Then I found my mouth whispering, “I didn’t want to mess up.”

To which I heard Brock say softly, “Hey,” and I stopped watching Joel shout (with Rex now accompanying him) and looked up to Brock. His eyes moved over my face then captured mine before he leaned in deep, touched his mouth to mine, pulled back an inch and murmured, “What am I gonna do with you?”

“Eat a lot of pie so it doesn’t look ridiculous how many leftovers there are?” I murmured back and he grinned.

“Scout’s honor, darlin’, I’ll do my best to have your back.”

I returned his grin and whispered, “Thanks.”

The door opened and Jill was there.

A year and a half older than Brock, her hair had started to silver and she let it go at that.

She got her Mom’s eyes, both her parents’ height (like all her siblings), wasn’t pleasantly rounded like Laura but fit in a sturdy way. She’d been with her partner Fritz for twenty years, they’d never married and they had two daughters named Kalie and Kellie, aged, respectively, eighteen and sixteen.

I’d been around Jill three times because she came with Laura and/or Fern to my bakery but I had yet to meet Fritz, Kalie or Kellie and, to add to that, Austin, Laura’s husband and Levi, Brock’s brother would be new additions to my ever-expanding Lucas social network.

In other words, regardless of the fact I knew some of them; I didn’t know others so I was more than a little bit nervous thus me going overboard on dessert.

“Hey guys, welcome to the madhouse,” she greeted, pushing open the storm door and holding it whereupon Joel and Rex carefully scuttled in sideways giving their aunt their greetings then disappeared into the house.

Jill’s eyes went to her brother.

Then she asked quietly, “How’d you talk the Wicked Witch of the Rockies into relinquishing her offspring for a family holiday?”

“I didn’t. Tess provided distraction for me in the front while I penetrated the house through a basement window and the boys and me escaped out back. She still doesn’t know they’re gone.”

Brock said this as we both slipped by her and into the house but I did it smiling because my man was funny.

Jill closed the door and looked at me muttering, “I wish.”

Brock finally spoke the truth. “It was my turn, Jill.”

“The other story is better,” Jill said as she guided us toward the kitchen and when we hit it, I noticed madhouse it was.

Fern lived in a two bedroom bungalow with a finished basement in the out, out, outskirts of Washington Park. In other words, she was in my ‘hood though I lived close to Reiver’s Bar and Grill so I was officially in the ‘hood while Fern was arguably in it.

Brock had told me he and his family didn’t grow up in this house but in a much bigger one situated in the Highlands. The house he grew up in was the house Cob had left his family in and he left his family in that house when his wife was a nurse’s aide and didn’t make a lot of money. And he left his wife, who was from Montana and all her family still lived there (to this day), in that house and didn’t provide either financial support or very much of his time to help his wife raise their children and pay the bills and she had no kin close to help her do it.

Cue Brock and Jill, at very young ages, growing up fast to assume heavy responsibilities as Fern took extra shifts as well as night classes to become an x-ray technician. Then they kept these responsibilities as Fern went on to take classes to become a radiology technician in order to make enough money to keep a roof over the heads and food on the table for her brood which included two growing strong and tall boys. And always, Fern worked full-time hospital shifts which meant Brock and Jill never lost these responsibilities but Brock, being the oldest boy, assumed more.

However, once the kids were out, Brock told me Fern put their big, four bedroom house on the market, “two seconds after Laura’s foot left the threshold” (Brock’s words) and downsized.

Lucky for her, she’d been in that old house for decades and the real estate boom and regeneration in their old neighborhood meant she made a mint on it. This meant she owned outright this cozy, comfortable, easy-to-maintain bungalow that, even small, still managed to look and feel like the definition of Grandma’s House.

And the big kitchen full of family on Thanksgiving Day screamed it when we walked in and were immediately accosted.

And I had to say, seeing it, I liked it.

For about ten minutes.

Laura swept forward and, with a kiss on her brother’s cheek and quick hug for me, she divested me of my flowers, the beer and bag and swept away at the same time Jill took Brock’s burdens.

Dylan and Ellie (in another princess dress, this time with pink, sequined mary janes but she’d added a crown adorning her dark locks and I got that seeing as Thanksgiving was a big occasion so royal headwear was an important accessory), both screeching, attacked Brock’s legs while Grady hung back and played it cool when he greeted his awesome uncle. I watched Brock’s big hand give Dylan’s neck a squeeze but he swung Ellie up in his arms to kiss her neck and, this time, tickle her sides so the air rang with her peels of little girl giggles.

After he was done with that, she turned to me.

“Are we gonna watch Tangled, Aunt Tess?” she asked.

I got the title of “Aunt Tess” at the bakery the second time Laura brought the kids in.

I also liked it.

“Sure, honey, maybe after we eat.”

“Yay! ” she shrieked, arms straight up in the air and Brock smiled down at her.

“Great, Tangled, ” Dylan muttered.

“I’m watchin’ football,” Grady declared.

“So am I,” Rex seconded that notion.

“And everyone knows Thanksgiving means football not cartoons,” Joel told Ellie.

“Boys can watch football in the basement while the girls have girl time with Tangled in my bedroom,” Fern declared while unearthing my chocolate cake from a box. “Now, children out. Go play Wii. Go play football in the yard. Go play anything just go play. ”

Hmm. It seemed cooking for seventeen was putting Fern in a mood.

Joel, Rex, Grady and Dylan raced out screaming, “Football! ” and Brock put a confused looking Ellie on her feet. She watched the door where the boys disappeared, considering this dilemma and clearly wishing to play princess games though unsure how to convince her all-male older brothers and cousins this was what they’d prefer. Then, gamely, she raced out after them and I hoped they didn’t damage her crown when tackling her.