Brock had told me he and his family didn’t grow up in this house but in a much bigger one situated in the Highlands. The house he grew up in was the house Cob had left his family in and he left his family in that house when his wife was a nurse’s aide and didn’t make a lot of money. And he left his wife, who was from Montana and all her family still lived there (to this day), and didn’t provide either financial support or very much of his time to help his wife raise their children and pay the bills and she had no kin close to help her do it.

Cue Brock and Jill, at very young ages, growing up fast to assume heavy responsibilities as Fern took extra shifts as well as night classes to become an X-ray technician. Then they kept these responsibilities as Fern went on to take classes to become a radiology technician in order to make enough money to keep a roof over the heads and food on the table for her brood, which included two growing strong and tall boys. And always, Fern worked full-time hospital shifts, which meant Brock and Jill never lost these responsibilities but Brock, being the oldest boy, assumed more.

However, once the kids were out, Brock told me Fern put their big four-bedroom house on the market “two seconds after Laura’s foot left the threshold” (Brock’s words) and downsized.

Lucky for her, she’d been in that old house for decades. The real estate boom and regeneration in their old neighborhood meant she made a mint on it. This meant she owned outright this cozy, comfortable, easy-to-maintain bungalow that, even small, still managed to look and feel like the definition of Grandma’s House.

And the big kitchen full of family on Thanksgiving Day screamed it when we walked in and were immediately accosted.

And I had to say, seeing it, I liked it.

For about ten minutes.

Laura swept forward and, with a kiss on her brother’s cheek and a quick hug for me, she divested me of my flowers, the beer, and the bag and swept away at the same time Jill took Brock’s burdens.

Dylan and Ellie (in another princess dress, this time with pink, sequined mary janes but she’d added a crown adorning her dark locks and I got that, seeing as Thanksgiving was a big occasion, royal headwear was an important accessory), both screeching, attacked Brock’s legs. Grady hung back and played it cool when he greeted his awesome uncle.

I watched Brock’s big hand give Dylan’s neck a squeeze but he swung Ellie up in his arms to kiss her neck and, this time, tickle her sides so the air rang with her peals of little girl giggles.

After he was done with that, she turned to me.

“Are we gonna watch Tangled, Aunt Tess?” she asked.