Thursday, November 24th, 2016

Eric wasn't all that was gone the next day. The Facebook post from the twentieth anniversary of the day Elizabeth and Michelle Conley vanished was gone. The newspaper articles detailing the circumstances of their disappearance were gone, too.

When I arrived at my mom's house in the afternoon, anticipating the scents of apple and pumpkin pies baking in the oven, my mom was gone and the only smell was Jason's patchouli-infused dirty laundry that he'd hauled home to wash.

"Thanksgiving is canceled," Jason announced when I walked through the door.

"What? Where's Mom?"

"Chris's mom fell and broke her hip or something early this morning. They're at a hospital in Grand Rapids."

So one set of our parents was in Kentucky and the other was on the other side of the state and we were on our own for Thanksgiving dinner. I was investigating the contents of the refrigerator and freezer to see what our options were when my phone buzzed.

Eric: Happy Thanksgiving, Ness. What's on the menu? The usual?

I sent him a picture of a meatless frozen lasagna, still in the box.

Vanessa: Strange turn of events. All of my parental figures are hours away.

After a few minutes he responded.

Eric: My mom says you have to come to our house for dinner

Vanessa: Tell your mom I said thanks, but my brother's home, so I'm good

Eric: She says to bring your brother

Eric: She says it's an order

Vanessa: Now I know where you get your lack of respect for boundaries from

Eric: ha!  I'll set two more places

Jason was on the floor in the den playing a game of tug of war with Tommy and a dog toy shaped like a flamingo. He always played tug of war with one side of the toy between his teeth so it would be fair. He was so weird and gross.

"Sorry to interrupt, but I scored us a dinner invitation," I said. "If you're interested."

He let the flamingo drop, sat back on his heels and groaned. "Don't tell me it's Sophie's house. I'm not prepared for that."

"No, actually at my friend Eric's. Eric Anderson."

"Is he Owen's brother?"

"Yeah."

"How's Owen doing?" He grimaced, so he must have heard.

"I don't know. Could be better, could be worse? I don't really know what he was like before, so I have no basis for comparison."

"Crashing some other family's Thanksgiving." Jason took a deep breath through his nose, and his nostrils flared the way they did when he was thinking. Just like our dad's. He let the breath out noisily. "Sounds awkward as fuck. Let's do it."

Once Jason put on his "good sweater" which only had three or four holes in it and selected a bottle of red wine from mom's cabinet to bring along, we were on our way to the Navarro-Anderson Thanksgiving. And there were an absolute ton of Navarros and Andersons there. So many that our sudden appearance barely registered and extra tables were set up in the living room so there would be enough seating for everybody.

Dr. Navarro graciously accepted Jason's bottle of wine and we thanked her for the invitation as she ushered us into the thick of the pre-dinner standing around shoulder to shoulder and catching up while eating appetizers time. When he caught sight of us, Eric wove his way through his relatives and dragged us to the den to watch the end of the Lions football game, a Thanksgiving Day tradition.

Jason and Owen acted like old friends, while Eric and I acted like we hadn't been taken to an art gallery in an old factory in the middle of the night, where we learned that our memories were so malleable that they were basically useless and that alternate timelines were probably real.

Dinner was served buffet-style in the kitchen and Jason and I sat with Eric and his siblings and cousins at one of the long folding tables in the living room. Eric's parents were at the table next to us, and it was obvious that they were natural entertainers by the way their voices carried and how everyone around them laughed at their stories and anecdotes.

At one point, they shared some of the unusual names they came across in their patient populations.

"I was so tempted to tell the mother that her daughter's name was actually Lyle," Eric's mom said, "When I asked her how it was pronounced, she said 'It's Lay-la.' And I'm thinking, No, that's L-e-i-l-a. Or L-a-y-l-a.  I just wanted to yell, It's Lyle! Like Lyle Lovett! Lyle!"

One of Eric's uncles brought his girlfriend, who during a lull in the conversation said politely to Drs. Navarro and Anderson, "Your home is so beautiful."

"Thank you," Dr. Anderson quickly responded. "It reminded us of my childhood home, except for a quarter of the price tag."

Eric locked his eyes on mine as his mouth twisted into a sardonic smile. I quickly looked away and tried not to laugh.

"I tried to find a house that reminded me of my childhood home," Dr. Navarro piped in, "but there were no third story walk up apartments available."

I watched Owen and Emma, who had witnessed their parents' routine several times, make eye contact and shake their heads. I couldn't decide if the routine was charming and cute or kind of gross and sad.

I wondered if my parents ever had well-rehearsed routines in the company of others, if they were ever entertaining or interesting together. Did they share the same anecdotes over and over? Did they make polite jabs at each other for a laugh? How did they tell their best stories? They must have had some, at some point. I'd probably never hear them, while year after year I heard about how I climbed into the wheelbarrow with the leaves in the fall to get dumped at the edge of the woods.

After dinner they busted out a trivia game and I prayed that Jason would keep his competitiveness reined in. Thankfully, he behaved himself. After the trivia and the serving of the pies and the departures of most of the extended family, we helped Eric, Owen and Emma wash the dishes and fold up the tables. When we were done, Jason asked me if he could take the car to go to a friend's house and Eric volunteered to drive me home.

"That was way better than frozen lasagna with my brother," I said once we were on our way to my house. "Your Thanksgiving is like a big party. Mine was going to just be my mom and stepdad and Jason and my mean grandma, anyway."

"You can come every year if you want," Eric offered.

The stitches in my scalp were making my head itch and I tried to carefully scratch around them. I avoided touching them; they were poky and gave me the creeps. But my fingertip grazed over them and I inhaled sharply though my teeth.

"What's going on over there, Ness?"

"It's these stiches. They're so irritating."

"They're still in there? You should probably get those taken out."

"I guess I thought they'd dissolve."

"It's been, like, three weeks. They're probably not the dissolvable kind. And they're so old, they're probably made of horse tail hairs or something."

"Ugh! For real?"

"I actually have no idea." He snickered and I knocked my palm against the side of his head.

When we arrived at my house it was dark and I panicked a little. I didn't know if I was still afraid to be alone or if I wasn't ready for Eric to go, but whatever the reason, I asked him if he could come inside for a few minutes.

In the back hallway, Tommy came to greet us with her tail wagging. I told Eric I had to patrol the entire house to check for intruders. I made him wait in the kitchen while I ran upstairs to inspect all the rooms. In my bedroom I grabbed a pair of tiny embroidery scissors, and when I stopped by the bathroom I collected tweezers, a cotton ball and rubbing alcohol. Back in the kitchen, I set everything on the counter.

I found Eric in the dimly lit living room, where he was looking at the framed photos on the bookshelves, specifically one where I was about five years old, digging in the sand on a beach.

"Hey," I said. 

He startled and quickly turned around. He clenched his hands into fists and released them.

"You were a cute kid," he said quietly.

"I think we all were," I said with a shrug. "Then it's all downhill from there."

He smiled and slowly crossed the room toward me. "Nah, you're still cute, Ness." He reached out and brushed his thumb over my cheekbone. "Freckles."

I closed my eyes for one second and I was transported to porch steps in the summertime. Thin arcs of water from a sprinkler shimmered in the corner of my eye. Pete reached out to touch my nose and smiled. Freckles. My head snapped back and my eyes popped open.

"Can you take my stitches out?"

Eric blinked a few times before asking, "What?"

"I can't do it because they're on the back of my head. Come on." I led him back into the kitchen and turned on all of the lights.  "I got all the stuff."

He squinted as he stepped into the brightly lit room. "I don't think you want me to do that."

"Please? You want to be a surgeon, right? This is good practice."

His heart was beating so hard I could see his chest thumping beneath his shirt. On the few occasions I'd seen Eric's confidence falter, it was endearing. It was nice to see the vulnerable side of him because he always seemed so sure of himself.

"It's okay," I said. "You don't have to. I don't really want to ask anyone else to do it, because, you know, there would be questions, but I'll figure it out."

"Alright, I'll try," he sighed. "Sit down."

I pointed out the sutures and he parted my hair with his fingers so he could see better. I squirted some rubbing alcohol on the cotton ball and wiped down the scissors and the tweezers.

"Did you get to do stuff like this on your medical missions?" I asked.

"Not really. Mostly I just checked people in and interviewed them. Being able to speak Spanish helped a lot." He picked up the tiny scissors, which were shaped like a stork, and watched the bird open and close its beak as he moved his index finger and thumb. "Okay, here goes." 

After a few careful snips that I barely felt, he used the tweezers to pull the cut sutures out and I breathed in through my teeth as the material tugged my skin.

"Does that hurt?"

"No, it feels weird, though."

After a few minutes of silence, Eric said, "Okay, all set." He set the tweezers on the countertop with a click.

I ran my hand across my suture-less scalp.  "That feels so much better. Thank you. Was it fun?"

When I turned around he was already by the back door, grabbing his coat from a hook on the wall.

"It was great," he said in a dull voice. "See you later, Vanessa."