"I'm sorry," I groaned as I slouched down in my chair and covered my face with my hands. "It's like xmas all over again. If I keep ruining holidays you're not going to let me come visit anymore."

Mom sighed, "You haven't ruined anything Mara. But you do have some explaining to do, and I'd like to get this out of the way before dinner. So less deflecting and more answers please."

I sighed and sat up straight then had a gulp of my drink. I looked across the table at mom and Carol and said, "It's kind of a long story? Maybe we could wait till after dinner? Or tomorrow morning even?"

Mom didn't say a word, she just slowly shook her head. And I knew from the look on her face she wasn't going to change her mind.

The three of us were sitting at the kitchen table, mom and Carol were next to each other on one side and I was on the other. They had full glasses of wine, I just opened another vodka cooler. And my girlfriends were all in the den where they couldn't help me or bail me out.

"Fine," I sighed. I had another gulp of my cooler, then got started. "So you remember at xmas when you met Lily? And she mentioned that she sort of acted like a parent to me, or a big sister or whatever?"

Mom nodded, "I remember. Has she been acting more like a parent lately? Did she ask you to start thinking of her as a mother?"

I could tell mom was getting upset, like she was probably getting mad if she thought Lily was trying to replace her or whatever.

"No!" I quickly shook my head. "Not at all! She actually gets really awkward and flustered when I call her my demon-mom. I'm sure she'd like me to stop doing that..."

"Then why do you do it?" Carol asked with a frown.

She was in on this meeting because she was basically part of the family now, soon she'd be my newest mom. I was still totally on board with that too, I didn't mind her being part of this. I was actually kind of glad for it, since I hoped maybe she'd be more understanding since she wouldn't be as uptight about it as my mom was.

"It's complicated," I replied with a grimace. I took a deep breath and continued, "So this might sound kind of crazy or whatever, but like you know magic is real right? Demons are real, magic's real, there's lots of stuff that we're all taught to believe it's make-believe or whatever, but it's really real. And here's the thing. Reincarnation is really real. I don't know if everyone does it, but I have."

After another little pause I went for it.

"I found out who I was in my past life, and that I knew Lily back then too. I did all this behind her back, it wasn't her like influencing me or suggesting stuff? Like she actually doesn't like to talk about this stuff because it makes her uncomfortable. So I did it without her knowing? But anyways, I got this magic tea that lets you connect to your past life, and I used it back in March? And it connected me to my previous life. And in that previous life I was... I was a demon girl, and I was Lily's daughter. I was killed two thousand years ago, another demon murdered me just outside Herculaneum in seventy-nine CE? So like, in my past life Lily was my actual mom? And after I found out about that I started calling her my demon mom."

When I was done I had another gulp of my drink while I nervously watched my two human moms.

The expression on mom's face was complicated and I couldn't guess what she was thinking or feeling. And her emotions and stuff were too strong and complicated for my intuition thing to be much help either. Plus I tried not to use that on my mom anyways, so I normally ignored it when I saw her.

Carol looked thoughtful, and she finally asked "Where do you get magic tea to let you see past lives? I'm assuming that didn't come from Lily, if you did all this without her knowing."

"Susan got it for me?" I replied. "She found the recipe on the internet. She used to be a witch, or she was into witchy stuff or whatever? Anyways Sue found the recipe and made the tea for me, I just drank it then went to bed and saw myself as demon-Mara in my dreams."

Mom frowned, "Demon Mara?"

I stifled another groan, "Um... Yeah. My name in that life was also Mara."

"In your past life you were a demon, you were Lily's daughter, and you were named Mara," mom stated in a pointed tone. "And in this life, she named you Mara and she's made you part demon."

"Yeah," I grimaced. "I know what you're probably thinking? Like she's trying to make me a replacement for her dead child or something? I'm pretty sure that's not true though. Like um... Well you already know I kind of want to be more demon? You know I want wings and stuff right? But Lily won't let me. She doesn't want me to replace her daughter, she likes me for who I am. She even said that? Like she said if I became more of a demon then I wouldn't be the same Mara that she and my girlfriends know and love."

Mom sighed and finally had a couple gulps of her wine, while Carol put an arm around mom's shoulders to try and comfort her or whatever.

After a dozen tense quiet seconds my mom finally spoke, in a quiet but serious voice. "I've spent enough time with you over the past fifteen months Mara, that I know you're my child. I know how you act, how you think. I see your mannerisms and quirks. I know it's really you, I know you really are the child I brought into this world and raised by myself for eighteen years."

"But even knowing all that," she continued after a brief pause, "I find it very hard not to worry that Lily is taking you away, bit by bit. That she's going to take my child away, and replace you with her own daughter. Just the fact that she named you after her child is worrying enough. The idea that you were related to her in a past life... I don't know what to think."

After a moment mom shook her head and asked, "Please promise me I'm not going to lose you again?"

"You won't," I promised. "Like I said before, I do kind of want to become more demon so I could get wings? I really want to fly. But I don't want to actually be someone else? I'm still me, and I don't want to stop being me. And I don't want wings bad enough that I'd stop being me to get them, I promise."

The three of us were quiet for another couple seconds, till mom finally sighed. "Ok Mara. I've felt like I was sharing you with Lily since I met with her back at xmas. It's still going to take a little while for me to get used to the idea of you calling her 'mom' though."

"What about Carol?" I asked. "Can I call her mom too?"

That brought a smile to mom's lips, and seeing her smile made me feel a hundred times better.

Her girlfriend was still holding her, and mom leaned her head against Carol's shoulder as she answered my question. "Yes Mara. That would make me very happy I think. Though I can see where it might get confusing at some point, but we'll worry about that later."

"Thanks mom," I replied with a wide smile of my own. "Is all this ok with you too Carol-mom?"

She looked at me for a few moments, then finally laughed. "You can call me Carol, or mom, but not Carol-mom. And we won't do this right now, but at some point I think I'm going to have to meet Lily myself. After all, if the three of us are all going to be part of your mom-team I think we all need to know each other."

"Ok Carol," I nodded. "We'll organize a team-mom meeting. A meeting of the moms. Oh, maybe you can all do mom team-building exercises and stuff?"

My mom still had her head leaning against Carol's shoulder as she rolled her eyes and said, "Mara? That's enough for now. And I think it's time to check on the turkey again anyways."

"Right," I grinned as I got up from the table.

My moms did as well, then they went out to the den again. Or at least two-thirds of team mom went to the den. As I went to check on the turkey my demon mom finally spoke up. I cringed slightly, expecting another lecture or something, except she didn't sound upset.

"Mara?" she said in a calm, relaxed voice. "You handled that very well."

"Really?" I asked as I opened the oven and stuck the meat thermometer into our dinner. "I thought you'd be mad at me or something."

I could almost picture her shaking her head as she responded, "It was bound to happen sooner or later. Honestly I'm surprised it took you this long to blurt it out. And you did well."

"Thanks mom," I grinned. "Maybe tomorrow you can meet with mom and mom? Or I guess if tomorrow doesn't work, then the three of you could get together next time we visit?"

"We'll see," she said, and I could actually hear her eye-roll. "I'll leave you to enjoy your thanksgiving meal and the rest of your evening."

"Ok Lily. And thanks again, for everything."

The food was just about ready, and I was busy for a while getting all the last-minute stuff done. The turkey came out of the oven to rest then I started making the gravy and got the potatoes mashed and stuff.

I didn't have to do it all myself though, Melissa came into the kitchen to help. She commented, "Things seemed to go ok with your mom? Or moms? Emma didn't look too upset when she came back into the den."

"Yeah," I grimaced slightly. "I'm sure I got lucky. And Carol probably helped too, like her just being there to help keep mom calm and stuff? But yeah. I got lucky, and things seemed to go ok."

My tall busty girlfriend smiled, "Good. I'm glad everything worked out, and I'm glad you don't have to keep trying to hide that stuff from Emma. I knew you'd slip up sooner or later... Actually I'm impressed you kept it secret as long as you did."

"Hey!" I pouted. "Lily said almost the exact same thing."

"We both know you pretty well Mara," Melissa giggled.

Between the two of us we got everything ready, the turkey was carved and all the trimmings and sides and stuff went into serving dishes. Everyone topped up their drinks again while we brought the food into the dining room, and we all got seated around the big table. It was almost exactly like at xmas, except we had Amber with us this time too.

Mom and Carol sat together on one side of the table, me and Amber were next to each other on the other side, and Melissa and Susan were seated at opposite ends.

And while none of us were religious or whatever, we didn't say grace or any of that stuff, I did feel especially thankful so I decided to speak up before we all got started on the food.

It was no big fancy speech or whatever since I was totally just winging it, but I looked around the table and said "Happy thanksgiving everyone! I'm super grateful we're all here and we're all family. Or like, almost-family. Mom and Carol, I'm really happy you both are going to get married! I'm glad you two found each other and you're together. Melissa, I'm glad you and me are still best friends after all these years and after everything that's happened in the last year and a bit. And Susan I'm glad we met and super glad we patched things up after that rough bit at the beginning. And Amber, I'm glad I didn't scare you away on our second date, and I'm glad you're here with us now. And Lily of course, I'm grateful you saved my life and gave me this cool new life and body and stuff, and glad you've been able to help everyone else that I care about..."

I could feel my cheeks going red as I kind of ran out of things to say at that point so I quickly wrapped it up. "Anyways yeah, I'm just really happy and grateful and thankful for all of you!"

Everyone else looked like they weren't quite sure how to respond, till Susan spoke up. "I don't think I can top that, so I'll just say, I second it and add that I'm also grateful to Mara and Lily for bringing us all together."

Melissa raised her glass to toast that, and everyone else did too.

After a gulp of my drink I grinned, "Now let's eat!"

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