Page 55 of It Runs in the Family

He stuck out his bottom lip. “I think you’ve got it covered.”

“Now.”

Laughing, he walked over to the table with me.

“I’m gonna kill you,” I said under my breath. “Why would you set me up like this?”

“Because everyone knows that Hillman’s grocery store mashed potatoes are better than Aunt Millie’s poor excuse made of wallpaper paste, and this will prove it.”

I set the bowl on the table, then turned back to glare up at him, one hand propped on my hip. “Your mother put you up to this.”

He held up his hands. “I never said that.”

“You didn’t have to,” I whispered under my breath as I leaned closer. “You hadn’t gotten your pie yet, and you’re not a procrastinator. You always buy your pie the day before. You were planning to stop at Hillman’s and pick up some potatoes but decided to pawn it off on me!”

He laughed. “Okay, guilty as charged. But I’ll protect you from Aunt Millie just as I’ll protect you from Billy.” He paused, looking pensive, before he said, “I never noticed before that their names rhyme.”

“I call bullshit,” I whisper-shouted. “Everyone knows their names rhyme. She did it on purpose.”

She was his mother, after all.

Mary Ellen sidled up next to us. “Did someone say Billy?” She made a look of disgust. “He’s not here, is he?”

“Not yet,” I said. “And I’m really not looking forward to seeing him again, thanks to you and Ava.” I glanced around. “Where is she by the way?”

Mary Ellen grimaced. “She’s parking the car and ran into a tiny bit of trouble. So I said I’d let her work it out while I kept everyone busy.”

“Whose car did she hit?” I asked in a deadpan voice.

Ava glanced up at Garrett with a grimace.

“She hit my Bronco?” he screeched, then took off jogging toward the front of the house.

“Did she really hit his Bronco?” I asked in horror.

“No, but I heard about the mashed potatoes, so I figured he deserved some cousin payback.”

I glanced around, looking for who might have overheard us, and didn’t see anyone. “How…?”

“Did I find out? Don’t question my ways, child,” she said, then tapped my forehead. “They are too complex for feeble minds like yours to comprehend.” She wandered over to the drinks table. “I need a drink.”

Granny didn’t approve of alcohol during family dinners—people got on each other’s nerves and tended to drink too much, which usually led to chaos or fistfights. But that didn’t stop Ava and Mary Ellen from bringing flasks and spiking their lemonade. Granny either didn’t know or she turned a blind eye. I was going with the latter, given that she was the sharpest woman I knew.

Trying to get out from under Aunt Millie’s evil eye, I decided to go into the kitchen and see if Granny needed any help. Based on past experience, she’d tell me she could handle it on her own and shoo me out, but I liked letting her know I was offering it, even if she didn’t want it.

“Hey, Granny,” I said as I walked through the back door. “What can I do to help?”

“You foolish child,” she said good-naturedly. She was flipping pieces of fried chicken in one of three electric skillets. A cookie sheet covered with paper towels sat next to her. “As though I’d let anyone help in my kitchen.”

“Do you need another platter? I can get it for you.”

She let out a grunt of disgust. “You think this my first time fryin’ chicken for fifty-plus people? It’s not even my hundredth. I know what I’m doin’.”

“Okay. Okay. How about some company?”

She glanced over her shoulder at me. “You avoidin’ someone or something?”

I sat in a chair at the kitchen table. “Something like that.”