The Christmas Table

by Donna VanLiere

  “Because Detective Burt Grimes sounds like a detective,” he says, as if she should know that. “It rhymes with crimes. Mabrey is soft. Weak. Come on!” He is genuinely perplexed that she can’t figure this out on her own. He shakes it off. “You know how many old guys work or have worked at the parks department? Some of them have lived in Grandon their whole lives. If there’s ever been a farmer named Bud, one of those guys knows him or his family.”

  “And yet another reason why I married you, Detective Grimes!”

  SEVENTEEN

  September 1972

  Joan stands alongside John in his workshop, looking at the second table leg. He shakes his head. “Measure twice. Cut once.” He sighs, aggravated. “I know that. I tell myself that all the time. But what did I do?”

  “You measured once and cut twice?” Joan asks, confused.

  “I measured once and cut. Period.” He lifts up the other leg that he finished weeks ago. “Look at them! Not even close to looking alike.”

  Joan cocks her head, looking at each leg. “They look exactly the same, John.”

  He snaps his head to look at her. “Are you kidding?”

  She laughs, looking at the legs. “John! These legs are identical.”

  “Really? Then why is this one an eighth of an inch wider than this one?”

  She looks at him, dumbfounded. “An eighth of an inch? Who’s going to notice that? It’s going to be under the table. I can’t even notice it and I’m standing right here in front of them.”

  He holds each of the two table legs directly in front of himself, shaking his head. “You can’t see what I’m seeing.” A thought dawns on him and he looks at Joan, setting the legs down on the worktable, thinking. “That’s how it is, isn’t it?” She’s not sure if he’s talking to her or himself. “Right?”

  “What do you mean? How what is?” she says.

  He puts his hands on top of his head, realizing. “You can’t see the difference.”

  “I know. We’ve covered this.”

  He looks at her, wide-eyed. “We can’t see the difference inside of you.” She stares at him. “We don’t know what’s happening inside of—”

  “We do know, John. The doctor—”

  He cuts her off. “But we don’t know what God is doing. We can’t see the difference that He’s making.”

  She sighs, her mouth turning down into a small, sad smile.

  “Just listen to me, Joan. I made those table legs. I can see the difference between them, but you can’t. If God made your body, and I believe He did, do you?” She nods. “Then He can see what’s happening inside your lungs and your breasts and your body. He can see the difference from day one of your cancer diagnosis to today.”

  Joan is struggling to understand him. “What kind of difference?”

  “He’s doing something that we can’t see.”

  He needs to stop this way of thinking. “John, you’re talking a miracle and…”

  He puts one of his hands on each side of her face. “Joan, I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t believe it, would I?” She pauses and then shakes her head. “God’s doing something and even if we don’t see it, even if you don’t feel it yet, He sees the difference inside of you.”

  Her eyes get misty looking at him. “I want to believe, John, but…”

  “I believe,” he says, pulling her to him.

  She pulls back to look at him. “How?”

  He reaches for a piece of wood, smiling. “This.” He smiles and kisses her. “Today’s the day. God’s doing something. Today’s the day.”

  September 2012

  Lauren and Stacy each take a bite of chess pie inside Gloria’s office and smile at her. “Scrumptious, right?” Gloria says.

  Stacy nods, chewing. “Delicious. I wonder if the person leaving these goodies is trying to bribe you?”

  “Bribe me?” Gloria says, clutching her chest. “Why would anyone bribe me?”

  “Maybe you have a gentleman suitor,” Lauren says, grinning. “Maybe a handsome stranger is trying to bribe your love away from Marshall.”

  Gloria laughs. “Oh, that’s absurd!” She pauses a moment. “Or is it? You know, when I was younger, I really was quite fetching.”

  “Isn’t ‘fetching’ a word that’s generally associated with canines, Gloria?” Miriam says, entering the office. Gloria shakes her head in annoyance. “Why do you continue to try to figure out who’s doing this?” she says, putting a slice of pie onto a small paper plate. “Isn’t it obvious?” Stacy, Lauren, and Gloria shake their heads and shrug. “It’s Larry.”

  “Larry the furniture maker?” Lauren says. “Why him, of all people?”

  Miriam smiles, taking a bite of pie. “He’s always been a bit smitten.”

  “With me?” Gloria says, shocked and nearly choking on her bite of pie.

  “Of course not!” Miriam says coyly. “With me.”

  “He’s married,” Lauren says. “For like, forty-some years, right?”

  “There’s always been a hint of flirtation,” Miriam says, taking another bite of her pie and sighing with delight.

  Lauren looks at Gloria, who is using her index finger to circle her ear, and Lauren chuckles. “Miriam, I didn’t notice anything when we were at Larry’s together. As a matter of fact, he paid more attention to me than he did you.” Gloria coughs, choking on a bite of pie. “I think you’re reading way too much into everyday conversation.” Miriam’s eyes are wide with dismay. “If it was Larry, he’d drop off a wooden box or bowl, not food!”

  The office is quiet, and Stacy and Gloria exchange glances before bursting into laughter. “Oh, shut up, Gloria!” Miriam says, reaching for another piece of pie.

  “Well, if you’d said Jerry at Clauson’s, that would have made sense,” Gloria says. “He’s the bakery manager. But Larry the wood guy?” She thinks for a moment. “It could be Jerry! The last time we were in there together, he looked at you and said, ‘What can I get you, ma’am?’ If that’s not innuendo, I don’t know what is!” Miriam opens her mouth to argue with Gloria as Stacy and Lauren leave the office, ready to greet the kids for the day with Andrea, who is entering the front door.

  “There’s fresh pie in Gloria’s office,” Lauren says.

  Andrea grabs a piece and walks with Lauren out the front doors to wait for the children on the sidewalk. “So,” she says, taking a bite. “Who do you think is leaving the goodies?”

  Lauren shrugs. “I just hope they don’t stop making deliveries. Did you cook with your kids when they were growing up?”

  Andrea puckers her mouth, thinking. “Some. They were always so busy with sports and other after-school activities that I usually had dinner ready when they got home.”

  “Was dinner important?”

  Andrea looks at Lauren’s face. She’s so sincere about this and realizes, from what Lauren said about her childhood, that she wants to do the opposite of what her own mother did. “All the meals were important.” She takes another bite, watching the traffic at the stoplight in front of the building. “When the kids were little, we ate breakfast and dinner together with Bill. And when they got so busy as teens, we still ate breakfast and dinner together. Sometimes it meant that we ate at four thirty, before a game, or at eight thirty, after a game, but we made sure that we came together at those meals.” The first car makes its way up the driveway. “Do you and Travis like to cook?”

  Lauren nods, opening the car door for seven-year-old Evan. “I’m trying to learn but yeah, we get in the kitchen together a lot.”

  Andrea helps Brianna and Jacob from a car, smiling at them. “You could have your own cooking class here,” she says. “I bet Brianna and Jacob would love to learn how to bake cookies!” The kids hoot and cheer at the word “cookies,” and Lauren smiles at the thought.

  EIGHTEEN

  October 1972

  Joan reaches for a scarf of autumn browns, oranges, yellows, and reds and ties it around her head in the bathroom, looking at herself in the mir
ror. Besides the sickness following each round of chemo, looking at herself has been the hardest part of cancer. Her skin is pale, her hair is gone, the flesh on her body seems to rest closer to bone each week, and her eyes stare out from dark, hollowed-out holes. Her eyes fill with tears at the sight of herself, but when she hears Gigi’s and Christopher’s voices from the kitchen, she reaches for a tissue from the box on the counter, pressing it to each eye. She listens to her kids chatter for a moment and takes a deep breath, looking at herself again. “Today’s the day,” she whispers, surprising herself. The words plant themselves somewhere deep inside and once again, tears spring to her eyes. “Today’s the day,” she says, exhaling.

  John enters the bathroom wearing his work uniform and smiles at her. “The kids are eating breakfast. I need to get to a woman’s house by eight. Fridge on the fritz.” He puts his hands on her shoulders. “Wow! Are you ever beautiful!” She shakes her head. “Crazy kind of beautiful.”

  She laughs. “You’re the crazy one, John Creighton.”

  “Today’s the day. Right?”

  She smiles, nodding. “Today’s the day,” she says.

  John thrusts his fist into the air. “Yes!” He kisses her good-bye and promises to call on his break.

  She follows John to the kitchen and reaches for a skillet as he says good-bye to the kids; she wants to get at least a couple of meals prepared today before she goes in for chemotherapy tomorrow. While Gigi and Christopher eat some scrambled eggs, fruit, and toast that John made them, Joan pulls out two pounds of ground beef from the refrigerator. “What are you making, Mommy?” Gigi asks from the table.

  “Chili.”

  The little girl raises her head higher. “With little corn muffins?”

  “I can do that,” Joan says, breaking apart the beef inside the skillet with a wooden spoon.

  “I can help when I finish,” Gigi says. “I need to eat for strength.” Joan laughs. How many times has Gigi heard John or her mom, Alice, say those words to Joan over the last three months? “Have you eaten for strength today yet, Mommy?”

  Joan laughs again. “No, I haven’t.”

  Gigi’s face straightens like a prosecutor’s inside a courtroom. “Eat for strength now before you get weak!”

  Joan raises her hands in surrender. “I know, I know. I’ll do that before I start the chili. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “You weren’t thinking,” Gigi says, taking a huge bite of toast.

  Joan laughs again and reaches into the fridge for an egg to scramble for herself, along with some leftover salad from dinner last night. It sounds horrible to the rest of her family, but for some reason Joan has been craving greens and nuts and eats them throughout the day, even at breakfast. She sits down at the table to eat and smiles, watching Christopher maneuver his tiny fork, using it as a mini shovel to scoop up a piece of egg, which falls to the plate, but he perseveres, trying again until a bite reaches his mouth. “What a big boy!” she says, reaching over the table to squeeze his hand. The thought invades her brain that she won’t hear Christopher string a sentence together or run the bases at the local ball field, but as quickly as it comes, she shoots it down. “Today’s the day,” she says, looking at Christopher and then Gigi.

  “For what?” Gigi asks.

  “To believe,” Joan says. “Like Daddy.”

  Gigi grins. “He says that a lot,” she says, happy to be sitting here at the table with her mom and baby brother. “Because it will make you strong.”

  Joan thinks for a moment. “Saying it won’t necessarily make me strong. Daddy believes that saying it will create faith and help us believe.”

  “In what?” Gigi asks, finishing her eggs.

  Joan moves her own eggs around the plate, not wanting to eat them. “In what we can’t see.”

  “Like the wind,” Gigi says, shoving the last of the toast in her mouth and then showing it to Christopher, making him giggle.

  Joan puts her fork down, looking at Gigi, taken aback by what she’s said. “Like the wind,” she whispers, watching Gigi and Christopher as they each open their mouths full of food. She’s never thought much about the wind, but without giving it a moment’s thought, her five-year-old daughter has touched on something unseen but real. “We see what it touches,” she says.

  “What what touches?” Gigi asks, reaching for her milk.

  “You’re so brilliant and amazing!” Joan says, adoring her daughter and son. “You both are!”

  “Why?” Gigi says, tipping the cup to her mouth again.

  “Because you said we can’t see the wind! We can’t see the wind, but we see what it touches, don’t we? The trees, the grass, flags, lakes, our hair … or at least your hair,” Joan says, chuckling.

  “Our ball when it’s in the yard,” Gigi says, joining in. “Our faces and umbrellas and … what else?”

  Joan opens her arms. “Everything! The wind touches everything outside, and when our windows are open, it touches our curtains and things inside the house!” She props her arm on the table, resting her chin on her hand. “Like I said, you’re brilliant!”

  Gigi smiles and says, “What does it mean?”

  Joan rears her head back, laughing. “It means, today’s the day! We may not be able to see God, but just like the wind we can see what He touches, right?”

  Gigi shrugs. “Yes!”

  Joan takes a bite of her egg and marvels at what has just happened. Was it just a cute-kid moment? Or did God use Gigi to speak this simple—but what Joan believes is a profound—truth, to her? Six months ago, Joan would have believed it was a sweet, funny-kid instance, but today? Today she ponders if God uses the smallest, most mundane moments of the day to speak to us. She’ll have to think more about that and figure out what she believes. She takes another bite of egg and lifts the recipe for her mom’s chili out of the recipe box. How many bowls of this chili did we eat throughout the years? I always made it on the days we went sledding. Remember that morning we went sledding at Grandma and Grandpa’s and you broke your arm? It was so windy that day! Joan rereads the words: It was so windy that day! She stares at the words. Of all the recipes to choose, she picked this one that describes the wind on that long-ago day. Can this be chalked up to coincidence or is God repeating or clarifying something for her? She shakes her head, not really knowing what to believe, and keeps reading.

  We wrapped scarves around our faces, but the wind was blowing right through them! It was so strong! In the emergency room you said, “There better be a bowl of chili left when I get home!” You weren’t concerned about your arm, just the chili! This is the recipe I made for your sixth-grade Halloween party. I made two huge pots and they both came home empty. I remember so many of those kids said they’d never eaten chili before. That made me so sad because I just couldn’t imagine a home without a huge pot of chili. I always mixed the kind of beans I’d use: chili beans, kidney beans, red beans, and black beans. I loved making it and boy, did all of you love eating it! When you were a teen, I had to use three or four pounds of ground beef because you loved it as leftovers. And yes, on that cold, windy day when you broke your arm, there was a pot of chili waiting for you! Chili makes your house smell great when it’s cooking, and there’s nothing like coming home from school to the smell of dinner cooking on the stove. At least that’s what you always told me! That’s still a favorite memory for Joan: coming home from school and flinging open the back door to the smells of cookies, rolls, cakes, casseroles, bread, chicken, or beef baking inside the oven, or a pot of soup simmering on the stove. She looks back down at the recipe. I didn’t have a lot of skills, but I could cook and I’m glad I could because I still remember the times we spent around the table together. I believe it makes families closer. I really do! Joan smiles at the four smiley faces her mother drew at the bottom of the card.

  After she puts the last bite of salad into her mouth, she gets up, smiling at the kids. “So, who’s helping me?” Gigi bounces out of her chair and Christopher tu
rns as far around as he can in the high chair, looking for her. “Come on, big guy,” Joan says, lifting him out and getting a kiss from him. “Let’s make the house smell good!”

  October 2012

  It isn’t as easy as Travis thought it would be to find someone who recognizes the name of Bud the farmer. No one at the parks department recognizes the name, and he dreads telling Lauren that in his search, he has only hit dead ends. He is using a leaf blower around the gazebo in the Grandon town square when he notices Robert Layton waving at him. Robert’s law office sits on the square, just two doors down from Marshall’s Department Store, and Travis’s family has known Robert and his family for as long as Travis can remember. He turns off the leaf blower as Robert steps toward him. “I haven’t seen you since I’ve heard the news,” Robert says. “Congratulations!”

  Travis takes off his Grandon Parks Department hat and wipes his forehead. “Thanks!”

  “When is Lauren due?”

  “In December.”

  Robert nods, smiling. “A baby for Christmas. Fantastic! Is Lauren doing well? If I get home this evening and Kate learns that I’ve neglected to ask all the pertinent questions, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

  Travis chuckles. “She’s doing great. She’s taking time to do some decorating in the house and get the room ready for the baby and is learning to cook.” A thought strikes him, and he interrupts Robert as he’s about to ask another question. “Hey, Robert! You don’t happen to know a farmer named Bud, do you?”

  Robert shields his eyes from the sun as he looks at him. “Bud Waters?”

  Travis’s eyes light up. “Really? There is a farmer named Bud?”

  Robert nods. “A dairy farmer.” Travis beams at the words. “He sold the farm fifteen or twenty years ago.”

  The smile leaves Travis’s face. “Do you know where he lives now?”

  Robert looks up to the sky, thinking. “Drake County, I think. It’s been a lot of years to remember. Why?”

  “Lauren really wants to find him. Hoping he can help her find somebody else.”