We crashed into the mudroom.
“Dry him off and take off your shoes,” Mom hollered from the kitchen.
There was an old towel we kept there just for such emergencies. Duke loved to be dried. It was like he was being petted all over, and Labs love attention. He followed up being dried off with going to the kitchen and getting his love from Mom and Dad. Caryn must have still been asleep.
Mom had bought doughnuts, and I saw that Dad had all the Bavarian cream ones on his plate.
“Mom, make Dad share,” I complained.
He just gave me a smug look when she ignored me. I swear he’s three years old sometimes. He licked both of them.
“I’ll remember that,” I threatened him.
“David, you be nice,” Mom warned me.
My cell phone rang to save my dad. Caller ID said it was Zoe. She invited me to go to church with her and then to lunch at the farm. Mom was a little too eager to let me go. I suspected she planned to skip church today.
◊◊◊
Each church is a little different from the next. My church focused on your becoming the best possible version of yourself. Zoe’s church was more focused on service to the community. I believe they both had valid messages, but it explained why her congregation always seemed to be involved in a community project.
When we arrived at the Pearsons’ farm, Mr. and Mrs. Pearson were bickering again.
“I never said I didn’t want your parents to come for Thanksgiving. I said I didn’t want your mom to help me cook this year,” Mrs. Pearson said.
“Last year was an honest mistake. You know Mom didn’t mean to do it,” Mr. Pearson said.
There had to be a story here. Zoe wanted to go check on the horses, but I begged off. She just rolled her eyes at me and left me with Roc and her parents.
“It wasn’t just the turkey; she tried to kill me,” Mrs. Pearson said, and then turned to me. “I love my mother-in-law, but she’s getting older. Last year we went to Walmart to pick up some last-minute items. I made the mistake of telling her that I felt like I had a headache coming on. My mother-in-law carries a purse that’s big enough to hide a small child. She rooted around in there for a moment, found a bottle of pills, and gave me one.
“Then I hear, ‘Oops.’
“Now that didn’t sound good. Then she followed it up with, ‘Did you swallow that?’” Mrs. Pearson said.
“Did you?” I asked.
“Of course I did! She’s my mother-in-law, and I’ve known the woman my whole life. Grandma Pearson was a nurse practitioner, for cripes sake. If she had wanted to kill me, she could have gotten it done before now. Then she asked, ‘Do you remember what color it was?’
“I told her I had no idea. My mother-in-law just looked concerned and said we should probably just abandon our shopping carts in the middle of Walmart and get me home. I don’t know about you, but that sounded to me like there might be a problem. So I asked her what the hell did she give me.”
I could tell Mrs. Pearson was getting worked up. Mr. Pearson and Roc were on the verge of laughing.
“So, what did she give you?” I asked.
“Grandma Pearson explained that the pill bottle she picked was called ‘the good pills.’ She’d gathered up all the unused pills they had collected over time. She kept them in this bottle ‘just in case’ they would ever need to use them again,” Mrs. Pearson said with the appropriate air quotes. “Grandma explained that I could have taken anything from pain pills to muscle relaxants to my father-in-law’s blood-pressure medicine. I asked her what would happen if I took his medication. She told me I would most likely collapse and pass out, and that with her bum hip, she wasn’t sure she could drag me to the car.
“That was when I started to feel a little light-headed. Then the world did this little spin, and I collapsed face-first in the middle of the produce aisle,” she said.
“Oh, my,” I gasped.
“His crazy mother grabbed my ankle and tried to pull me out of the store. I’d been to church and was wearing a dress that was now pulled up around my waist. My granny panties were exposed for all the world to see,” she explained while both her husband and son began to laugh.
“Didn’t your mother explain to you about underwear?” I asked.
My mom had always teased me about making sure I had on clean underwear in case I ever got in an accident and had to be taken to the hospital.
“I think God has a sense of humor. Luckily, one of the store employees grabbed one of those electric buggies and got me to the car. Grandma Pearson insisted that I didn’t need to go to the emergency room, that she could take care of me. The plan was to start the turkey when we got home. I’d prepared it, so I figured she could handle putting it in the oven.
“It was probably thirty minutes later when smoke began to billow out of the oven and every smoke alarm we have started blaring. By then, I was able to get to my feet and stagger into the kitchen. If I didn’t have a headache before, I had one now from the insistent beeping of the smoke alarms. Of course, I panicked when I saw all the smoke that was leaking out of the oven. I turned on the vent and opened a window so I could see what was going on. When I looked in the little window, the turkey was literally on fire. I tried to open the oven door to put out the flames, but couldn’t get it to budge. Somehow, my mother-in-law had turned the oven to ‘clean,’ and it was the temperature of the face of the sun. On the clean cycle, it locks the oven door to prevent injury.
“My husband and Roc pulled the stove out and unplugged it. They had to take it out into the yard. When I was finally able to get the door opened, the turkey was burned on the outside and raw in the middle.”
“Dad always says that you can’t pick your family,” I offered.
“Exactly,” she agreed and glared at her husband.
I felt confident that she would keep her mother-in-law out of the kitchen.
◊◊◊
After lunch, Zoe’s parents and Roc left. Zoe wanted some alone time, and I was all for that. It hit me in the middle of sex that this would probably be our last time until I returned from LA. We both seemed to get the same vibe that we wanted to remember every second of what we did together. I changed my approach from ‘just sex’ to something more passionate. If she were the one, I might describe it as loving, but I wasn’t ready for that term yet.
She definitely was reminding me that I shouldn’t forget about her. I know that was what I wanted to leave her with. Zoe Pearson had started to find her way into my heart.
◊◊◊
On the way home, I got a call from Brook.
“Hey, guess who’s renting a bunch of snowmobiles?”
“Seriously? When do you get them?”
“Tuesday. The weather’s supposed to settle in, and we could have another five inches tonight and tomorrow. Then Tuesday’s supposed to be clear. Mom and Dad are getting them for Wednesday when the family’s coming in, so we get to play.”
“How many are you getting?” I asked.
“Twelve. Mom said I could have a bunch of people out and we’d have dinner. Do you think you could find five other guys to come with you?”
“I’m sure I could. Who do you want me to ask?”
I’d learned that when they gave you a choice, you’d better clear it with them first.
“How about Tim, Ty, Roc, Wolf, and Jim?”
“I’ll make it happen. Tell your parents thanks,” I said.
I would have to make sure Wolf had some winter gear. My wardrobe had plenty from my time in Utah doing shoots for Range Sports. I knew that riding a snowmobile, you could get cold and wet if you just wore jeans. He could try on my gear. What didn’t fit we could hook him up with at the local sporting goods store. I should probably make sure all the guys had appropriate outerwear. Brook would likely take care of the girls.