Holidays
. On the tall stalk of the amaryllis a single bud appeared--a living calendar to remind us that Thanksgiving and Christmas were drawing nigh. It was our only plant alive now, and it was, by far, our most cherished possession. We carried it down from the attic to spend warm nights with us in the bedroom. Up first every morning, Cory rushed to see the bud, wanting to know if it had survived the night. Then Carrie would shortly follow him, to stand close at his side and admire a hardy plant, valiant, victorious, where others had failed. They checked the wall calendar to see if a day was encircled with green, indicating the plant needed to be fertilized. They felt the dirt to see if it needed water. They never trusted their own judgment, but would come to me and ask, "Should we give Amaryllis water? Do you think she's thirsty?"
We never owned anything, inanimate or alive, that we didn't name, and Amaryllis was determined to live. Neither Cory nor Carrie would trust their frail strength to carry the heavy pot up to the attic windows, where the sunshine lingered but shortly. I was allowed to carry Amaryllis up, but Chris had to bring her down at night. And each night we took turns marking off a day with a big red X. We now had crossed off one hundred days.
The cold rains came, the fierce winds blew -- sometimes heavy fog shut out the morning sunlight The dry branches of the trees scraped the house at night and woke me up, making me suck in my breath, waiting, waiting, waiting for some horror to come in and eat me up.
On a day when it was pouring rain that might later turn into snow, Momma came breathless into our bedroom, bringing with her a box of pretty party decorations to put on our Thanksgiving Day table and make it festive. She had included a bright yellow tablecloth and orange linen napkins with fringe.
"We're having guests tomorrow for a midday dinner," she explained, dumping her box on the bed nearest the door, and already turning to leave. "And two turkeys are being roasted: one for us, one for the servants. But they won't be ready early enough for your grandmother to put in the picnic basket. Now don't worry, I'm not allowing my children to live through a Thanksgiving Day without the feast to fit the occasion. Somehow I'll find a way to slip up some hot food, a little bit of everything we have. I think I'll make a big to-do about wanting to serve my father myself, and while I'm preparing his tray, I can put food on another tray to bring up to you. Expect to see me about one tomorrow."
Like the wind through the door, she blew in, blew out, leaving us with happy anticipations of a huge, hot, Thanksgiving Day meal.
Carrie asked, "What's Thanksgiving?" Cory answered, "Same as saying grace before meals."
In a way he was right, I think. And since he'd said something voluntarily, darned if I was going to squelch him by any criticism.
While Chris cuddled the twins on his lap, sitting in one of the big lounge chairs, and told them of the first Thanksgiving Day so long ago, I bustled about like any hausfrau, very happy to set a festive holiday table. Our place cards were four small turkeys with tails that fanned out to make orange and yellow honeycombed paper plumage. We had two big pumpkin candles to burn, two Pilgrim men, two Pilgrim women, and two Indian candles, but darned if I could light such pretty candles and see them melt down into puddles. I put plain candles on the table to light, and saved the costly candles for other Thanksgiving Day meals when we were out of this place. On our little turkeys, I carefully lettered our names then fanned them open and placed one of them before each plate. Our dining table had a small shelf underneath, and that's where we kept our dishes and silverware. After each meal I washed them in the bathroom in a pink plastic basin. Chris dried, then stacked the dishes in a rubber rack under the table to await the next meal.
I laid out the silverware most carefully, forks to the left, the knives to the right, blades facing the plates, and next to the knives, the spoons. Our china was Lenox with a wide blue rim, and edged in twentyfour-karat gold--all that was written on the back. Momma had already told me this was old dinnerware that the servants wouldn't miss. Our crystal today was footed, and I couldn't help but stand back to admire my own artistry. The only thing missing was flowers. Momma should have remembered to bring flowers.
One o'clock came and went. Carrie complained loudly. "Let's eat our lunch now, Cathy!"
"Be patient. Momma is bringing us special hot food, turkey and all the fixings--and this will be dinner, not lunch." My housewifely chores done for a while, I curled up happily on the bed to read more of
Lorna Doone.
"Cathy, my stomach don't have patience," said
Cory now, bringing me back from the mid
seventeenth century. Chris was deep into some
Sherlock Holmes mystery that would be solved fast
on the last page. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the twins
could calm their stomachs, capacity about two ounces,
by reading as Chris and I did?
"Eat a couple of raisins, Cory."
"Don't have no more."
"The correct way to say that is: I don't have
anymore, or there aren't anymore."
"Don't have no more, honest."
"Eat a peanut."
"Peanuts are all gone--did I say that right?" "Yes," I sighed. "Eat a cracker."
"Carrie ate the last cracker."
"Carrie, why didn't you share those crackers with
your brother?"
"He didn't want none then."
Two o'clock. Now all of us were starving. We had
trained our stomachs to eat at twelve o'clock sharp.
Whatever was keeping Momma? Was she going to eat
first herself, and then bring us our food? She hadn't
told it that way.
A little after three o'clock, Momma rushed in,
bearing a huge silver tray laden with covered dishes.
She wore a dress of periwinkle-blue wool jersey, and
her hair was waved back from her face and caught
low at the nape of her neck with a silver barrette. Boy,
did she look pretty!
"I know you're starving," she immediately began
to apologize, "but my father changed his mind and
decided at the last minute to use his wheelchair and
eat with the rest of us." She threw us a harried smile.
"Your table-setting is lovely, Cathy. You did
everything just right. I'm sorry I forgot the flowers. I
shouldn't have forgotten. We have nine guests, all
busy talking to me, and asking a thousand questions
about where I was for so long, and you just don't
know the trouble I had slipping into the butler's pantry
when John wasn't looking--that man has eyes in back
of his head. And you never saw anyone hop up and
down as much as I did; the guests must have thought I
was very impolite, or just plain foolish--but I did
manage to fill your dishes, and hide them away, then
back to the dining table I'd dash, and smile, and eat a
bite before I had to get up again to blow my nose in
another room. I answered three telephone calls that I
made to myself from the private line in my bedroom. I had to disguise my voice so no one would guess, and I really did want to bring you slices of pumpkin pie, but John had it sliced and already put on the dessert plates, so what could I do? He'd have noticed four
missing pieces."
She blew us a kiss, bestowed a dazzling, but
hurried smile, and disappeared out the door. Good-golly day! We sure did complicate her life,
all right! We rushed to the table to eat.
Chris bowed his head to say a hasty grace that
couldn't have impressed God very much on this day,
of all days, when His ears must ring with more
eloquent phrasing: "Thank you, Lord, for this belated
Thanksgiving Day meal. Amen."
Inwardly I smiled, for it
was so like Chris to get
directly to the point, and that was to play host, and
dish up the food onto the plates we handed him one by
one. He gave "Finicky" and "Picky" one slice of white
turkey meat apiece, and tiny portions of the
vegetables, and to each a salad that had been shaped
in a pretty mold. The medium-sized portions were
mine, and, of course, he served himself last--huge
amounts for the one who needed it most, the brain. Chris appeared ravenous. He forked into his
mouth huge gobs of mashed potatoes that were almost cold. Everything was on the verge of being cold, the gelatin salad was beginning to soften, and the lettuce
beneath it was wilted.
"We-ee don't like cold food!" Carrie wailed as she
stared down at her pretty plate with such dainty
portions placed neatly in a circle. One thing you could
say for Chris, he was precise.
You would have thought Miss Picky was looking
at snakes and worms from the way she scowled at that
plate, and Mr. Finicky duplicated his twin's sour
expression of distaste.
Honestly, I felt kind of sorry for Momma, who
had tried so hard to bring us up a really good hot
meal, and messed up her own meal in the process,
making herself look silly in front of the guests, too.
And now those two weren't going to eat anything!
After three hours of complaining, and telling us how
hungry they were! Kids!
The egghead across the way closed his eyes to
savor the delight of having something different:
deliciously prepared food, and not the hasty picnic
junk thrown together in a hurry before six o'clock in
the morning. Although to be fair to the grandmother,
she didn't ever forget us. She must have had to get up
in the dark to beat the chef and the maids into the
kitchen.
Chris then did something that really shocked me.
He knew better than to stab into a huge slice of white
turkey meat and shove the whole slice into his mouth!
What was the matter with him?
"Don't eat like that, Chris. It sets a bad example
for you- know-who."
"They aren't watching me," he said with a
mouthful, "and I'm starving. I've never been so hungry
before in my whole life, and everything tastes so
good."
Daintily, I cut my turkey into small bits, and put
some in my mouth to show the hog across the way
how it was properly done. I swallowed first, then said,
"I pity the wife you'll have. She'll divorce you within
a year."
He went on eating, deaf and dumb to everything
but enjoyment.
"Cathy," said Carrie, "don't be mean to Chris,
'cause we don't like cold food, anyway, so we don't
want to eat."
"My wife will adore me so much, she'll be
charmed to pick up my dirty socks. And Carrie, you
and Cory like cold cereal with raisins, so eat!" "We don't like cold turkey . . . and that brown
stuff on the potatoes looks funny."
"That brown stuff is called gravy, and it tastes
delicious. And Eskimos love cold food."
"Cathy, do Eskimos like cold food?"
"I don't know, Carrie. I suppose they'd better like
it, or starve to death." For the life of me, I couldn't
understand what Eskimos had to do with
Thanksgiving. "Chris, couldn't you have said
something better? Why bring up Eskimos?" "Eskimos are Indians. Indians are part of the
Thanksgiving Day tradition."
"Oh."
"You know, of course, the North American
continent used to be connected with Asia," he said
between mouthfuls. "Indians trekked over from Asia,
and some liked ice and snow so much, they just stayed
on, while others had better sense, and moved on
down."
"Cathy, what's this lumpy and bumpy stuff that
looks like Jell-O?"
"It's cranberry salad. The lumps are whole
cranberries; the bumps are pecan nuts; and the white
stuff is sour cream." And, boy, was it good! It had bits
of pineapple, too.
"We don't like lumpy-bumpy stuff."
"Carrie," said Chris, "I get tired of what you like
and don't like--eat!"
"Your brother is right, Carrie. Cranberries are
delicious, and so are nuts. Birds love to eat berries,
and you like birds, don't you?"
"Birds don't eat berries. They eat dead spiders and
other bugs. We saw them, we did. They picked them
out of the gutters, and ate them without chewing! We
can't eat what birds eat."
"Shut up and eat," said Chris, with a mouthful. Here we were with the best food (even if it was
almost cold) since we'd come upstairs to live in this
hateful house, and all the twins could do was stare
down at their plates, and so far hadn't eaten a single
bite!
And Chris--he was demolishing everything in
sight like the prize-winning hog at the county fair! The twins tasted the mashed potatoes with the
mushroom gravy. The potatoes were "grainy" and the
gravy was "funny." They tasted the absolutely divine
stuffing, and declared that "lumpy, grainy, and
funny."
"Eat the sweet potatoes, then!" I almost yelled.
"Look at how pretty they are. They're smooth because
they've been whipped, and marshmallows have been added, and you love marshmallows, and it's flavored with orange and lemon juice." And pray to God they
didn't notice the "lumpy" pecans.
I guess between the two of them, sitting across
from one another, fussily stirring the food into
mishmash, they managed to put away three or four
ounces of food.
While Chris was longing for dessert, pumpkin pie,
or mince- meat pie, I began to clear away the table.
Then, for some reason extraordinaire, Chris began to
help! I couldn't believe it. He smiled at me
good food could do that for a man, I was all for
learning gourmet cooking. He even picked up his
socks before he came to help me wash and dry the
dishes, glasses, and silverware.
Ten minutes after Chris and I had everything
neatly stored away under the table and covered over
with the clean towel, the twins simultaneously
announced, "We're hungry! Our stomachs hurt!" Chris read on at his desk. I got up from the bed
after laying aside Lorna Doone, and without saying
one word, I gave to each of the twins a peanut-butterand-jelly sandwich from the picnic basket.
As they ate, taking tiny bites, I threw myself down on the bed and watched them with real puzzlement. Why did they enjoy that junk? Being a parent wasn't
as easy as I used to presume, nor was it such a delight. "Don't sit on the floor, Cory. It's colder down
there than in a chair."
.
The very next day, Cory came down with a severe
cold. His small face was red and hot. He complained
that he ached all over and his bones hurt. "Cathy,
where is my momma, my real momma?" Oh, how he
wanted his mother. Finally, she did show up. Immediately she bec
ame anxious as she viewed
Cory's flushed face, and she rushed away to fetch a
thermometer. Unhappily, she returned, trailed by the
detested grandmother.
With the slim stem of glass in his mouth, Cory
stared up at his mother as if at a golden angel come to
save him in his time of distress. And I, his pretend
mother, was forgotten.
"Sweetheart, darling baby," she crooned. And she
picked him up from the bed and carried him to the
rocker, where she sat down to put kisses on his brow.
"I'm here, darling. I love you. I'll take care of you and
make the pains go away. Just eat your meals, and
drink your orange juice like a good little boy, and
soon you'll be well."
She put him to bed again, and hovered over him
before she popped an aspirin into his mouth and gave
him water to swallow it down. Her blue eyes were
misted over with troubled tears, and her slim white
hands worked nervously.
I narrowed my eyes as I watched her eyes close,
and her lips move as if in silent prayer.
Two days later Carrie was in the bed beside Cory,
sneezing and coughing, too, and her temperature
raged upward with terrifying swiftness, enough to
panic me. Chris looked scared, too. Listless and pale,
the two of them lay side by side in the big bed, with
little fingers clutching the covers high under their
rounded chins.
They seemed made of porcelain, they were so
waxy white, and their blue eyes grew larger and larger
as they sank deeper and deeper into their skulls. Dark
shadows came under their eyes, to make them seem
haunted children. When our mother wasn't there,
those two sets of eyes pleaded mutely with Chris and
me to do something, anything, to make the misery go
away.
Momma took a week off from the secretarial
school so she could be with her twins as much as possible. I hated it that the grandmother felt it so necessary to trail after her every time she showed up. Always putting her nose in where it didn't belong, and her advice, when we didn't want her advice. Already she'd told us we didn't exist, and had no right to be alive on God's earth, save for those saintly and pure-- like herself. Did she come merely to distress us more, and take from us the comfort of having our mother to
ourselves?