“Maybe finish up on the salad,” Kip’s mother said.
Harlow began slicing tomatoes. “Thanks for inviting us over for dinner,” she said with a smile. “You’re such a great cook.”
“Just easy things.” Judy glanced at her. “Not like when we had dinner with your mother. That was a fancy meal.”
Harlow tried to remember the menu. There had been cheese, crackers and nuts to start, a simple, cold cucumber soup, followed by grilled fish and salad. She and her mom had worked on the menu together to find the right mix for the first meeting with the in-laws-to-be.
“I guess it’s going to take time for us to find our way with each other,” Judy said with a smile. “Blending our traditions. How we celebrate birthdays, opening presents on Christmas Eve, that sort of thing.”
Harlow set down the knife. “You open presents on Christmas Eve?” she asked, hearing the outrage in her voice. She cleared her throat. “I mean, is that really what you do?”
“Of course. After our ham dinner.”
“You eat ham on Christmas Eve?” She shook her head. “Never mind. It sounds nice, but why presents on Christmas Eve? Santa hasn’t been there.”
“We’ve never really been into the whole Santa thing. It’s a bit ridiculous, don’t you think?”
Harlow thought of the beautiful stockings Lillian had needlepointed for everyone and how even now, her mom filled them with silly things like pens and candy and socks.
“No stockings?” she asked, trying not to let her disappointment show.
“Your family celebrated Santa?”
“We went to midnight services, then home to bed. In the morning, we opened presents from our family and had stockings from Santa.” I love Santa. But she didn’t say that because she knew it would sound ridiculous.
Harlow continued slicing the tomatoes, doing her best to sound cheerful instead of horrified. “Different traditions are interesting. In some ways, your Christmas Eve tradition will solve the problem of what part of the holiday we spend where.”
“Oh, after you’re married to Kip, we’ll spend the entire holiday together,” Judy said firmly.
Harlow swallowed hard and made a mental note to add the holidays to her list of things to discuss with Kip.
When dinner was ready, the men turned off the game and joined them at the table. Harlow thought about how Kip always helped her with dinner when it was just the two of them, but here only the women cooked. She now added sharing chores to the list she and Kip needed to work through, then took some salad and passed the bowl to Judy.
“This is nice,” her future mother-in-law said. “Having you here. I want you to be comfortable in our home, Harlow, running in and out whenever you want.” She served herself some of the chicken casserole. “I’ve been getting lots of calls from your cousins, Kip. Everyone is excited about the wedding.”
He looked at his mom. “They can’t all come. There’s too many.”
“We’ll have to see, won’t we? How can you invite only part of the family?” Judy turned to Harlow. “I have three sisters, and Hank’s from a big family, too. We’re the only ones in Florida, but between the Iowa branch and the Texas folks, Kip has about twenty cousins.”
Harlow stared at Kip. “Twenty? You never, ah, mentioned that.”
“I know it’s a lot. Most of them are older than me, so they’re married, with kids.”
Harlow didn’t want to think about that. “We haven’t firmed up the guest list,” she murmured, “but we were trying to keep it under two hundred.”
“Now that you’re not having your wedding at that ridiculous country club, you can have it in a park,” Judy said cheerfully. “Your mom and I could cook a simple menu, so it wouldn’t cost much. That way, you can invite everyone.”
Harlow did her best to keep from shrieking. “I’m not sure.”
“The park makes sense,” Hank told her. “Why wouldn’t you want to do that? Isn’t it fancy enough?”
Judy turned on her husband. “Hank, don’t.”
“You told me about that country club. Fifty thousand for a deposit? Come on, that’s highway robbery.” Hank picked up his beer. “I say have it at the park and be done with it. We’re talking about one day. What does it really matter where you get married?”
Harlow tried to keep breathing. “It matters to me.”
Kip put his hand on hers and squeezed her fingers. “You two need to back off. Harlow and I will make the decisions about the wedding. We’ll let you know when we’ve picked a location and what the guest list is.”
“The less you pay for the where, the more you have for the who,” his father grumbled.
Judy shot him a warning look.
“I’m shutting up,” he told her. “It’s her parents’ money. If they want to waste it, that’s their decision. I know, I know. You’ve told me enough times.”
OMG! Kip’s parents talked about how her parents spent their money? Harlow stared at her food, not sure what to say.
Judy freshened everyone’s iced tea. “Let’s talk about something else. Kip, you’ll never guess who called the other day. Tracey, and she wanted your number. I didn’t give it to her.”
Kip’s face drained of color.
“Who’s Tracey?” Harlow asked.
Hank frowned. “Kip’s ex-wife. Who else would she be?”
* * *
“I know nothing about grandfather clocks,” Robyn admitted with a laugh as she removed the clean towel from the top of the bowl and checked the dough.
Sure enough, it had risen. She scooped it onto the floured countertop and used a sharp knife to divide it into twenty-four pieces.
“The one on the second floor might be from the early 1800s. I think it’s an English marquetry longcase.” She glanced at her aunt. “It belongs in a museum, Lillian.”
Her aunt smiled from her comfortable chair as she patted the tuxedo cat dozing on her lap.
“Then you should get on that, my dear.”
“Call up a museum and offer it to them?”
“I’m sure there’s a procedure,” Lillian teased. “Leaving it on the doorstep like an abandoned puppy won’t do.”
“Plus it’s really big.”
Robyn stretched the first piece of dough into a square, folded the corners under and shaped it into a ball.
“It’s good to see you back in the kitchen,” Lillian said. “Making bread.”
“You’re the one who taught me how. Every time I work with dough, I think of you.”
She remembered being in this kitchen back when she’d been so small, she’d had to stand on a chair to see what her aunt was doing. Lillian had taught her how to make cookies and brownies, crunchy French loaves and delicious cakes. She’d passed on that knowledge to both her kids, although Austin had been a lot less interested than Harlow.
Thinking of her daughter made her grateful she’d reached out. They’d only exchanged brief “hi, how are you” type comments, but it was a start. Fighting less with her daughter was on Robyn’s to-do list. She just had to figure out how to make that happen.