“You're not kidding,” Ron agreed. “Do we even have four
ab
washers to put on these bolts?”
“I don't know,” Al said. “How big are they in that picture?”
“Hi,” Kara said to announce her presence.
Both men looked up at her. “Hey, Kara,” Al said.
“Hi, beautiful,” Ron greeted her. He started to get up to greet her, moving the large black pole which the basketball hoop would eventually stand on off of his lap.
“Just stay there,” Kara told him. Looking at Ron now as he bonded with her brother-in-law, Kara wondered how she'd gotten so mad at him last night and this morning. She picked her way through the parts and kissed him on the top of his head.
He slid his hand on to her ankle and left it there, lightly touching her beneath her dress. “What's up?” he asked.
Kara realized suddenly that she couldn't tell him about the presents in front of Al, so she shifted smoothly to another topic that had been bouncing around in the back of her mind. “I was thinking we should call your sister,” she said. Then for Al's sake, she added, “She's meeting her biological mother for the first time today. She might appreciate a show of support.”
“That's right,” Al said. “Ron was telling me about it a little earlier. I hadn't realized his sisters were adopted.”
“Neither did we!” Ron told him.
On the surface his tone sounded jovial, but there was a difficult to define quality to it that made Kara examine his face more carefully. That wasn't easy standing above him like this so she squatted down beside him and caressed his shoulder, wondering how much more this business of biological versus adoptive parents was bothering him than he'd let on. Ron was very close to his parents. It can't have been easy to find out he was the result of an extra-marital affair.
“So should we call her?” Kara asked.
Ron took his hand off Kara's ankle to cover her fingers where they touched his shoulder. “I guess we should,” he agreed.
He let go of Kara's hand so he could pull his cell phone out of his pocket. “Al,” he asked, “you don't mind if we make a quick call, do you?”
“Of course not,” Al said. “You want me to go inside for a few minutes?”
Ron slipped out from beneath the large basketball pole. “Not necessary,” he said.
He pushed the speed dial on the phone and offered it to Kara. “You want to talk first? It's your idea.”
Kara shook her head. “That's okay,” she said. “I do want to say hello, but you should greet her first. It'll mean more to her if you're checking up on her than it will if she thinks I'm the one doing it.”
Ron shrugged and put the phone to his ear.
“Ron?” Anne greeted him.
“Hey, Sis,” Ron said. “How's it going?”
Kara struggled to hear but could only make out Anne's enthusiastic tone of voice.
“That's great!” Ron said. “I told you it would be all right.”
He listened again.
“That's really wonderful!” he agreed. “I'm so happy for you. How are Gene and your kids doing?”
He paused. If Kara had had any doubt that things were going well for Anne, the happy expression on Ron's face would have wiped those fears away.
“Sounds like it couldn't be going any better.”
He caught Kara's eye and then jerked his head toward the as yet unfinished basketball hoop.
She sighed and held out her hand.
“Kara wants to say hello,” Ron said into the phone before handing it over to Kara.
She put the device to her ear. “Hi, Anne, how's it going?”
“Absolutely incredibly!” Anne told her. “Laura, that's my birth mother, is so warm and sweet. And I've got a half-brother and two half-sisters and, God, I just can't count all the nieces and nephews. It's incredible!”
Anne sound almost deliriously happy and her enthusiasm was absolutely contagious. “I'm so happy for you!” Kara told her. “How are your kids getting along with everyone?”
“Those three?” Anne asked. “They're getting even more attention than I am. And it's like Gene's becoming best friends with my half-brother. I just can't remember when I was this happy!”
“That's great!” Kara told her. “That's just great!”
“Hey, wait a minute,” Anne told her. “My sister wants to talk.”
Kara waited a moment while Anne's phone evidently changed hands, then an unknown woman's voice came on the line. “Is this Ron?” she asked, her words slightly slurred from too much festive drinking.
“No, this is Ron's girlfriend, Kara,” Kara said.
“Oh, you're the black woman,” Anne's half-sister said. “Anne said she thinks you and Ron are probably going to get married.”
“Don't tell her that!” Anne said with a giggle.
“I think that's just great!” the woman continued as if Anne hadn't spoken. “When you get married, we all want to come to the wedding!”
“We'll see what we can do,” Kara said. “He has to ask me before we start worrying about those things.”
“We're looking forward to it,” the woman slurred.
Kara wondered just how much alcohol was flowing at Anne's biological mother's house. When Mama was around, Kara and her sisters kept their families tea-total. It was simply easier than fighting with Mama over every drink.
The doorbell rang from the front of the house.
“I bet that's my cousins,” Kara said. “Please tell Anne Merry Christmas for me,” she told the half-sister whose name she still didn't know. “I have to go greet some relatives.”
“Merry Christmas,” the woman said just before Kara hung up the phone.
“Ron, can you and Al take a break from the basketball hoop to come greet Aunt Edie and my cousins?”
“Of course,” Ron said. “Give us a second and we'll be right behind you.”
Al grimaced. Evidently he didn't think that a night spent with both Mama and Aunt Edie was something to look forward to. Fortunately, he didn't express this thought and force Kara to defend her mother and aunt.
“Don't dawdle,” Kara told the two men before slipping back into the kitchen.
“Kara!” her mother snapped. “Can't you get the door? Your sister is busy with the turkey.”
Ruth did look overwhelmed at the moment as she peaked at the turkey beneath the aluminum foil cover and squirted juices on it with a baster. Mama was sitting and supervising, which was a small improvement from the days when she tried to take over and do everything herself. Ruth was a far better cook than Mama and the food at these meals benefited from Mama's new
hands-off
approach.
“Of course I can get the door,” Kara said. She hurried though the warmth of the kitchen, appreciating the increase in temperature after the cold of the garage, and entered the front parlor. Two more steps and she pulled the door open, plastering a smile across her face in preparation for greeting her aunt.
The smile froze awkwardly, then slowly collapsed.
Aunt Edie wasn't at the door.
Instead, Kara faced her ex-boyfriend, Bobby Lane.
* * * *
Chapter Thirteen
He looked older than Kara remembered. There was more gray in his hair than there had been last Christmas and that wasn't an illusion caused by the big flakes of falling snow. His face looked thinner also, as if he'd lost a few pounds. His overcoat was new, charcoal gray with the collar turned up against the weather and a bright red Christmas scarf wrapped around his neck. The cocky smile was vintage Bobby—reminiscent of the good days, not the tired old man he'd become after he moved out to New York City.
“Well, hello, Kara,” Bobby greeted her. “Merry Christmas!”
Merry Christmas!
Kara thought.
The man breaks up with me by sticking a card in my overnight bag and the best he can say when he sees me again is
Merry Christmas?
“What the hell are you doing here?” she asked.
Bobby lifted his eyebrows in mock surprise. “Cursing, Kara? And on Christmas? I wish I could say I'm surprised but your mother tells me you've been keeping disreputable company since we broke up last year.”
“Disreputable?” Kara sputtered. “Broke up? You sorry-ass excuse for a man! What the
hell
are you doing here?”
“Kara, what's wrong?” Ruth called from the kitchen.
“Stay out of this, Ruth!” Mama said. “Your sister needs time to recognize her mistakes on her own.”
Kara had had quite enough of that. She took a step back and slammed the door on Bobby.
Evidently her action caught her ex-boyfriend by surprise because he did not react quickly enough to stick his foot in the open door to prevent it from closing.
“What the
hell
was that?” Ruth asked storming in from the kitchen. “Did you just slam my front door?”
The doorbell rang again.
“That!” Kara snapped as she pointed at the door, “is Bobby! Did you know he was coming over tonight?”
“Bobby?” Ruth repeated. Kara's sister was not a good enough actress to pretend to this level of surprise. “What would he be doing here?”
“I invited him!” Mama announced as she made her way into the parlor from the kitchen.
“You what?” Ruth asked.
“I invited him!” Mama repeated. “I wanted him to come over tonight to see Kara.”
“What's going on?” Ron asked from the kitchen.
The doorbell rang again.
Kara couldn't believe what she'd just heard. This was low—even for Mama. “I can't believe you'd do this to me!” she hissed. “You know what he did to me!”
“That was a simple error in judgment,” Mama explained. Her voice was calm and cold—infuriatingly so—and her face held her
maddeningly superior
expression that her daughters all knew so well. “I will remind you,” she continued, “that Robert apologized for his indiscretion—”
“Indiscretion?” Kara cut in. “He let me fly out to New York City to see him when he'd already taken up with another woman—and the coward still didn't have the courage to tell me face to face he was breaking up with me. He dumped me by sticking a note in my luggage.”
Her mother lost a little bit of her poise as anger sharpened her features. “I will thank you to remember your manners and stop interrupting me.”
Her family was too shocked to interrupt again so Mama continued. “Yes, we are talking about an
indiscretion
. All men commit them.” She turned a withering glare on Al and Ron and even took an extra moment to let it linger on Marc who had actually left his new video game system to see what all the fuss was about.
Behind Kara, the doorbell rang again.
Mama continued—a queen holding court, a teacher dispensing her wisdom. “Since all men are weak in this regard we must judge them on the sincerity of their apologies and their determination to try and do better. Robert is sincere in his regret over his actions and it's high time you stopped sulking over last Christmas and took up with him again. It's embarrassing to your family to have you prancing around with this white
child
half your age.”
“I just want to be clear on this,” Ron interrupted. “Is she saying the guy who keeps pushing the doorbell is the guy who dumped you last Christmas?”
“Yes—” Kara broke off when she saw the expression on Ron's face. She'd seen him angry before. Heck, they'd fought just last night. But she'd never seen rage radiating out of him like she did now.
Ron didn't wait for another word. He stalked toward the front door, fist clenched at his side.
“Easy now,” Al told him, hurrying forward as if he intended to hold Ron back. “You don't want to give the witch an excuse to call the cops on you.”
Ron ignored him.
He flung the door open, fist cocking, and...froze.
Facing him in the doorway was an elderly African-American woman with gray hair and hard little eyes. She took in the apparent threat and despite her obvious shock, immediately steeled herself to take the blow. She did not in any way back down. But then Aunt Edie didn't give way to anyone—not even Mama.
Ron, however, did. He immediately lowered his fist and profusely apologized. “I am so sorry, Ma'am. I was given to believe that someone else was at the door. You must be Kara's Aunt Edie. Please come in and forgive me for startling you.”
The only sign of Aunt Edie's stress was the way her fingers had tightened around her handbag. She accepted Ron's invitation by stepping past him into the house. “This is hardly the welcome I expected, Margaret,” she said to Mama, “threatened on Christmas Day in my sister's daughter's house.”
Kara felt mortified, but Ron looked worse. He was, in fact, so embarrassed by what he'd almost done that he didn't seem to notice Bobby at the back of the porch standing between Kara's cousins, Becka and Thea. Bobby looked quite smug over Ron's misfortune, as if he felt this somehow strengthened his hand. Becka and Thea looked shocked and angry, which was understandable given the circumstances.
“Unfortunately, it's the sort of the thing I've come to expect from Kara's
boy
friend,” Mama told her sister. She stepped forward to give her older sister a slight hug, but didn't stop talking. “Albert, I am still waiting for an apology for the disrespectful way you referred to me. Honestly, Edith, not a one of my daughters has shown any sense in choosing their men.” She stepped back away from her sister and eyed her nieces. “Not that yours have done any better,” she said. “Perhaps it's the deplorable times we live in. Maybe there simply aren't any good men out there.”
Aunt Edie's eyes flashed at Mama's dig, but she agreed with her sister. “Truer words were never spoken,” she agreed. “I can't think of one man I'm acquainted with who has even half the moral fiber our father did.”
Mama nodded in fervent agreement, then stepped out of the way so her sister could come further into the house. “Why don't you come in and sit down?” she said. “Ruth, come greet your aunt and cousins and then go fix them something hot to drink. It's cold outside and it's snowing again.”
She settled her glare on Ron. “Ronald, haven't you embarrassed us enough for one day? Get out of the way and let my family in the parlor.”
Ron, still unsettled from having almost punched Aunt Edie, backed a few steps away from the door.
Kara wanted to go to him, but didn't know how to do that with her aunt and cousins stepping inside between them. So she went to Aunt Edie instead and gave her a hug. “Merry Christmas, Aunt Edie. I'm sorry about the confusion. We'll explain everything later.”