Nerd and the Marine (30 page)

“
That’s correct, which
isn’t all that far away.”

“
Right.” He caught an
airborne drink and attempted to sprinkle salt in one of his
daughter's drinks. She giggled and thrust his hand away before
trying to return the favor.

*****

Thanksgiving rolled around and Lainy
felt comfortable with the video camera Ed finally delivered. She
practiced on Bentley, as she had with her new digital camera, and
now had shots of him cavorting with the herd, and chasing leaves,
since the squirrels were scarce.

She felt confident she’d be able to
capture a Morrison family Thanksgiving for Mitch. Lainy was happy
she’d be behind the camera this time and not in front of it. She
planned to narrate, which she hoped he’d like.

Most men didn’t get involved in the
chaos the kitchen became before the big meal, but since she’d be in
the midst of the preparations, Mitch would have to be, too. They
always ate at her parents, who had a huge, rambling old house big
enough to contain their still growing family. Kids chased dogs and
other kids as nowhere was off limits. Adults and teenagers occupied
all the other spaces.

“
If you want privacy in the
bathroom, you lock the door. If you don’t mind ten kids playing in
the bathtub, or climbing into your lap or chasing a dog through,
you neglect to lock the door. There is no place in this house
that's off limits. No such thing as
privacy
,” she warned Mitch via the
video.

Lainy needed to prepare Mitch, but she
didn’t want to scare him, either. Because she’d probably be able to
do that, too. She instructed Ed to tape the football game for Mitch
as that would give him some time with the Morrison men. Then she
wouldn’t have to worry about what Ed’s camera recorded. That wasn’t
to say he hadn’t built yet another camera and hidden it somewhere
in the house, but she at least had some control over what Mitch
would witness.

Ben wouldn’t be at his folk’s house,
since he was overseas somewhere. So she decided she’d make a copy
for him, too. He’d still get to enjoy the day that way. This wasn’t
the first holiday Ben missed, and she doubted it’d be the last.
Hopefully it would be Mitch’s only Thanksgiving away.

She taped the huge amount of food
being prepared in the kitchen. Eight children, six of whom were
married, while Max brought K.C. and her son, and four whose in-laws
and siblings were present, amounted to much food. There were at
least ten teenagers, and easily as many preteens.

Her mother had baked pies all week and
Lainy trained the camera on them. Two of her sisters had also baked
cookies and Rachel made the best pumpkin rolls ever. She'd brought
about ten of her specialty. Treeny, who was also present, had
helped her. Lainy decided to make sure she got some footage of
Treeny for Ben. The desserts alone took up the entire kitchen table
- which seated ten. Lainy snagged a cookie as she took Mitch around
to the stove. She showed him the plentiful amounts of food
there.

By the time they’d sliced, mashed,
heated, and dished everything up, Lainy figured Mitch would have
some idea of how a huge family gathering worked. The living room
and dining rooms opened into each other, which was good. They
shoved all the furniture against the walls and opened the table to
its fullest extent, which seated thirty people. Another table ran
parallel to the first, also seating as many.

Kids ended up on parent’s laps and
still others were seated at smaller tables clustered around both
rooms. Dogs were penned in the study, much to their dismay. Lainy
took shots of the tables, heaping with food and the eager faces of
those present. Viewing the gathering through Mitch’s eyes gave her
a fresh appreciation of the holiday so she told him. Lainy didn’t
say anything mushy, since he might share the DVD with the other men
on base.

Finally with everyone seated, the
celebration began. A blessing and thanks said, and then the dishes
passed and were refilled and passed again. Since she ended up being
one of the re-fillers, Lainy set the camera on a nearby
bookshelf.

The family talked about everything and
her brothers informed Mitch and Ben they missed out on a great
meal. The family toasted both men and the ladies promised to send
treats.

The food disappeared fast and chaos
reigned as adults stood to assist kids at nearby tables. Her mother
almost forgot the rolls, but a grandson asked about them, and she
nearly fell over herself running to retrieve them.

By the time dessert came, Lainy was
full, but not so much she didn’t intend to sample the sweet
provisions. They didn’t waste time clearing the tables and set
pies, cookies, and pumpkin rolls out. A few cakes showed up, and
Lainy groaned. By the time she’d taken samples of the items she
wanted to try, her plate was full again.

Someone kept the camera informed of
the action, usually Ed or Greg. The women made the men clean up,
but her mother and grandmother supervised. The ladies had enough
with dividing the remainder of the food to send home with the
participants.

The men returned to their games and Ed
kept the camera rolling. He told her he planned to send one of just
the game, and another of the Morrison men watching the game. Lainy
figured if Mitch didn’t like football, he’d find someone on the
base who did. At least he’d be able to enjoy the game with her
family.

The other women and men who didn’t
care to watch football moved into separate rooms. The men who
didn’t do dishes helped to put the living and dining rooms back to
rights. The game players moved into the dining room and others
clumped around the living room to talk.

Conversations varied, but Lainy worked
on showing Mitch and Ben the gist of each. Or at least gave them a
sampling of what they could have enjoyed. She got caught in a
conversation between Ed and some of the nieces and nephews and
stayed to offer her opinion on the electronic they discussed. Mitch
would see what a nerd she was. But maybe that would help his
decision on whether to keep her. Besides, she’d built him a
computer, so he had an inkling.

She was also snagged by Dustin, Will’s
son. Ed admitted he’d filmed Dustin’s previous truck woes while
they were at camp, so she knew Mitch had seen Dustin’s beater. She
doubted he’d mind her asking how the new one was working for
him.

“
So, Dust, how do you like
your new truck?”

“
Aw, Aunt Lainy, I wish I
would have had this one from the beginning. All I have to do is put
gas in and check the fluids. I’ll change the oil when it needs
it.”

“
How long have you had it
now?”

“
Let’s see, I got it at the
end of August, so about three months.”

“
And you’re getting to
school on time, no worries?”

“
No problems. It hasn’t let
me sit at all. I haven’t missed a class. All my professors are
like,
happy
. I
mean, I used to miss all the time last year.” Dustin used much
teenaged animation.

“
Good. I’m glad it’s
working out so well. Let this be a lesson to you.” Lainy smiled at
him.

“
Dude, I’m not taking my
dad car shopping
ever
again
.” Dustin intoned and Lainy nodded
before moving on.

“
So, we’ve got that little
problem taken care of,” she told Mitch via the video. “I swear he
used to miss class every other day. He’s a sophomore and goes to
Penn State in Middletown this year. Did you go to main campus all
four years? He’ll probably go to main campus in the spring, I
imagine. He needed reliable transportation though. I don’t know how
many times he had to borrow one of our vehicles to get to class.
But he’s good now.”

She moved on to another conversation
and then another before shutting off the camcorder. She didn’t know
she could miss a person so much, but she did. Last year, she’d been
fine at family gatherings. Because she hadn’t known Mitch. Now she
needed to share the holidays with him but what about her
life?

Lainy passed the family
room and remembering the dogs, let them out. She turned the
camcorder on again. A nephew beefed the song, “
Who let the dogs out
?!” and the other
kids entered into the song with him. Which set off the crowd in
front of the TV, because they couldn’t hear the game.

Bentley and the other dogs swept the
floor, looking for anything edible. Lainy’s mom took pity on them
and gave each dog a morsel of turkey. Bentley also snagged a dog
biscuit. Somehow.

“
Your dog is so spoiled,”
she told Mitch in an undertone. “He’s going to be really fat when
you get home.”

“
Mitch, just so you know,
when Bentley’s good, he’s her dog, but when he’s bad, he’s yours. I
hope you know what that means.” Melly laughed, her face glowing
with animation.

“
Melly, your kid is drawing
on the wall,” Melly’s husband bellowed from somewhere in the house.
“See?” Melly left to take care of the problem but others picked up
where she left off and it took Lainy twenty minutes to
escape.

When she finally turned the camera
off, she didn’t feel quite so lonely. Everyone treated Mitch as
they did Ben. Gone, but not forgotten. They appreciated what he
did, and were glad he could do so, but were sorry he couldn’t be
with them. They also made certain he understood he was welcome to
participate next year. Provided he had returned home by
then.

Lainy didn’t know what next year would
bring. After this year, she couldn’t even contemplate. Would she
have the courage in herself and trust in Mitch to allow him in when
he returned? Had her previous experiences been wrong? Was love
beautiful? Her family certainly showed something far different than
her experiences, and Mitch seemed to think her past situation had
been due to her partners. Could a relationship be different with
him?

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The Christmas meal turned out similar
to Thanksgiving. But the cacophony had escalated at least ten fold.
Lainy managed to record the chaos on video, somehow. Excited kids
ripping into gifts, tearing from one cheerily wrapped package to
the next.

Gag gifts abounded among the adults,
which had somehow become a tradition. “Some ying yang gave Ed a
whoopee cushion. His wife, Zara, got blamed and has taken the
burden of guilt well, but we still don’t know whether she’s
actually guilty,” Lainy informed Mitch as she recorded.

Ed snuck the cushion under anyone he
could with a maniacal glee. No one was immune to his newest gift.
“You have to be very careful where you sit. Even then, you still
could have problems,” Lainy warned on video. She hoped her voice
indicated her feelings on the matter. Ed was the limit.

“
He’s like a child tucked
into an adult’s body.” Lainy caught her mother saying to an
aunt.

“
See, Mitch, this is what
you’re missing. Lucky you.” Laurie shook her head as she went after
yet another kid. Toys caused more than one accident, and traffic
congestion of the human kind provided delays in the food being
delivered to the tables. Several people toppled due to a sack of
marbles that “accidentally” spilled on the floor. Someone pointed
in Tom’s direction since someone had given him the sack to replace
his lost marbles. Yet no one ruled out Ed, either.

Someone else received itching powder,
but Lainy’s mother intercepted the stuff and threw it into the
toilet. Much to a nephew’s disappointment. She handed him a candy
cane and kept going. “How my mother manages to be everywhere at
once and still prepare dinner is beyond me, so don’t ask,
okay?”

Stepping over and around
cars, dolls, modeling clay, coloring books and crayons, a few MP3
players she itched to take apart, and various other toys for the
kids and teenagers, Lainy showed Mitch the study where most of the
population had gathered due to her mother’s orders. They
watched
How the Grinch Stole
Christmas
, and in testament to the number
of times her family had seen the holiday special, her rellys were
able to speak most of the lines with the cartoon
characters.

“
Here we have the
entertainment my mom bought to keep everyone quiet and out of her
way. As you can see, it’s not working.” She panned the room. The
audio could barely be heard by anyone other than the kids in the
front, as her brothers and brothers-in-law and their children spoke
the lines.

And adlibbed most of them.

Lainy rolled her eyes and kept going.
She took him into the kitchen. “Here are the Christmas dinner
preparations. As you can see, the meal is very similar to what we
ate at Thanksgiving.”

“
There’s nothing
different,” Lainy’s mother inserted and Lainy laughed.

“
The desserts are.” She
panned the dessert table. Snagging another cookie, this one a sugar
cookie snowman with lots of frosting, she left the room. Nieces and
nephews set the table. Eventually. Arguments broke out on a regular
basis and Lainy had to intervene several times.

She showed the older fellows talking
in one corner of the living room not taken up with the tables and
also the stairwell where others congregated to get out of the way.
The bathroom doors had signup sheets, compliments of Ed and Max,
for times when you were allowed to use the facilities. Strict
penalties were set in place for anyone disregarding those rules. Of
course, no one paid any attention to Ed or Max, currently causing
more ruckuses in the next room. All of the teenaged nieces’ names
took up every slot on the sheet, anyway. “Brothers,” Lainy
muttered.