Chapter Text
Auntie Dee was moving around Grandma Phyllis' house like a cartoon character. For as much as Lynn was trying to be helpful, Deanna (Auntie Dee) was moving so fast she couldn't quite keep up.
Grandma Phyllis was dead, of course, her own children were in their sixties. That didn't't mean that they could sell her house, though. No, Grandma Phyllis' house was designated as the family holiday house. They did all the major events, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Uncle Charles' third wedding, at Grandma Phyllis' house.
Auntie Dee paused in her second round of cleaning the kitchen counter to peek out of the window there.
"He ain't comin', DeeDee." Uncle Beau says.
Let it be said, Auntie Dee and Uncle Beau should've divorced years ago.
"Hush, Beau! You're the reason I never see my son anymore. If you ruin this-"
"Nothin' to ruin, cause he ain't comin'." Beau's talking about his and Auntie Dee's only child, Will.
Will probably wasn't coming. He'd never come before, none of the family Christmases, Weddings, not even for Grandma Phyllis' funeral. Will Graham left town something like twenty years ago and never turned back around.
Not that Lynn blames him. She can't imagine doing it herself, but her circumstances are far different and she knows that.
To start with, her father is not Beau Graham.
Auntie Dee is truly hopeful thins time, though. She doesn't say more, just shoots her should-be ex husband a glare.
(Lynn wishes she would divorce him so he'd stop coming to family events.)
Apparently, Will had recently used up his yearly call to his mother. During which, Auntie Dee claims she was successful in guilting her only child into returning to the south to see her. She's getting old, or so she claims.
For Auntie Dee sake, Lynn hopes that Will does actually decide to show up this year. Though, for wills sake, she also kind of hopes he doesn't show up at all.
"What do you think, Lynnie?" Cousin Kenny, Uncle Russel's oldest son, slides up beside her to ask as she's pulling a casserole from the oven.
"Good lord, Kennedy Jason!" Lynn admonishes, "You scared the daylights outta me."
"C'mon Lynnie, you think Will's gonna show? We gotta bet goin' around the cousins," Kenny tells her.
"I dunno, Kenny. Auntie Dee sure wants 'im to,"
"Well, I said no, so he better not show his face. I got twenty on it,"
Lynn tosses her oven mitt onto the counter, "Then, I hope he does."
"Awe, screw you, Lynn."
From somewhere in the living room, Kenny's mom, Gwen yells out a, "Kennedy Jason!"
Kenny glares at her like it's her fault he got caught 'swearing' in Grandam Phyllis' house. Sometimes, the parent's treat the place like it's a church.
"You in or not?"
"On what, Kenny?" Lynn sighs, finally turning to face him.
Kenny's son, Fuller, rushes in just to start tugging his dad out of the kitchen to watch some game the great-grands are playing. (Everyone in the family is referred to as their relation to Grandma Phyllis. So, Fuller is a great-grandkid, Lynn and Kenny are grandkids, and mama, Auntie Dee and Uncle Russel are kids.)
"Looks like you're needed, Ken, now get." Kenny is actually one of her favorite cousins, but he doesn't need to know that.
Kenny huffs about the same time that Lynn catches sigh of a car pulling into the gravel driveway of Grandma Phyllis' house. "Yeah, I'm in." she decides then, as Kenny is pulled away by Fuller. Kenny throws her a thumbs up over his shoulder as he turns to follow after his kid.
Lynn tries not to stare out of the window, she's hand washing some of the dirty dishes they'd used to make up a few of the dishes. If she doesn't do it now, her momma will get up five minutes into dinner to start cleaning, and that's never any fun for anyone.
It takes until she's done with that and has moved onto helping Auntie Dee set out the fancy plates for someone else to notice the car. It's parked in the gravel but no ones gotten out of it.
"You think they're lost?" Aunt Gwen, Russel's wife, asks Lynn, raising up on her toes to see out of the kitchen window better.
"They ain't moved yet," Lynn tells her with a shrug.
"Oh?" Lynn closes her eyes for a moment, because, shit, now Auntie Dee's noticed and she'll be beyond upset when it isn't Will that gets out of the too expensive car in Grandma Phyllis' driveway. "'s it Will?"
"Well, I wouldn't know, Dee, they're just'a sittin' there."
"Probably Jehovah's!" Uncle Beau yells from the living room.
"It ain't Jehovah's!" Auntie Dee screams back. She stalks back into the living room where he sits, still talking loud enough for Lynn to hear her from the kitchen. She's pretty certain it'll be Will in that car, because she says, "Now I don't want to hear a word out of you tonight, Beau Graham. You run my boy off today, I'm goin' with him. You hear me? I don't care what about, not a bad word from you, I mean it!"
"It's not Will, DeeDee," Aunt Gwen says real soft once Auntie Dee makes her way back to peer out of the kitchen window again.
Unfortunately - or, fortunately, depending on what you're looking at - it isn't Auntie Dee's Will. It is a man. One that looks far out of place in what seems to be a full suit and shoes that would most certainly ruin in the mud just before the front door of Grandma Phyllis' house.
Auntie Dee, when Lynn chances a look her way, doesn't look as disappointed as Lynn had expected. Good, maybe this won't crush her completely. Instead, Dee is looking out of the kitchen window, wedged in between Lynn and Gwen, looking more interested than anything in the man.
When he steps away from the Bentley he leaves the door open just long enough for a little blob of fur to follow him out. They watch the man like a television show and Lynn's just glad that he hasn't yet noticed the three of them there in the window. The dog jumps up, it's little front paws landing on one of the man's pant legs. He seems to deflate a little bit at that, tilts his head, looking into the car he just exited. The dog looks back too, eventually removing little paws from the man.
Lynn isn't a dog expert, she knows it's comically little next to Uncle Russel's Shepard, Woody, who runs up to sniff the new dog. The man does back up a step from Woody, apparently fine with his dog but not strangers dogs, or maybe it's the size.
The man says something that none of them can hear and finally closes the drivers side door of his car. He doesn't move for a second, but when he does, the passenger side of the Bentley swings open.
This time, it is Will.
Will Graham looks exactly like he did when they were kids. Which she knew, because there are near constant articles about him that Auntie Dee periodically sends snapshots of to the family. Well, he looks tired, and maybe a bit stressed. But, given his job and the fact he's come home for the first time in twenty years - likely under duress - Lynn can't say she really blames him.
Will, at least, is dressed appropriately for a family dinner at Grandma Phyllis' house. He's in a green flannel shirt and his shoes don't look like they'll disintegrate with the mention of a mud puddle. He says something, an unhappy look on his face as he does, to the driver. Will makes his way over to the drivers side and opens the back drivers side door to release another, much bigger dog.
This dog hops out only after being told to, which Lynn knows because Will does it with a hand signal. It's bigger, yellow/blond, and it sits calmly at Will's side as he shuts the door. Will turn's back to the other man to say more things Lynn can't hear and both of the dogs that came with him take that as allowance to sniff at Woody.
"You know who that is?" Aunt Gwen asks of Auntie Dee. It's obvious Auntie Dee is at least unsurprised about the presence of another man, even if she doesn't know exactly who he is. Lynn would, personally, like to know why Will has brought him along.
Auntie Dee hums but doesn't respond. When she notices that Will and the mystery man finally start to make their way towards Grandma Phyllis' house, Auntie Dee moves away from the kitchen window. Lynn and Gwen follow her towards the door, they stop short where Deana marches straight to the door. She turns away from the closed door just long enough to point a red painted finger at her husband, "Not a word." She reminds him harshly. Then to the room at large, "None of ya'll,"
She opens the screen door and the main door just off to the side of the kitchen, as the two men make their way up the few stairs of the front porch.
"Willie!"
Lynn's glad for her, honestly. But Will looks a level of miserable that Lynn also feels a bit bad for him.
"Hi, Mama," Will says, almost inaudibly as Auntie Dee swoops him up in a hug. Lynn's sure its near bone-crushing, Will groans but laughs it off. When Dee finally lets go of the hug, she leans back only far enough to hold his cheeks in both hands, turning his face this way and that.
"Hi, baby. Oh, look at you!" He has to eventually turn his head to get out of her hold, he looks at the man in the suit who has followed him up onto the porch.
Turning to see both his mother and the other man, Will half-asses introductions. He gestures vaguely with one hand at Auntie Dee, "Obviously, my mom, Deana." Auntie Dee smiles her kind, inviting smile. Will continues, throwing a hand in the mans direction to say,
"Mama, this is Hannibal Lecter," Will drops the bomb of, "My husband."