Chapter 48
On lawns and in windows throughout the Boughery, Christmas lights were already on display, a hint of what was to come in days and weeks ahead. It was a gladdening sight as Theo made the final steps to Glissen House.
Asher was waiting on the porch to welcome everyone. With one exception, the guests all arrived precisely at seven. They exchanged brief greetings and pleasantries outside before being led by Asher through a wreath-laden front door into the warmth of the house.
Basil was dressed in a blazer and corduroy pants for the special occasion.
It appeared that a brush or a comb had done battle with his unruly hair and had made moderate progress in bringing order out of chaos.
When he introduced his girlfriend, Trina, to Theo, she stepped forward and kissed the old man on the cheek, taking a liberty that seemed instantly to exist between them because of their shared affection for Basil.
Theo grinned broadly, leaned into the kiss, and reciprocated. He held her hands in his own and said, “So, you are Katrina. Like the hurricane?”
Before she could reply, Basil cut in. “Actually, Theo, she’s stronger, tougher, and more dangerous than the hurricane! Don’t make her mad!”
Trina elbowed Basil playfully. She thanked Theo for the portrait and for being so good to her boyfriend. “He has told me all about you.”
She was wearing a green gingham dress, square neck and long sleeves, with a cream-colored shawl to ward off the chill. Her demeanor, despite the stormy name, hinted at shyness. Theo liked her instantly.
Simone, the youngest member of the party that evening, had spent most of the day learning a new piece of music for an upcoming Christmas performance.
Not a student or professor had entered the music building all day.
The absence of any other activity or sound was unsettling to Simone — things, frankly, were too quiet, even lonely — and he had found it difficult to get much done in the practice studio.
The longer the day dragged on, the more he had looked forward to the evening.
He arrived with a cake in hand and, like Basil, was attired in finery: a starched white uncollared shirt, every button buttoned; light gray blazer; dark gray slacks; and black leather shoes. Theo guessed the outfit was from Simone’s “performance wardrobe.”
Gratefulness radiated from the young face. He was pleased to be among friends.
And at the other end of the country, a mother gave thanks that her son had a place to go on that holiday, so far away from home.
Minnette and Derrick had arrived earlier in the day, to help Uncle Asher and Aunt Brooke make final preparations for the evening feast.
Minnette’s memories of Thanksgiving and Christmas were firmly anchored in Glissen House, where she had spent so much of her childhood with Gammy.
As a little girl and teenager, she routinely helped Gammy in the kitchen, where she was given tasks suitable for her age, and where she felt needed and valued.
Aunt Brooke and cousin Samantha were often there as well, especially on holidays.
Minnette had learned from watching them what the phrase “mother and daughter” could look like in real life.
(And, looking back on those days, she wondered if anything quite nourished friendship like the act of cooking together.)
In the week leading up to the dinner party, Aunt Brooke and Minnette had been hard at it in the kitchen, cutting, mixing, measuring, seasoning, and assembling a bedazzling collection of dishes. They frequently invoked Gammy’s memory. “Now, when did she add this to the dressing?”
And they talked the talk of women who were privy to each other’s secrets and free to speak in absolute confidence.
Their long, sprawling conversations, which occurred while their hands were busy with casserole prep, careened from family issues to health issues to friend news to frustrations and challenges.
Minnette’s ongoing friction with her father was a predictable part of such conversations.
Aunt Brooke had a barely sustainable tolerance of Pearce’s rude self-obsession, but she did a passable job of maintaining civility toward him.
She tried especially hard not to be too critical or belittling of him when speaking with Minnette.
He was Minnette’s father, after all. And Asher’s brother.
How, Brooke sometimes wondered, could two so very different people, her husband and his brother, come from the same home? She regretted beyond words that Minnette lived with such pressure to please her unpleasable father.
“How’s work?” Brooke asked.
Minnette replied with an introductory groan.
“Ugh. A grind. I can barely make myself go in lots of mornings. I was talking to a woman the other day who delivers newspapers to people’s houses, before sunrise no less, and she said she loves her job.
She’s been doing it for thirteen years and only missed one day.
And she says she loves it. I was so envious.
Here I am, a CPA, making really good money and having this bright future in this respectable profession, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to say that I love my job. ”
Brooke nodded as she repeated a question she had asked numerous times before. “And you still feel like you can’t leave it?”
Minnette exhaled her frustration and shook her head with an air of defeat.
“After all it took me to get here? I guess it would be crazy to throw all that work away. And, my gosh, Dad would not let me live it down. He still has to remind me every time we talk of how much he sacrificed to put me through school. The martyr of Golden.”
Brooke’s face, and the shake of her head, registered pity (for Minnette) and contempt (for Pearce). After a brief silence, she lowered her voice (needlessly, since the house was empty) to ask a question only she would know to ask. “You and Derrick still thinking about having children?’
Minnette answered as she always did. “We both want to, really badly. The time just doesn’t seem right.”
At that moment, even the scent of plenitude, the sweetness of the holiday, and the surrounding beauty could not lift the heaviness of the young woman’s thoughts.
She had friends who lived with the burden of childlessness because of infertility.
Her childlessness was voluntary, the result of a college diploma and a career path.
And fear.
And success.
And something to prove. To whom?
The questions surrounded her like rabid dogs. She stood quietly at the counter and chopped celery.
On Thanksgiving Day, while Brooke and Minnette worked on food in the kitchen, Asher fulfilled an annual obligation that put his skill as an artist on vivid display.
It was his job to set the long table in the dining room, a spacious area that was used on only the most significant of occasions.
For most of the year, often for months on end, it sat regal and unoccupied.
Some considered rooms like this one, fancy and rarely used, as a pretentious waste of space and a long outdated display of snobbery.
Others, of a more traditional bent, equated such rooms to a Holy of Holies, to be entered rarely, reverently, and expectantly.
(Growing up, Asher and Pearce knew that the dining room was off limits for play.
It was fiercely defended by their mother.)
At each place setting, Asher had laid silverware, bone china, and crystal glasses with exactitude of spacing and balance.
Those dishes and cutlery had been in the family for generations.
Lace-bordered placemats and cloth napkins, tied with ribbons, underscored the specialness of the evening.
At each setting, delicate vases two inches high held tiny blossoms and cuttings from the backyard.
An arrangement of flowers and fall foliage, bordered by two column candles, centered the table.
All other available space was reserved for platters and dishes of food.
Name cards, in Asher’s unique script, designated who would sit where. The choices had been well thought through by him and Brooke.
Soft lamplight created sectors of honey gold around the house. Gammy always preferred the diffuse lighting of scattered lamps and candles to the harsh brightness of overhead fixtures. Brooke and Minnette had both inherited that preference from her.
While final preparations were being made in the kitchen and the other guests mingled, Theo walked to an adjacent room, hoping some of Asher’s work might be on display.
In fact, a number of pieces were hung throughout the room, but most were by other artists: a pen and ink wash of a cityscape, a still life of zinnias, an earth-tone abstract in oil.
Theo’s attention was eventually drawn to a grouping of three small portraits, side by side, all in pencil. He was leaning toward them, hands clasped behind his back in his “studying posture,” when Asher entered the room.
“I had a feeling you’d be wandering around.”
Theo looked up. “I hope I am not being impolite.”
“Not at all. Not at all.” Asher looked at the portraits in front of Theo. “It probably seems a bit vain to have my own stuff on display, but usually I just bring ‘em home to get ‘em off the studio floor. Brooke selects which ones to hang on the walls.”
“She makes very good choices.” Theo nodded at the three portraits. “Asher, I know we only have a moment before the meal, but please tell me about these.”
“Sure. All three of those are of my mom. She had such an interesting face, so much subtlety and character, always different and always the same somehow. So, this is her at twenty-five. I did it from a photograph. This is her at fifty. And this is her at seventy-five.”
Theo noted: at twenty-five, spry; at fifty, settled; at seventy-five, tired. He nodded as he gazed at the triptych. “Once again, Asher, your work is remarkable. I don’t know if she grows more beautiful left to right or right to left.”