Page 38 of The Fireman and the Flirt

“Do you want to see?” Jolene asked.

“Sure, Jo.” I leaned over her and put my eye in the viewer. She described the shape to me. Cassiopeia was an upside down girl in a chair, named for one of the Greek myths. “She’s beautiful.”

“Cassiopeia made the mistake of claiming she was more beautiful than the gods. So they punished her by making her sit upside down for all of eternity.”

“Is that punishment? She can be stared at and admired forever.”

“But she’s all alone.”

Weren’t we all, I thought. Though I saved that bleak, adult thought for myself.

“Hey,” I nudged her elbow. “That was a good Thanksgiving, right?”

“Yeah. I kinda miss mom’s cooking, though. I was used to the canned cranberry and canned green bean casserole.”

“Canned cranberry sauce is the superior sauce,” I said.

“Don’t tell Uncle Russ. Remember the year when mom overcooked the stuffing and it came out as one big bread blob?”

“And she just served it on a plate and told us to rip off pieces with our hands.”

We devolved into riotous laughter, white clouds of smoke billowing from our mouths. It hurt to laugh this hard with a full stomach.

“It wasn’t a stuffing disaster. It was a fresh spin on an old classic that didn’t require a fork,” I said, my smile getting bigger. “That’s a Caryism.”

“A what?” Jolene asked.

Then I remembered the whole world wasn’t on our text chain.

“I mean, your mom was one of a kind,” I said, choosing to remember the good things about her tonight. “But you ate well tonight. I saw you clean off your plate.”

She shrugged, choosing not to refute the statement. Jolene adjusted her telescope to find a new constellation.

“Can we go to the storage locker this weekend? Mom had this Disney sweatshirt that was always so comfortable. I loved wearing it even though it was really baggy.”

Last year, Paula wore that sweatshirt religiously, even though the sleeves draped down her arm. It was like a wearable blanket, soothing her in the winter.

“When did you guys go to Disney World?” Jolene asked.

“We didn’t. We wanted to take you,” I said before it hit me. Angus went on a big family trip to Disney a few years back. He’d shown me a picture of him and his extended family in matching Haverstock Family Reunion T-shirts. He probably bought himself a Disney sweatshirt when he was down there. Did he give it to Paula, or did she find it in his closet after one of their…nope, I couldn’t go down that path.

“You can order sweatshirts online,” I said. “Early Christmas present?”

“I’d rather wear Mom’s.”

“It’ll be so big on you. Your mom was already drowning in it.”

Jolene flicked her eyes at the ground for a second. I knew her true feelings. I put a hand on her shoulder.

“We’ll go and get the sweatshirt this weekend.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

“I wanted to do a little snooping around in the storage locker, too,” I said. “Hey. I’m grateful for you, Jolene. Doesn’t even have to be Thanksgiving to say it.”

“Me, too.” Jolene gave a slight eyeroll with her smile. Enough schmaltz, she seemed to say. Back to stargazing. She looked into her telescope, getting lost in the stars again.

I did the same.

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