The house is absolute chaos, and I've never been happier.
Emma and Chase rolled in on Wednesday evening around six. Emma, whom I've known longer than almost anyone, who cried on the phone when I told her about Harper and showed up almost straight away to help me not fall apart. Chase, her husband, is calm, whereas Emma is motion.
Their kids pile out behind them. Ethan, three, with Chase's brown hair, Emma's green eyes, and absolutely no concept of volume control. Sofia, just one, blonde, and clearly Emma's daughter, toddling after her brother on unsteady legs.
Diane arrived an hour later, Emma and Jackson's mum, with enough food to stock a restaurant. Maya and Jackson showed up last, Maya already directing kitchen traffic before she'd taken her coat off, and Jackson going straight for Emma to wrap his younger sister in a hug.
Now it's Thanksgiving morning, and my rental house is full of noise, children, family, and something I didn't know I was missing. Ethan is currently using my couch cushions to build a fortress with structural ambitions that exceed his engineering skills, and Sofia is completely fascinated by Harper, reaching for her constantly with little grabby hands.
"Gentle, Sofia," Emma says for the fifteenth time. "Harper's smaller than you."
"Baby," Sofia announces, patting Harper's head slightly too firmly.
Harper doesn't seem to mind. She stares at Sofia with wide blue eyes, as if she's never seen anything so interesting in her life.
An hour later, the kitchen is controlled chaos. Diane directs from the stove, Emma preps vegetables, and Nora helps with both while also watching all three kids through the doorway. I've been assigned potato duty, which I'm executing with the same commitment I bring to hockey.
Chase is on the living room floor with Ethan and the fortress. Jackson is on the couch with his phone, which Maya periodically confiscates for being antisocial.
"Tyler, I need you to peel potatoes," Diane calls out. "Actually, peel them. Not just wave the peeler near them."
"I peeled the last ones?—"
"You left the skins on."
"Those were rustic."
Maya comes in with Harper, who immediately reaches for me. "Your turn. I need both hands."
I take Harper with one arm and keep peeling with the other, which is a skill I have now, and Chase looks impressed from the floor.
"How are you doing that?"
"Practice."
The morning is full of cooking, kid-wrangling, noise, and the particular warmth of a house that's actually being used.
Nora and I keep ending up in the same space, moving around each other in the easy choreography we've built over the past few months. She reaches for the flour at the same time I do, and our hands brush. She passes behind me in the narrow kitchen, and her hand settles briefly on my lower back to let me know she's there. I hand her measuring spoons without being asked. She moves my coffee mug before I knockit over.
I forget we have an audience until I catch Emma watching us with a particular expression.
"What?" I ask.
"Nothing." Her smile gets wider. "You two are just very coordinated."
"We live together. We've worked out how to navigate a kitchen."
"Sure. That's definitely what that is."
Sugar cookies in the afternoon. Diane's decision is unanimously supported, and the table is covered in newspaper and bowls of frosting and approximately seventeen kinds of sprinkles.
Harper is in her high chair at the head of the table, Sofia in her booster seat, Ethan kneeling on a regular chair, and announcing plans for the best cookies ever. Nora ends up next to me, Harper between us.
Ethan's turkey is structurally ambitious. Chase’s is secretly better, but he lets Ethan believe otherwise. Emma's is a perfect little maple leaf. Nora's are actual works of art, with clean lines, deliberate design, and evidence of someone who takes even cookie decorating seriously.
Mine looks like it was produced by someone operating under significant pressure.
"That's supposed to be a soccer ball?” Nora asks.