“Happy Thanksgiving!” I cried.
Mickey gave me a grin that his kids reciprocated.
I gave out hugs and also gave Mickey a swift kiss, doing this at the same time ushering them in.
I closed the door and Lawr was there.
“Right, take off your jackets as I start introductions,” I ordered. “Mickey, Cillian, Ash, this is my big brother, Lawr Hathaway. Lawr, meet the Donovan family.”
Lawr was taking coats, shaking hands and exchanging nice-to-meet-yous at the same time explaining to a curious Cillian what kind of name “Lawr” was when it happened.
Lawr and Mickey had just started greeting each other. I was smiling at it, my two best (adult) guys in the whole world shaking hands, then I saw Aisling bump into her father.
My eyes went to her and my head jerked at the look on her face.
The Donovans had come looking dapper in the way they would do it for a family Thanksgiving.
Mickey was in a nice sweater and jeans. Cillian had on a nice long-sleeved shirt and jeans.
As for Ash, she’d been quiet, as usual, but open. Her hair was gleaming, beautiful and clean and it even looked like she curled it. She had on a pretty tan skirt and a nice sweater in a soft pink, both fit her figure, pronouncing the curves she had in a lovely way, and she had on a great pair of boots. She’d also put on a hint of makeup.
Upon arrival, she’d seemed okay. Better than okay.
Now, suddenly, she seemed pale and wary and even afraid.
“Ash?” I called and her eyes darted to me.
“I thought her name was Olympia,” she whispered bafflingly.
“I’m sorry, blossom?” I asked.
“Her name is Pippa,” she told me.
I looked over my shoulder and saw Auden and Pippa there. They were hanging back, awaiting their time to come forward for introductions.
Auden appeared curious and welcoming.
Pippa looked much the same as Aisling except pale and…
Guilty.
“Pip?” I called uncertainly.
“Pippa?”
This was fairly shrieked by Cillian.
My eyes whipped back to him to see him glaring with supreme malevolence at Pippa.
And my mouth dropped open when he pointed an incensed finger at her aggressively and shouted, “You suck!”
“Cillian,” Mickey growled, moving to his son to put his hand on his shoulder.
Cillian snapped his head back to look at his dad. “She sucks! She’s mean! She and her stupid friends say crap to Ash.” He looked back to Pippa as my heart stopped beating. “You’re a stinking, ugly, loser bully.”
Oh no.
No!
“That is uncool,” Auden said low, moving closer to his sister and slightly in front of her.
“It’s true!” Cillian yelled at Auden. “I saw it! Twice!” He jerked his head back to look at his dad. “Ash won’t let me say anything. She doesn’t want you worrying.”
I looked to Pippa and my stomach twisted so much I thought I’d be sick.
“Dad, can I go home?” I heard Aisling ask her father.
“Please tell me this isn’t true,” I said to my daughter.
“It is. She’s the worst. She’s a freaking mean girl,” Cillian answered for Pippa.
I didn’t take my eyes off my daughter. “Pippa, honey, answer me.”
She looked wild-eyed and about to bolt.
But knowing there was nowhere to go, those eyes came to me and she whispered in a horrible voice, “You didn’t tell us their names. You just called them Mickey’s kids. I didn’t know it was Ash Donovan that was coming. There are three Donovans in school. You didn’t even say she was in the same grade as me.”
“Yeah.” I heard Cillian say and felt him move, knowing with the way his movement was curtailed that Mickey pulled him back. But that didn’t stop him from talking. “I bet you wouldn’t like that. Fat, ugly, Ash Donovan coming over to your house for Thanksgiving.”
My stomach twisted again. Viciously.
“Pippa—” I began.
“You don’t know,” Cillian stated, it was an accusation and it was directed to Pippa. “You don’t know how my sister has to hang with me all the time when Mom and Dad are working. How she has to make us dinner. You don’t know how our mom is a big, fat drunk and Ash’s always there to take care of me. You don’t know when you’re mean to her and make her feel like garbage how totally awesome she is.”
Oh God.
The room went even more tense and I saw my daughter’s face blanch further and my son wince.
“Cill,” Mickey murmured.
Auden moved more in front of his sister and suggested to me, “Maybe we can talk somewhere else, just you and Pippa and me?”
I noted my son’s movements.
But my attention didn’t stray from my daughter.
“Have you been saying those things to Aisling?” I asked.
“Mom—” she started, her face a horrible thing for a mother to see.
“Answer me!” I shrieked.
She quailed and her brother pulled her behind his back.
“Don’t lose it, Mom,” he snapped at me.
“Auden, you are not in this,” I snapped back and gave my attention to Olympia again. “Have you been cruel to kids at school?”
“Polly’s the one who says stuff,” she defended lamely.
“That doesn’t stop you from laughing,” Cillian put in.
“Son, enough from you,” Mickey growled.
“You laugh?” I asked my daughter.
“I…it’s…”
She said no more.
“It’s what?” I hissed.
“Mom, can we talk somewhere else?” Auden bit out.
“Absolutely not,” I clipped then back to my daughter. “I cannot believe this. I didn’t raise a mean girl.”
Pippa, not good with confrontation and on the spot in a very bad way, didn’t retreat.
She came out guns a’blazing.
“Oh yeah you did,” she retorted angrily. “All the stuff you did to Martine?”
My body started burning and I instantly leaned back, asking sarcastically, “So, she stole your homework out of your locker and passed it off as hers?”
“Mom—” Auden began.
“No,” Pippa snapped.
I kept with the sarcasm. “Oh, so she stole your boyfriend. Is that it?”
She leaned angrily around her brother toward me. “Don’t pretend you don’t understand what I’m saying.”
“So sweet, pretty, quiet Ash destroyed your world? Knowingly and willfully participated in behavior that meant you lost everything. The man you’d loved for two decades. The home you’d made together for your children. The future you were looking forward to. Is that what happened?” I asked,