Promises to Keep - Ann Tatlock [72]
Tom Barrows didn’t join us for Thanksgiving, which gave me one more reason to be thankful. Mom had invited him, but he’d had to drive his mother to Chicago. They were celebrating the holiday with one or the other of his siblings.
“Pass the cranberry sauce, please, Roz.”
I snapped out of my thoughts and reached for the bowl. “Sure, Grandpa. Here you go.”
“And while you’re at it, the sweet potatoes.”
“Here they come.”
“Everything’s delicious,” Mom said to Marie.
Marie dabbed at her mouth with her napkin. “I’ll pass your compliments on to Betty,” she said. “She cooked the whole thing single-handedly.”
I thought about Betty, their cook, and asked Marie where she was.
“Oh, well, she went home, of course,” Marie replied. “To be with her own family.”
“Did she have to cook a turkey for them too?”
“I’m sure I don’t know, Roz. I don’t meddle in her private affairs.”
Tillie gestured at the food on the table and shook her head. “We have enough turkey here for her and her whole family and probably half of DuPage County to boot. Betty might as well have stayed and brought her own crew over here. Saved her from cooking another turkey if she’d done that.”
Marie blinked rapidly several times. “She’s our cook, Mrs. Monroe. She’s hardly family.”
“So you can’t eat Thanksgiving dinner with someone who isn’t family?”
“Well – ” Marie started, but I interrupted.
“She already is, Tillie,” I pointed out. “She’s eating with you, and you’re not family.”
“Bite your tongue, Roz,” Tillie said. “You don’t have to be related by blood to be family.”
“Uh-huh, yeah. You told me that a hundred times before.”
“And I’ll tell you a hundred times again, and one of these times you’ll believe me.”
“Well, whatever you are, Tillie,” Mom said, “thank God you’re with us.”
Tillie nodded. “He’s the one to thank, all right, and I’ll be with you till he calls me home. Won’t be long now, I suppose.”
Marie gasped loudly, and the color drained from her face like someone had pulled a plug. “This is Thanksgiving, Mrs. Monroe,” she said sharply. “Surely there are better things to talk about than death.”
“Who’s talking about death?” Tillie retorted. “Did I say something about death? All I said was someday God’s going to call me home.”
“Well yes, and that means – ”
“And when that happens, I plan to shed this skin and finally fly. Does that sound like death to you?”
Marie sputtered, but Grandpa laughed outright. “Whatever you plan to do when you die, Tillie, my guess is you’re going to outlive us all.”
“Ah, no thank you, Archie,” Tillie said. “No, I’ll leave the living to the young folk. When the good Lord calls, I’m going straight up and straight on till morning.” Her plump hand sailed over the table, and we all watched it fly upward. It stopped and hung suspended just beneath the chandelier for a minute before it finally drifted back down to her lap.
Everyone got quiet then and went back to eating.
I thought about Daddy, wondering where he was and what he might be doing. I thought maybe he was eating a couple of weeping cows at the Hot Diggity Dog Café with a waitress who didn’t even know his name, who called him Nelson instead of Alan and who called me his niece instead of his daughter. But then I realized the café was probably closed, this being a holiday, so I couldn’t imagine what Daddy was doing while everyone else in Mills River was gathered with family, though I hoped he wasn’t alone. I hoped he wasn’t lonely. I wished I could call him and wish him a happy Thanksgiving, but I didn’t know where he lived or how to get in touch with him. I couldn’t call or send him a letter or travel to