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“I love your mother. I still want to tell her things, and then I remember I can’t just pick up the phone and call her.” He rubbed his hand over his mouth before looking at Nicole again. “Roxanne’s it for me. She always has been. Whatever she decides, that’s not going to change.”
Nicole smiled at him. This was why she’d kept believing him, no matter what Tiffany said. He loved her mother. Sitting here with him, she was more sure of that—and of him—than she’d been in weeks.
“I hope she lets you come home, Dad.”
“Me too, baby girl. Me too.” He tried to smile back, but it didn’t get very far, and she reached across the table for his hand.
They sat like that until he patted her hand and let go.
“Finish your breakfast,” he said. “I’ll take you home whenever you’re ready.”
Nicole picked up her fork. She was looking forward to seeing everyone—her mother, Tiffany, MJ, her grandmother, and all of her cousins, uncles and aunties. But she wished he were coming inside with her, taking his coat off, asking what smelled so good.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Nicole sat up when her father pulled up to the guardhouse at the entrance to the neighborhood and lowered his window. A wreath of autumn leaves hung beside the door, and the guard stepped out with his collar turned up against the cold.
“Happy Thanksgiving, Mr. Wright.”
“Happy Thanksgiving. They got you working today?”
“Till three. There’ll still be a plate waiting for me.”
“Good. Make sure they save you some dessert too.”
The guard laughed, waved to Nicole, and opened the gate.
Beyond it, the road wound through the woods past long driveways and stretches of neatly kept lawn. With so many leaves down, she could see houses that were almost hidden in summer: stone and brick, steep roofs, rows of tall windows catching the sun. Cars already filled a few of the circular drives, and pumpkins sat on half the front steps.
Her father turned onto their driveway, following the curve between the trees. As they rounded the last bend, the whole front of the house came into view across the lawn. Two stories of red brick stretched out on either side of the entrance, with a row of dormers set into the dark slate roof. Wide stone steps led up to double doors beneath a tall white portico, with columns that went almost all the way up. It had twelve bedrooms, a guest wing, and a whole lower level, so when the entire extended family came for a holiday, nobody had to give up a bed.
Only two people from Drayton had ever seen how her family lived. Cedric had come home with her last Thanksgiving and spent half the day trying not to gawk, and failing. Bailey and her mom had been just as bad at the house in Oak Bluffs this past summer. Bailey’s mom couldn’t stop saying, “Can you believe this place?”
Nicole could pick out her own window upstairs. She had a full wardrobe waiting in that room and another one back in Alabama, which hadn’t stopped her from packing a suitcase.
The driveway widened into a paved circle in front of the steps, then continued around the right side of the house to the ten-car garage. Off to the left was her father’s basketball building. It looked like another house, with matching brick and its own slate roof, but inside those tall windows was a full court instead of bedrooms. Behind both buildings, the woods continued far enough that there wasn’t another neighbor in sight.
The decorators her mother hired had worked their way from the driveway to the front doors. Huge stone urns overflowed with burgundy and gold chrysanthemums, and arrangements of pumpkins, gourds, and bundled cornstalks filled the spaces between them along the steps. Thick garlands of copper-colored leaves and berries wound around the columns and draped over the entrance, framing two enormous wreaths tied with bronze ribbon.
Nicole smiled. Her mother might not have hung a single garland herself, but she’d been out there making somebody move a pumpkin three inches to the left.
She could see the foyer chandelier through the glass above the doors, and she knew everything past it by heart: the curved staircase, the polished floor, and the rooms her mother kept ready for company. Soon the house would be full of cousins, play cousins, aunties, uncles, grandparents, family friends, and whoever else had managed to get an invitation to Thanksgiving at the Wrights’. Nicole was glad she’d have a little time with her mother and siblings before she had to share them with everybody else.
Her father stopped at the foot of the steps and turned off the engine. Nicole gathered her purse, but when she looked over, he was still sitting with his hand on the keys, looking at the decorations.
“Your mother had them come out already.”
“Looks good, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah,” he said. “It does.”
Nicole stayed in her seat. She’d been in such a hurry to get inside, and the whole time, he’d been driving her here knowing he’d have to turn around and leave.
He pulled the keys from the ignition. “Let’s get your bag.”
By the time she got out, he was lifting her suitcase from the back. He set it on the pavement and pulled up the handle, looking toward the house again. Through one of the windows, Nicole caught a glimpse of someone passing.
“I’ll take it up for you.”
