UNO Fixes Everything

The house was quiet and simple. Two stories with pale yellow walls and red-brown shingles. A brick walkway leads up to the front door with a sign on it that says, Happy Thanksgiving. A dying flower garden lay in front of the house. The short driveway was packed full of cars, some spilling out onto the street. We were parked on the other side of the street from the small house.

“Cassie, can you help me with this?” Faith calls from the back of the van. I close the car door and walk back to her, tucking my phone into my back pocket. I pick up the crockpot full of Dad’s special grape jelly meatballs. “You got it?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” I say with a smile. It’s more forced than usual. It’s not that I don’t like Faith, she’s nice and pretty with her lush black hair and wide blue eyes. I do like Faith. The thing is, this would be the first time I’m meeting her family… I don’t know anything about them or how I should act. I’ve never been in a situation like this before. I’ve never had a step-mom before. Dad comes around the side of the car and closes up the back. After Dad pecked Faith on the cheek, they walked up to the house. Dad carried a crockpot of mashed potatoes. Faith knocked on the door.

I waited a few paces behind them, nervously looking down at the garden gnome who held his shovel like a sword. The door flew open. A short woman in her late sixties with an almost entire head of grey hair stood there. “Faith!” she exclaimed, throwing her arms around my step-mom.

“Hello, Mom,” Faith says, hugging her back as best as she could without squishing the sweet potato pie.

“You haven’t been home in forever,” the woman says, pulling back and letting us inside. We took off our shoes in the short hall that leads deeper into the house. “This must be Cassie.” She said the words sweetly but her eyes were as sharp as a hawk. I nervously shift on my feet.

Finally, wanting to get away from her piercing gaze, I ask, “Where can I put this? It’s really heavy.” She smiles and the sharpness fades but isn’t extinguished. She takes me into the house where Dad and Faith have already disappeared into. The short hall leads directly into the dining room and into the kitchen beyond that. She directed me to put it on the counter by the sink. Right of the kitchen is the living room and a set of stairs leading up, possibly to bedrooms. To the left are the backdoor and a set of stairs heading down into the basement.

In the dining room, Faith was introducing Dad to two men who she called her brothers. One of them has the same black hair as Faith but the other is bright blond. Then they turned to me. I felt a spike of panic but managed not to look like I was having a heart attack as we were introduced. The man with black hair has green eyes and a potbelly, Faith said his name is Joe. Charlie has dark blond hair and blue eyes like Faith.

After a brief hello, I went into the living room to try and calm myself. I did not expect to find two kids my age--seventeen--playing UNO. They look up when I walk in.

“Oh, hi,” I say nervously.

“Hey, you must be Cassie, Daniel’s kid,” the guy said. “I’m Shawn, this is my sister, Taylor.”

She nods hello. “Want me to deal you in?” It took a few seconds for me to realize that she was talking about UNO.

“Yeah, sure,” I say, taking a seat on the carpet next to them. I’m hesitant to touch anything in the house. It's that feeling that you don’t belong and everything you do is being watched under a microscope. They started a new game and dealt me in. It’s a bad hand.

“So, what’s Colorado like?” Shawn asks, placing down a red five. We had driven here from Colorado, where Dad, Faith, and I all live. Faith said that she moved down there for work a few years before we met but her family is all up here in Iowa. We’ve been staying at a hotel for the past two days and the food that we brought has been sitting in the fridge.

I shrug, placing a red seven on the pile. “It’s like any other place, I guess.”

“What does ‘like any other’ mean?” Taylor asks, using a wild to change the color to yellow.

“I don’t know. It’s got people and cars and trees.” It sounded more like a question than a statement.

“Guess you can’t get any more ordinary than people and trees,” Shawn said with a smile. Taylor rolled her eyes. Shawn won the round and Taylor won the next three. Shawn claimed she cheated before Faith said the food was ready. As everyone took a seat at the table, I realized that I had no idea where to sit. Dad was sitting next to Faith with one of her brothers on his other side. I stood by the doorway for a good minute before Shawn noticed me.

“Hey, Cassie, there’s a free seat here.” Shawn tapped the back of the seat to his left. Taylor was sitting on his right.

“Thanks,” I say, sitting down. He smiled at me. Dinner actually went well. Thanksgiving dinner was filled with salad, mashed potatoes, three kinds of pie, roasted corn, green bean casserole, and lots and lots of turkey. After, Taylor, Shawn, and I retreated to the living room with full stomachs to play on our phone while two kids, who couldn’t have been more than seven, watched Spongebob on TV. I was much more invested in the show than I should have been.

“Hey, Cassie,” Shawn says. “Do you think you guys will be coming back next year?”

I stared at my phone for a few seconds. “Yeah, I hope so.”