The Blended Thanksgiving

Toby stood at the front window, watching the driveway like a guard dog watches a mailman.

"They're not here yet," his mom said for the third time, tying her apron strings behind her back. "Come help me count the chairs."

"I already counted them," Toby said. "Fourteen. And we only have twelve forks."

"We'll figure out the forks."

"What about the chairs?"

"We'll figure out the chairs too."

Toby pressed his forehead against the cold glass. Here's the thing about this Thanksgiving: it was not a normal Thanksgiving. Normally, Thanksgiving was Toby, his mom, his dad, his little sister Wren, and Grandma Jean. Five people. Five forks. Five chairs. Simple.

But this year, Toby's mom had invited the Gutierrez family. All of them. Mr. and Mrs. Gutierrez, Grandma Lola, and their six kids. Mrs. Gutierrez was Mom's best friend from her new job, and she'd mentioned — just casually, just lightly — that their oven had broken last week and they weren't sure what to do about Thanksgiving.

And Toby's mom had said, "Come to ours."

Just like that. Like inviting six extra kids into a house was no bigger deal than adding water to soup.

"This is going to be a disaster," Toby whispered to the window.

The window didn't argue.

They arrived in a van that looked like it had been through a car wash backward. The door slid open and kids poured out like gumballs from a machine — all different sizes, all talking at once.

Toby's dad went out to shake hands. Toby's little sister Wren ran straight into the crowd because Wren had never met a stranger in her life and probably never would.

Toby stayed on the porch.

A boy about his age climbed out last. He had a serious face and was carrying a foil-covered dish very carefully with both hands, like it was a baby bird.

"That's Marco," Mrs. Gutierrez called out. "Marco, say hi to Toby!"

Marco looked up at Toby on the porch. Toby looked down at Marco on the walkway.

"Hi," said Marco.

"Hi," said Toby.

And that was it. That was all they had.

Inside, the house shrank. It actually, physically shrank — Toby was sure of it. The kitchen that had seemed perfectly fine that morning was now a traffic jam of elbows and casserole dishes. Kids were everywhere. The littlest Gutierrez, a tiny girl named Sofía, was already sitting inside the dog's bed, and the dog was standing next to her looking very confused.

"Toby, can you take the kids downstairs to play?" his mom asked, in that voice that was shaped like a question but was actually a command.

Toby led the way to the basement. Behind him came Marco, then Wren, then the rest of the Gutierrez kids — twins named Ana and Lucia who were maybe nine, a boy named Mateo who was maybe four, and an older girl named Isabella who was definitely texting.

They all stood in the basement and stared at each other.

"So," Toby said. "This is the basement."

"Cool," said one of the twins. Toby couldn't tell which.

Wren pulled out a bin of LEGOs and dumped it on the floor — a classic Wren move — and little Mateo immediately sat down and started building. One of the twins joined him. Then the other twin.

But Marco just stood near the stairs with his hands in his pockets.

Toby stood near the couch with his hands in his pockets.

The thing was, Toby had a whole speech ready in his head about how this was his house and his Thanksgiving and everything was going to be weird and terrible. But Marco looked exactly the way Toby felt — like he'd rather be anywhere else, doing anything else, with anyone else.

"I didn't want to come," Marco said quietly.

"I didn't want you to come either," Toby said.

Marco's eyes went wide. Then — and Toby didn't expect this — he laughed. A short, surprised laugh, like a hiccup.

"Fair," Marco said.

Upstairs, something crashed. Then someone yelled, "IT'S FINE, NOBODY MOVE." Then a lot of moving.

"Should we check on that?" Marco asked.

"Definitely not," Toby said.

Marco almost smiled.

Toby sat down on the old couch. Marco sat on the other end. Between them was exactly one couch cushion of distance — the international measurement for I don't know you yet.

"Do you have a dog?" Marco asked.

"Yeah. Biscuit. Your sister is sitting in his bed."

"That's what Sofía does. She sat in a shopping cart at the store once and wouldn't get out for forty-five minutes."

"Forty-five minutes?"

"My mom timed it."

Toby laughed. A real one.

The space between them on the couch got a little smaller, though neither of them actually moved.

An hour later, the basement was a disaster zone — and Toby didn't mind at all.

The LEGOs had turned into a competition. Toby and Marco were building what they called the Ultimate Fortress, and Ana and Lucia were building what they called the Better Fortress, and little Mateo was building something he called "Truck" that was definitely not a truck but everyone said, "Wow, great truck, Mateo."

Wren kept switching teams, which was classic Wren.

"We need more walls," Marco said, studying their creation like an architect. "If they attack from the east side, we're done for."

"Who's attacking from the east side?"

"Them." Marco pointed at the twins.

"We can HEAR you," said Ana. Or Lucia.

"GOOD," said Marco. "Be afraid."

Toby found himself grinning. Not the polite grin he gave his aunt when she pinched his cheeks. A real, full, face-hurting grin.

"DINNER!" Toby's dad bellowed down the stairs.

They thundered up to find the dining room completely transformed. The big table had been pushed together with a card table and a desk dragged in from the office. Chairs didn't match — there were kitchen chairs, folding chairs, a piano bench, and one beach chair that Grandma Jean claimed for herself because, she said, "I'm seventy-two and I've earned it."

There were twelve forks and two big spoons being used as forks, and nobody seemed to care.

The turkey sat in the middle, but it had company now — rice and beans from Grandma Lola, tamales that Marco's family had brought in that foil-covered dish, Grandma Jean's cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, cornbread, and a wobbly green Jell-O salad that Wren had made herself and was extremely proud of even though it tasted like lime-flavored confusion.

"Before we eat," Toby's mom said, "let's go around and say what we're thankful for."

Toby used to dread this part. But he waited his turn, listening to Grandma Lola say she was thankful for "good neighbors with good ovens," and little Sofía say she was thankful for "the dog bed," and Wren say she was thankful for her Jell-O.

When it got to Marco, he paused. Then he said, "I'm thankful it's not as weird as I thought it would be."

Everyone laughed.

Then it was Toby's turn. He looked around the table — at the mismatched chairs and the borrowed spoons and the two grandmas already arguing about the best way to make gravy and little Mateo trying to eat a tamale with his hands and Isabella still texting and Wren feeding Biscuit under the table when she thought nobody was looking.

"I'm thankful for the extra chairs," Toby said.

His mom caught his eye across the table. She smiled.

After dinner, after pie, after Grandma Jean fell asleep in the beach chair and Sofía fell asleep in the dog bed again, Toby and Marco stood on the porch. It was cold and dark and their breath made little clouds.

"Same time next year?" Marco asked.

"Only if you bring more tamales," Toby said.

Marco grinned. "Deal."

The van backed out of the driveway, gumballs loaded back inside, and Toby watched them go. The house was quiet now. It felt big again.

Maybe a little too big.

Toby went inside, stepped over the LEGO battlefield, and started counting forks.

They were going to need more than fourteen next year.