The Rent Bill In Howard’s House

The invitation

On the second Sunday of October, after church, Rita put a cream colored envelope down in front of me on her kitchen table, addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd Dawson. It said Stan and Sheila Kessler would be delighted to welcome friends and neighbors to a Harvest Dinner at the Kessler home on Saturday evening at six o’clock. It said there would be roast chicken and cider and a short program. At the bottom, in smaller type, it said, “In celebration of the next generation of an Ashford family home.”

“For Lloyd,” Rita said. “Lloyd’s on the township board. You know how many people in this county listen to Lloyd. I think Sheila’s got it in her head that Stan has a chance at the zoning job, the one that opens in January, and that Lloyd has the say. Or that having the Dawsons at her table will make the Kesslers look like the kind of family that has the Dawsons at its table.” She folded her napkin. “She is going to put on a whole show.”

Lloyd came in from the garage then, a big man of seventy-nine with white hair he still combed with water, and read it with his lips moving a little.

“I’m going, Marlene,” he said. “Howard asked me to look after you when he was gone. He asked me in the hospital, when he knew. I haven’t done what he meant.” He turned the invitation over, as if more writing might show up on the back. “I’ll tell you what I’m not going to do. I’m not going to make a scene. I never raised my voice at a man in seventy-nine years and I don’t plan to start with Howard’s boy. But if somebody asks me a question at that table, I’m going to answer it. Truthfully. That’s all I’m going to do.”

“Then I’m coming, too,” I said.

The cold house

We arrived at six, exactly, in Lloyd’s truck, and the first thing I noticed was that I could see my breath on the porch, and the second was that I could see it in the front hall.

The guests stood in the living room in a loose circle, holding paper cups of cider. Almost everyone was wearing a coat. I saw the pastor from Trinity Lutheran in a wool overcoat with the collar turned up. I saw Judy in a fur-trimmed jacket, her mouth tight, and Stan’s boss from the co-op blowing on his fingers. Two neighbors, a young couple from the elementary school, a woman from the bank.

Sheila stood at the center, in a green velvet dress, glittering with a smile she had clearly been practicing in the bathroom mirror. “It’s the old farmhouse charm,” I heard her say. “These old places have a mind of their own! We’re just tinkering with the thermostat.”

Then she looked up, and she saw me.

I had expected anger. What I saw was fear. A small, bright flicker of it, the kind that comes over a child who realizes the teacher has walked into the room just as the paper airplane left her hand.

Her smile held. It was a great smile. But the cider in her cup shivered, just once.

“Marlene,” she said, crossing the room with her hand out, her voice pitched so everyone could hear. “What a surprise. We didn’t know you were coming. We would have saved you a seat.”

“Rita and Lloyd were kind enough to bring me,” I said, and I took her hand, which was cold as a doorknob. “I hope there’s room.”

“Of course there’s room,” said Stan.

He had come up behind her, in a blue shirt that I had ironed for him a hundred times, and he looked terrible. He had lost weight in three weeks. He looked at me the way he had at seven, when he broke the front door glass with a baseball.

“Hi, Mom,” he said.

“Hello, Stan.”

“Well,” said Sheila brightly, clapping her hands. “Let’s all sit down before the chicken gets cold!”