The Bride (The Boss 3)

We’d been sticking to a mostly vegan diet since Neil had picked it up during the big, fun year of cancer. But there was absolutely nothing that could be classified as vegan at my family’s cheese-smothered Christmas dinner, so we took the opportunity to gorge ourselves shamefully on fatty baked ham and thick, gooey casseroles. I had a feeling this meal would be the dietary point of no return for both of us.

There has never been a dinner table invented that could hold an entire extended family of Catholics. There were just too damn many Scaifes, so most of us ate standing up, or sitting on couches or folding chairs, since there were only six seats around the dining room table.

Neil and I stood in the little corner next to the back bedroom, our plates balanced on our hands, our bottles of Leinenkugel perched on the windowsill between ancient styrofoam snowmen.

“I need you to still love me,” I managed around a mouthful of scorching hot mashed potatoes, “when you are witness to the gastrointestinal nightmare that will be this food’s legacy.”

“We shall never speak of this night. What happens in Michigan stays in Michigan. Hopefully including your accent.” He lifted another bite of ham to his mouth. “And we must never tell Emma about the orgy of animal products we’re ingesting.”

“Who’s Emma?” my mom called from the dining room table. The woman had the hearing of a buck in November.

Neil chewed and swallowed, then reached for his beer. “My daughter. She’s a vegan.”

“Oh, you have a daughter?” My mom brightened, and my grandma and aunt Marie both perked up. I knew Mom had visions of adorable kindergarteners in her mind.

“It’s a funny story,” I said, even though I knew it wouldn’t strike them as remotely funny. “She’s twenty-five. She’s my exact age.”

“She’s a month younger,” he clarified. As though that made things better.

“Oh, a whole month.” Anger tightened my mom’s fake smile. I thought it might crack and fall off.

“Well, that would be a good story, wouldn’t it, Becky?” Aunt Marie laughed to defuse the tension. “‘My daughter and my grandbaby are the same age.’ You could go on Maury.”

“Um, no, Emma is not…” I shook my head. “Emma is not my baby.”

“Well, you better have some soon,” Marie said, as though it weren’t the most mortifying thing in the world for her to order Neil and me to procreate. “Your mom’s been hungry for a grandbaby.”

How soon my mom’s expectations had swung from “don’t get pregnant,” to “get immediately pregnant,” the moment a man was in the picture for me. I bet she felt differently now that she’d met Neil.

I’d gotten pregnant the year before, but we hadn’t kept the baby. I didn’t regret that choice, but I was glad my mom didn’t know. She’d told me time and again how disappointed she was that I wouldn’t have children. I wasn’t about to change my mind, but I wished for her sake that she didn’t feel that way.

I’d already warned Neil about my mother’s obsession with being a grandmother, and he’d agreed to take the fall for me. He cleared his throat and said, quite seriously, “Well, after I had chemotherapy and the transplant this year, it’s not likely that children are in our future.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that.” I had no doubt that my mom meant that. She would probably feel irrationally guilty over Marie’s remarks later.

“The good news is, he’s still alive,” I reminded them with a wise-ass smirk.

Neil grinned over the top of his beer bottle. “Somehow, you’ll just have to cope with your disappointment, Mrs. Scaife.”

My mom laughed, and I saw a glimmer of hope that she might slightly warm to Neil after all.

A little after lunch, Neil excused himself to call Emma and wish her a happy Christmas. “I’ll go outside,” he said, gesturing toward the door with his phone. “It’s a bit loud in here. And I don’t want to be rude, of course.”

“Don’t put your tongue on anything out there, or it will get stuck,” I teased.

The moment he was gone, my mother and my aunt Marie herded me into the back bedroom. I backed into the end of the narrow bed and had no choice but to sit on all the coats as the two women loomed over me.

“Explain yourself, Sophie Anne!” Mom hissed in a low voice.

“Explain what?” I held out my open and utterly innocent palms. “I told you I was bringing my boyfriend to Christmas, I brought my boyfriend to Christmas.”

“You didn’t go to law school! You are not going to lawyer your way out of this!” Mom pressed her garish holiday manicure to her forehead. “How old is he?”

“Forty-nine.” I lifted my chin defiantly. Or was that childishly? Why could I never act like an adult when my mother was involved?

“Forty—I’m not even forty-nine, Sophie! What the hell are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking he’s super-hot and great in bed?”