She wouldn’t be seeing Sara again either. Sure, maybe on her annual pilgrimage to visit the Hais, but would Cat even have that opportunity next year?

“Who’s Sara?” her mother demanded, dressing the baby greens with her homemade vinaigrette.

“Noah’s daughter.”

“Why do you sound like you’re choking when you say his name?”

“Geez, Mom. I don’t know.”

“Are you in love with him?” Angela was relentless.

“Mom!”

Her mother shrugged. “What? One minute, I see stars in your eyes. The next, you’re moping around like when you didn’t magically sprout boobs at thirteen.”

They had thankfully made a spectacular appearance at sixteen, making the year of her driver’s license one of the most entertaining.

“I like him. A lot,” Cat admitted. “Sara too. They’re good people.”

“So, marry the guy.”

“Marriage is not the answer to literally every problem in the world,” Cat argued.

“It worked for your father and me,” she pointed out smugly. “And just look at your brother and that wife of his.”

“Speaking of, where are they?”

“Gannon and Paige took Gabby to see Santa at the mall. They want to test her out with the big guy before she has a meltdown on camera on Christmas Eve.”

Gannon’s little cherub sitting on Santa’s lap had been Cat’s personal brainstorm. Viewers would eat that shit up with a spoon.

“It’ll be funnier if she cries,” Cat said.

“If she takes after your brother, she will,” Angela grinned. “Every year until he turned seven. Hysterics.”

“I think we should remind him of that tonight,” Cat decided.

“I already pulled all the pictures. They’re on the table.”

“Diabolical. That’s where I get it from,” Cat told her.

Her mother bumped Cat in the hip as she picked the colander of green beans out of the sink. “Now, back to you and Noah.”

Cat dropped her head back and growled at the ceiling.

“Might as well talk now before your father wakes up from his nap and you have to discuss your sex life in front of him.”

“Do you ever regret not having a career?” Cat asked suddenly.

“I worked in Pop’s office off and on for years.”

“Yeah, but when you were growing up, what did you want to be?”

“An equestrian, a librarian, and then in my teenage years, I thought about physical therapy.”

“Do you regret not going for it?”

Angela dropped the beans into the strainer over the boiling water and wiped her hands on the towel stuffed in the waistband of her slim black jeans.

“You mean, do I regret focusing on family over a career?”

“Yeah. That.”

“Of course not. You and your brother would have wrecked the house and set each other on fire if I hadn’t been around.”

“Har. Har.”