Devlin's Light by Mariah Stewart

Author:Mariah Stewart
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Romance, Fiction, General
ISBN: 9781451633016
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 2010-11-15T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

Thanks giving at the Devlin homestead varied little from one year to the next. At some point or another during the day, all of the Devlin cousins made an appearance. If not for dinner, then for brunch or later in the evening for dessert. But sooner or later, they all arrived at August’s front door, where they would be welcomed with open arms.

As a child, India had passed through the crowded rooms with canapés and candies on serving plates, or silver trays of spice cookies and tiny fruit tarts, depending on the time of day. Corri, being the youngest in the house these days, had inherited those duties, and having cut her teeth on passing small plates of peppermints two years earlier and trays of scones at last year’s brunch, she was ready for full duty this year, much to her pride.

August had cooked and baked and bustled since six that morning. India performed what she called the “accessory tasks”—chopping celery, cutting bread rounds for canapés, peeling potatoes and carrots, making sure that there was always fresh coffee and hot water for tea, cleaning the counters and rinsing bowls—while August took center stage in preparing the turkeys that would grace the dining-room table and serve as the focal points of the buffet to serve however many would show up that day. They were age-old rituals that, August liked to say, were being observed in countless homes all across the country in much the same way as in Devlin’s Light. It was what she liked to refer to as a “connecting cord,” one of those common threads that wound through the fabric of so many folks from different backgrounds and ethnic groups in cities and suburbs, farms and penthouses, from one coast to the other. It was part of what made Thanksgiving a uniquely American holiday, she had often reminded India, and part of the reason for celebration. Every year, while India worked side by side with her aunt, August would recite what India had come to think of as the “whos and the whats” of the Devlin clan.

“Now, look for Lil—she’s first cousin to your dad and me—to be the first to arrive, usually by eleven. She’ll have a basket of pumpkin muffins on her arm and one of her granddaughters in tow. The rest of her group will arrive later, but Lil likes to be first. Her kids will stay for brunch, but they’ll leave to take the grandkids to the in-laws for dinner. Then Lil’s sister, Rachel, will be next, with all her brood. Children and grandchildren. Rachel will bring the biggest already cooked, already sliced ham she can find, along with her homemade rolls and that cranberry relish of hers that won, oh, more blue ribbons than I can recall at the state fair several years running.”

India would be thinking about Aunt Lil’s fragrant pumpkin muffins and those puffy, golden brown rolls of Aunt Rachel’s, and her mouth would be watering from early in the morning until dinner.

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