All or Nothing

by Deborah Cooke

  “Name one.”

  “Love. Respect. Tolerance. There’s three.” Natalie pushed past him and put the Styrofoam bowl into the microwave, then punched in the time and hit start. “I am blessed to have my mother in my home this holiday season. We don’t agree on everything, but a bo-bo ball here and there isn’t going to condemn the planet to oblivion.”

  “How can you talk like this?” Gerry demanded. “You know about pineapple plantations. You know about the ill effects of food additives like color and preservatives. This stuff probably wouldn’t decompose in a hundred years.”

  “Then if I eat enough of it, they won’t have to embalm me,” Gran said cheerfully. “That’ll save chemicals.”

  The microwave beeped and the chicken balls sizzled in the pan.

  “Peace, love, and understanding to you this holiday season,” Natalie said sweetly as she reached around Gerry and took the sauce out of the microwave.

  “I can’t believe it!” Gerry said. “First you let Jen eat turkey…”

  “She needs animal protein,” Natalie said mildly. “The doctor said she was anemic and it was the only solution. And Mom bought an organically raised bird.”

  “Shockingly expensive,” Gran said with a shake of her head. “But it was good, wasn’t it, dear?”

  “It was delicious, Gran,” Jen agreed. “The best turkey dinner ever.”

  Gran beamed and gave Jen a hug. “Worth every dime to see your blood built back up again,” she said huskily. “I’m glad you’ll have Zach to take care of you in future.”

  “What’s the matter with all of you?” Gerry asked, coming to the table. “Can’t you see that eating this kind of garbage is what made Jen sick in the first place? Can’t you see that you’re poisoning yourselves? Cancer…”

  Natalie slammed the pot on the stove and silence claimed the kitchen completely. Jen looked down. Gran laid a hand over Jen’s. M.B. came to stand behind her, putting his hands on her shoulders. Cin put down her glass and looked daggers at Gerry.

  “Hey,” Pluto protested. “You’re out of line, man.”

  “We don’t say the C word here,” M.B. said softly.

  “Denial doesn’t change anything,” Gerry said and Jen caught her breath. “We’re poisoning the planet and poisoning ourselves and every single goddamn bo-bo ball just makes it worse. We are what we eat and by careless consumption, we sicken ourselves and weaken our own population with disease.”

  Natalie poured the chicken balls into a bowl and brought them to the table, putting the bowl down with a thump. She put her hands on her hips and glared up at Gerry. “Are you suggesting that my daughter deserved to be sick?”

  “I’m saying it’s inescapable, if we don’t respect…”

  “Respect seems to be a problem here tonight,” Natalie said, interrupting him so sharply that Gerry fell silent. “As does common courtesy.”

  “But…” he protested.

  “But nothing,” Natalie said fiercely. “My daughter never did anything to deserve her illness: no one could be sufficiently evil to have to endure what Jen went through. I have fed my children with the best food I could find and I have nurtured them with all the love in my heart and I have kept them safe and I have taught them everything I know, and shit still can happen. And no one who believes otherwise has any right to be in my house.”

  “Are you asking me to leave?” Gerry asked, clearly confident that this could not be the case.

  “No,” Natalie said and waited a beat. “I’m telling you to.”

  He stared at her, shocked.

  “And don’t bother coming back,” she said, tossing him his coat and opening the door to the porch.

  Gerry sputtered. He turned to the closely packed group at the table as if seeking support. It was a long shot, no matter how you looked at it.

  Pluto stood up and started to clap. “Right on, Mom,” he said, his eyes a colder blue than they usually were.

  “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass,” Cin said, joining his applause.

  “Well said, Mom,” M.B. contributed.

  Gran held fast to Jen’s hand.

  Gerry looked at them all, shook his head, swore, then strode into the night. Natalie slammed the door behind him and turned the lock, leaning her back against it to regard her family. There were tears shimmering in her eyes, Jen saw.

  “Don’t you dare believe any of that,” she told Jen.

  Jen shook her head. “The oncologist told me it was a random mutation that couldn’t be traced to any single event or cause.”

  “And after a decade in medical school, he probably knew more about it than Gerry,” M.B. said flatly. He gave Jen’s shoulders a squeeze, then went to take his place. There was a bustle of food getting to the table and people seating themselves and Cin sharing her wine.

  Then Cin surprised Jen once again. She whistled for silence and lifted her glass high, smiling at Jen across the steaming food. “To our Jen and her first anniversary of testing ‘clear’. Let’s drink to many, many more.”

  They cheered and drank and then Jen lifted her own glass. “One more,” she said. “To all of you, for helping me get through it.”

  “To family,” Natalie said. “Because no matter how we argue, we’re here for each other when it counts.”

  “Which is a good thing,” Pluto said. “‘Cause you can pick your nose, man, but you can’t pick your relatives.”

  Cin threw a napkin at him as everyone groaned. They drank the toast, then Gran looked over the table.

  “Doesn’t this look nice?” she asked no one in particular, then insisted that Jen begin to ladle out her soup.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Jen’s knitted gifts were well received that night. Natalie exclaimed over the socks and put them on right away. M.B. pledged he’d wear the mittens home that night. Cin tried on the hat, then returned to her excessive wine consumption with the hat still on her head. Pluto declared the shoulder sling bag to be the perfect thing and immediately moved stuff from his canvas sling bag into the “much more funky” knitted one.

  Gran wrapped herself in her lacy shawl and beamed with pride. “I never imagined that when you learned to knit, you’d one day make something like this,” she said, her voice warm with affection. “Now, you go and get that envelope in the side of my purse.”

  Jen got the envelope, thinking her grandmother had brought a Christmas card for the household. To her surprise, it was addressed to her.

  Gran smiled. “Go on. Open it.”

  Jen was embarrassed, feeling that she had been singled out from her siblings. They didn’t seem to have any issues with it, though, and she wondered what they knew that she didn’t.

  “Go on,” M.B. urged, bumping his shoulder against hers. “Open it. Cin’s dying of curiosity.”

  Cin snorted, but she put her wine aside. “Do it, Jen.”

  “A little music to set the tone,” Pluto said, and strummed on his guitar. He chose White Christmas which made Jen think about doing a fake foxtrot down Lee Street in the snow with Zach.

  Would that happen again?

  Was once enough?

  Her throat tightened and she tore open the envelope without further ado.

  There was a bank statement inside the envelope. It was hard to read the tally of numbers in the candlelight, so Jen looked to her grandmother for an explanation.

  “Once upon a time, a baby girl was born,” Gran said, her fingers entwined in the ends of the shawl Jen had knit for her. “And the grandparents of that little girl were very excited, even though they were already grandparents three times over.”

  “She’s talking about you,” Pluto said to Jen.

  “Thanks for the clarification,” Jen said and they all laughed.

  Gran continued. “Now, because the grandfather of that little girl was the kind of man who worried a great deal about the future, and because the father of that little girl was not the kind of man who worried much about anything at all, the baby’s grandfather opened a
savings account for that baby. He put fifty dollars in that account and he left it there. And every time that little girl had a birthday or lost a tooth or got a good grade in class or won a blue ribbon at a track meet, he put a little bit more money into that account. Sometimes it was twenty-five dollars and sometimes it was only ten. He put fifty dollars in when she was baptized, and a little bit every Christmas. And he never took any money out.”

  Gran took a sip of her tea. “That little girl grew up and her grandparents came to love her more and more with every passing year. And the money in that account, through the miracle of compound interest and that grandfather’s contributions, grew as surely as the little girl did. When she was eighteen, he changed the name on the account to make it hers and only left himself with the ability to deposit.”

  Gran sighed and looked around the room at the rapt faces of her family. Jen looked too, and her heart clenched at the affection in their expressions. Her mother’s kitchen was a good place to be.

  She hoped with sudden ferocity that she would have her own kitchen one day, adjacent to her knitting store, and that people would feel as welcome there as they did here.

  “Because he was the kind of man who took care of things quietly—” Gran said. “—he never said anything, either to the little girl who had become a woman or to his own daughter. When he was ill at the end, he made me promise to tell you, Jen, about your money when the time was right.” Gran looked into her teacup and blinked back a tear. “But I never knew when that time was, because for a long time after he was gone, I couldn’t even think about finishing things he had started. I couldn’t really think of being without him, even though I was. Finding a time was the last thing on my mind.”

  Jen got up and went to sit beside her grandmother. The older woman held fast to Jen’s fingers, her own hand shaped by time and experience, her grip strong. “He would have been so proud of you. He was proud of you always, but if he could see you now, well…”

  “He can see her now, Mom,” Natalie said softly. “Can’t you feel that Dad’s here with us?”

  “Don’t you go talking your strange nonsense with me now,” Gran said with affection and the two women smiled at each other in the glow of the red paper lanterns.

  Gran squeezed Jen’s hand. “He told me, Patrick did, that I would know the right moment to tell you about this. I thought that a lot of nonsense, if you must know, the kind of nonsense your mother tends to talk…”

  “So, you see? I came by it honestly,” Natalie joked.

  Gran harrumphed. “Last week, Natalie told me about your going back to finish your degree in January and it occurred to me that you might need a little bit of money. I knew that this must be the very moment that Patrick had told me about.”

  Gran swallowed. “And when I told Natalie, she told me about the medical bills, and your student loan.” She looked up at Jen, her eyes bright. “I had no idea, my dear. I suppose I am a silly old woman, but I didn’t realize that it was so expensive to go to college. I never even finished high school myself. And I had no idea how much medical care costs when you have no insurance.” She tightened her grip on Jen’s fingers. “I’m very sorry that I didn’t give this to you sooner, dear. I feel as if I failed you.”

  “Of course, you didn’t,” Jen protested, bending to kiss her grandmother’s cheek.

  “I could have set your mind at ease sooner.”

  “You did. You were there with me. I couldn’t have gotten through it without you.”

  And it was true. The power of her family’s love had been the one constant in Jen’s battle with cancer, the one force that she had been able to rely upon. They had all been there. They had taken turns driving her to treatments, they had sat up with her when she was ill, they had held her hand and given her the strength to keep fighting on those days when it didn’t seem there was a lot of point. Without them, she knew that she might have given up the battle. She looked around the room and wished that she had knit more for them, had knit gifts for them sooner, had somehow shown the magnitude of her love for them with wool and needles and time.

  Gran held fast to her hand. “I know what it is, dear, to have nothing but love to offer a man who has a great deal more than that to his credit. I want you to be able to start fresh with Zach, to not have the past trailing along behind you. Go and look properly at that statement.”

  In the light over the stove, Jen looked at the balance on the statement and nearly choked. It was a lot of money, enough to pay all of her bills and change left to pay for her remaining tuition and books. She would be able to finish her degree and start fresh.

  She looked at her family with astonishment. “We should share it,” she began but they interrupted her as one.

  “You need the break, Jen,” M.B. said firmly.

  “It was always for you,” Gran insisted.

  “Your father left you nothing but his name,” Natalie said softly. “Cin’s father paid her tuition. M.B.’s father took him on vacations in the summers. Pluto’s father has always encouraged his music.”

  “And he still puts me up when I’m in New York,” Pluto added.

  “We need to take care of you ourselves,” Natalie said. “Although that wasn’t my expectation in the first place, that’s how it worked out.”

  Gran reached up and kissed Jen’s cheek. “On the other hand, it means you’re all ours.”

  Jen, all choked up with tears, couldn’t think of anything better than being part of her weird and wonderful family. She hugged them all and knew a relief that went beyond financial concerns.

  Her knitting shop dream seemed suddenly a lot less insane than it had just a week before.

  * * *

  Christmas Day was sunny and cold. Zach, to his surprise, felt a bit of anticipation mingled with the dread he’d been fighting since agreeing to go to Gray Gables.

  Maybe that was because he was going to see Jen again.

  Maybe that was the only good thing about the day ahead.

  He had good news himself—on the adult front—but that wasn’t why he wanted to see her so much. He picked Jen up, right on time, and she was waiting for him, almost as if she was anxious to see him too.

  She was wearing a vintage suit, black and camel, with a silk scarf at her neck and only the barest dash of lipstick. She looked both retro and modern, feminine and austere. Her smile of welcome made everything in him turn hot, then cold.

  “You look great,” he said as he took the white poinsettia from her. It was wrapped with a plaid ribbon, and was clearly a hostess gift. He thought it was a good choice for Leslie. “Very Coco Chanel.”

  Jen’s smile broadened, lighting her face. “When in doubt, go classic. You didn’t give me a dress code so I guessed.” She fussed a bit with the cellophane over the plant and the plaid red bow around the package. “Is this all right?”

  “Perfect. Leslie likes poinsettias.” Zach arched a brow. “Independent of them being the result of virtual slave labor and excessive pesticide use in the third world.”

  “And unnecessary air transport,” Jen reminded him with a smile. She sobered as she straightened his tie. “You look nice,” she said, and he knew that wasn’t really what she wanted to say. “I’m sorry that my family was so awful to you.”

  Zach shrugged. “They’re protective of you and there’s nothing wrong with that.” He winked at her. “Besides, I’m getting my own back today.”

  “From what you’ve said, your family sound like a pack of ogres.”

  “Maybe they’ll be on good behavior for the holiday,” he said and opened the door.

  “Then why don’t you look as if you believe that?”

  Roxie barked with enthusiasm, jamming her head through the gap between the front seat and the door frame so that she could greet Jen, and spared him from answering. “No slobbering,” Zach said, to no discernible effect on Roxie’s behavior.

  Jen laughed and patted the dog, admired the big red bow around her neck, then coaxed the dog back into the ba
ck seat with an ease Zach could only envy.

  Although her feat had something to do with the dog toy she produced from her purse for Roxie. Roxie settled onto the back seat to chew her Christmas present with gusto.

  “Cheap trick,” Zach said.

  “It worked, didn’t it?”

  Zach had to give her points for that.

  “You’d better give me the plant here,” Jen said. “I think it might be too cold for it in the trunk.”

  “Roxie really wants to be your dog,” Zach said after he passed Jen the plant. “Just snap your fingers and she’ll run home with you.”

  “I’d never tempt her to leave you alone,” Jen teased. She glanced over her shoulder. “Are your presents in the trunk?”

  “No. They decided on a lottery to keep things simple.” Zach produced a small wrapped box from his suit pocket. “I only have the one.”

  Jen seemed perplexed. “No food contribution?”

  Zach shrugged. “Unauthorized additions to the menu are frowned upon.” He regretted his words immediately, because Jen looked more uncertain about her attendance today. “They aren’t so bad,” he said as he pulled out from the curb. “At least, they have better PR recently.”

  “That’s not very reassuring.”

  “It’s the best I can do.”

  She turned and he felt her watching him. “You don’t really want to go, do you?”

  “I’d rather be drawn and quartered. Come to think of it, Leslie’s a medieval scholar. Maybe that’s the entertainment she has planned for the day and they’re all being nice just to sucker me in.”

  Jen chewed on her lip and studied him for a while, and he wondered how much of his reluctance over this trip she could see.

  “Just tell me: are we still engaged or not?” she finally asked. “And when is the wedding? Or is there to be one?”

  Zach nodded. “Good plan. Let’s get our story straight. The problem is that we never did that trip to Tiffany…”

  “And we aren’t going to,” Jen said firmly. Zach refused to think about what her attitude meant.

  Maybe it was just about the flight to New York.