Chapter 69
Claire’s
eyes flew back open at six-thirty the following morning, when her alarm clock
awoke her. Slapping the alarm clock
hastily, she managed to turn it off, but not before Nick stirred next to her.
“Mm… what
time is it?” he asked groggily, rubbing his eyes with his fists before blinking
up at her.
“Only
six-thirty,” she told him. “Go back to
sleep.”
“You need
any help?”
“Nope, not
right now. I’ve just gotta go put the
turkey in,” she replied, leaning over to plant a kiss on his lips before she
scrambled out of bed and made her way to the kitchen downstairs.
She was
only a little surprised to find both of her grandparents already in the kitchen
when she walked in. They were sitting at
the kitchen table, sipping coffee, her grandpa reading the morning paper while
her grandma spread strawberry jam over a piece of toast.
“Morning,”
she greeted them both, giving them each a kiss on the cheek and asking how they
had slept before she set about getting the turkey ready to put in the oven,
stealing glances at the cookbook her mom had let her borrow when she thought
her grandmother was not looking.
Before
long, the turkey was safely in the oven, and she was feeling pretty good about
it. She smiled as she took her morning
pills with a glass of orange juice, picturing the look on her brother’s face
when he sat down to a picturesque Thanksgiving feast, perfectly prepared by
her.
***
Like Kyle,
Nick had had his doubts, but he had to admit, by noon that day, it appeared
that Claire was actually pulling it off.
In the oven, the browning turkey had been joined by its counterparts:
stuffing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, candied yams, rolls… Nick’s mouth had started to water every time
he entered the kitchen just from the smell of it all.
Claire, on
the other hand, kept shooing him out.
Despite the fact that things appeared to be going smoothly – to Nick, at
least – she was completely frazzled and apparently didn’t like having people in
the kitchen when she was trying to work.
“It’s not
you,” she told him apologetically after she’d slapped his hand away from the
casserole she’d pulled out of the oven to check. “It’s my grandma,” she added in a hushed
whisper. “I love her to death, but she’s
driving me crazy! She keeps coming in
here and changing the temperature on the oven, telling me what I’m doing wrong
and what I should be doing differently… I’m gonna scream!”
“Well,
don’t do that,” said Nick, placing a kiss on her lips to stifle any scream that
wanted to escape them. “You must be
doing somethin’ right, cause this all smells awesome.”
“Thank
you!” Claire beamed.
“No
problem. Anything I can do?”
“Hm… you
could start setting the table,” offered Claire.
“If you don’t know the right place for everything, ask Grandma; she’ll
be more than happy to tell you.”
Nick
laughed. “Okay.” He opened the cupboards where he kept his
nicest dishes and started pulling them out, carefully stacking them on the only
free bit of counter space he could find.
As he
carried a load of them out of the kitchen, he passed Claire’s grandmother on
her way in. Even as he continued on into
the dining room, he could hear her telling Claire, “Now, dear, you’ll want to
turn that oven up just a tad; you don’t want the meat to be undercooked – it’s
not sanitary.”
Chuckling
to himself, Nick set to work assembling the dishes on the table, setting eight
places for himself and Claire and her family.
He had no idea which order the silverware were supposed to be in or on
what side of the plate the glasses and napkins went, but he set them the first
way that came to mind and figured Claire’s grandma would correct him if he was
wrong.
He was just
finishing when the doorbell rang; abandoning the last napkin he’d been trying
to fold in half, he clambered around the dining room table as fast he could and
went to answer the door.
“Kris,
Carrie… come on in! Happy Thanksgiving,”
he said, standing back to hold the door as he ushered Claire’s parents in.
“Well,
thanks, Nick; Happy Thanksgiving to you too,” Claire’s mother Carrie chirped
back politely, looking around his foyer as she slipped off her shoes, setting
them carefully off to the side of the front door. “It was so sweet of you to offer up your home
for the holiday. It’s such a beautiful
place.”
“Thanks,”
Nick grinned. “You guys are welcome to
come over anytime, you know. So how are
you feeling, Kris?” he asked, watching Claire’s father lean on her mother’s
shoulder as he slowly and painfully bent to remove his shoes. Nick hated the ‘how are you feeling?’
question himself, but in Kris Ryan’s case, he felt it was warranted – the man
had only been out of the hospital a couple of days.
“Better
every day, thanks,” Kris returned with a smile that was not quite as jovial as
Nick remembered it.
Nick
nodded, cautiously returning the smile.
“The recouping part is the hardest, you know,” he offered casually,
hoping he wasn’t being too forward. He’d
certainly never been through a heart attack himself – God willing, he never
would – but with the medical hell he had been through, he felt he was allowed
to say such a thing. And it had been
true, with every setback, every procedure, he’d had to endure. “It does get easier though.”
Now Kris
nodded. “That’s what I’ve heard,” he
said. “For now, I’m just taking things
one day at a time. Been sticking to the
strict diet the doc put me on, although if Claire’s cooking turns out as well
as her mother’s, I think I’m gonna have to cheat.” He laughed, winking at Carrie, who shot him
the loving sort of frown only a wife could give. Like mother, like daughter – Nick had seen
the same look on Claire’s face before.
“Daddy?” At the sound of Claire’s voice, they all
glanced up to see her scurrying down the stairs. Nick hadn’t even realized she had left the
kitchen, but apparently she’d gone up to change her clothes. She had traded the sweatpants and raggy old
t-shirt she’d worn all morning for a pair of avocado green chinos and a
lightweight, apricot-colored sweater that made her hair look even redder. The flush had left her cheeks, and she looked
much calmer than she had all day as she smiled brightly and jumped the last
step. “I thought I heard you come in,”
she said, hugging both of her parents.
“Dinner should be ready in a little while; I think the turkey’s almost
done. Nick, you wouldn’t wanna go check
on it, would you, while I show them into the living room?”
She gave
him a hopeful look, and he smiled dutifully.
“Sure thing,” he said and meandered into the kitchen. He pulled open the oven door, and as soon as
he glanced in, he gasped, leaping back as searing flames shot out at him,
nearly missing his hand.
“Holy
shit!” he cried, slamming the door shut again to imprison the fire. Then he looked around the kitchen wildly,
wondering what to do. His eyes landed on
the sink, and he hurried over, grabbing a used mixing bowl off the counter and
thrusting it under the faucet. He filled
it with water, then crept back to the oven and cautiously cracked the
door. Immediately, he felt the heat from
within surging towards him, and he didn’t hesitate. Acting on impulse, he jerked the door open
wider and practically tossed the bowl of water in. The flames receded with a sizzle as clouds of
steam billowed from the oven.
Coughing,
Nick quickly turned away from the heat just in time to see Claire walked
in. As her eyes came to rest on the
scene before her, her mouth dropped open, and she gasped, “Oh my God, what
happened??”
“Fire!”
Nick choked. “I opened the oven, and it
was like a freaking inferno!”
Claire
clapped her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide with shock. “Are you serious?? Oh no!”
She hurried over to inspect the damage.
The steam was beginning to clear, and as soon as she got a good look at
what was inside the oven, Nick saw her face crumple. “Oh my God, this is a nightmare,” she moaned,
her hands going helplessly to her head.
Nick peered
over her shoulder and saw with dismay that their Thanksgiving dinner was
ruined. The candied yams had overflowed,
swelling and spilling out of their pan until there were bits of burnt, black
marshmallow all over the bottom of the oven.
In fact, the entire top of the dish was coal black, and Nick suspected
it was this that had first caught fire.
The other dishes were scorched and now drenched in water, and even the
turkey looked sooty.
“It’s
ruined,” Claire whimpered, shaking her head in disbelief. “I can’t serve any of this… it’s all ruined.”
Nick didn’t
know what to say. She’d worked so hard
on this, slaved over it for practically two days, and now…
“I’m
sorry,” he offered helplessly.
She turned
to him. “What are we gonna do?? What am I gonna do? There’s no time to make it all over
again… Do you think the inside of the
turkey might still taste okay? It might
be dry, but maybe with – no, the stuffing’s burnt too. Well, there’s still the gravy; I hadn’t put
that in yet, so-“
She was
starting to ramble very rapidly now, something she did when she was upset. He reached out, putting his hands on her
shoulders in an attempt to calm her down, and interrupted, “Baby, don’t worry
about it. I’m gonna take care of it,
okay?”
She blinked
and looked up at him skeptically. “How
are you-? You can’t possibly- There’s no time to-”
“I know a
great catering place, and I’m one of their favorite customers. We’ll have food on the table in no time,”
Nick assured her calmly and strode off to his office to find the right phone
number while Claire remained in the kitchen to salvage or scrap the burnt
remnants of their home-cooked Thanksgiving dinner.
When he
came back, smiling over the caterer’s promise that he’d have a full turkey
dinner delivered within the hour, he found her slumped in one of the kitchen
chairs, crying. “Claire?” he
asked in disbelief, startled by the sight of the tears streaming down her
flushed cheeks. “Baby, what’s
wrong??” His eyes shooting over to the
oven, he realized it was a stupid question as soon as he asked it. But that wasn’t what he meant.
“Why are
you crying??” That was what he
wanted to know. Claire rarely cried,
only when there was a damn good reason to.
Her dad’s sudden heart attack… his own risky lung surgery… her
complicated bone marrow transplant… all perfectly legitimate reasons to
cry. But burnt Thanksgiving dinner? For a woman like Claire, not so much.
When she
just shook her head and didn’t answer, he pulled a chair up beside her and sat
down, slinging his arm around her shoulders.
“Babe,” he said soothingly, “This isn’t something to cry over; it’s
gonna be okay. I called the caterer, and
our dinner is on its way.”
“Thank you,
Nick,” she murmured tremulously.
“Is that
why you’re crying? Or is there something
else?” He was very concerned; this
couldn’t really be all it was, could it?
She’d been acting so ‘off’ lately… and not just in the last few days
either – more like the last few weeks.
Things had seemed different ever since he had started working in LA, and
as much as he didn’t want to admit it, he feared the distance was starting to
hurt their relationship. But could that
be why she was crying? Why now; what had
set her off? It made no sense. Women as a whole didn’t make sense to Nick a
lot of the time, but most of the time, he and Claire just got each other. Now he was totally bewildered by her
behavior.
She shook
her head again. “I don’t know,” she
whispered. “I’m just… I can’t explain
it.”
“It’s not
something I did, is it?” he asked, racking his brain as he tried to figure out
what he possibly could have done to make her cry.
“No, no,
it’s not you,” she replied, giving him déjà vu of the night before. “It’s not you, it’s me,” she had said.
“Well, what
is it then? What’s going on with you?”
he pressed gently.
“I don’t
know, Nick, okay?” her voice rose. “I
feel like an idiot, sitting here crying over practically nothing, but I can’t
help it; it just kinda came on! God, I
feel like a pregnant woman or something, all hormonal; it’s like when I used to
get PMS.”
She paused
to sniffle and wiped her eyes, and in her silence, Nick asked the first
question that popped into his head. “You
don’t think… you aren’t pregnant, are you?”
“You know I
can’t be!” she snapped, glowering at him briefly before her features softened
and fell once again. “I’m sorry,” she
whispered and wrapped her arms around him, pulling him close to her. “I’m acting like a total spaz, aren’t I?” she
muttered, her voice muffled by his shoulder.
“No,” he
said firmly, running his hand over her back.
‘Spaz’ wasn’t the exact word that had formed in his head,
although he was still wondering what the hell was up with her. “You’ve just been under a lot of stress this
week. You need to relax, eat a good meal
and get a good night’s sleep in,” he told her, deciding himself that that must
be what it was.
Slowly
pulling back from him, she nodded and sheepishly swiped at her blotchy
cheeks. “Great, now I probably look like
a mess,” she said with a huge sigh. “Are
my eyes all red?”
“Kinda,”
Nick answered truthfully. When Claire
grimaced, he added, “But don’t worry – I’ll cover for ya. How about you run upstairs and wash your face
or whatever you need to do, and I’ll go break the news to everybody else.”
Claire
swallowed and nodded again. “Thank you,”
she whispered gratefully, her arm lingering around his waist briefly before she
backed away and ducked out of the kitchen, no doubt hurrying upstairs before
her family could get a glimpse of her tearstained face.
Nick
remained in the kitchen for a few moments, still slightly bewildered by the
scene that had just taken place. Then he
dutifully stepped into the living room.
***
True to
Nick’s word, a hot, gourmet Thanksgiving dinner was delivered to his doorstep
just under an hour later. Though even
Nick had to admit it was not quite the same as a genuine homecooked meal, the
food was very good, and there were no complaints. Claire’s brother, of course, couldn’t resist
teasing her a little, but it didn’t take long for everyone to realize the yam
disaster had not been entirely her fault – Grandma had confessed to turning up
the oven while Nick was setting the table.
That made Claire feel better, and by the time night had fallen and her
grandparents had gone to bed, she and Nick were able to have a good laugh over
it before they collapsed into bed themselves.
Beneath the
comfort of the covers, Nick slipped his arm around Claire and eased her closer
to him, glad that she seemed to be back to her old self. Resting her head against his shoulder, she
sighed. “Wow… I’m pooped.”
“I’ll bet,”
Nick replied, forcing a chuckle to hide his disappointment. He’d known she would be tired, probably too
tired to make love. Again. After what had happened last night, he didn’t
push the issue tonight. He caressed her
upper arm as she lay snuggled against him, his fingers sliding underneath the
strap of her camisole, and when she did not react to his touch, he knew he had
guessed right.
He couldn’t
exactly blame her – she had been up and running around the house since the wee
hours of the morning, after all – but the knowledge didn’t do much to ease his
desire for her or the dull sting of rejection that accompanied his failure to
fulfill that desire. Though he kept
telling himself that there had been perfectly legitimate reasons – her father’s
heart attack, the stressful holiday – the truth was that they hadn’t made love
in weeks, not since the night before their last fight. Yeah, he’d been gone for most of those few
weeks, but for him, their separation made him crave her all the more. When they were together, he longed for the
intimacy he missed when they were apart.
Yet all week, she had seemed so distant, so disinterested…
Again, he
reminded himself what she’d been through that week, trying to reassure himself
that, as she’d said, it had nothing to do with him. She was tired, she was stressed out –
perfectly understandable. Yet a little part
of him, the ugly voice that had set up shop in the back of his mind around the
time he had lost his leg, wondered if it was something else. What if he just didn’t satisfy her anymore? The thought made him frown, and as he changed
positions, rolling inward towards her, he was uncomfortably aware of the stump
on the left side of his body, which made such motions difficult. He ran his hand over the top of the covers,
feeling the lopsided half of his body, and his stomach gave a jerk as an even
worse thought occurred to him. What if
he never had satisfied her?
He tried to
tell himself that he was worrying over nothing.
Claire loved him, and if she didn’t want to be with him, she would have
bailed a long time ago. But she hadn’t. She was still by his side even now, and when
she kissed him goodnight, her kiss was no different. They said their “I love you”s as always,
leaving Nick with no tangible evidence of any problems between them. Still, as the tryptophan from the leftover
turkey lulled him to sleep, he couldn’t keep his imagination from running wild
with other explanations for her behavior, each more upsetting than the last.
***