“Betty Jean, I’m married to Joyce.” Now I was sweating, too.

She rolled her eyes and snickered. “Odell, you ain’t got to get so skittish. You shaking and sweating like you just seen a ghost. It ain’t no big deal. Let me pour you a glass of elderberry wine before you go. It’ll help calm your nerves before you start that long drive.”

“All right then,” I said, pinching the tip of her nose.

Then she said something else to rile me. “Can you come back one day next week and bring me the turkey and all that other holiday food you promised?”

“I told you I’d bring everything when I come next Friday.” I was getting so exasperated I was about to bust. One reason I loved Joyce so much was because she rarely agitated me. Betty

Jean made a sport of nagging me. But I really didn’t mind that much because the positive things about her outweighed the negative ones ten to one.

“I know you did. I was hoping you could sneak away from Joyce and bring it before then. Like on Tuesday or Wednesday. This year I’d like to cook Thanksgiving supper on Thanksgiving Day like everybody else, not the day after.”

My mouth dropped open. “Me and you and the boys have always celebrated the day after. That ain’t never going to change. I wish you would stop whining about it every year.”

“I’m sorry. I was hoping that just this one time—”

I cut her off so fast she flinched. “Look, you and the boys always eat supper with one of your folks on Thanksgiving Day anyway. Ain’t that good enough for you?”

Betty Jean laughed. “Well, I knew what you was going to say before I asked. I had to ask anyway. I didn’t mean to get you more upset.”

Before I could say another word, all three of my boys came galloping into the room. Leon jumped into my lap and Jesse jumped into Betty Jean’s. Daniel stood in front of me holding a whistle I had brung to help him stop sucking his thumb. “Daddy, Leon chewed a hole in my whistle,” he complained. Then he stuck his thumb in his mouth and started sucking it so fast it made my head swim. I made a mental note to bring some hot sauce to put on his thumb. That was how my mama got me to stop sucking mine when I was his age.

“I didn’t do nothing. That whistle already had a hole in it,” Leon claimed as he tugged my sleeve.

“Daddy, when you come back, bring us some more moon pies,” Jesse said in his tiny voice. He had just started talking like a real person a few weeks ago. The boy was smart and learned so fast, he could conversate almost as good as kids twice his age.