Caleb and I exchange a quick, half-second glance, and then it’s over. I wonder if he’ll ever tell his brothers. I wonder if he should.
“You and Eli do look a lot like Dad,” Caleb says.
“So I hear,” Seth says, then finishes his mug, stands, stretches. “Anyone else need more coffee? I’m gonna make another pot.”* * *“You’re not nervous, are you?” he asks, taking my hand as we walk up the gravel driveway to the big, old farmhouse.
We’re back in the woods, probably a quarter mile from the road, the naked trees waving overhead in the breeze. It’s cold but clear, the air so crisp I swear it smells like leaves and granite.
“Of course I’m nervous,” I say. “I’m about to meet your entire family for the first time and I just cost you your job.”
“No, I cost me my —"
“You know what I mean,” I say, my other hand tugging at the scarf around my neck. It’s the same one he lent me a few months ago, and even though I keep offering to give it back, he never takes it.
“I do,” he says, slowly. “But I prefer to think of you as the girl so amazing that I didn’t mind giving up my job, and that’s definitely how I’ve been pitching this.”
“Thanks,” I say, and I try to sound light, but I’m nervous. Of course I’m nervous. I’m sure it would be easy to see me as some wicked seductress who led to their youngest brother’s downfall, not to mention I’m younger than Caleb and way younger than his brothers.
That said, I did do the math, and I’m technically closer in age to Levi than to Rusty, so hopefully they still let me sit at the grownups’ table.
We head up the stairs to the front porch, but before Caleb opens the screen door, he turns to me, takes my shoulder in the hand that isn’t holding several baguettes.
“I love you, and so will they,” he says, quietly, then gives me a quick, soft kiss.
“Thanks,” I say again, trying to quell the beating of my heart.
Then Caleb glances at the door, and for the first time, he looks a little apprehensive.
“That said, their love can be kind of a lot, so steel yourself,” he says, and pulls the door open.
“ — tell pine from oak just by looking at it,” someone is already shouting. “It all looks wooden.”
“The heavier one is oak,” a voice calls from the next room.
“Hey, Caleb,” says a woman’s voice as we step inside, and I look around. “Oh! Shit! Hey, Thalia!”
“Hey, Charlie,” Caleb says, already laughing. “This is —”
She’s already practically scooped me up in a hug, her wild curly hair all over the place.
“We’re so glad you could make it!” she says, cutting Caleb off. “Seriously, it’s been nothing but ‘Thalia this’ and ’Thalia that,’ so thank God you’re finally here!”
“It’s nice to meet you too,” I say when she releases me, slightly stunned.
“Hey, Thalia,” calls a man who’s kneeling in front of the fireplace. “Can you tell pine from oak?”
“One’s got needles,” I point out, and Charlie laughs.
“I mean in log form,” says Eli, standing and brushing his hands off. “Hi, it’s nice to meet you in person.”
He also gives me a hug. Apparently we’re all huggers here.
“Here, I’ve got your name tag,” a woman says as he lets me go, and I turn to see Violet holding up a large sticker that says:
HELLO
My name is
THALIA
• Caleb’s girlfriend
• Psych major
• Navy brat“Wow,” I say, because for a moment, words truly fail me, but Violet just laughs.
“I tried to include at least one conversation starter,” she says. “Oh, here’s Caleb’s.”
“I’m literally the one person here who everyone knows,” he points out, accepting the sticker anyway.
“Let me have my fun,” Violet says, and he dutifully puts the sticker on his chest.
“This was fun?” he teases her.
“You have no idea,” she says.* * *Caleb was right, and everyone is wonderful. For a little while I feel guilty about how nice they are, just welcoming me into their lives like they’ve been waiting this whole time, especially when my own family has been somewhat less than kind to Caleb.
Okay, a lot less than kind.
But still, I remember what Caleb told me when I was crying on the floor of his bedroom, when I called his family perfect and he laughed and told me everyone’s flaws, the ways they’d fucked up.
Finally, meeting most of his family for the first time, I realize his point: flaws are just flaws, not the entirety of a person. They matter, but what really matters is learning to look past them.
I meet Eli (whose name tag says older brother / married to Violet / chef), who tries to get me on his side in some argument he’s having with Levi about wood, and Violet (married to Eli / knows a lot about quilts), who laughs and pokes holes in his logic.