Many Years later...

"Millers, we're home!" Cami sang as she entered our house without knocking.

"Hey Cami," Josh yelled back into the foyer.

"Where are y'all?" Cooper asked.

"Kitchen!" I shouted back.

In less than a minute Cooper, Cami, Danny, and Mila all rounded the corner. We exchanged quick hugs of hello, and then we stood around the kitchen with beers in hand.

"How's everybody been?" Josh asked them.

"Busy," Cooper and Cami said at the same time.

We all laughed at that. I turned to Mila, who was sitting beside her dad. "Mila, how is college?"

"Good, Aunt Lili thanks for asking," she said. She took a quick sip from the beer.

"What classes are you taking this semester?" Josh asked her.

"Do you still have the same group of friends?" I asked.

"When do you have to go back?" Josh asked.

"Why-"

"Good god!" Mila interrupted me. "I get enough of the third fucking degree from my dad. I shouldn't have come home for Thanksgiving."

There was a brief silence, following her outburst.

"Swear Jar," everyone said in sync.

Mila rolled her eyes and took out her phone, "what's the venmo for the swear jar?"

"Venmo?" Josh asked.

"Yeah," Mila said. Everyone other than Mila looked at each other in confusion. "Ya' know, like digital money."

"Digital money? Why can't you just carry around cash like we did?" Cooper asked.

"Cause I don't want to have to go to the bank every time that I come home from school," Mila said, frustrated with us.

"I made three trips to the bank a week," Cooper said dismally.

"And who's fault was that?" Cami asked him.

He made a face and then flipped her off.

"And I thank you for your addition to my college fund," Mila said sarcastically.

We were all interrupted before we could get another word in after that.

"Mom, we're home!" Hailey yelled from the foyer.

"We're in here sweetie!" I yelled back. I caught Josh's eye and he winked at me, I blushed like I did when we first started dating. Out daughter and our son came around the corner noisily, bickering about weather or not Tommy had stained the passenger seat in Hailey's car.

As soon as they entered the room, the bickering stopped. "Mila! You're back!" Hailey said excitedly. She ran over and the two cousins hugged tightly. Mila was not that much older than Hailey, only about four years, so the cousins had grown extremely close.

Tommy, being another two years away from Hailey did not feel the same way towards Mila, instead he just nodded at all of us, "hey."

"What an enthusiastic hello from my favorite godson," Cooper joked.

"You're not my godfather," Tommy reminded him. "Uncle Danny is."

Danny and Tommy high fived across the table and Cooper frowned. "Whatever."

After more catching up between the kids and the adults, everything settled in the living room. I sat beside Josh, he rested his hand on my leg tracing subtle patterns on my skin.

"So, Josh, Lili, what are you guys doing for your twentieth anniversary?" Cami asked us.

I glanced at Josh, had it been twenty years already? I suppose that Hailey was eighteen after all. Hailey started to do similar math.

"¿veinte años? ¿Sólo veinte años? Eso significa que ahora son diecinueve años. Mamá, solo tengo dieciocho años. ¡¿Me tuviste un año después de casarte?!" Hailey exclaimed.

/twenty years? Only twenty years? That means that it's ninteen years now. Mom, I am only eighteen. You had me a year after you got married?!/

"¿Casamiento a la fuerza?" Tommy suggested.

/Shotgun wedding?/

"¡No! Por supuesto que no fue una boda a la fuerza, tu padre y yo nos amamos mucho," I insisted, quickly. Honestly it wasn't, but she may or may not have been conceived on the first night of our honeymoon. oops.

/No! Of course it wasn't a shotgun wedding, your father and I love each other very much./

"¡Pero te quedaste embarazada, un año después de la boda!" Hailey said, dumbfounded.

/But you got pregnant, one year after the wedding!/

"Tu padre no pudo guardarlo en sus pantalones," I said with a shrug. Josh pinched me and I laughed out loud.

/Your father couldn't keep it in his pants./

"¡Bruto!" our kids chorused.

/Gross!/

"¡Oye! ¡Estás vivo hoy gracias a mí!" Josh said defensively.

/Hey! You are alive today thanks to me!/

"Un año, mamá," Hailey repeated.

/One year, mom./

"Menos en realidad," Josh responded.

/Less actually/

Hailey's face contorted with disgust and Josh smiled at me proudly. I laughed quietly, but I met his lips when he leaned towards me.

"And this is why I hate coming here," Cami complained.

"What? Why?" I asked.

"Because your family had their own secret language that you speak to each other that I can't understand," she huffed.

"It's not a secret language," Tommy pointed out. "It's Spanish."

"Wow, from my parents and now from my godson," Cami held a hand to her heart pretending to be injured. "I am being looked down upon for not speaking Spanish."

"Not your godson," Tommy said.

"Then who's godmother am I?" Cami asked.

"Mine!" Hailey said with a little wave of her hand and an annoyed smile.

"I was just kidding, of course I know you are my goddaughter," Cami said, in a way that convinced absolutely no one.

Danny's pager went off, "they need me back at the hospital. I've got to go, I'll see everyone tomorrow night for real Thanksgiving?"

A chorus of agreement.

"Great!" He gave us a thumbs up. "Oh, and who is coming to my lecture on MRSA next weekend?"

My family looked at each other.

"¿Mucha tarea?" Hailey offered. We all shook out heads, we had used that two weeks ago for Cooper's spoken word poetry.

/a lot of homework?/

"¿Visitando universidades?" Tommy suggested. We shook our heads again, everyone knew Tommy only wanted to go to Yale.

/visiting colleges?/

"Solo usemos el ir a-" I started to say.

/let's just use the go to/

"Sorry Danny, we can't. We are celebrating Disculpar that day," Josh told the group.

/excuse/

"I feel like you guys are celebrating that holiday a lot," Cooper said.

"Yeah, I feel like it wasn't the weekend after Thanksgiving last year," Mila chimed in.

"Well, there is one every season, , you know that it moves around based on the weather," Hailey said quickly.

"I guess," Mila agreed.

Our family let our a quick breath. Years ago, when Hailey was born, Josh came up with Disculpar. Disculpar translates to excuse in English, but since nobody except for us bothered to learn Spanish, we called it a Mexican holiday that was very important to us. Sure it had started as an annual holiday and evolved into a quarterly, unpredictable holiday, but our friends were still none the wiser. It has helped us get out of countless family, being friend group, events.

We loved supporting our friends, but sometimes we needed a break, and there was so much of our family that we deserved a break every now and again.

Danny secured attendance from Cami, Cooper, and Mila before leaving. Eventually the non-Millers trickled out of the house and all that was left was the four of us.

"¡Feliz Disculpar!" Josh said.

"¡Feliz Disculpar!" We echoed, we clicked our beers with the kid's cans of coke and we all took a deep sip. Our little, almost grown, family standing in a small circle around our kitchen island. I looked at Josh to find him already looking at me.

I love you. He mouthed to me.

I love you. I mouthed back.