Simon was gone an hour or so. By the time he came back, I was so wrapped up in final dinner prep I couldn’t do more than wave from the kitchen. I didn’t see him again until he came down for dinner showered, clean-shaven, and looking really, really irresistible. I carried a platter of turkey into the dining room and set it close to my dad’s plate, then moved to stand next to Simon.

“Hi,” I said softly. “You okay?”

He smiled, looking at me in a way he never had before. Like he’d taken down a wall. His eyes were warm, his gaze intense. He reached forward and took my hand, his thumb rubbing across the top of my knuckles. It made my breath catch. We’d touched, even hugged a few times around the family. We were putting on a show, after all. But this didn’t feel pretend. He smiled a half smile and nodded. “Yeah. I’m good.”

Abuela came up behind us, her smile cutting deep creases in her weathered face. She looked at me, then laid a hand on my cheek before reaching up and kissing me right where her palm had been. Her deep-brown eyes glistened as she turned, doing the same thing to Simon, touching his face, then kissing him on the cheek. He had to lean down so she could reach him. When she finished, she wrapped her arms around us both and squeezed us into a three-sided hug.

“Um, I think you guys just got married,” John said from across the room. He spoke in Spanish so Abuela would understand too.

She waved a dismissive hand at John but didn’t break her smile, then turned back to us. “It’s just my way of saying I’m happy for you,” she said.

Dinner didn’t disappoint. As a US territory, Puerto Rico still honored Thanksgiving as a traditional holiday, so much of the expected menu still graced our table—just with a little more flair and, if you asked Abuela, flavor. The turkey was roasted and stuffed with mofongo. There were arroz con gandules, tostones, and my cherished pasteles, which we’d stayed up late making the night before. All of us had filled the kitchen, just as Abuela had hoped, trimming the plantain leaves, cooking the pork with sofrito and a rich adobo sauce, then wrapping them up assembly-line style until we had enough for Thanksgiving and several dozen extra to freeze. Of course, there was also my dad’s sweet-potato pie, a green bean casserole, and a Jell-O salad I’d made from Granny Grace’s recipes. The fusion of the two sides of my family into one collective meal made me happy, as did the people surrounding the table. It had been too long since we’d all been together.