The Help Eats in the Kitchen
“I’ll do it,” I said. “Just this once.”
That was nine years ago.
There used to be a coffee can. A red Folgers can with a slot cut in the lid and “Reunion Fund” written on masking tape in Ruth’s handwriting. It sat at the end of the serving table and people were supposed to put in what they could.
The first year I ran things the can brought in two hundred and forty dollars against a bill of nineteen hundred.
I mentioned it to Greg in the truck on the way home.
“Family’s tight right now,” he said. “It’ll even out.”
It did not even out. It went the other way. People got used to the brisket. They got used to the big pavilion instead of the little one, to the real tablecloths I started bringing, to the sheet cake with the family name on it. The crowd went from forty to sixty. Maria’s prices went up, as they should, because she is worth every dime.
And the can got lighter.
The year before, it held one hundred and twelve dollars. I counted it on my kitchen counter, twice. There was a button in it.
That June I did not even put the can out. I don’t believe a single person noticed.
Thirty-eight hundred dollars. That was the bill that June. Four hundred fifty for the pavilion, twenty-nine fifty to Maria for sixty people, and four hundred more for ice and tea and tables and paper goods and the cake.
It came out of my own account. Not ours. Mine, the one my paycheck from the dental office goes into, the one I had been building back up since the transmission.
Greg never asked what any of it cost. Not one year out of nine. I used to think that was trust.
Sitting on that stool, I understood it was something else. If he asked, he would know. And if he knew, he would have to do something about it.
I finished the brisket. I ate the roll. I wiped my fingers on a paper napkin and folded it and put it on the plate.
Then I looked through the pass-through at the serving line.
Here is how the Pruitts do it, and it is one of the things I always liked about them. The little children go through first with their mothers, and then the old folks, Ruth and her generation, and somebody carries a plate to anyone who can’t stand long. Only then does the rest of the family line up.
I had seen to the first two rounds myself. That was why I’d had the apron on. Every child out there had a plate. Ruth had hers, and Aunt Carol, and Uncle Dale had been through because Uncle Dale counts himself among the elderly when food is involved.
The head table had been served. Alexis had seen to her own.
Everybody still waiting was a grown adult with car keys in his pocket.
“Maria,” I said. “How much is still back here?”
She looked at the counter. “Four pans of brisket not opened. Two pulled pork. Most of the beans. All the cobbler, we have not put the cobbler out.”
“And what’s on the line?”
“Maybe half a pan. It is going down.”
I nodded. I untied the apron. It took me a second, because Deb had tied it for me that morning in a double knot. I folded it in a square and laid it on the counter.