The Misadventures of the Laundry Hag 00 - Skeletons in the Closet

entire pumpkin pie on the side. Neil was busy scavenging what I had bypassed and while I had no plate showing, he beat me in stacking fortitude and claimed the apple pie.
    Leo shook his head in disgust. “Some people have no couth.”
    “The couth has left the building,” Neil told him around a mouth full of turkey.
    “What about your diet? You’ll never get published if you can’t stick to your own diet.”
    “My diet has gone the way of the couth.” In perfect form, cranberry sauce dripped on the opposite boob as the bleach stain, which had over-powered the Crayola marker.
    “Hey, Neil, look, light meat and dark meat.”
    His laugh was accompanied by beer out the nose. “Oh, dear sweet Jesus, that stings like a bitch!”
    Leo gave up trying to civilize our eating and joined the fun.
    “Mom!” Kenny ran in from the backyard where he’d been playing football.
    I ceased my marathon mastication long enough to slide off the stool and give him a long hug. “Hey, Kenny, where’s your brother?”
    “Trying to get Uncle Marty to come inside. He’s been talking to Mrs. Davidson for over an hour.”
    “It wasn’t that long, kiddo,” Marty objected from the back door. Josh skirted around him and kicked his shoes off, but my brother tracked leaves over the kitchen floor. “She was only being neighborly.”
    “Yeah, until Mr. Davidson came out and started shooting you dirty looks,” Josh reprimanded his uncle.
    I gave my oldest son an equally fierce hug. “I’m so sorry, guys. Was dinner awful?”
    “Nah, it was great! Especially when Grandpa called Grandma an overbearing harpy. Then she got all red and dumped cranberry sauce in his lap.”
    I looked to Leo for verification and got a short nod in response. What a day.
    “I’m sorry,” I said again. “I tell you what, let’s move the food into the dining room, and we can have our real Thanksgiving right now.”
    “I’d love to stay, sweets, but I promised the Dragon Lady I’d be back by seven.” Leo kissed the top of my head, shook Neil’s hand, and gave the boys a salute. He turned to Marty and offered him a wink. “See ya around, sweet-cheeks.”
    Marty blanched, and Kenny hollered with laughter. “Dad, you just shot beer out your nose and into the apple pie!”

    * * * *
    Feeling very fat and very happy, I collapsed onto the living room floor with my boys, and we all stared at the white couch. Marty, Neil, and I each had a beer, and the boys sipped sodas directly from the can.
    “It really is white, isn’t it?” Marty sounded baffled.
    I turned my head and looked at him. “You’re just picking up on this?”
    “No, I noticed it before, but from down here it looks like a great big snow drift.”
    “Nobody had better try to write his name in this snow drift,” Neil warned.
    “You know what, guys? I don’t care.” I sat up, knocked back my beer, strode to the puffy white couch, and flopped on it. There was a moment of silence, and I looked at three adorable awe-struck faces.
    “Mom, you didn’t!” Josh was the spitting image of his father, mouth agog, eyes the size of dinner plates.
    “What about Grandma?” Kenny asked me.
    I could tell by his hesitant tone he was waiting for me to turn into a pillar of salt.
    “What Grandma doesn’t know won’t hurt her,” I said. Neil shook his head slightly, and I realized I wasn’t setting the best example for adolescent boys. Or Marty. “Leo promised he would have a friend of his make up some slipcovers ASAP, so we probably won’t see the actual couch for a while. Life is short, guys, take advantage of it.”
    I removed one of the puffy cloud-like pillows and flung it at my brother. It hit right on his beer bottle, and he went down sputtering. Kenny and Josh jumped on him and pinned him down, and I went after my second target. Neil laughed at the fray, so I whacked him on the sly. Hey, when you’re going up against a guy with BUD/s training, you either fight dirty or you lose.
    My victory didn’t last long. Neil tickled me relentlessly, with the boys pinning me down.
    “I’m just a poor, helpless female!” I gasped in my breathiest Southern accent. “You big rough tough men are ganging up on little ol’ me.”
    “You bet your sweet derrière, Miz Scarlet.” Neil may have been a native of Massachusetts, but his fake Southern accent was more credible than my real one. “You’re no helpless female, that’s for damn sure.”
    A small smile curved up at the corners of my