it that afternoon: a crisp white blouse, open at the throat, high-waisted black trousers, and lace-up black patent-leather oxfords. The shirt and the shoes were both styled like menswear, and Melissa wore a man’s heavy watch on her wrist, but her tumble of shoulder-length curls and dangling, delicate gold earrings were feminine counterpoints to her masculine attire. She carried a leather messenger-style bag slung over one shoulder, bulging with manuscripts and advance reader’s copies of books that she’d distribute to her mother and her sister.
Kim poked her head into the room.
“Does anyone know where Lila is? I told her dinner was at four, and she promised to be here.”
Jo sighed, pulling her cell phone out of her purse and punching her daughter’s number. Unsurprisingly, the call went to voice mail, with Lila’s smart-aleck voice saying, “You know what to do,” and then a beep. Jo had offered to give Lila a ride to New Jersey, but of course Lila had plans for Wednesday night. “Everyone from high school’s going to be home, and a bunch of us are going out. I’ll probably sleep in and take a train,” she said.
“I guess we can wait . . .” Kim was wiping her hands on her apron when Matt came up behind her, in boat shoes and jeans and a dark-blue polo shirt. His round pink face had gotten rounder and pinker over the years, his fine blond hair had gotten thinner, and, as he put his hands on Kim’s shoulders, his expression was almost smug. That, thought Jo, hadn’t changed at all.
“Not too long,” he said. “Don’t want the turkey to dry out!” He shook Harold’s hand and kissed Bethie’s cheek, treating them both with the kind of respectful deference that, Jo supposed, their wealth afforded them.
Kim looked at her mother. “Mom, what do you think?”
Jo gripped her phone, considering her son-in-law’s impatience and her own news. “Let’s get started,” she said. “Lila can eat when she gets here.”
* * *
The dinner was delicious. Jo couldn’t find fault with a single dish: not the creamy pumpkin soup or the sausage and pecan stuffing, not the velvety, lumpless gravy or the roast turkey, its skin lacquered a gorgeous dark brown, not the salad of arugula and baby spinach and fennel, with a tart, citrusy dressing, which cut the richness of the turkey and the honey-butter served with the biscuits and the corn bread. Jo didn’t have much appetite. The announcement she’d soon be making sat like a lead ball in her belly. She kept one eye on the door, looking for Lila, thinking that, as tasty as the food was, none of it had history. Jo thought about the turkeys that her father used to baste with melted margarine and teriyaki sauce, and wondered what Kim would say if she’d offered her daughter that recipe, and whether the hydrogenated fats in the margarine or the corn syrup in the teriyaki sauce would strike her as more offensive. She remembered how, years ago, Bethie and Harold had hosted Thanksgiving, and Harold had deep-fried a turkey in the garage of their house in Buckhead. That bird had been succulent, the skin crisp, the meat meltingly tender, so good that she’d snuck out of bed for a midnight snack and found Harold, his father, and two of his brothers in the kitchen, all of them happily gorging on turkey sandwiches, biscuits and gravy and sweet potato pie.
She looked down the table and was unsurprised to see that her Jell-O had gone untouched.
“Flora, want to try some Jell-O?” she asked. Flora frowned, asking, “What is Jell-O?” and Jo, hoping Kim wouldn’t start grilling her about preservatives and Red Dye No. 3, scooped a bit onto Flora’s dish.
“So, Kim,” Jo asked. “How much longer does your maternity leave last?”
Kim, who’d been holding Leonie on her lap, exchanged a guilty look with her husband. “Actually,” said Kim, “I’m going to stay home for a while.”
“For how long?” Jo asked.
“I’m not sure,” said Kim, who, Jo knew, was sure of everything, from precisely how many pounds the turkey had weighed to how much money, to the penny, she had in her checking account. “It’s kind of open-ended.”
“She quit,” said Matt, popping a forkful of stuffing into his mouth. “Decided to let me be the breadwinner for a while.”
“You quit?” Jo repeated.
Kim glared at Matt, then turned to Jo. “I decided it was time to look for a job with more flexibility. I’ll be home for a while, and then