Page 97 of Devil in Disguise
A minute. Two. Four. Grandpa Oscar saying, “I’ve caught fish faster than this.” Annabelle saying, “Fish havegrownfaster than this.” Dyma, with Nick in her arms, saying, “Come on, Owen. You can do it!”
A shot so hard from Owen, streaking so low, barely kissing the edge of the table, that there was no way anybody could possibly return it. And Harlan leaping, swinging, catching the ball with his paddle somehow anyway, then coming down on his outstretched leg like a ballet dancer. The ball just over the net, Owen reaching to scoop it up and send it to the opposite corner. And missing.
Jennifer jumping up, shouting, “You did it!” Harlan setting his paddle down, putting his arm around her shoulders, bending her back over his arm, and kissing her for about a minute. Owen grinning, shaking Harlan’s hand, then thumping him on the back so hard, you were surprised he didn’t keel over. Annabelle and Dyma laughing, and Grandpa Oscar shaking his head.
“Gotta admit,” he told Dyma, “he’s not a sore loser. Never seen anybody fight that hard over something that worthless, though, not since your grandma went to the after-Christmas sales in Spokane that time.”
“Hey,” Owen said, coming over and taking the baby from Dyma, “ping-pong’s serious business, and winning’salwaysserious business, huh, Nick? Want to play pool, Annabelle?”
“Don’t play pool with him,” Dyma said. “He cheats.”
He looked at her with some extra intensity factor and said, “Only when I have to. We’ll play later. At home.” So—Merry Christmas to her.
“Come on,” Jennifer said. “Upstairs. Time for pie. And I have another game to play. A quiet one this time, because I can’t take all this adrenaline.”
* * *
It wasa card version of Jennifer’s “game” from that Oregon café. In other words—talking about your feelings.
That was it. That was the whole point of the game. You took a card, and you talked about your feelings.
“You’re kidding, Mom,” Dyma said, when they were sitting around the dining-room table again, the lights twinkling on the tree, the candles and fireplace both lit, the darkness outside complete, and too much pie in front of them, apple and pumpkin and cherry. “You mean there’s somebody else in the world who thinks this is fun? Enough to make a game? Enough tosella game? Whoever they are, I’ll bet they’re all moms. Harlan’s seriously going to do this?”
“I’m good,” Harlan said. “If there’s something I don’t want to say, I just won’t say it. Here’s a thought to chew on. You don’t necessarily have to say it just because you think it.”
“Maybeyoudon’t,” Dyma said, and everybody smiled.
“Humor me,” Jennifer said. “I’m yourmother. It brings people closer.”
“I’m already feeling close,” Dyma said. “Extremely close. And somehow, I doubt Grandpa Oscar wants to tell you what accomplishment he’s proudest of in the past year.”
“I don’t mind,” Oscar said. “Not sure it’ll be too exciting for anybody else to hear about the size of that trout or how I got rid of my hemorrhoids, but if you all want to be bored out of your minds, I don’t guess I’ve got much to hide.”
“Traitor,” Dyma told him, and he laughed.
She played anyway, of course. What were you going to do? It wasn’t all that bad. It was actually fairly interesting, even if it felt a little soul-scraping. She found out that Harlan had loved becoming a father—surprise!—and that Annabelle had become the setter on her volleyball team, which was a big deal, it turned out, and which she confessed with a blush. She also found out that Jennifer was, surprisingly, proudest of being able to do her new job for Blake. “I never thought I’d be a manager of anything,” she said, “and I know I’m not yet, but I’m anassistantmanager, and my performance review was really good. In fact, it was a 5 out of 5, and that was my supervisor, not Blake, and he said that almost nobody gets a 5. So that was—well, great. It was great.” Her color was high when she said it, her eyes gleaming gold. Dyma tried to remember the last time her mom had looked quite like that, and couldn’t. Like—not just relieved that her life wasn’t actually a huge struggle at the moment, but believing it was going to keep on being good. And proud of herself.
“Who here isn’t surprised that Jennifer’s performance review was good?” Harlan asked, and everybody put up their hands. “Baby, youliveto be a logistics manager. Once you stop putting up those stop signs in front of yourself, I think you’re going to surprise the heck out of yourself.” So that was sweet.
After a round of that, they got a group question, where you were supposed to think about, but not say, which person you’d learned the most from in the past year, and then guess out loud who the person to your left had chosen, after which they’d tell you whether you were correct. For which you’d get a point if you guessed right. Yippee.
Oh, great. The person to her left was Harlan, and the person to her right was Owen. Seriously? This wasn’t so much a minefield as a … well, yeah. It was a minefield.
They started with Annabelle, who was sitting next to Grandpa Oscar. He said, “I’m guessing you learned something from your brother this year.”
“That’s who I thought of,” Annabelle said. “Because you’re so … I never thought you could really be … that you were really …”
“You can say it,” Harlan said. “We’re all family here.”
Annabelle blew out a breath and said, all in a rush, “That you’d really help me like that. I guess I learned from you that not everybody’s like Dad.”
“Hope,” Jennifer said. “Trust. That’s what you learned. Oh, sweetie.” She’d handed Nick to Dyma and was around the table to hug Annabelle.
Annabelle choked up even as she tried to laugh. “I should’ve said that I learned about work ethic or something.”
“Nope,” Harlan said, “you already had that one down. The good things can be the hardest to believe in. So I’m just going to say this one thing. That I love having you here with us, and it’s helped me, too. I learned that I’ve still got a family. That’s a big thing to know.”
Dyma said, “And this was just the first person. This whole round better not be like this. I’ve cried more in the past week already than I did in the whole pastyear.I’m all done with crying.”
