The Cradle That Stood Beside the Cake

And Cynthia, I noticed, did not sit down once. She poured coffee. She carried plates. Twice I saw her stop by the cradle when she thought nobody was watching and lay her hand on the headboard, on the empty place under the name.

Josh came at three in his work boots, with concrete dust to his knees. Ashley must have gotten to him in the hall, because he walked up to me with his jaw set.

“Mom. Is it true?”

“It’s true and it’s finished,” I said. “Go load the stroller.”

“Did Dad know?”

“Your dad knows now. Load the stroller, Joshua.”

He looked at his father. Earl gave a little shake of his head that meant leave it lie. Josh let out a breath and went to get the stroller. He is his father’s son.

We were wrapping the moving blankets back around the cradle when Cynthia came over.

She had her checkbook in her hand again.

“Mr. Tucker,” she said.

“Earl.”

“Earl. Katie is expecting in October. My younger one.” She stood very straight. “I want to know what you would charge to build a second one. And I mean charge. I want a real number, and I will pay it, and I won’t hear a word about family.”

Earl took his time. He always does.

“Well,” he said. “There’s about two hundred forty dollars of cherry in it. And right around ninety hours.”

“Yes. So what does that come to?”

He scratched his jaw.

“Comes to one Sunday supper,” he said. “At your house.”

Cynthia opened her mouth, and nothing came out.

“That’s my price,” Earl said. “And I’ll want seconds.”

“I don’t…” She looked at the checkbook as if it had let her down. “I don’t really cook.”

“I’ll cook,” old Mrs. Vandermeer said from her chair. “Pot roast. She can set the table. She’s very good with a place setting.”

And Cynthia Vandermeer, in her cream suit, in the middle of her own country club, laughed until she had to sit down. She put her face in her hands and laughed, and somewhere in the middle of it the laughing turned into something else. I sat down next to her and gave her the tissue out of my sleeve, and we stayed like that for a minute, the two grandmothers, not saying anything.

“I am so ashamed,” she said into the tissue.

“Well, don’t make a habit of it,” I said. “You’ve got a grandchild coming. You’re going to need your strength.”

On the way home Earl drove forty-five again, with his flashers on, though there was nothing left to be careful of but the cradle.

Somewhere past the turn at Hamilton he said, “You should’ve told me.”

“You were building.”

“I’d have kept building.”

“You’d have gone quiet out there. I know you.”

He did not argue. He drove a while.

“You should’ve told me about the rockers,” I said.

“You’d have cried on the cherry. Water spots it.”

I laughed. Then I did cry, some, and he reached over and put his hand on the back of my neck and left it there the rest of the way.

When we got the cradle back into the garage, to keep until the nursery was ready, he tipped it up on its end under the shop light.

“Look here,” he said.