I'll Hum Along

The rest of the band soon found out what had happened to Zack, and the decision I made regarding his future in the band. Airin said that I was a bit harsh with how I decided to go about the situation, and that everyone should have had a say in it, but Marque told me that I did the right thing with giving him that ultimatum. I think after I talked to them, they went home and had a spat about that, because Marque’s twitter update about an hour later was a grouchy face ( >:( ).

I did go back to the hospital to see Zack a few times. On one of the visits, two of his brothers, Adam and Marco, were there. I could really see the family resemblance between all of them. I had met all of the Angelo siblings at Eloisa’s funeral, and all the boys looked identical to one another. All of the girls were fairly identical too, but I noticed that the eldest girls in the family, the twins Cosima and Catorina, looked much more like the boys. For some reason, I loved it when I could see family resemblance’s.

Zack had informed me, and the rest of the band, that he was going into a rehab program. He wasn’t going to go until after Thanksgiving. Airin said that he was proud of Zack, because even making the decision to go to rehab was a huge step. But, we all knew Zack; he was stubborn and would most likely stick to it. All of Zack’s siblings had travelled down to Vancouver for Thanksgiving, which was a huge surprise for Zack, because he wasn’t expecting all of his siblings, and in-laws...and neices and nephews. Man, there were a lot of Angelo’s.

My mom decided that she wanted to host Thanksgiving in her new house. Chris and Samantha were coming up for Thanksgiving as well, and since my mom was an extremely generous person, she invited Stephanie (who was going back to Toronto for Thanksgiving), Zack, and all of Zack’s family. So, there would be me, Josh and our three kids, Airin, Marque, Kaylee and Duncan, Chris and Samantha, Zack, Zack’s 7 siblings and 5 in-laws, and 6 nieces and nephews. Keith, Josie, and their two kids were going to Josie’s parents house, so there were 4 less mouths, but there were going to be 32 people in my parents house. I knew my mom liked a challenge, but this was ridiculous. So, we all offered to bring something with us so my mom wouldn’t have to cool such a large meal. Airin and Marque were bringing a fruit salad and mixed vegetables, all of the Angelo’s were bringing something, Chris and Samantha were going to bring pumpkin pie, and I offered to make the mashed potatoes. I went to the store and bought two 15 pound sacks of potatoes and I made Josh and Finley help me peel them. Luckily I had a pot big enough to cook them all in. Unfortunately, the pot was too heavy for me to lift alone when all of the potatoes were in it, so Josh had to help. Finley just laughed at us when we tried to get the large pot on the stove.

My mom had really pulled everything together when it came to the dinner though. She had somehow converted her house into a restaurant-type setting, and the house smelled delicious as well. When Josh, the kids, and myself got to the house, Josh commented on how crazy my mother was, and all she did was laugh and nod. Josh then leaned towards me and said, “I think that’s where you get it from.” I would have smacked him, but I was carrying a giant bowl of mashed potatoes.

Slowly, everyone else trickled into the house. We sent the kids outside to play until dinner was ready. Zack was one of the last people to show up, and he was looking scarily thin. I knew he hadn’t been eating properly, and he hadn’t been for a while, but I guess I just hadn’t noticed it until then. Zack kept trying to help my mom with things, but she kept shooing him out of the kitchen, so he finally settled for playing with Autumn and Kodiak on the living room floor. He seemed content doing that, so we just let him. Autumn had tried to grab Zack’s glasses off his face at one point, and started to throw a hissy fit when he wouldn’t let her have them. Kodiak was just content sitting next in Zack’s lap and chewing on Zack;s hoodie string.

I wound up talking to one of Zack’s sisters, Catorina, or Cat as she said to call her, until dinner time. She asked me about the band and about my family. She was a really interesting person. Cat worked in a law firm as a secretary, and she had one son, who was around Finley and Duncan’s age. She also liked rock climbing and she probably had the strongest Italian accent out of all of the siblings. They all had accents, but Cat’s was more prominent. Zack had more of a Newfoundland accent than Italian, though. Cat’s husband, Lucas, was also really interesting. He was a physics professor at a University in Toronto. But he was also into skiing and snowboarding. I said for him to go talk to Marque about that stuff, because I absolutely hated winter sports.

When my mom called everyone into the kitchen, it was chaotic with everyone trying to move around one another, but we all eventually managed. The gaggle of children had their own table they were situated around, and they all seemed to be enjoying themselves. I had Autumn and Kodiak in between Josh and I, and were easily multitasking between feeding them, ourselves, and keeping up with the conversation at the table. One of Zack’s youngest siblings was sitting across from me and just watched in amazement as I shovelled food into my mouth and still managed to get a spoonful into Kodiak’s mouth. “How do you even do that?” she had asked me.

“Years of practice.” I told her. “Josh still has yet to master it. He either forgets to eat, or forgets to feed.” Josh looked over at me with his eyes narrowed. I then raised an eyebrow at him when I noticed he was just about to feed Kodiak, who had his mouth wide open, but kept the spoon just out of the child’s reach. “Um, sweetheart...” I started to say. Josh looked down and noticed what he was doing and let Kodiak have the spoonful of potato. I laughed and shook my head at him.

About halfway through dinner, Zack stood up and cleared his throat rather loudly. It made everyone stop what they were doing and look at him. “If it’s okay, I’d just like to thank Chloe for putting this all together at such short notice.” Zack smiled at my mom.

“Oh, sweetie, it was no trouble.” My mom said. Always humbled, that one.

“No, this was a lot of effort.” Zack said. “And, just...” Zack stopped for a moment to look down at the table. “Just thank you, every one else. For a number of reasons. I’m very thankful I have you all in my life.” Zack finally said, lifting his head up and smiling at every one before sitting back down. No one else seemed to know what to do, so my dad then cleared his throat and spoke up.

“Well, I’m thankful that my wife hasn’t murdered me yet.” he said. Mom playfully smacked his arm. This started a whole round of what everyone was thankful for; family, friends, Finley piped up with “food!”, and Airin said music as well as family. Josh was the only one who hadn’t said anything, so I nudged him in the side.

“Come on Ramsay, you have to be thankful for something.” I said to him.

“I am.” Josh said in a rather pensive tone. He looked towards Zack and smiled, “I’m thankful for Zack.”

Everyone looked at my husband a little confused. “You...you are?” Zack questioned.

“Yes. I am. I’m thankful for your courage and perseverance. And how you always keep a positive attitude no matter what is thrown at you.” Josh said. Zack had a huge smile on his face before saying thank you. That cued everyone to finish eating. I stood up from my chair and went over to Josh and kissed his cheek. Josh gave me a little look, but then he smiled at me.