Standing on the porch, he was about to knock when the door was thrown open and there stood my mother, Orla James, in all her five-foot-three glory, an evil pixie of the first order.
“Mrs. James,” Benji greeted her, passing over the bottle of wine, “I’m Benji Grace.”
“Grace,” my mother repeated, smiling at him. “Such an auspicious name. Did you know I promised Shaw to God before he was born? Did he tell you?”
“No, ma’am, he didn’t, but begging your pardon, I’d rather have him be mine than God’s. Not that the two things are mutually exclusive, you understand.”
She gasped, and her eyes got big and round, and her mouth dropped open as she stared. In that moment, I understood one of the reasons I had liked Benji from the start.
He talked just like her.
“You talk just like me,” she announced gleefully, and grabbed his hand with the one not clutching the booze and turned to yell into the house. “Everybody c’mere and meet Benji! He’s darlin’.”
And… that was it.
Benji looked over his shoulder at me before he was pulled gently forward, entering, of his own free will, the dimensional rift that was my childhood home. It was too late to turn back.
After two hours I was in the kitchen, helping do the dishes with three of my sisters when I glanced up and they were all looking at me.
“What?”
Nuan smiled. “He fits, so don’t screw it up.”
I glanced at Tori, who lifted one of her perfectly waxed eyebrows as she leveled me with a look, and finally Jill, mother of four, who grunted.
“What makes you think I’ll be the one to fuck up?”
Three heads tipped at the same time, the really being implied.
It all started at dinner when Benji had grabbed two plates instead of one. My brother Cormac, who always did the same, and who was maligned for it, silently took two as well.
“Why do you need two?” my brother Rory chimed in immediately, not missing a beat to needle Benji as he normally did Cormac. “Afraid things are gonna touch?”
“Yes, actually,” Benji replied coolly. “I’d hate for flavors to be lost because I’d accidentally splashed gravy on something and therefore missed all the work your mother had put into the preparation of the individual items. How sad would that be?”
Rory stared at him. We all stared at Rory.
My father finally said, his brogue, even after a lifetime in the US, still noticeable in its warmth, “Well now, I think that’s the last we’ll hear about plates and such.”
Rory nodded, and I noticed that aside from Cormac taking his two, several others, notably two of my nieces, who hardly ever ate anything unless forced, did as well.
“Are you hungry, Janey?” my mother asked one of the girls right behind me, holding one of her dogs as she surveyed the scene from where she was standing at the end of the table. Her Yorkie, Ringo, seemed content to simply watch the food go on the plates. He could beg later.
“I always am, Nana,” she told her. “I love everything you make, but Uncle Rory and Uncle Tiernan and Uncle Oran, they always make fun of whoever grabs more than one plate, like it’s the worst thing ever, so I’d rather just take leftovers and eat at home.”
Oh, the look she shot my brothers should have seriously burned them alive. Orla James loved feeding her family, it was her love language to serve others, and the fact that she wasn’t normally successful where Janey, for one, was concerned, was hard on her. To find out the reason… I was honestly surprised they didn’t combust right there.
Janey beamed at Benji. “I’m a vegetarian. Are you a vegetarian too?”
“I don’t eat meat,” he told her, carefully spooning things onto his plate, “but I do eat dairy and eggs. Just nothing with a face, you know?”
She nodded quickly, normally quite judgmental of all adults at fifteen. “Same.”
“Where do you fall on fish?” he asked, carrying on a conversation that she jumped right into, along with her sister.
Cormac’s wife, Debbie, walked right up to me when I was in the kitchen grabbing the pitcher of ice water for the table a few minutes later, and hugged me.
“Not that I’m complaining,” I told her, “but what the hell was that for?”
“Benji’s awesome,” she said, and I could tell she was on the brink of tears. “Cormac’s so comfortable right now, and you know that’s hard for him with his OCD.”
When Benji and Cormac fell into conversation while they were both out on the deck thirty minutes after dinner, both needing a bit of decompression from so many people, and therefore needing the quick quiet and retreat before they rejoined the havoc of Sunday dinner, I glanced over at Debbie, and she was smiling even as she blew her nose.