“The soufflé fell.” It sat on the counter, looking like a deflated football at the bottom of the dish. I should take a picture of that for the blog.

“The twins loved your mac and cheese.”

I snorted. “They’re two-year-olds. They would have loved Kraft from the box.”

“They love mac and cheese in the box. Which makes it even more impressive that they liked yours. John, too. And Dad.”

That was my sister, always making everybody feel better. Her words salved some of the sting I felt, that sense I got whenever I was in Bunyan of being judged and found wanting. Visiting home as a starving grad student or a rising journalist in the Big City hadn’t been so bad. I’d had a purpose, a direction, then. “Writers change the world,” my father used to say. Food bloggers? Not so much.

I hated disappointing him. Maybe I wasn’t writing the Great Southern Novel. My advisor told me kindly that the stories I’d written for my master’s project were “sentimental” (not a compliment). But at least I hadn’t quit.

I cut another wedge of pie. “I can’t believe he’d go off like that and leave Mom.”

Meg dolloped whipped cream onto plates. “Who, Dad? He goes away all the time.”

“Not to D.C.”

“That’s not until after Christmas,” Meg reminded me. “You’ll be back home by then.”

“Only for a couple days.” Assuming I could even get that much time off after skipping out on Thanksgiving.

Meg didn’t say anything.

“And you’re here,” I said, reassuring myself.

“I’m always here.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“I did not. It’s not.” She loaded dessert plates onto the special tray our mother used to bring us meals when we were sick in bed. “I’m taking these in. You coming?”

I shook my head. “I’m not leaving the kitchen until Aunt Phee is gone.”

“Coward,” Meg said, picking up the tray. “Slacker.”

“Hey, I’m doing the dishes.” But I felt a wriggle of guilt anyway. Not about Aunt Phee. But Meg definitely did more than I did to help out our parents. On the other hand, it was her decision to live so close to home. I had to go back to New York.

“Great pie,” Trey said from the doorway.

“Meg made it.” My sister’s dessert choices, like everything else in her life, were sweet, traditional, and family approved. There was a lesson there somewhere.

“John’s a lucky guy,” Trey said.

“Thank you.” Meg dimpled. “Tell him he should bring you home for dinner sometime.”

“I’ll do that.” He stood aside to let her through to the dining room.

I turned on the water in the sink.

“So, you got any more?” Trey asked.

I glanced at him over my shoulder. “I can’t believe you’re still hungry.”

Trey assumed an injured look. “It’s for Granddad.”

I sighed. “Fine. Pumpkin or pecan?”

“Both, please,” he said meekly. “To go. I’ve got to get the old boy home.”

I wiped my hands. Grabbed a knife.