Speak to Me of Home

Chapter Twenty-Two

St. Louis, Missouri

1982

The questions Ruth had about the end of her parents’ marriage were entirely pragmatic. Where would they live now? How often would they see Dad? Would Mama still have to cook for them? What about the country club?

Her parents presented her with a unified set of answers. They would remain in St. Louis because the mediator suggested Mama could have primary custody as long as she agreed to stay. Ruth and Benny could help her pick out her new house. They would see Dad every other weekend, plus Tuesday evenings when Mama went to her personal finance class at the community college. Yes, Mama would still have to cook, because not every domestic problem could be resolved by the dissolution of an unhappy marriage. But certainly they could eat out more often, and when they went to Red Lobster, Ruth could order the crab legs. As for the Short Hills Babylon Country Club, Mama would never set foot in that godforsaken place again. But Ruth could still go on her weekends with Dad if she wanted to.

She wanted to.

Benny’s questions weren’t as straightforward, but nonetheless, Ruth observed that her parents answered them together, as a unit, which was more than they’d ever done when they were trying to stay married. They sat side by side on the couch, not touching each other, but listening carefully to Benny’s questions. Then Dad grabbed Mama’s hand, and they sat like that while Benny talked, Mama’s fingers tucked into the ball of Dad’s fist, which made Ruth wonder if they really had to go through with this.

“Why do we still have to live here if we’re not even living together anymore, why can’t we go back to Puerto Rico?” Benny asked.

“This is how it works, honey,” Mama said. “Until you and Ruthie turn eighteen, and as long as Dad and I are sharing custody, we have to agree to live in the same place.”

Benny picked at a loose thread on the arm of the couch. “Are you guys going to marry other people now?”

“No,” they said in harmony.

Benny wanted to know if they were happier now, or if breaking up the family would make them happier in the future. He didn’t ask this in a mean or accusatory way; he earnestly wanted to know because, if being apart would make his parents happier, that knowledge might help Benny find a way to be happy about it too. He also wanted to know if the divorce was partly his fault for being so miserable all the time.

“Of course it’s not,” they told him.

Ruth had her doubts. But in any case, Benny aside, everyone found the divorce suprisingly easy. Three out of four Brennans were happier when it was finished, and both of Ruth’s parents suspected that, although Benny was deeply unhappy, he was not, in fact, any unhappier than he’d been before.

Dad stayed in the old house, which felt slightly depressing to Ruth. When she and Benny went back for their weekends, she noted the places in the carpet where furniture had been removed, and Dad hadn’t bought anything to replace it yet, shapes that were bluer or browner than the neighboring carpet-fields where sunshine had bleached the fibers. Sometimes she stretched out on her stomach, leaned her weight on her elbows, and tried to encourage the holes left behind by the feet of Mama’s love seat to fill themselves back in. She picked and pulled at the strands, trying to stand them back up to their original heights. She worried that those carpet-craters might make Dad feel lonely or sad, but he didn’t even seem to notice them.

If Ruth had been old enough to wonder about finances, her parents would’ve told her it was none of her business anyway. But the truth was, the divorce was only scandalous because they were Catholic and it was the Midwest and it was 1982. In reality, it was a good divorce because of money. Dad suddenly had more of it because he no longer had to share it with Mama. And Mama suddenly had more of it because she was rich. (Even though Mama told Ruth not to say rich for the same reason she wasn’t supposed to say fat regardless of a person’s actual girth. Mama felt that both of these words were gauche, so Ruth didn’t use them even when they were super obvious.) The fact was, Mama didn’t have to work, and she’d still have enough money to maintain a comfortable lifestyle without having to rely on Dad. Her parents had agreed to a clean break in this regard: Rafaela would not seek alimony or child support, and Peter would not make any claim on Rafaela’s trust. They were both to be immediately liberated and fully financially independent. So even though Ruth and Benny didn’t know any of this precisely, they were spared the resentment that usually fills the voids created by division.

The third weekend they were supposed to go to Dad’s house, Ruth called her father as soon as she got home from school. Mama had gone to the grocery store and left Benny in charge, which meant that Benny was in his room with his boom box turned up, and Ruth was alone in the kitchen with a half-eaten banana and a great idea. Her father’s secretary answered and put her right through.

“Hey there, pumpkin!”

“Dad! I have the best idea!”

“What’s up?”

“It can be pizza night!”

“Hmm.”

“Friday night is always pizza night at Kathy’s house.” Ruth remembered too late how much Dad disliked Kathy, and therefore how unlikely this information was to appeal to him.

“Your mother isn’t expecting me until seven o’clock,” he said. “I’m sure she’s already made plans for your dinner.” She could hear him shuffling papers around on his desk.

“Yeah, Dad, it’s an emergency, though,” Ruth said, swinging the yellow phone cord like a hammock. “She’s making that pineapple stir-fry thing,” she whispered, checking the driveway to make sure there was still no sign of Mama’s car.

“Oh God,” Dad said. Ruth could hear the look on his face. “Is she there?”

“No. She’s at the grocery store. Buying the canned pineapples.”

Dad laughed. “Then why are you whispering?”

“I don’t know!” Ruth groaned. The pineapple stir-fry demanded a certain gravity. “Please, Dad, be a hero. Make it pizza night.”

Ruth could tell by the sound of the breath he expelled that she’d nearly won. She pushed him gently.

“Don’t leave me alone with the pineapple,” she whispered.

“Okay, okay,” he said. “I can’t get out of here until five, and then rush-hour traffic, it’ll be five thirty at least before I get there.”

Ruth bounced on her toes, and the weight of the phone cord danced beneath her, slapping the linoleum tile. “Yay! Thank you, Daddy!”

“Don’t thank me yet,” he said. “I’ll have to talk to your mother when she gets home. Before she starts making that stir-fry.”

“Yes!”

“So just tell her to call me as soon as she gets in.”

“I will, I will! Thank you, Dad.”

And so, every other Friday evening became pizza night at Dad’s house, and once that was established, it was easy enough for Ruth to implement pizza night at Mama’s house too. The tactic was different. She told Mama she deserved a night off from the kitchen, that it would be good quality time, they could all eat together on the couch and watch Fantasy Island . Ruth expected Mama to make noises about nutrition and decorum, but Mama was all too eager to kick off her shoes under the coffee table and eat with her hands. Sometimes she didn’t even make them use plates. Ruth was impressed.

In fact, her divorced mother was full of surprises. For example, Mama bought leotards, leg warmers, and a VCR, and began pushing her brand-new coffee table to one side so she could do Jazzercise videos in the living room. Once she had mastered the moves, she signed up for in-person Jazzercise classes at the local Y, too, and she seemed so ebullient when she returned home with the soft glow of perspiration lighting her skin that Ruth wondered why she hadn’t joined the Y years ago. After Mama wrapped up her personal finance class on Tuesday nights, she enrolled in a GED class, which was the biggest surprise so far, because Mama explained to them that GED stood for General Education Diploma , which she wanted to get because she had never finished high school. This little nugget was particularly astonishing because, though no one in their family ever voiced the information aloud, it was widely understood among the four of them that Mama was approximately one million times more educated than Dad, and they all knew Dad had a college degree in radio engineering from a university in Kansas City. Mama was not the least bit ashamed of it, though, and actually seemed surprised they hadn’t known.

“How?” was Benny’s one-word question.

“I had a stellar education at Las Madres in Puerto Rico, and I was a straight-A student,” she said. “I simply never had the opportunity to finish.”

Well! Mama decided that Benny and Ruth were old enough to look after themselves the two afternoons a week she’d be at class until suppertime. As a reward for proving their self-sufficiency and independence, Mama would buy them an Atari Video Computer System for Christmas. It was a good deal for all parties involved.

Mama didn’t want a celebration when she passed the test and got her diploma. “All I want is to never be bored again,” she announced. So she started a garden. Obviously, no vegetables—only flowers. But even then, she didn’t really enjoy the dirt, so she started looking into more classes, but only one at a time, and never in pursuit of a degree. She took whatever interested her: First Aid and Interior Decorating and Personal Computing and then a Ceramics class. She didn’t like the latter one at all, but she finished it anyway, completing all her projects on time (if not enthusiastically), mostly in order to show Benny and Ruth that she followed through on her commitments, a fact she was eager to illustrate after voiding her previous commitment to their father.

So in December, when Dad asked their surprising new mother if the kids could come to his house for Christmas morning, Mama’s response was placid. As long as she had them for Nochebuena and Three Kings Day, she said, the twenty-fifth of December was no big deal. In exchange for that arrangement, Dad agreed that Mama could take them to Puerto Rico for six weeks during their summer vacation. He could have them for the other two weeks, and would book them a cabin at the Lake of the Ozarks for the last week of summer. Ruth could not believe her luck. It was like a thousand pizza nights had come at once. Even Benny was happy with the plan.

Titi Lola arrived from San Juan on December 20, and was so cold she threatened to immediately return to the airport. But Mama just piled on the sweaters and thanked her for coming.

“I could never leave you alone on Christmas,” Lola said.

Anyone looking at Lola and Mama would’ve known they were sisters, but although the resemblance was distinct, they had learned from youth, as sisters always do, that one was slightly prettier than the other. And so, as Mama took care to emphasize and preserve her beauty, Lola set her mind to cultivating other qualities. Unlike Mama, Lola had become slightly thicker around the middle with age, and she seldom wore makeup except for her trademark red lipstick. But her hair still gleamed in black curls that were wilder and more abundant than Mama’s, and she wore rings on every finger, bangles that clacked up and down both arms whenever she threw herself open for a hug, which she did with some frequency. Lola was spontaneous, droll, and a great cook, but perhaps her best quality, as far as Ruth was concerned, was the effortless way she could transform Mama into a firecracker of joy.

Lola had been planning their holiday menu for weeks, meticulously strategizing ingredients and substitutions, sending Mama repeatedly to different grocery stores to purchase what she needed ahead of time, or to report back to her in San Juan when she couldn’t find the requested goods. What they didn’t have in St. Louis, Lola brought with her from Puerto Rico. She brought one blue hardback suitcase with her shoes, clothing, and cosmetics. And a second smaller suitcase full of food.

The night she arrived, Benny hauled the luggage up the narrow staircase to the fourth bedroom, which Mama had insisted they needed, and which they’d christened the Lola Lounge.

“Oh, that small one could’ve gone straight to the kitchen,” Lola said when she saw Benny arrive in the doorway with the bags.

“Now you tell me,” Benny said, heaving the carry-on up onto the bed.

Ruth was stretched out there, too, and she felt the mattress bounce lightly beneath the weight of that case.

“What do you have in here, gold bricks?” Benny asked.

“Better.” Lola flicked the two locks and opened the little suitcase like a radiant clamshell. Inside was a traveling harvest of plantains, yuca, gandules, taro, a plastic bag with several banana leaves kept moist between some dampened paper towels, and an assortment of herbs and peppers in smaller baggies. Ruth didn’t recognize any of them, not because she’d forgotten them in the four years since they’d moved away, but because of her mother’s binational propensity for canned goods. Lola reached in and grabbed a yuca, waxy and rough, which she tossed to Ruth, who caught it in both hands.

“El lechón refused to get into the suitcase,” Lola said.

Benny laughed, but Ruth cringed. She’d always felt conflicted about eating those delicious baby pigs at Christmastime, so even though she knew Titi Lola was joking, she liked the idea that, right now, tottering through the streets of El Viejo San Juan, there was one little piglet who’d escaped his fate.

“Anyway, we won’t miss him!” Lola said. “We’ll have enough pasteles and florecitas to feed an army of parranderos.”

“They don’t have parrandas here, Titi,” Benny said. “They have carolers instead. But it’s not the same. You don’t feed them. And they’re…” Benny tried to find the words to describe the staid, red-cheeked Christmas carolers with their sheet music and mittens. “Different,” he said.

“Well,” Lola said, tossing Ruth a second yuca. “More for us then!”

Ruth examined the lumpy, hairy shapes and felt dubious. But within a few hours she was wearing an apron and standing beside her tía in the kitchen, surrounded by heavenly smells. There was oil in a pan on the stovetop, sizzling garlic, onions, peppers, tomatoes. Ruth was chopping the cilantro just like Lola showed her, carefully keeping her fingers tucked in and moving the knife blade straight up and down.

“Perfect!” Lola said, inspecting her handiwork. “Toss it in!”

“Right on top?”

“Right on top.”

Ruth lifted the cutting board over the pan and slid the cilantro in while Lola stirred everything together. The aroma immediately changed, deepened, spiked into a pang that curled into the back of Ruth’s throat and made her mouth water. It was an aroma Ruth didn’t know she’d missed until she smelled it again, there in Mama’s new kitchen. It filled the air, steamed the winter windows. Mama sat at the little table nearby with her coffee and magazine. She and Lola talked in Spanish while Lola cooked.

A long-buried memory made itself present in the bright little kitchen then: the peal of Mama’s laughter, deep from the belly. It was a sound that had become shallow and discolored in recent years, and here it was again, and Ruth remembered it. Her mother’s happiness. Ruth wiped her hands on her apron and ran over to the table where she looped her arm around Mama’s neck and kissed her cheek. Mama pulled her onto her lap and hugged her. Benny laughed while Lola spun him under one arm and dipped him over her spatula.

“I refuse to dance another step until I get fed!” Benny said, pushing his face over the steaming pan. “Smells so good!” He switched to Spanish, and Ruth could understand enough to know that Lola was telling him how they made the sofrito, but after that she was lost because they were talking so fast. So she just laughed when they laughed, and decided not to be unhappy about it.

Ruth was still happy on Christmas morning, waiting for Dad to pull the Datsun into the driveway. She sat on her knees, draping herself over the back of the couch while she watched for him out the window. She’d been hoping for snow, a white Christmas, but so far the sky was holding out, a cold, heavy lid of white clamped above them that refused to give way to snowflakes. She figured Lola would love to see the snow, and it might even convince her to love St. Louis so maybe she’d stay. It would be amazing if Lola lived here, too, and if Mama could be this happy all the time (and they could eat like this all the time).

That morning, Mama added cinnamon and a drop of vanilla extract to her coffee to make it festive, and she let Ruth have hot cocoa instead of orange juice. Mama hummed while she helped Ruth pack her weekender duffel bag. Mama was still in her bathrobe and slippers, her curly hair gathered up on top of her head.

Benny was sulking because he didn’t want to go to Dad’s, but Ruth didn’t pay her brother any mind. This was the fundamental difference between them, she’d learned. Benny made himself miserable by always wanting specific things he couldn’t have. Ruth, on the other hand, was adaptable. She knew without having to learn that if you didn’t waste your energy wanting too hard in any one particular direction, you could find yourself quite happy in a myriad of unexpected circumstances.

“He’s here!” Ruth leaped up from the couch before Dad even pulled into the driveway. “Love you, Mama! Have fun with Titi Lola today!” She kissed her mother on the cheek and skidded out the door, hauling her bag behind her. Usually Dad would beep twice and wave at their mother in the doorway before backing out. But here was the first indication that today would be different. Dad turned off the engine and opened the driver’s side door of the Datsun. He stood now in the wedge, one elbow up on the roof, the other on top of his door.

“What’s this?” he said to Ruth. “Why aren’t you dressed?”

Ruth stopped and looked down at herself. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, why aren’t you dressed? You can’t go in your pj’s.”

“Why not?”

“Rafaela, why aren’t they dressed?” Her father spoke right past her to where her mother was leaning against the doorjamb behind her, coffee cup in one hand.

“It’s Christmas morning,” Mama said. “They wanted to go in their pj’s, I didn’t see the harm.”

“Right.” Dad stood out and slammed the car door. “Back inside.”

Ruth dropped her duffel bag at her feet.

“But—”

“No buts, let’s go, we’re going to be late,” Dad said.

“Late for what?”

He didn’t answer. He was next to her now on the walkway, and he leaned down to grab her bag. Benny hadn’t even made it to the door yet.

“You gotta put on something nice,” Dad said. “Maybe that red corduroy jumper and the white turtleneck with the rose on the collar.”

She did like that festive outfit, but it didn’t match her vision for the day. How could she sprawl cozily on the carpet and tear into her presents, and stuff herself with Christmas cookies and hot apple cider, and play with her new toys, and watch cartoons and movies all day long in the restrictive discomfort of tights?

“But I have to wear tights with that jumper,” she said.

“So then put on some tights,” he said. He looked at Mama. “Her white tights are clean?”

“I think so.” Mama stepped away from the doorway, and Dad followed her back inside.

The next fifteen minutes were a minefield of tense voices and exploding moods. Dad muttered about Mama sabotaging their holiday, and Mama muttered about Dad expecting her to be a mind reader. Benny shouted that he wasn’t wearing that, and those shoes didn’t even fit him anymore, and what kind of a masochist wears a tie on Christmas morning anyway, while Mama yanked Ruth’s hair into merciless braids, and Ruth wondered when Benny had gotten so good at English.

“What’s a masochist, Mama?” she asked.

“Hush, you’ll wake Lola.”

But Ruth wasn’t the one hollering. She stuffed her still-warm jammies into the side pocket of her duffel bag and wondered how long it would be before she was able to put them back on. Benny was already in the passenger seat when Dad tossed her bag in the back.

“Why’d we have to get all dressed up?” Benny asked from the front seat. He had won the tie battle, but was wearing a pullover sweater and a scowl.

Dad pulled up to a stop sign and turned on his blinker. “We’re going to mass with my family.”

“But we went to mass with Mama last night!” Ruth whined. She wasn’t typically a whiner, but an injustice on this scale warranted an elevated vocal pitch.

“Well, I don’t know anything about that,” Dad said. “Your mother doesn’t tell me these things, so how am I supposed to know?”

“I’m telling you now!” Ruth said.

“It was a long-ass mass too,” Benny said.

Dad jammed on the brakes. “Boy, did you just say ass in this car?”

“No! No, I said mass ,” Benny insisted.

Ruth giggled. Dad glared at her in the rearview mirror.

“We haven’t been to Christmas mass with my family since before your mother and I were married. Not even after we moved back here. I tried every year, and now it’s high time,” Dad said. “Your mother’s not the only one with a family, with traditions. You kids are going to learn some of my customs too. And I want you both on your best behavior. You hear me?”

“Okay, Dad,” Ruth said. Benny didn’t answer.

“None of this ass business,” Dad said.

Ruth giggled again, and Benny tugged at the collar of his sweater. She could see the reflection of her brother’s face in the side-view mirror. She crossed her eyes and tried to make him laugh, but it was useless.

The parking lot was jammed, every pew, jammed. Ruth spotted Grandpa Pete about halfway up on the left. She could see the bald circle at the back of his head, ringed by white hair.

“There’s Grandpa,” she whispered, pointing.

An usher looked sharply at her and put a finger to his lips.

“Sheesh,” she said.

Dad pulled her by one ear over to a back corner, and she went up on tiptoe to alleviate the tugging pain, but she knew better than to make another sound. Benny slumped after them. They found a place to stand among all the other latecomers lined up along the walls at the back of the church. Benny folded his arms and leaned one heel up on the wall. Dad leaned across the top of her head and whispered directly into Benny’s ear, but she could hear him clearly because he was four inches away.

“Are you chewing gum?” Dad was incredulous.

Benny shrugged.

“Out,” Dad said. “Now.”

Benny made an exaggerated gulping sound. “It’s gone.”

Ruth looked up to see a red hot flush crawling up Dad’s neck, but she couldn’t tell if it was embarrassment or fury or both. “No communion for you,” Dad said.

Benny made a face like big whoop . He’d had communion less than twelve hours ago.

At least the music was good. Ruth sang all the Christmas songs at the top of her lungs while Benny rolled his eyes at her, and when it was time for communion, she stuck her tongue out at him before she went to take the host.

And even with all that, it still wasn’t that bad. It was hardly hot apple cider and cartoons in your pajamas, but Ruth was happy to be with her dad and Benny. She was happy to sing the Christmas hymns, and she was already thinking about getting back to Dad’s house after mass and stripping out of these tights, straight back into her jammies. Grandpa Pete winked at her from his pew when she went past for communion.

After mass, it was harder for Ruth to maintain her sanguine outlook, the main impediment to her optimism being the discovery that they were not going back to Dad’s house to dive into their presents. Instead, they were going to Uncle Jim and Aunt Linda’s house for Christmas dinner.

“Why is it called Christmas dinner if we’re eating it at noon?” Benny grumbled.

Dad didn’t even bother answering him. The worst thing about Uncle Jim and Aunt Linda’s house was that they didn’t have any kids, so there was no kid stuff there. And they were super protective of their non-kid stuff, always acting like kids were wrecking balls, even when they sat still and behaved like perfectly normal little humans. When Dad and Mama were married, they hardly ever went to their house, even though they only lived on the other side of the county. Uncle Jim came over a few times a year and had a beer in the backyard with Dad, but that was it. Uncle Jim and Dad had only one other brother, Paul, and he lived in Oregon with his wife and three nice kids. Ruth and Benny only met them once, and afterward, they talked for weeks about how they wished Uncle Paul was the one who lived in St. Louis, and Uncle Jim and Aunt Linda could go live in Oregon.

The house was full of people when they got there. Grandpa Pete was there with his wife, Pearl, who wasn’t Dad’s mom, but who had married Grandpa Pete after Dad’s mom died. Pearl was nice, but smelled like medicine. And then Aunt Linda had about a thousand brothers and sisters, and every one of them had about a thousand kids, so there was hardly even anywhere to sit down. Ruth sat on Grandpa’s lap for the first few minutes, eating liberally from his plate of snacks until it was empty. The men at the table talked across the top of her head and mostly about football, which Ruth found incredibly boring. Most of the kids had gone down to the basement where Uncle Jim had a pool table, so after the snacks, Ruth and Benny went down and tried to join in. The other kids were all cousins. They knew each other.

Benny hung back by the wall and examined the pool cues, waiting his turn, but Ruth stood beside the two other girls who were leaning on the edge of the pool table to watch.

“I’m Ruth.” She leaned her chin in one hand. “What are your names?”

“I’m Lucy,” the closer girl said. “That’s Kelly.”

Kelly did not look over, but in a faraway voice, she said, “Lucy, I’m hooome!” and everyone except for Ruth and Benny laughed.

It must have been an inside joke because Ruth didn’t get it, but when Benny grabbed her by the elbow and led her toward the steps without explanation, she did not resist. There was some ugly feeling in that room. The oldest boy waited until they were halfway up the stairs before calling out, “?Adiós, amigos!”

So Benny and Ruth ended up sitting quietly in the living room together, where there was an oval rug, some fancy chairs with wooden arms, and several glass cabinets filled with figurines. They made up a game that involved one of them copying the pose of one of the figurines, and then the other one had to guess which figurine they were copying. It was the perfect game because they were quiet and they didn’t have to touch anything. Ruth was standing silently on one foot, with one arm drawn elegantly in front of her and the other tossed lightly over her head in imitation of a dancing lady, when Aunt Linda burst in and demanded to know what they were doing in this room.

“We’re just playing,” Ruth said.

“Come out of here,” Linda snapped.

“We’re just hanging out,” Benny said. “We’re not even touching anything.”

“You’d better not be touching anything, young man,” she said.

Aunt Linda was sweaty and frazzled-looking, and despite the fact that she was unfriendly and neurotic, Ruth felt bad for her that she had to run around cooking for and serving so many people on Christmas day when all anyone wanted was just to be sitting down in their favorite chair with good socks and something warm in a mug.

“You need any help cooking or setting the table?” Ruth asked. Now that she’d been helping Titi Lola all week, Ruth had some confidence in the kitchen. Plus, there was nothing else to do.

“Aw, aren’t you a sweet little homemaker,” Aunt Linda said. “Didn’t get that from your mama, did you?” She tried to make her voice conspiratorial, but Ruth didn’t know how to respond. Aunt Linda saved her the trouble. “Just run along downstairs with the other kids and stay out of trouble until the food’s ready. I’ve got dinner covered.”

Aunt Linda sealed up the living room behind them and swept back to the kitchen. Ruth and Benny followed her as far as the basement door. Neither of them wanted to go back down there. Ruth grabbed her brother’s hand, and he didn’t exactly grab back, but to her relief, he let her hang on there at the end of his arm. After a moment, he even pulled her in a little closer. Then Benny opened the basement door and the two of them stepped inside, but that’s as far as they went. They sat down side by side on the top step without a word, and closed the door behind them so they could lean against it. It was dark here now, and they could hear the conversations going on both above and below. Ruth put her head on Benny’s shoulder and allowed herself to cry. Just for a minute.

“This sucks,” he said.

“I miss Mama,” she whispered.

Benny was quiet for a long moment, but finally answered, “Me too.”

“I miss Lola,” she said.

“Me too.”

Ruth sniffed. “It doesn’t seem right that she has the same name as Lynda Carter.”

“Yeah.” Benny didn’t love Wonder Woman as much as Ruth did, but he was highly attuned to injustice. “That is some real bullshit.”

When dinner was served, there weren’t enough seats. There were folding tables set up in various places so all the grown-ups had somewhere to sit, but the kids piled their paper plates with food and brought them back to the basement. Ruth and Benny waited until the staircase was clear and then took their dinner back to the top step. The food was good, but they weren’t hungry. Benny ate his anyway because he could always eat, no matter what was going on. He ate Ruth’s, too, when his plate was empty.

When they left the kitchen, Dad had been sitting with Uncle Jim and Grandpa at the table. There was some other guy, too, who they didn’t know, probably one of Aunt Linda’s brothers. Ruth and Benny could hear the men now, chatting across their dinner plates.

“Must be nice to have a proper Christmas dinner again!” Grandpa said.

“Linda’s a great cook,” Dad said.

“Long time since you had a meal like that, huh, Pete?” Uncle Jim said to Dad.

Ruth pressed her ear against the plywood door so she could hear better, because Dad was speaking quietly and Benny was chewing with his mouth open.

“Ah, Rafaela does her best.” That’s what it sounded like he said, something like that. “Maybe cooking’s not her strong suit.”

“I’m not sure anything’s her strong suit,” Grandpa said.

“Ah, that’s not fair, Pop.” This was Uncle Jim. “She’s great at being uppity.”

The men laughed.

“We tried to warn you, Peter,” Grandpa said. “It’s one thing to have a little fun when you’re young, but you don’t marry a girl like that.”

“A girl like what, exactly?” Dad said.

“Ah, you know what I mean,” Grandpa said. “What, you want me to say it?”

And now Dad was talking again, but he was sitting in a chair with its back to the basement door, and he’d dropped his voice so Ruth couldn’t hear him at all.

“All right, all right, let’s everybody relax before we say something stupid,” Uncle Jim raised his voice.

“Bit late for that,” Dad said, his voice rising too, and Ruth imagined him taking a swig of beer.

Her cheek felt warm against the wooden door, and even though she hadn’t eaten much at all, she felt queasy. There was the jarring sound of a chair scraping across the linoleum floor, and Dad’s voice was unmistakable now.

“You’ve made your point,” he said. “Your collective point, as it turns out. I suppose you’ve been saying this to each other for years, what, behind our backs? Having a laugh every time we leave the room?”

“Don’t be so sensitive, Pete,” Uncle Jim said. “We’re only trying to say we’ve been on your side this whole time.”

“There’re no sides,” Dad said. “It’s not a war. She’s the mother of my children, of your grandchildren, Dad. And you didn’t have to fawn over her, but you never even gave her a chance, never made her feel comfortable. You were ignorant from the first day you met her.”

Silence. Even the background noise in the kitchen was suspended.

“You were always rude to her, all of you,” Dad went on. “You too, Linda.”

There was another loud clatter, a pot slammed onto a stovetop or a handful of cutlery tossed into the sink. No one else spoke. Uncle Jim could be heard clearing his throat. Ruth and Benny stared at each other in the half-light, and then the basement door was yanked away from Ruth’s cheek, and her weight fell in, and Dad was standing above them there in the doorway in the sudden light.

“What are you doing, sitting there?” he asked.

Ruth only looked at him. Benny stood up and folded their paper plates in half, the plastic forks inside. He shook his head at their father, who seemed to understand everything at once. He pulled them both into a strong hug, kissed the tops of their heads.

“Let’s get outta here.”

In the back seat of the Datsun, Ruth wriggled out of the tights and tugged her flannel pants back up in their place while they waited for Dad to follow them out to the car. When he appeared on the front step, he was carrying a tinfoil shape with both hands and walking strangely, like a speed walk, and when he arrived at the car, he went to Benny’s door instead of his own, and gestured with his chin in a clear indication that he wanted Benny to open it, but Benny pretended like he didn’t understand. So Ruth said, “Open the door!” at the same time they heard Dad say it through the closed window, so Benny had no choice but to lean forward and open it, at which time Dad deposited the tinfoil onto Benny’s lap.

“What’s this?” Benny said, but Dad had already closed the door and, with a quick glance back at the house, was now racing around to the driver’s side door. He was snickering when he climbed in.

“Dad, have you been drinking?” Ruth asked, because that’s what her mother always asked when Dad seemed unnaturally giddy and was about to drive.

“Nah,” he said. “I only had one beer.”

“What’s so funny then?” Benny said.

Dad turned the key in the ignition and used his chin to point at the shiny surprise in Benny’s lap.

“I stole Aunt Linda’s pie,” he said.

“You what?”

Dad answered with a grin and put the car in reverse, checking his mirrors as they backed out of the long driveway.

“I figured it was the least they could do, after ruining Christmas.”

Ruth laughed.

“What kind of pie?” Benny wanted to know.

“Caramel apple,” Dad reported. “It’s her famous pie.”

“Yesssss,” Benny said.

“She had two of them,” Dad said, as if they needed to be convinced. “Plus, there were like four other desserts there that other people brought. They’ll never miss it.”

But secretly, Ruth liked the idea that they might, that in fact Aunt Linda might stand stock-still in the kitchen, a posture of indignant confusion, arms crossed, searching her brain for where she might have put the errant pie.

“I know I made a second one!” this fantasy Linda said, in Ruth’s brain.

At home, Dad and Benny put their pajamas on too. Dad turned on the television and the lights on the Christmas tree, and then he pulled the foil off the top of the pie. It was still warm, and he set it in the middle of the coffee table alongside three forks.

“Ice cream?” he asked.

“Of course!” Benny said.

Dad brought the vanilla in from the freezer, dumped the whole quart in the middle of the pie, and they didn’t bother with plates. They destroyed the pie, eating until all evidence of their crime had been consumed. Ruth licked her fork and a smudge of caramel carnage from one knuckle.