Big Cherry Holler - Adriana Trigiani [47]
Etta and I chat all the way in. Jack becomes somber the moment we drive through the gates. He pulls the truck up under the old tree that showers the ground with shiny black buckeyes (which we collect for good luck) every autumn. Our son’s headstone, simple black marble with white swirls, rests near the gnarly roots of that tree.
I help Etta out of the truck. Jack lifts the tree from the back of the truck and positions it over Joe’s headstone. Etta helps anchor it with the bricks. Then she carefully lays her ornaments out on the ground and begins to decorate the tree while Jack holds the tree.
I walk across the plot and over to my mother’s grave, marked with the same simple marble. I pull some weeds from around the stone. I look over at Fred Mulligan’s and pull some weeds from his too. My parents are buried just a few feet from the MacChesney plot (one of life’s ironic little twists). I’ve been standing at Mrs. Mac’s grave for a while when I feel my husband’s arms around me.
“How’s Etta doing with those ribbons?” I ask him.
“Just fine.”
Together, we watch our daughter as she decorates the tree. The picture of her, reaching up inside the tiny branches to place pine cones coated in birdseed, reminds me of a H˘ummel statuette my mother kept on her nightstand.
“You know what I think about sometimes?” my husband says as he pulls me closer.
“What?”
“How it all seems like a bad dream.”
“I know.”
“Remember the day we had all of Joe’s school friends over?” Jack asks me. We had taken Joe out of the hospital so he could be home with us, with Shoo the Cat, in his own bed. Joe felt pretty good one morning and decided that he wanted to see all his buddies from school. So I called all of their mothers and threw a party.
“The boys were running and playing inside, and next thing you know, they took off in a pack and went outside into the snow. Joe took off after them. And he got as far as the middle of the field in front of the house, but he couldn’t keep up. So he knelt down alone in that field. And he didn’t call for us. He just knelt there. And waited. God, that broke my heart. When he couldn’t run anymore.”
“I hope we never forget him.” I turn and face my husband.
“How could we?”
“I don’t know. People do.” I hold my husband so tight, it’s as though he’s in pieces and the only thing that can hold him together is me. I close my eyes and remember how close we have been. What is worth saving in this life? What is worth holding on to? Does anyone know until they lose it?
I look over at our daughter. Etta holds a red ribbon in her hand as she watches the two of us. She is smiling.
This Christmas is our best yet. Maybe it’s because Etta feels it’s a real celebration again; or because Theodore made good on his promise to spend the holidays with us; or that Jack and I seem to have come to a good place in our marriage (maybe it’s temporary, or maybe it’s the holiday spirit, I don’t care, it’s nice!). We’re sitting on a Lily Pad of Calm amid a year full of setbacks and arguments. When I tell Jack we’re on a pretty lily pad, he takes his fist to his head and mockingly pounds it. But the more I think of this image, the more apt I think it is. Lilies bloom on the surface of dark and murky water. There is a lot under the surface of this marriage, and I don’t forget that for a second.
“Can I help?” Theodore stands behind me as I maneuver the turkey into the oven.
“Get the potatoes. Please.”
“Sweetie, where’s the wine?” Jack wants to know as he passes through to gather Etta and our guests.
“On the porch in the cooler. I needed the space in the fridge for Fleeta’s Jell-O mold.”
“Which no one eats,” Theodore whispers.
“It makes a nice centerpiece.”
“Until it melts lime-green goo all over the table.”
“It’s Christmas. Green is good,” I tell him. “Thank you for coming. And being here. Especially this year. Thank you.”
“You owe me. I stayed up until four-thirty