Free Confectionately Yours #2: Taking the Cake! by Lisa Papademetriou Page A

people.”
    “We’re having dinner early,” Chloe points out. “He’ll still have time to go to the soup kitchen. Right, Gran?”
    “Hmm. Hayley, dear, please pass the salt,” Gran says.
    Mom looks at me, as if she knows that I’m the one who will say no. “Can’t we just keep Thanksgiving small?” I beg.
    “Chloe, sweetheart,” Mom says to my sister, “Thanksgiving is really about family.”
    “But Hayley and I are having Thanksgiving with Annie and her parents, and they aren’t family,” Chloe insists.
    I drop my fork onto my plate and put my head in my hands.
    “You’re having Thanksgiving with Annie’s family?” Mom asks.
    “You didn’t know that?” Chloe’s mouth is a tiny O. She looks at me in horror, but I just shake my head.
    “Well, this is interesting.” Gran stands up suddenly. “I think I’ll have a glass of wine.”
    “Your father told me that he wanted to spend Thanksgiving with you girls,” Mom says. “He didn’t say anything else. Is —” She turns to look at me. “Are Annie and your father engaged?”
    “No, of course not,” I say, and the moment the words are past my lips, I wonder if it’s true. Are they? I mean, Chloe and I are going all the way to Connecticut to meet Annie’s parents on Thanksgiving. That seems like … well, maybe it could be something.
    Something big.
    Mom’s eyes sparkle, and I realize that tears have sprung into them. This stabs me like a stake in the heart. I take her hand just as Gran returns to the dining room with a glass of white wine. “Well!” Gran says brightly as she settles into her chair.
    “Please, Mom?” Chloe pleads. “Please can’t we just invite Ramon?”
    “Why is it such a big deal, Chloe?” I ask.
    “Because I don’t want him to spend Thanksgiving by himself,” she says. Her eyes are wide and innocent, and I want to hug her and throttle her all at once.
    Mom puts up a hand. She blinks twice, then nods. “Okay, Chloe. We’ll invite him.”
    “Well, that will be lovely,” Gran says.
    Chloe looks relieved, then flashes me a nervous smile.
    I look away. “May I be excused?”
    “Sure, Hayley.”
    Great. May I be excused from Thanksgiving, too?

I remember the day my dad moved out. I watched from the window in my room as my father helped two moving men haul things to the van. It didn’t take that long — less than an hour.
    Finally, the men closed the door on the back of the van and drove away. There were still a few small things Dad wanted to take with him, so Mom actually helped him carry a couple of the boxes out to his car.
    She didn’t cry.
    She didn’t cry when she was laid off from the job she loved.
    On the day we packed up the rest of our things to move out of our home, Mom was busy labeling boxes and color-coding a chart so we would know where everything went. She didn’t cry then, either.
    The only time I’ve ever seen Mom cry is the time that Chloe fell off the swing face-first. She was three years old and had been lying on her stomach, swinging back and forth. When she fell, she went tumbling head over heels and cut her forehead on a rock. Even then, Mom was calm. She held a handkerchief to Chloe’s head and dialed 911 on her cell phone with the other hand. Mom soothed Chloe all the way to the hospital. It was only later, after the doctor put seven stitches in Chloe’s forehead, after we went home and Mom tucked Chloe into bed, it was only after all of that that I went downstairs for a drink of water and heard Mom telling Dad all about what had happened, and sobbing like she couldn’t stop. She told him that she had been frightened and that she blamed herself for letting Chloe swing on her stomach. I heard my father comforting her as I turned and tiptoed away.
    That was the only time I ever saw her cry. That, and tonight, at the table, when she asked if Dad and Annie were engaged. I mean, she didn’t lose it and start boo-hooing, but I saw tears in her eyes. Then she blinked, and they