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“This is exciting!” said Cole suddenly.

Willow could smell turkey and gravy and something sweet, probably the pumpkin pie, and she wanted to share her brother's excitement but found herself instead feeling sorrow.

She missed her mother.

The doors to the dining hall opened then and the guests began to file inside. Willow stood on tiptoe and saw a sea of tables, each covered with a clean, almost sparkling, white cloth, a bowl of gourds and autumn leaves in the center, surrounded by orange candles that glowed softly in the room. It was beautiful, but it wasn't home.

Willow searched the crowd of guests, looking for another family like hers. Why she hoped to find another girl missing her mother, she couldn't have said, and she felt mean, but she continued to look. By now, a waiter had escorted the Hamiltons to their table, and Willow was still scanning the crowd when suddenly Cole pulled at his father's jacket and reached up to whisper something in his ear.

“What was that?” asked Mr. Hamilton.

“That man is alone,” said Cole more loudly.

“What man?”

“That one,” Cole replied, trying not to point too conspicuously. “We should ask him to sit with us.”

Willow looked across the dining room and saw a thin, graying man, several years older than her father, she guessed, who was being shown to a table for one.

“Well, Cole —” Mr. Hamilton began to say.

“Please? Please can't I ask him to come to our table?”

Mr. Hamilton glanced at Willow, who shrugged. Then she looked again at the man sitting motionlessly in the middle of the busy dining room, like a solitary rock in a stream, everything happening around him.

“I think we should invite him,” said Willow.

“Oh! I'll do it! I'll do it!” cried Cole, and he dashed away.

When he returned, he was holding the man's hand. “This is Mr. Allen,” he said. “I told him we had never had Thanksgiving without our mother before and he said he had never had Thanksgiving without his wife before and that it's nice to eat with a family.”

And that was how the Hamiltons met Mr. Allen, who became their good friend and who, years later when Willow got married, gave her a silver bowl that had been given to him and his wife on
their
wedding day and had brought them more happiness than they could have dreamed of.

Olivia Walter sat in the community center, surrounded by her parents, brothers, friends, and neighbors — and her jaw dropped.

Ruby Northrop had just made what even Olivia knew was a terrible mistake. Music was not Olivia's specialty. She lived in a world of science — of facts and theories and principles and properties. She liked music, but she didn't know it or understand it the way Ruby did, and she was confused when the hall became silent and the silence grew and grew like a balloon that threatened to explode. In that impossibly long moment, Olivia turned to her mother, then looked back at the members of the Children's Chorus in time to see Lacey Morris glare at Ruby, and Ruby jump as if she had been poked, which, Olivia suspected, she had been.

At last, Ruby began to sing — alone — but after a line or two, she hesitated and then began to sing again at the same time that a boy began to sing, and now
he
was the one glaring at Ruby.

Uh-oh, thought Olivia.

The song continued, but Ruby's face had turned an alarming shade of red, which didn't fade until well after her second and much longer solo had ended.

Olivia was fascinated. She felt bad for her friend, but she had never seen Ruby make such a mistake. She had seen her cover up other people's mistakes — and onstage, too, right during performances. But this was unprecedented. Ruby had blundered, and her blunder had stood out like a monarch butterfly in a snowstorm.

When the concert ended, Olivia had tried to make her way to Flora and Ruby. What she would have said to Ruby, she wasn't sure. But maybe Ruby would have offered some sort of explanation, and if she had, Olivia would have wanted to hear it. “Mom,” Olivia had said urgently, “I have to talk to Ruby for a minute.”

“All right, but hurry back. We need to leave for your grandparents'.”

“Okay.” Olivia had hustled, but she was still two rows away from her friends when she saw Ruby grab Min and pull her toward the exit.

“Ruby!” Olivia had called. “Ruby!”

But Ruby had barged ahead as if she hadn't heard Olivia — and Olivia had used her loudest voice.

“Huh,” said Olivia.

She turned back to her own family and quickly forgot about Ruby. Today was Thanksgiving, and Olivia had been looking forward to it ever since her parents had told her and her brothers that this year their family would be spending Thanksgiving with Olivia's mother's parents, her
other
grandparents. Olivia saw Gigi and Poppy, her father's parents, frequently. They lived in Camden Falls, and Needle and Thread was located three doors down from Sincerely Yours. But visits to Paw and Nana, Mrs. Walter's parents, even though they lived just twenty minutes away, were less frequent.

“Who else is going to be at Paw and Nana's?” Olivia had asked, barely able to contain her excitement.

“Let me see. Gigi and Poppy,” her mother had said.

“Yay!” Henry had cried.

“And Aunt Stella and Uncle Will.”

“Does that mean Ashley will be there?” Olivia had asked, already feeling both shy and excited by the very thought of seeing her sixteen-year-old cousin. Ashley was the kind of sophisticated teenager Olivia aspired to be — and had a good feeling she might never be. Still, it was thrilling to be around her.

“Yes,” her mother had replied. “Dawson, too.” Dawson was Ashley's brother, who was even older — eighteen — and who always had time for his younger cousins.

“Yippee!” Jack had exclaimed.

And Henry had added, “I wonder if Dawson got his motorcycle yet.”

“Lord, I hope not,” Olivia's mother had said.

There were to be other cousins and aunts and uncles at Thanksgiving as well, and as the big day had drawn nearer, Olivia had grown more and more excited. With the knowledge that Ashley would be present, she had chosen her outfit for the day with great care. She had, in fact, chosen and discarded no fewer than twenty-six outfits, various combinations of pants and skirts and shirts and sweaters and vests and shoes.

“You girls sure make a big deal out of clothes,” Jack had remarked as Olivia had entered the kitchen one evening, wearing yet another ensemble.

Olivia had ignored him. “What about this one?” she had asked her mother.

“I love it!” Mrs. Walter had exclaimed. (She had loved every single one of Olivia's outfits.)

“I thought you only got worked up about outfits for Jaaaaacoooooob,” Henry had said. (He'd dragged out the syllables of “Jacob” until the name sounded ridiculously long.)

“Mom!” Olivia had cried. “Why does he bring up Jacob all the time?”

“Because it's fun to tease you about your boyfriend,” Henry had said. “That's
boyfriend
. B-O-Y-F-R —”

“Mom!” Olivia had wailed again.

“Ignore, ignore, ignore,” Mrs. Walter had whispered in her daughter's ear. “He only teases you because you react. Now, go back upstairs. You look lovely. I think this is the outfit you should wear to Thanksgiving dinner.”

Olivia had laid it carefully over the back of her chair and then had changed her mind nine more times.

Now it was Thanksgiving Day and the Children's Chorus concert had ended. Time for Paw and Nana's. Olivia and her family walked back to their house and loaded their van with their contributions to the meal — homemade rolls and glazed carrots and an enormous boxful of Olivia's mother's special chocolates, molded into the shapes of turkeys and oak leaves and pumpkins and even slices of pie.

In the van, which smelled tantalizingly of chocolate and fresh bread, Olivia's emotions seesawed between elation at the thought of seeing Ashley and Dawson and mortification over the outfit she had ultimately decided upon — a crocheted lavender vest over a black shirt, black velvet bell-bottoms, and a purple engineer's cap. Olivia was suddenly certain it was horribly wrong, possibly outlandish. She slumped in her seat. Thanksgiving was ruined before it had even started.

Then her family pulled into Paw and Nana's driveway and Olivia's spirits soared. There were Ashley and Dawson. They were helping Aunt Stella and Uncle Will unload pans of food from their car, but when they saw the Walters, they set their things down and waved.

“Hey, cousins!” Dawson called cheerfully.

Ashley enveloped Olivia (who had ditched her hat at the last second) in a warm hug as Olivia emerged from the van. Then she held her at arm's length and cried, “Olivia, you look fantastic! When did you get so tall?”

If anyone else had said this to Olivia, she would have shuddered — if for no other reason than because although she
had
grown a bit, she was still the tiniest kid in her entire school. But when Ashley said it, Olivia felt her face grow warm with plea sure.

“I love your outfit,” Ashley continued. “Wow. You aren't my little baby cousin anymore.”

Olivia beamed. And when Jack piped up, “She has a
boyfriend
,” Olivia actually felt grateful to him.

“A boyfriend?! Already?! No way!” said Dawson.

“You have to tell me all about him,” Ashley added. And she took Olivia by the elbow and led her inside, saying, “Time for some serious girl talk.”

But the girl talk had to wait. The moment Ashley and Olivia entered the house, they were ambushed by relatives. They were gathered in great bearlike hugs and fussed over and admired and kissed. After a particularly scratchy kiss from her mustachioed uncle Ham, Olivia rubbed her cheek and was then put to work in the kitchen, peeling apples for a salad. She had already lost track of her parents and brothers, and couldn't see Ashley, either. In fact, she found it hard to see much of anything around the two buxom aunties who were chopping vegetables across the table.

This is a perfect holiday, thought Olivia as she breathed in the aroma of cloves and sweet potatoes and roasting turkey and melting butter. The kitchen was crowded with bodies, and everyone was talking at top volume. Olivia thought the radio might be playing, too, but it was hard to tell. Outside the window, Olivia could just barely glimpse the blue sky, but even from inside, the air somehow looked cold, and that morning, as she had walked to the community center with her family, she had thought she could smell snow. She hoped for a winter full of blizzards and storms.

“Hey there!”

Someone tapped Olivia on the shoulder and she turned around.

Ashley stood behind her. “I want to hear about Jacob.” She turned to Nana. “Olivia's finished,” she proclaimed, and tugged her cousin out of the kitchen and into the living room, where they made room for themselves on the end of a sofa. “Okay,” said Ashley. “Tell me everything.”

Olivia could feel herself blushing, something she wished she had some control over. “Well …” She wasn't sure where to begin. “I met him when school started,” she said finally. “He's in some of my classes and we're both in the book club at school.” Here Olivia hesitated, unsure what Ashley would think of a book club, but her cousin merely nodded encouragingly. “He calls me on the phone a lot,” Olivia added.

“Excellent,” said Ashley.

“And we …” (Olivia knew her blush was deepening) “we went on a date. To a dance at school.”

“Girl, no way!”

“Yes. And almost no one else had a date for the dance,” Olivia continued, “but Jacob asked me. And later he gave me a birthday card and signed it ‘Love, Jacob.'”

“And then they kissed and got married,” said a voice from behind the sofa.

Enraged, Olivia jumped to her feet. “Jack!”

But Ashley laid a hand on her arm. “I think he's jealous,” she said in a voice just loud enough for Jack to hear. “He wants a girlfriend, but —”

“I do not!” Jack shrieked, and fled from the room.

The front door opened then, ushering in more cousins. After a while, the grown-ups settled themselves in the living room, the younger children were encouraged to run off steam outdoors, and the middle cousins, Olivia included, gathered in the den. All the girls wanted to hear about Jacob, and Olivia told the story of the dance several more times, ignoring the urge to embellish it.

At last the feast was served, and Olivia's large family gathered around three tables, each laden with food. Olivia noted, with immense plea sure, that this was the first year she was not seated at the children's table. She found herself instead among Ashley and Dawson and the other teenagers. To her right, the younger cousins were trying to make Jack laugh hard enough to spray milk out of his nose. To her left, the adults were telling tales from their childhoods. She listened with interest when she heard her mother recall the Thanksgiving dinner — when her mother was a little girl living in their Row House — that had to be postponed because of an autumn blizzard. “Frannie and I were terribly disappointed,” she said, and Olivia realized she was talking about Flora and Ruby's mother.