Daria and Jane's Family and Family and Family and Family Thanksgiving
A/N: Many thanks to Zetor for the beta-read. His suggestions were spot-on.
Daria put down her knife from the task of dicing the onions to Jane's exacting specifications.
"Arg," she addressed the classical music announcer on the radio. "Just play some music; I don't care about your allegedly fond memories of your grandmother's spaetzle."
Her daughters, nine-year-old Cambridge and eight-year-old Daray, giggled as they mixed the pumpkin pie filling.
"Mommy Daria's silly when she talks to the radio," Daray said.
"But not as funny as Grampy Jake's rants," opined Cambridge. Daray nodded and both girls got back to their tasks as Daria mock-glared at them.
"Hear that, Daria?" Jane said as she entered the kitchen. "Gotta up your game to catch Daddy Jake in the rant department."
"Jane, at your direction, I have honed my knife skills on these onions. Skills I can use carving many an annoying item."
Jane swept up her wife in a hug, the shorter Daria grimacing a bit but standing on tiptoes to brush Jane's lips. Jane looked down at the pile of tiny white cubes on the cutting board.
"Looking pretty dicey there, Mrs. Jane Lane," Jane pronounced.
Daria opened her mouth ready to object when she realized Jane was actually complimenting her work. A Strauss waltz came on the radio, for Daria a welcome diversion from the announcers trading stories about their family's dressing secrets.
Welcome until Jane began to drag her around the kitchen in a one-two-three rhythm, Daria's dance was reluctant at first until she snuggled into Jane's embrace and they established their pattern. Their daughters clapped in time. Daria did not bother to hide her small smile.
The waltz finished and Jane ended with a flourish and bow to her daughters.
The four Morgendorffer-Lane girls got their dishes into the dual ovens. Daria pulled the turkey out for its final basting. When she slid it back into the oven the four paused and looked at each other with job-well-done smiles. Jane and Daria took a load off in the kitchen while their girls ran off to a cooler part of the house.
A half-hour later Cambridge threw open the door and even though she knew what to expect was a little surprised at the crowd gathered on their front walk in the cold light mist of late November in Natick.
"Hey, kiddo," Grampy Jake called at the head of the column. "Let us in out of this beastly weather."
Grandfather Jake Morgendorffer passed by with step-grandmother Amanda. Cambridge avoided the punch to the arm attempted by their teenage son, her uncle Jasper. That, however, was just a feint as her other teen uncle, Nigel smacked her sharply as he entered followed by Grandmother Helen Barksdale and step-grandfather Vincent Lane. More pleasant were greetings from Uncle and Aunt Trent and Quinn Lane and their twin girls, Brently and Brin.
Jane, Daria and Daray joined the foyer flurry of greetings and putting away of wraps and hats.
Grandfather Jake bent down and kissed his granddaughter Cambridge on the cheek followed by a cheek smooch for daughter/granddaughter Daray. Amanda kissed both her Morgendorffer-Lane granddaughters as did Vincent and Helen. Trent ruffled the hairs on the heads of daughter/niece Cambridge and niece Daray.
As the closet was soon overflowing Daria commanded her half-sister/daughter Daray to lug coats to the spare bedroom. Quinn relieved her half-sister/niece Daray of the heavier coats and followed her. Jasper followed his half-sisters as he wanted Quinn's advice on a leather jacket he was thinking of buying. Jane directed her niece/daughter Cambridge to have her half-sisters/cousins and uncles, boys and girls help finish setting the table. Cambridge and Jane took care of the visitors' offerings of cranberry-rum-raisin sauce, apple pie, and cherry topped cheesecake.
No one was parsing any of this at the time; each had their own thoughts which we will intrude on beginning with perhaps the simplest and most straight-forward, almost identical thoughts from identical twins, Brently and Brin Lane: "Let's eat. Then we can play with Daray's awesome dollhouse!"
"Daray's going to be taller than Cambridge next year I bet," Daria thought. "Must be the Curse of the Morgendorffer First-Born. I better prepare Cambridge on how to bear it."
"I wonder if I finally can beat Grandpa Jake in Go after dinner," Cambridge thought. "I've been practicing."
Quinn accepted the glass of red wine her husband handed her, "Trent coordinated his socks with his shirt today. I'm so proud of him."
Helen took a glass of red wine from daughter-in-law Jane, "That's my girl, Jane. She had a bottle of Pinot Noir already breathing for me. A little wine and a turkey coma and I can forget all about the big Donald's doughnut extruder deposition come next Monday."
"Damn," Vincent considered as he sucked on a dry hard cider. "Six kids and Amanda still looks mighty fine. How does she do it? Still, I'm glad I got Helen. She taught me a lot about protecting my intellectual property and that jockey-and-horse role play is fun! Okay, let's eat; I got a four-thirty anti-matter flight. Ah, hell the glacier isn't going to melt that much more if I switch to an afternoon flight."
"Only one martini for Jakey," Jake thought as he passed a frosty mug of beer to Trent and took a no-olive classic martini from Daria. "Gotta stay on my toes to beat my little sharpy Cambridge. Dang, it all smells so good, when do we eat?"
"When do we eat?" crossed Trent's mind.
"When do we eat?" Nigel looked around at the place settings and tested the air with his nose. "My big sisters really know how to cook. I'm gonna stuff my face then beat Jasper's time over to the neighbors to chat up that cute chick, Sharon. On the other hand it looked like a lot of cute girls were going in their front door. Maybe I need a wingman."
"My children and grand-children have such interesting family ties," Amanda sighed happily.
"When do we eat?" Jasper sniffed the air. "Umm, big sisters made their great sage stuffing again. I'm gonna take my time glutting myself silly. This year maybe I can convince Nigel to divide and conquer or whatever the term is. There seemed to be a lot of chicks next door. Enough even for a big stud at Lawndale High like him. He can go after whatever big-racked bimbo appeals to him; I got different tastes."
Jane gave her mother-in-law an extra hug being careful not to spill the wine. "Yeah, Big Momma Helen's coming around to liking me again. She knows I'm good for Daria but how I got preggers with Daray was a little much for her at first, even if she and Jake were long split up."
Fifteen minutes before serving Daria and Jane got everyone settled in on the tables which extended into two rooms to accommodate fourteen hungry mouths.
Daria stood nearest the kitchen and announced, "Let's open the festivities with a prayer to a person or thing which may or may not exist but to which, once a year anyway, I am willing to say, "Thank you.'"
It took a moment for some of the throng to remember to bow their heads and close their eyes but Daria waited before intoning, "We thank you for our bread. We thank you for our butter but most of all we thank you for each other. Uh, yeah, then, amen."
"Oh, no butter for me, thank you anyway," Quinn said as her head came up. "But if you have some of that non-fattening spread Slender Modern Momma magazine had the article on, I'll try that."
Jane and Daria exchanged some-things-never-change looks as Jane took over the hostess duties, "Okay, before we all put on the feed bags let's go around and announce what we're grateful for this year. And just like a show-and-tell done right, toys don't count."
Daria looked around at everyone, "Jane won the bet, don't ask, so I have to start. At the risk of not sounding creative or even worse sappy and sentimental, I'm just happy we're all together safe and healthy and no one's throwing egg rolls like at Fourth of July."
Daria ended by glaring at Nigel, Jasper and Daray who were looking like non-fattening spread could not melt in their mouths.
"We got egg rolls?" Trent perked up. "No? Umm, yeah, I guess I can go next. Yeah, I'm still thankful for open D tuning although I learned it a long time ago. Yeah, and Jesse's hand doesn't cramp anymore. And I'm thankful we bought the Zon and fixed it up with that brew pub stuff although some of those hipsters are too much, man, but it's good money."
When Quinn put a gentle hand on his arm he finished, "Yeah, thankful for food and family and all that. Turkey, that's my favorite. Oh, and good beer." He took a swig and lapsed into silence.
Quinn took up the thread, "I'm thankful that Brin's learning to sew and that Brently's got a good color sense just like her Aunty Jane. And just, you know, everyone's together and healthy and happy."
Jane nodded, "I'm thankful Daria's novel got optioned for a movie. Although I don't know if that Weinstein bunch is the right outfit to make 'Melody Powers and the Rise of the Orange Menace' but who cares? More people can see how smart my sweetie is and it's good money. I love money. Money, money, money."
People laughed as Jane hammed it up.
"I'm just thankful," Jake started his voice rising. "That guy didn't run us off the road on the way here. Lousy Hummer drivers, think they own the road."
"Jake," two women admonished, one a bit more strident than the other. Amanda gently put one hand on Jake's arm and raised her glass to Helen with the other. Helen nodded and smiled back.
"Here, Gramps," Cambridge held out a pitcher. "Relax. Have another martoony."
"Say, thanks, kiddo," Jake extended his glass then looked at her with suspicion. "Well, maybe after our Go match."
Cambridge looked like butter could not melt in her mouth.
"I'm thankful I got skipped a grade," Cambridge said. "Fewer uninteresting idiots in the upper classes. Oh, and I grew two inches this year."
"I am happy I'm the fastest one in class," Daray chimed in. "And I grew three inches this year. And sis, you know, you just gotta give people a chance."
"I'm happy," Vincent said after a pause. "That film's making a come back. Not that it ever really went away but it's great for my stock portfolio in that silver nitrate company. And they're making my favorite blend of pipe tobacco again."
"I'm happy I made senior partner," Helen smiled. "Okay, it was a long time ago, right when Nigel was born but still, I can make a real difference promoting bright, young women lawyers so they don't have to slave away over briefs at home when they should be making something besides microwave lasagna for their kids."
Her face hardened a bit and she looked down. Daria and Quinn got up and hugged her as she sat. They murmured encouragement into their mother's ears.
"I'm happy that like precious Monarch butterflies returning to their breeding grounds in Mexico we are all able to go our separate ways through the perilous journey of the year and return to warmth and comfort of the family when we need to."
The assembled smiled at Amanda's good words although some of the younger ones were trying to work out the meanings.
"I made varsity baseball, football and basketball," Nigel said simply.
"I'm thankful for my drum set," Jasper said. "Is that a toy? Whatevs. You know, I'm more thankful I can jam with Trent."
Jasper clinked his glass of non-alcoholic sparkling grape juice against Trent's beer mug.
"And I'm thankful bro's gonna sneak us some beer after we eat," Nigel and Jasper said to themselves.
"I am happy," Brin said. "That I can knit and Brently doesn't mind holding out the yarn while I roll it into balls."
"You should be happy I'm so patient," Brently told her. "I'm thankful that we don't have bunk beds anymore."
Daria stood near the kitchen. "Well, I think that's everyone and if one of you did not talk then you're more grouchy than I am even and I envy you that. The dinging you may hear isn't incipient tinnitus. My famous Cuban recipe turkey is done. We can eat and talk about more normal family things over dinner, like arguing over politics and religion."
Jane stood up as Daria retired to the kitchen, "Okay, young men of the Morgendorffer and Lane persuasion. Come help haul stuff from there to here. Jake, Dad, Trent, you relax, no carving for you this year. Nigel's got that I-gotta-stick-a-knife-into-something look. Jasper, you're on general KP labor, next year you can try to figure out how to cut even portions. C'mon chop, chop."
Nigel and Jasper good-naturedly groused as they followed their sisters into the kitchen. Quinn got up to help. In stages the five got everything on the tables. People began passing and serving each other and eating.
Much chewing and eating and swallowing later...
Jane sat back from her plate and looked around at her family happily laughing and talking and most of all eating. She leaned over to Daria.
"Just like every year, we spent the whole day cooking, amiga, and it's gone in half an hour. But it's worth it."
"Yep, but you know what? Next year Quinn hosts."
"Oh yeah," Jane agreed. "Definitely. Next year at Quinn's."