Regan
Eight Years Old.

I think the first thing I noticed was the light. Warm and inviting. It felt like the love was just radiating through the windows and past the cracks in the door.

As soon as I walked through the threshold, I was impossibly certain of three things. Number one; the hand in mine was all that mattered. Two; turkey smelled better than I ever could have imagined. And Three; this was home. I belonged right here, at Thanksgiving with my angel holding my hand.

The look on Cassia's face was one I would never forget. She reminded me of a sun, and she was radiating happiness. I couldn't take my eyes off of her.

She looked even more like an angel in the light. I could better see her hair, which was actually more brown than blonde, but carried a soft sort of sheen to it. I could see inside, the impossibly warm brown of her eyes, and the little freckles that dusted her nose. She had dimples on both cheeks, and one tiny one on her chin when she smiled, and she was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. She was something to be cherished and protected, like a piece of priceless antique glass. I wanted to be the one to protect her. I wanted to keep her safe against the world that I lived in. The darkness of my lonely life was not something I wanted her to ever have to see.

"Daniel!" Someone shouted across the room. Her voice was sweet and kind, and I looked up. A woman with a swollen belly and short cropped, brown hair was peeking past the doorway of what I thought was the kitchen.

The preacher smiled as he took off his coat. "Barb! We brought a guest!" He had to yell to be heard over the screaming of children. A pack of them ran through the living room where we stood, pulling off our boots and jackets.

One of them, a boy around Cassia's age, skidded to a stop and took her free hand, pulling her from me. He wore a band of multicolored feathers on the crown of his head, and held a plastic tomahawk in his hand. "Common! We're playing Indians and you need to be Pocahontas!"

My angel held fast to my hand, despite being yanked away, and I was so grateful when she looked back to me. "Tommy, I'm not gonna play without Regan."

Tommy looked around her at me, his nose wrinkling. "Who's he?"

I didn't say anything, just scuffed my warn sock on the carpet of the livingroom. Her socks where pretty, new and pink. Mine where grey and had holes in them. She didn't seem to notice.
Cassia pulled me next to her, hand still entwined with mine. "He's my friend, his name is Regan. And I'm not playing if he can't."

Tom crossed his arms but nodded anyway. "Okay. He can be our white man prisoner."

Cassia shook her head, bundle of gathered blond hair bouncing beneath her bow. "No, he's gonna be my John Smith."

"Ugh, fine." Tommy groaned, before taking off again. "Hurry up then! "

Daniel, the preacher, touched my shoulder and I looked up at him, craning my neck back. He smiled, and I realised where Cassia got her dimples from.
"You should go play with Cassia's cousins. I'll be in there if you need me, okay? We should be eating in a little while." I nodded, my long hair falling into my eyes. I didn't remember the last time I'd had a haircut.

Cassia pulled my hand, and I looked at her. "Come on, let's go play!" I followed her.

"Who's Tommy?" I asked quietly. I was a little jealous of him and his new clothes and his brown, well trimmed hair. She didn't look at me as she pulled us into the kitchen, and I thought for a moment she hadn't heard me.

"He's one of my cousins, he thinks he's better than me." She sounded annoyed, and I prayed it wasn't directed at me.

I said quietly, "I don't think anyone is better than you." She weaved us through adults, some of them petted her head as she went by. No one really seemed to have noticed me, as I stared in amazement at the size of this family. There was a good dozen or so kids zipping around the house, and at least twice as many as that of adults and teenagers. The only family I'd ever known was passed out with liquor filled veins in a dusty old chair.

"Hey Cas, who's your friend?" Someone asked, stepping into our path. She was a woman, and she had her hands cradling a pregnant belly. If was the one Daniel, the preacher, was talking to when we walked in.

I looked up shyly, afraid she didn't want me here. I was met with a warm smile instead, and I tried to return in.

"Regan, he's my friend and he's gonna be my John Smith." Cassia explained, pulling me to her side again. I didn't know who John Smith was, but didn't protest. If I could be anything of hers, I would have settled for being the dust bunnies under her bed.

The woman's smile didn't leave her face, and she held out a hand. "Hey, Regan, I'm glad you could join us. You can call me aunt Barb."

The lady looked a lot like Cassia, and had the same color hair as her, only is wasn't as shiny and was cut to her shoulders. She wasn't as pretty as her, either, but then again, I didn't think anyone was as beautiful as Cassia. I shook her hand shyly.

Cassia moved around her aunt, tugging me along with her. I wondered if this was the pie-making aunt she spoke of earlier. Once we had made it out of the kitchen, I cleared my throat. "Who's John Smith?"

She turned to face me, and she sat down on the carpet of the stairs. I sat too. "You don't know Pocahontas? Its a really good movie!"

I just shook my head. The only movies I ever saw were when I passed through the small, dirty living room and glanced at the tv. The only things I saw on that beat up box were grown-up movies that should have scared someone my age. But they didn't, not anymore.

Cassia proceeded to tell me the story. Well, a condensed version, one that I thought she liked better. "John and Pocahontas are in love, and he's a white man and she's an Indian. He comes to her land and finds her and they fall in love. She saves John from her dad and then they move together back to England."

I shrugged in answer, and tried not to notice when she took her hand from mine. "Lets go play, Regan." She said, smiling. She brushed my blond hair from my eyes, and smiled into my face. I tried not to flinch away. She was closer than I'd ever allowed anyone to get to me, but something about the close up of her face calmed me. She smelled like sugar and butter, just like I imagined a normal child would smell like.

She had a grin as wide as her cheeks. "Your eyes are really pretty." I'd never noticed my eye color before, and no one else had ever seemed to noticed before, either. I thought they were blue, or maybe they were grey. I hadn't looked into a mirror in so long, that I couldn't remember what my face even looked like. I could imagine I looked dirty. I knew I didn't smell the best, either, but I was usually able to get showers when my dad was sleeping.

"I think you're really pretty." I whispered, turning my face away from her so she wouldn't see me blush.

She only giggled and stood up, taking my hand again. "You're gross. Lets go play!"

And we played. Cassia demanded the others respect me, because I was her John Smith and no one could "kill" me. Tommy tried that a lot, until she threatened to stop playing. I didn't like Tommy much, but I did sort of like one of the other cousins, Sebastian. He was quiet, like me, and didn't try to "kill" John Smith. He whacked Tommy in the knee with his tomahawk. I laughed.

When we got called in for dinner, Cassia made sure she and I sat right next to each other, and Sebastian sat on my other side. They both still had their feather bands around their heads, and the other kids had found some red paint that I was certain they shouldn't have had. The finger paint had been smeared over Cassia's and Sebastian's cheeks, and most of the other cousin's faces, too.

None of the older people seemed to mind it, and laughed at how cute they all were. Daniel, the preacher, called me and Cassia's attention to him, and he held up a digital camera. He snapped a picture with Cassia grinning and giving me bunny ears with her fingers. I made a small smile, and Sebastian had an arm around my shoulders, a wide one on his face.

I'd never known there could be a table this big. It was long enough to seat every person here, and I was baffled by it. It seemed that there was double of every platter of food, one half on each side of the table, with the turkey plate in the middle. The steaming turkey had been brought in by a man, who set it down and then came to stand behind aunt Barb, putting his arms around her.

"Okay!" We looked at aunt Barb, who had clapped her hands for our attention. "Lets say Grace and eat this beautiful bird! Danny?"

I'd never seen so much food before, and I tried to place names with each dish. I found the turkey easily, because I'd seen a picture of one on a billboard once. The cranberries, I thought, was the bowl of jelly next to the turkey, and the stuffing I pinned as being the mush in one bowl with bread chunks in it. It smelled a lot better than it looked. There were biscuits and mashed potatoes and casseroles with beans and turkey pieces, and a lot more that I couldn't name. My stomach growled so loudly that I thought everyone should have heard it. I felt as though the love that radiated through the house had made its way into a smell, and I breathed it in greedily, afraid it would get away.

Cassia took my hand, and so did Sebastian, and I looked around the table as everyone did the same with one another. They all bowed their heads and I stared at my lap, too. Was this grace?

Daniel, the preacher, started talking, and I listened. "Dear most gracious and Heavenly father, we thank you for this meal and for this wonderful time together, and for our guest," Was he talking about me? I squeezed my eyes shut to fight the urge to see if anyone looked at me. "We thank you for our little Indians and for our mother-to-be, and for her pie making skills," A few people laughed, and the preacher smiled before continuing. "I ask that you bless us all in our lives, and touch our family with your marvelous Grace. In the name of Jesus, we pray," There was a collection of people saying, "Amen," And we all let go of one another's hands.

I wondered who Jesus was. The only time I heard the name Jesus Christ, was when my father was out of whiskey.

"Now," Daniel, the preacher, said, pausing the hands of those reaching for plates and bowls of food. "Our new friend, Regan, has never had a thanksgiving before. So, I think we should leave a little bit of everything for him to taste."

There were nods and everyone started passing bowls around, filling each others plates.

"You've never had a thanksgiving?" Sebastian asked from his place next to me. His eyes were wide and innocent as he looked at me with pity.

Seb was older and a little bit taller than me, with blue eyes framed by dark lashes, and dark brown hair.

I shrugged my shoulders and looked away. "No."

I was too shy to reach for anything, but the preacher came to aid Cassia, and helped me too. He seemed to already know what his daughter wanted, and only scooped certain things onto her plate. Then it came to be my turn.

"Do you want to just have a bit of everything, or do you want me to do yours like Cassia's?" He was always so kind, and I didn't know how to respond to it. I'd never known so much love.

"A little of everything, please."

He began to scoop things as they came by, setting each pile of food precisely so they didn't touch one another. That's how Cassia's plate was, too. My plate got too full, and the preacher had to go retrieve me a second plate from the cupboard to finish heaping the rest of the variety of food onto it.

He finally finished and I just stared at the dishes in front of me. I looked at my glass filled with milk, then back to the food. I didn't know how to react, but I shoved the tears that threatened aside and picked up my fork. Cassia had been waiting for me to eat before she dug in, and she looked at me with child-like concern. "What's wrong?" Her dandelion voice asked. I realised then just how young she really was, even though she spoke like she was older. She couldn't have been more than six, I thought. She still had the open, round face of a toddler.

I turned to her and smiled. "I just don't know what to eat first." She smiled back, looking relieved, as if I was going to say I wanted to leave. I never wanted to leave.

By the end of the warm evening, I had come to these conclusions.
One: The hand in mine was all that mattered. Two: I didn't like cranberries. Three: Turkey was the best thing I've ever eaten. Four: This was home. I belonged right here, at Thanksgiving with my angel holding my hand.