5. Kenna

5

KENNA

"Better for sorry stomachs to burst than for good food to go to waste." ~ Archie "Witty" Whitlock

"Happy Thanksgiving!" I called out as I walked into my parents' house.

Dad sat comfortably in his recliner, next to the threadbare green and white checkered couch that my parents had owned since before I was born. My brothers and I had all tried to talk them into updating the furnishings in their home, but Dad claimed that they'd just gotten them worn in.

My dad lifted his hand, which held a beer. He was watching football on his big-screen television, which he had upgraded to a 72-inch 4D. I walked over, leaned down, and gave him a hug.

His hand patted my back as he kept his eyes glued to the screen. "Your mother's in the kitchen."

"I love you, too, Dad," I teased as I stood up.

"The games on." Dad tilted his bottle towards the screen, which was his way of saying, you know I love you. And I did.

My dad was an amazing father. He was just old-school and also used to raising boys. I had never doubted how much he loved me, but he wasn't the most affectionate or effusive parent. What he lacked in that department, my mother made up for in spades. Her attention and love could sometimes be suffocating. She wasn't a believer in personal boundaries, at least not when it came to her children. But since I knew it came from the absolutely best place, I wouldn't have it any other way.

When I stepped into the kitchen, I found my mother standing at the island, mashing potatoes. Her long, dark hair was flowing down around her shoulders in beachy waves. Her makeup was understated but flawless. Just a little bit of mascara, cat eyeliner, and gloss. Between my mother's huge green eyes, high cheekbones, and full, naturally raspberry-tinted lips, she didn't need a lot of help in the cosmetics department. She wore an off-the-shoulder fitted dress that accentuated her pinup curves, heels, and an apron. She looked like she was doing a holiday ad for 1950s housewives.

"Hey Mama! You look beautiful! What can I do to help?"

"Amorina!" My mom exclaimed, using her nickname for me, which translated to ‘little love' or ‘sweetheart' as she grabbed my face and then proceeded to kiss me all over my cheeks, leaving a trail of gloss in her wake. "How did your date go? With that nice boy from Hinge."

Last night, I went to have drinks a few towns over in Parrish Creek with a guy I matched on Hinge with. It was another complete waste, but this time, it had only been two hours instead of six.

I was proud of myself for getting back up on the dating horse. It had only been a week since my Dallas disaster, and as gun-shy as I was, I hadn't let it stop me from pulling the trigger and agreeing to meet someone.

"Not great," I relayed.

"What?" Her hands flew in the air. "Why not? He had a strong jaw."

"He also had halitosis," I explained as I grabbed a dinner roll that was on a cooling rack.

She swatted my hand away. "Those are for the boys."

"I thought they weren't coming." Mason was in the Army stationed at Fort Story in Virginia Beach and hadn't gotten time off for Thanksgiving, and Milo was a firefighter/EMT who was working the holiday.

"They're for your brother, Sam and their friends. You're going to deliver the food to their stations after we eat."

I found it adorable that she referred to the other firefighters and police officers as my brother and Sam's ‘friends.' My dad retired from the police force five years ago, and she used to call his law enforcement colleagues his ‘friends' too.

"And what are you talking about? What is this holy-moses?" My mom waved the potato peeler in the air.

"Halitosis," I corrected her. "He had bad breath. It was like a sewer system."

My mom's face twisted in horror as she turned her attention back to the task at hand and started attacking the spuds with vigor, removing all signs of skin from them. "Did you tell him to brush his teeth?"

Marcella Lucia Hale did not know the meaning of subtle. If she thought it, she said it. Her maiden name was Bacci, but it should have been Blunt.

"No, I didn't."

"What did you do?"

"I tried to keep a wide berth, then got out of there as fast as I could."

She sighed heavily before dropping the now-bare potato she held into the steel pot and reaching up to pat my face.

"Don't worry. You'll meet a nice boy. Just like your brothers are going to meet nice girls, and one of you will make me a nonna, God willing." She kissed the wooden cross that hung on the rosary beads around her neck, then made the sign of the cross. Even though she hadn't attended a mass since moving to Wishing Well when she was fourteen, her Catholic roots ran deep. She always had her beads on, either wrapped around her wrist or hung around her neck.

To make her a nonna, I'd actually have to have sex. Something I was actively trying to do, not that I'd tell her that. I told my mom a lot, but my virginal status was not something I ever planned on divulging to her.

"Did you send out the invitations?" My mom made a U-turn in the conversation.

"You mean for your surprise party?"

Over the summer, Dolly Briggs's kids had thrown her a "surprise" birthday party. Dolly, who raised nine children, was known for having eyes in the back of her head and had definitely known what was going on. The morning of her birthday, she'd gone to see Bella to get her hair done for her "surprise" party later that night.

Since Dolly's party, my mom had been dropping hints about my parents' fortieth wedding anniversary, which was coming up in just a few weeks. What started as mentioning she'd never had a surprise party and how big of a milestone forty years was quickly turned into her sending me the confirmation receipt from the deposit she'd put down to reserve the community center and a list of things I needed to do to plan their "surprise" party.

"Yes, what other party would I be asking about?" my mom shot back as if my inquiry had been dumb.

"Yes, I did," I assured her for the fifth time. "I sent them out last week."

"Well, I saw Barbara-Jean, and she said she hasn't gotten hers yet. I told her to check the mail this week."

"I sent out e-vites, Ma. Tell her to check her email."

"Yes, that is what I said. Check her mail!"

I wasn't going to argue with her. Instead, I made a mental note to print out an invitation for Barbara-Jean and drop it off for her.

"You know Sasha and Beau are expecting."

"No, I didn't know that." But it didn't surprise me. Just add them to the growing list of people I knew who were starting families.

Barbara-Jean Nelson's granddaughter, Sasha Nelson, had moved to town a year ago after living most of her life in California. She was an actress who starred in a soap opera and had been engaged to her co-star. After he cheated on her, she left the Golden State and came to stay with her grandma, Barbara-Jean.

She'd ended up meeting Beau Briggs at Maisy Turner and Bentley Calhoun's wedding, and the two of them got married a few months later. He wasn't the only Briggs sibling who had settled down in the past few years. My mom loved to talk about how lucky Walker and Dolly Briggs were. They had nine children total—eight sons and one daughter—and all of their kids had found their happily-ever-afters in amazing partners. And it seemed like every year, they were welcoming a new grandbaby into the fold, sometimes two.

I wondered what the secret was that everyone else in town seemed to know. People joked that there was something in the water…maybe I should stop drinking filtered water and only drink from the tap.