Read Online How I Came to Sparkle Again by Kaya McLaren - Free Book Online Page B

imagination. Maybe she truly didn’t understand why something was funny. Maybe she had misunderstood why they were laughing and thought they were laughing at her. At this point in her life, she could think of a multitude of reasons. Kate surprised her once, though. Jill had forgotten her lunch, and Kate had given her an apple. It seemed funny to remember such a little thing, but sometimes little things are big things, like when you’re hungry.
    Tom crumpled and twisted some newspapers and wedged pieces of them in the woodpile. Jill joined in and helped. Then he lit the papers, and they stood back as fresh sap crackled and sparked.
    Hans and Lisa pulled up shortly after. Over her parka, Lisa wore a silly vintage apron, pink with ruffles and an embroidered pocket. Jill and Tom walked over to help carry two Dutch ovens, a huge kettle containing a ten-pound turkey and a lot of Crisco, a few smaller pots and pans containing the rest of the food, and some lawn chairs. Then Hans drove away to groom for a little longer while Lisa cooked.
    “When we’re all done frying the turkey, we make the best grease bombs ever. They look just like miniature A-bombs,” Tom said.
    “I put all this work into the food, and all they care about are the grease bombs,” Lisa muttered.
    “Not true,” Tom said. “We love them equally.”
    Jill held the kettle while Lisa rubbed dish soap on the outside of it so the soot wouldn’t stick and then set it on the fire to boil.
    Jill considered just how different this Thanksgiving was from the one she had envisioned, the one where she was nine months pregnant, and together she and David prepared their last Thanksgiving dinner where it would be just the two of them. It was sad. Uncle Howard had taught her at a young age that attachment led to suffering, and she tried for a moment to forget about everything she had hoped today would be and instead recognize that it was actually pretty fun. As long as she didn’t compare it with what she thought it was supposed to be, she could see that it was actually a great Thanksgiving. But attachment is strong and usually needs to be grieved, so the moments where she could let it go and enjoy the day for what it was were fleeting.
    “You’re quiet,” Lisa said.
    “Just trying to absorb it all, you know—how my life is taking this radical turn. Even this moment is so different from what I thought it would be.”
    Tom asked, “What if your husband showed up here with a few dozen roses and said how deeply sorry he was and that he made a mistake? Could you forgive him?”
    “If you were in my shoes, could you forgive him?” Jill asked.
    “No way,” Lisa said. “My people kill people instead of forgiving them.”
    “That’s scary,” Tom said.
    “Don’t you forget it,” Lisa replied.
    Tom turned to Jill and asked, “What if he told you he still loves you? Would you believe him?”
    “I just keep thinking the way I feel now … is this how it feels to be loved?” Jill replied.
    “Hell, no. Let’s kill him,” Lisa said as she poured Girls Are Meaner Gewürztraminer from Wines of the San Juan.
    “If he said he loved me, at this point I wouldn’t even know what he meant,” Jill answered.
    Tom said, “People mean different things when they say, ‘I love you.’ They shouldn’t, but they do.”
    “Right,” Jill agreed. “Like in this case, I would believe ‘I love you’ meant ‘I’m attached to you,’ or maybe ‘Please don’t take half of everything.’”
    Lisa said, “Tom, you probably tell a hundred girls a year that you love them. What do you mean when you say it?”
    “Well, Little Miss Presumptuous, I, in fact, do not tell a hundred women—”
    “Girls,” Lisa interrupted. “They’re girls.”
    “Young women,” Tom corrected himself, “that I love them. There is luv, l-u-v, and there is love, l-o-v-e. There’s a big difference between ‘luv ya’ and ‘I love you.’ Luv just means you feel happy when you’re with