Body and Bread

by Nan Cuba

  I gathered a fistful of groundcover and sniffed: dust, alkali, metal. So, I thought, this is time, its dark elements, and I’m like Jonah inside the whale’s belly, like the mouse inside the bass’s sac, like Sam inside his paralyzed body. Was this cave anything like the one at the Caley Creek battlefield, where 240 Caddoes, Kickapoo, and Comanche had been routed? Was my father’s kettle of bones so different from the shrines atop the pyramid? I pictured the man in his overalls, hanging, then Otis lying stiffly, and the cadavers in my father’s lab. Like Houston, they’d all lifted, become stars.

  Sam told Hugh that courage was being able to see yourself as something else, and now I did. The amorphous shape would not appear in the cave, I realized, because it was inside me.

  CHAPTER 21

  AT THE ROCKPORT HOUSE, Terezie makes me go inside to alert my brothers that I’ve brought her and Cornelia. I’ve convinced them to come by saying they’ve been invited, which is, at best, an exaggeration. In fact, the last time I spoke to Kurt, he said, “For God’s sake, keep them the hell away from us.” My family doesn’t expect me today, much less their ex-sister-in-law and her daughter, but this is one Thanksgiving when, like it or not, we are going to sit down together. Somehow, we have to start talking again. Only then, can we figure out what to do for Cornelia.

  After that, maybe we can finally share what we’ve heard about Sam’s secret. How long has Kurt known, I wonder, and why didn’t he tell us? Did Sam, upset over news of Ruby’s death, confide in him? Kurt must’ve told Hugh before they took Cyril to court; Terezie knows too, of course, and even Cornelia. What about Kurt’s wife, Randy? Did Hugh tell Debbie? Am I really the last? I’m an anthropologist. How did this happen?

  “Do I know you?” Noreen says, standing at the door. Her ponytail hangs in perfect ringlets.

  “I’m your Aunt Sarah. Now be a good girl and go get your father.”

  “Man!” someone whoops from down the hall. “Did you see that?” Laughter.

  “Daddy,” Noreen calls, shuffling toward the voice, her curls bouncing.

  I turn toward the car and wave, give a thumbs-up.

  “What happened?” Hugh says, suddenly materializing, frowning, barefooted. “What’s the matter?”

  “Happy Thanksgiving to you, too, Hugh. May I come in?” I brush past him toward the room where our family always gathered. Our grandfather’s billiard table underneath a Tiffany island lamp; his portable bowling alley along one wall. The casement windows angle open, but logs crackle in the stream stone fireplace. As two White-faced ibis sail over the bay just past the dock, I remember our grandfather saying patients gave him Chinese pheasants, peacocks, and a pair of Japanese deer. Our father’s pear and plum trees still shade one side of the house.

  “What the…” Kurt says, his feet lurching from the coffee table to the travertine floor.

  I throw my hands up, slap my thighs. “Okay,” I say, “so I crashed your party. But this is my house, too, and we are family. Would it be terrible if I asked you to let me stay?”

  Emma rises from her chair by the bank of windows, flapping her hands, her long face and prominent chin sloped as a crescent moon. She says nothing, frantically panting. Kurt approaches her, his arms resting at his sides. “You remember Aunt Sarah,” he says, his voice a bassoon. “We’re very glad she’s here. She’s going to have lunch with us.” Behind them, a White Pelican swoops toward the water then rises as though leaping from their heads, its pumping wings whispering comfort, comfort.

  “I thought I heard a strange voice,” Randy says, the slotted spoon in her hand reminding me of Ruby in Gran’s kitchen telling my mother to leave. “Is something wrong?” She’s wearing designer slacks and matching knit top, complete with a coral necklace and paisley scarf.

  “Only that I’ve crashed your celebration. Do you mind? I’m happy to help.”

  “Aunt Sarah, way cool,” says Kurt Jr. walking past his mother. He puts something yellow in his mouth then licks his fingers.

  “Kurt Jr. and I would be glad to set the table, right?” How am I going to tell them about Terezie and Cornelia? Surely, the doorbell will ring any second.

  “Who’s that?” Noreen says, pointing outside the side windows toward the fruit trees.

  Debbie walks next to her daughter then leans to look, her leather skirt hiking. “She’s right. It’s two women, and they’re doing something.” She bends closer, shading her eyes. “Are they digging? It looks like they’re digging. Hugh?”

  I don’t need to join the others as they conjecture about Terezie and Cornelia. Hugh recognizes them first. “What are they doing here?” After a few seconds, the adults turn, synchronized as a Motown group.

  “Look, it’s Thanksgiving,” I say, my arms stretched. Okay, yes, I’m hoping for a miracle. “All they want to do is have lunch with you. Nobody has to say anything about the lawsuit. What do you say; can I bring them inside?”

  “But what are they doing?” Debbie repeats.

  “Sure,” Randy intercedes. “I say bring them on. There’s plenty of food. Why not?”

  “Because it’s my holiday; that’s why,” Kurt says. He flops back in front of the TV. “I’m not going to spend my day off with people who’re trying to rob us.”

  “You expect me to tell them to go? For God sakes, Kurt, they’re not ax murderers. She was Sam’s wife; doesn’t that count for something?”

  “You mean that lady out there’s Uncle Sam’s wife?” Kurt Jr. asks, his mouth hanging open. “She’s real? I mean, a actual person?”

  “This is between the grown-ups,” Randy says, shaking her head, walking toward the kitchen.

  “I don’t get it,” Kurt Jr., says. “Why do y’all hate her?”

  “Thanks,” Kurt grumbles.

  Then Emma begins laughing, a giggling interspersed with hiccups. She bites her hand.

  “Time out,” Kurt says, standing, floating toward his daughter. “Want to play puzzle?” he croons. “Let’s go to your room.”

  Fingering her blouse button, she follows her father. “Room,” she says. “Room. Room.”

  “Oh, my God,” Debbie squeals at the scene out the window. Noreen is standing next to Terezie and Cornelia, who both squat next to my father’s pear tree, its leaves crimson. Debbie runs out the door first, me right after.

  “Honey, what are you doing?” Debbie asks while placing her arm around Noreen’s shoulder.

  “They have to clean that up,” Noreen says, pointing to a hole near the tree’s trunk. “It’s a mess.”

  “Now, don’t you worry, honey,” Terezie says. This tree’s going to be fine. As a matter of fact, loosening up the dirt will give it a little air so it can breathe.” She scoops soil into the hole and pats. “What’s your name? Mine’s Terezie.”

  “I don’t think we’ve ever met,” says Debbie, “but I’m Debbie, Hugh’s wife, and this is our daughter, Norine.”

  “Norine, honey, I knew your grandmother, and you don’t just have her name. Why, you lucky thing; you got her gorgeous green eyes, too.”

  “Were you a friend of my grandmother’s?”

  “Well, once upon a time, I was married to your daddy’s brother, Sam.”

  “But he died. I know.”

  “Yes, he did. And now I have a daughter of my own.” She rises and helps Cornelia struggle to stand. “Debbie, Norine, this is Cornelia.”

  Norine frowns while holding and flipping her ponytail like a switch. “Why’d your mom have to pick you up like that? Something wrong with your leg? What’s that thing on your nose, there?” She points.

  “Why you’re a regular Curious George,” Cornelia says, wheezy. “It’s a nose ring, and I’ll show it to you if I can have some water. What do you say, doll face?”

  “Sure, come on. It’s okay; lean on me,” Norine says, grinning. Helpless to stop them, Debbie follows.

  Terezie starts after them, but I pull her back. Somehow, I have to explain what happened in the house. “What were you doing?”

  Sh
e opens her hand, and my Marcos point lays across her palm. I’d have recognized it anywhere, the beveling along its lateral edges, the scalloped grooves chiseling its rim. Sam said Tonkawa left it after camping at the farm.

  “How did it get here?” I’ve always wondered what my father did with it.

  “A few days after you found it at the farm,” Terezie says, “your dad drove to Austin and told Sam to put it back.”

  “You’re kidding.” How could I not know that?

  “Sam was furious. I thought it would kill him. That’s when he got thrown in jail in Laredo, remember?”

  Is that possible? Did he go to Mexico right after that day at the farm?

  “He kept the Marcos in his wallet until your grandfather died. Then we buried it here.” We look up, the tree’s tint surrounding us, its radiance the miracle I asked for.

  “Here,” Terezie says, placing the flint in my palm then closing her hands around mine. “He would’ve wanted you to have it.”

  I thumb its side and edges, planed as cut-glass crystal, and think, silica, ashes. This is an artifact of my family as well as the Tonkawa, present and past. While we walk toward the house, I say, “Don’t expect much of a welcome.” I hope Terezie will be more forgiving than I am.

  “I don’t care what they think of me,” she says, her clear skies darkening. I picture her standing in her chinos and Christmas sweater next to Randy, the runway queen. “But I expect them to be kind to Cornelia.”

  “Of course,” I say. “I’ll do everything I can to ensure that.”

  “Maybe once they get to know her,” she says, chipper again, “see for themselves what a good girl she is, they’ll…”

  Kurt walks with Emma through the kitchen to the game room. He flinches when he spots Terezie, then nods stiffly, muttering, “Hello.” While he and Hugh resume watching their football game, Kurt Jr. and Norine take turns pitching balls down miniature bowling lanes. Cornelia watches from an arm chair. Kurt Jr. trots, stretches, and tosses like a double-jointed athlete, each move gauged by Cornelia’s reaction. “Shame on you, Norine,” she teases when he throws his hands on the floor, kicks his feet up, then arches his back and inches haltingly forward. “Why’d you flip that boy upside down? You put him back, right this minute.”

  Norine giggles, covering her face, her curls bunched to one side.

  Terezie, Cornelia, and I try to be last filing into the dining room, but Hugh stops, bowing, motioning us forward. I politely simper but think: Why do I feel obligated to follow his direction? Why can’t I say that we want to wait so we’ll know where to sit after everyone’s settled?

  He smiles. “After you, ladies,” he says, smug, oblivious.

  When I see our parents’ round table, I act unfazed, but I picture us sitting there during Sam’s last dinner. Today, our parents and Sam are replaced by the Pelton children—same table, shifting faces—a subversion of possession, of always.

  Randy serves our plates from the kitchen before I can remind her that I’m a vegetarian. I take a bite of cranberry sauce, queasy from the scent of roasted meat. Pumpkin pies and dessert plates wait on the double-hutch buffet along the back wall.

  Cornelia seems to be enjoying herself with Kurt Jr. flirting on one side and Noreen watching adoringly from the other. If she’s pretending not to notice the tension between Terezie and my brothers, she’s doing a great job. She asks Kurt Jr. how Barbie and some pop star are alike. When he shrugs, she says, deadpan, “They’re both blonde, brainless, and made of plastic.” Even Kurt laughs, spewing sweet onion relish, making everyone howl again. “It wasn’t that funny,” Cornelia wheezes.

  “Can’t help it,” he says, grinning, wiping his mouth. “I’m a sucker for dumb blonde jokes.”

  I say, “You missed the point, A.K.”

  “What’s A.K.?” Randy asks. Her voice hovers between pissed and party-mode.

  Emma taps her fork against her knife.

  “That’s what Sam called him, right Hugh?”

  “Yeah,” Hugh says, stifling a smile, dropping his glance. He now thinks Sam exemplifies what happens to someone who rejects Christ.

  Kurt hands Emma a roll, sets her fork next to her plate. “I’d forgotten about that,” he says. He speaks directly to Randy: “It stands for ass kisser.”

  “Rad!” Kurt Jr. yells, hugging himself.

  Kurt squints, scratches his head. “He said I’d wear a dress if Dad told me to.” He turns to me. “But I couldn’t. Sarah’s were too tight.”

  Kurt Jr. peeks at Cornelia, giggles.

  “I don’t get it,” Noreen says. “Mama? Boys don’t wear dresses. That’s stupid.”

  “Anybody for more gravy?” Debbie says, standing. “What about you, honey?” she says to Noreen. “Want another roll?”

  I stir my food, take a bite of relish. “This reminds me of Mother’s cooking,” I say.

  “We have her oyster dressing every year,” Randy says. “I’ll give you the recipe, if you don’t have it.”

  “Actually,” Debbie says, “Randy’s made your mom famous. She’s shared a lot of her recipes.” Randy straightens her napkin. “And she always puts your mom’s name in the title.”

  Randy stands, picks up her plate, then grabs mine. She disappears into the kitchen. Terezie and Debbie gather more dishes and follow.

  I smile at Cornelia, my ally. Like me, she’s hardly eaten anything.

  My sisters-in-law begin serving pie, pouring coffee, bringing refills of milk for the children. As much as I resent the men sitting like Ayatollah, I grudgingly help. I do, however, insist that Cornelia stay put. Before we eat, everyone pauses for a tradition that began after I moved to Mexico. I’m starving. I take a bite of pie, then notice they have their hands in their laps.

  “You can’t do that,” Noreen said. “You have to wait.”

  “Oh,” I say, stupidly. “Sorry. I didn’t know.” What next? I think. This is, after all, the Bible belt. I foolishly thought that Hugh’s blessing, which was heartfelt and apropos, was a sufficient nod toward God and country. So okay, I’ll agree to say the Pledge of Allegiance—I’m as patriotic as anyone—or join hands and recite the Lord’s Prayer, but that’s where I draw the line. I’m not going to spout some homily or give testimony. They might as well ask me to speak in tongues. I can listen; yes, I’m actually good at that. In fact, watching this tribe will be interesting. Hugh takes the lead.

  “I hope you ladies will bear with me,” he says, “’cause about now, everybody expects me to sing.”

  “Yeah,” Noreen says, staring at me, “and you can’t eat.”

  “She knows, honey,” Debbie says, squeezing her daughter’s hand.

  “But I saw her. She took a bite.”

  “Okay, thank you,” Debbie says. “Now let’s listen.”

  Frowning, Cornelia picks up her fork, but when I shake my head, reassuring her, she puts it back.

  Hugh continues, nonplussed. “I always thought it was a plot to keep me from preaching.”

  Debbie pats Noreen. Kurt says, “Amen.”

  “Amen!” Hugh repeats, chuckling. “Actually,” he clears his throat, “Debbie helped me pick this one. I wanted something everybody knew. It’s ‘Faith of Our Fathers.’”

  “But I never heard of that,” Noreen says.

  “Shh,” Debbie says, placing her arm around Noreen’s shoulders.

  The sound that comes out of Hugh’s mouth doesn’t belong to him. I’ve heard the hymn; I know it by heart. This time, though, I expect a Jerry Lee Lewis version—energetic, jazzy—instead, a bassoon croons soft as silt. “Faith of our fathers, living still,” Hugh sings, his voice the Duomo bells surrounding Sam while he walks down an Italian street. The notes take shape, change colors, scattering like chips of jade, like nuggets of turquoise.

  After lunch, I follow Hugh, Noreen, and Kurt Jr. to the dock to feed thawed, freezer-burned flounder to the pelicans. “Let me,” Noreen says, reaching into the bucket. Two Browns, a species recently removed from the endange
red list, swim toward us. Swans with Donald Duck eyes and suitcase mouths, they are caricatures of prehistoric majesty.

  “Try this, slackers,” Kurt Jr. calls, tossing the birds a pickle. They watch it arc then plunk into the water.

  “No! You can’t do that,” Noreen shouts. “Daddy told us!” She pulls out a flounder, shaking it. “Only fish! He says! Like this.” When she pitches her offering a few feet away, the nearer bird swims up, cranes its serpentine neck over the dock’s edge, opens its mandibles like giant tweezers, then pins and flips the fish into its distensible pouch.

  “Now you!” says Noreen, cavorting like a Shetland pony. “Here,” and she hands Kurt Jr. the bucket, while Hugh and I sit in rattan chairs under the awning.

  When Kurt Jr. sails his flounder at the water, the second bird swims over, dives under, and scoops the target into its netlike pouch, the seawater draining from its mouth. Three white pelicans fly toward the children, so Kurt Jr. throws another flounder into the air, and one of the birds hovers, nabbing its catch, its colossal wings pedaling.

  I remember seeing a pelican painted in the dome of the gothic church at Sam’s wedding, an image that sent me to the library to discover a second century Egyptian legend. A mother pelican, it said, plucked her breast to feed her young with her blood so they wouldn’t starve. I think of Ruby, her sacrifice. Even Dante and Shakespeare used the bird as a religious symbol. “Christ, the pelican,” I say to Hugh, wondering if he recognizes the reference.

  “Like what tender tales tell of the pelican,” he says, stroking the skin above his almost invisible lip, “bathe me, Jesus Lord, in what Thy bosom ran.”

  “Dante?” I ask, dubious.

  “St. Thomas Aquinas. But you’re the scholar. I thought you’d know that.”

  “I should have,” I say, annoyed. “I guess you’ve become the expert.”

  “Maybe,” he says, looking away then turning back. “But I would like to know the real reason you brought those women.”

  “My turn,” Noreen yells when Kurt Jr. tosses a fish in the air.

  “Cornelia’s a wonderful girl, don’t you think?” I say.