Happy Thanksgiving! I wish you all some molten chocolate cake :D

As always, enjoy x

Thanksgiving Day, Thursday 23rd November 2017, 6.00pm, Evelyn's Condo, Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Even Gregory Clement and all his goodness couldn't save Evelyn's Thanksgiving meal. While the food was a pleasure to the tongue, the company left a bad taste in the mouth. His suggestion that they play the Motown edition of Trivial Pursuit was a month premature as no-one was in a harmonious mood thanks to Cammie's machinations, Paul's hateration and CeCe's holleration. In a strange turn of events, Reggie thought maybe his cousin wasn't such a simp after all and made a mental note to reel it in somewhat about that girl Zora just in case he was as quick with the steel as his deer-shooting stepfather.

"Scrabble?" Evelyn asked, thinking anything was better than talking to each other. Taylor shared her sentiment.

The only seven letter word John could think of was asshole – and as a good soldier he had to protect the innocent and put his wife out of her misery. "Sorry Evelyn, we can't." She would've protested but John whispered two culinary compliments and something about the strong urge to throw Paul over the balcony in her ear that made her grin and excuse him.

"Well that's too bad, but I understand." Paul didn't remember her ever being that understanding. He watched Joss walk out the door without as much as a word to him followed by Jackass John – also 7 letters.

Taylor laid the first word; it was easy but enough to draw other players in. "Pries. 10 points."

"Priest and next." Paul announced. "8 and 19 points."

9.50pm, Evelyn's Condo, Williamsburg, Brooklyn

"Seems like we had two turkeys this Thanksgiving." Evelyn said, fluffing her pillows before bed. "I'll be darned if they show up at Christmas. Darned, Greg."

Gregory knew she meant Cammie and Paul because they had chicken and lamb, and he generally avoided name-calling. "It's just two more nights, my love."

"And then?"

"And then they'll go back to Columbia for a while. A long while." He said with confidence.

"Can't believe she ruined my dinner inviting that joker Paul and my baby didn't even take leftovers." She grumbled, rubbing night cream on her face in small circles.

Despite the discord, Gregory counted it all joy because his wife showed such restraint and thought he deserved an onslaught of praise in return. "She's jealous, Ev. And envy eats itself."

She liked this song. "Come again?"

"Even on her best day, she'll never be as sweet as you on your worst day. Or as slim."

"I see what you did there…"

10.12pm, Galah Apartments, Washington Street, West Village, Manhattan

John was long gone as the Machine spat out twelve numbers that evening, as public holidays often made relatives more homicidal than usual. She knew she shouldn't, but Joss was polishing off a tub of rocky road ice cream at the kitchen island when her son arrived home. Usually he'd be on the inflatable mattress in the living room with his cousin, but he wasn't in the mood to hear Reggie cabbage-patch around his feelings for Aleesha all night. It felt like ages since they last sat there and talked, but he was forthcoming.

"…So, you don't have to be a witness?" She asked, about the ongoing investigation into Zahra's complaint.

"No, it's voluntary."

"What are you thinking, Tay?"

"It would be good for Margot 'cause she was flexing her right to Free Speech. And it would be good for Zahra 'cause she felt shamed for where she comes from and what she believes."

"And what would be good for Taylor?"

"To crack n-way Anova sometime this decade." She smiled because she had no clue that Anova meant analysis of variance but hearing him talk like that reminded her of young Paul. The one who gave her butterflies. How things change. "Mr Greg said I did all I could do for Zahra last year."

"Listen to the owl; he knows what he's saying."

"It's hard to do nothing."

"Doing nothing is doing something."

"Look how it turned out with Jeremy."

"That housefire had nothing to do with you. It was his fault, his neglect of something that wasn't his to begin with. And he doesn't deserve all that money for Nicole's house." She breathed deeply, before revealing something she had kept to herself for decades. "That was her father's house, the house she was born in, her inheritance, which was a huge deal for our people back then. Still is. 'Til Jeremy took over. The day you said no, Taylor, you took a stand for her."

"I don't want to be a witness." He confessed.

"And that's okay."

"But I don't know how to deal with it if I don't."

She connected her dots, because a cigar was never a cigar. "Is that why you joined that club? To help you deal?"

"Yeah. And 'cause I like that side of me."

"What side is that?"

He tried to describe it. "The side that doesn't care, doesn't think so much."

She understood more than he knew and had a confession of her own. "I think you get your anxiety from me."

"I'm not anxious." He said, far too quickly.

"You ever get a stomach ache and don't know why? Lie awake at night thinking about what you did, didn't do, could've done differently? Replay conversations in your mind? Wonder what's happening when you're not there? Random headaches, all day headaches, right between the eyes?"

"Ma…" He didn't like to think of her suffering or his own. It hurt to worry so much.

"It happens to everyone, Tay. Especially on days like today. But we manage it, we find a way through. Together."

"When did you know? About your anxiety?"

Joss had a chest locked inside that she tried not to open. Years ago, a VA counsellor explained the pros and cons of compartmentalising her feelings and warned that there were times she had to unlock that chest and share what was inside. Over the years, Joss had done that at work when getting through to a domestic violence victim or consoling a bereaved parent or convincing a survivor of some atrocity to testify. She avoided opening that chest with her son so as not to burden him, but perhaps that was an old habit that also needed to be broken.

"I've always felt something. Like a C on my report card, or starting a new school, or just feeling restless. I never liked algebra, I couldn't get all those x's and y's, so I left the class and had a panic attack in the bathroom stall. 9th grade. I didn't know what it was, or what to call it. Then, when I came home from Iraq and I saw you again; I didn't sleep for three days straight thinking something might happen to you. So I got help at the VA. We all need help. But first, we have to know that so we can help ourselves."

He followed the breadcrumb trail to his own discovery. "So Dad…"

"He took too long to see that than I could wait for him to see that."

"What'd he do instead?"

She smiled at the irony. "At first, he joined a gun club."

Taylor laughed. She hadn't seen that in a while. "And then?"

"He needed that to feel secure, to feel like a man. When I left, why I left, was when he started sleeping with a gun under his pillow. I say that to say, all things in moderation Tay."

"I hear you, Ma."