Cabin Cousins: Part 2

A Quest for family acceptance.

Based on a post by NewMountain80, in 6 parts. Listen to the ►Podcast at Connections.

Chapter Six.

Walking up into the cabin yard, we could see that we had missed dinner. My mom and older sisters were busy bringing the leftovers and supplies back into the cabin.

"You two were gone all day, where did you go?" My mom asked.

"We went all the way out to the pine grove." I said sheepishly, forgetting for a moment that I was an adult now, and not a little kid that adults needed to look after.

"That's a long ways! We were getting worried."

"We had a picnic in the clearing, and we lost track of time. Sorry." Said Melissa.

Which I guess was an accurate, if vague and incomplete, account of what happened.

"Well, if you're hungry; there's hot dogs and brats, potato salad, and baked beans in the crock pot."

Giving Melissa a quick glance, I said. "I'm starving." Managing to do so with a straight face.

We roasted hot dogs over the fire, and both of us had several servings of beans. The 'baked beans' were really a meal in themselves. My mom would make this stuff for just about every family gathering, and it never got old. There was no less than four different types of beans, chunks of bacon, and ground beef. Between Chili and stew, there was this, and it was one of my favorite foods. Melissa was enjoying it as much as I was; apparently, because neither of us said a word until we had thrown our empty paper plates into the fire, and were carrying the uneaten food back into the cabin.

"That was so good. My mom never cooked anything like that. The limit of her skills was frozen pizza and hamburger helper."

"I'm sure mom would be happy to give you the recipe." I said.

"There's no way I could make anything taste this good." Melissa said with a snort of self-derisive laughter.

"You can do anything you put your mind to. I have faith in you."

She was quiet for a few seconds, and when she looked at me to respond, her eyes were positively glowing with love.

"Thank you. That really means a lot."

"Anytime." I said softly, before lurching forward to open the screen door for her.

Dinner put away, we went back to the benches around the fire pit, where most everyone was gathered. In an unspoken agreement, Melissa and I did not sit next to each other, both of us having independently come to the conclusion that it would be far too easy to betray our ruse of mere friendship, by being just a bit too touchy-feely. As a compromise, we sat on opposite sides of the fire, so we could look at each other with impunity under the guise of watching the flames.

We occasionally joined in on discussing whatever gossip or topic was going around, but neither of us were as involved as we otherwise might have been. Will the Vikings beat the Packers? Even if the Monday night game was in Lambeau field? Will Denis Green make good on his threat that the Vikings will leave the state if the govt. doesn’t build another stadium? Uncle Bert warned us that if the Vikings leave, all our kids will grow up as Packer fans, since they were the closest franchise to Minnesota. The relatives all groaned at that notion, and they concurred that a stadium must get built.

Melissa and I just smiled and winked to each other as everyone else was in rapt at