to work tomorrow for half the day.”

  “So? I’ll drive you in. After I make you breakfast, even. Then I’ll pick you up, and we can spend the night together. I’m going to have to make you come a lot so you’re plenty relaxed for turkey day with the Hurleys.”

  “You’d really just use anything you could to have more sex, wouldn’t you?”

  He grinned. “Take a look in a mirror, gorgeous, and you tell me how anyone can resist all those curves.”

  “Oh, wait, what are you doing Friday?”

  “I didn’t have anything planned. Please don’t tell me you want to get up at four and wait in some long-ass line to get socks on sale.”

  She cringed. “It’s like you don’t know me at all.”

  He laughed. “Hey, I should get credit for even entertaining the thought of doing such a thing for you.”

  “You were going to try to get me to do it with your mom or Mary or something, anyway.”

  He ducked his chin, blushing. “Okay, so I know it’s not that. What are we doing on Friday, then?”

  “1022 has a day after Thanksgiving day. We eat leftovers and lay around and have a movie marathon of some sort. I don’t know what it is this year, but it should be fun. I told Zoe and Jenny about you tonight, and they wanted me to come and bring you, too, so they can meet you. I know Delia will be there. I forgot to ask about Rosie.”

  “Yeah, I’d love that. I’ve been wanting to meet your friends for a while. And relaxing all day watching movies sounds like the perfect activity.”

  “And you’ll be surrounded by women.”

  “Clearly, I’ve been a good boy this year, and Santa is hooking me up. Lucky for me, I’ll have the prettiest one in my bed already.”