Page 50 of Thin Ice

I pulled a chair over to reach the ones above the fridge. Floral rim. My grandmother's, arrived here at some point and never went back. I handed them down to Alex, who was already at the table laying out the everyday ones. Blue, white, two with chips. He put the floral ones in the gaps and grabbed two handfuls of forks and knives. He carefully laid them next to each plate, and when he stepped back and looked.

"You're good at setting a table," I said.

"I've never done it," he said, lining up a fork. "But it's fun."

My mom made a sound from the stove that might have been a laugh.

And before we knew it, Grandma Jean came through the door without knocking.

Small, sharp, coat halfway off before she'd cleared the threshold, eyes already doing the inventory. The cold came in with her. Grandpa Ed followed, quiet in his trucker cap and red and black flannel, stomping snow off his boots on the mat.

"Linda," Grandma said, looking past the kitchen into the living room where the tree leaned left by the window. "The tree's crooked."

"It's always crooked, Mom," my mom called from the stove.

"It's crookeder."

"That's not a word."

"It's my word." She hung her coat on the hook by the door and turned and saw me standing by the table. "There he is." She crossed the kitchen in three steps and pulled me into a hug that was stronger than her size had any right to give. She smelled like coffee and the hand lotion she'd used since I was a kid. "Merry Christmas Eve, baby."

"Merry Christmas Eve, Gram."

She held me at arm's length, her hands on my shoulders, reading my face. "You eating enough?"

"Yes, Gram."

"You're lying." She looked over my shoulder toward the stove. "Linda, he's lying."

"He eats fine, Mom," my mom said, not turning around.

"He's skinny."

Grandpa stepped up behind her and put his hand on my shoulder. One squeeze, firm, his version of the same hug. "Looking good, Captain," he said.

"Thanks, Grandpa."

Grandma turned toward the kitchen doorway and saw Alex. He was standing in the frame between the kitchen and the hallway with a dish towel over his shoulder, tall, nervous, his hands at his sides as if he wasn't sure what to do with them.

"You must be Alex," she said. She looked at him over her glasses, unhurried.

"Yes, ma'am," Alex said.

"You're too tall to stand in this kitchen. Sit down before you hit the light fixture."

She walked past him to the stove to inspect the ham. Grandpa gave Alex one nod and followed her. Alex looked at me from across the kitchen with the stunned expression of a person who'd been assessed in two seconds and apparently passed.

Then, Uncle Russ came through the front door already mid-sentence.

"— so the plow is in the ditch, right, and the guy's standing on the shoulder waving at traffic like it's his job now—"

He was big enough that the doorway framed him like a portrait, snow on his shoulders, his voice filling the room before his body did. Aunt Deb came behind him carrying a casserole dish in both hands, angling past him. Sam shuffled in behind them in a hoodie, phone out, head down. Maddie was already through the door finishing a sentence nobody had heard the beginning of.

"Liam! Buddy!" Uncle Russ grabbed me in the hallway. The hug compressed my spine. "Captain Moore. That's huge, man."

"Thanks, Uncle Russ," I said, trying to get my breath back.

"We gotta talk about your training plan," he said, one hand still on my shoulder. "I was reading about this thing the Navy SEALs do—"