The Pecan Pie at the Soup Kitchen

Thanksgiving Morning

My phone rang at six-forty in the morning while I was putting my hair up. It was Mark.

“Mom. Jen wants to know if you’re bringing the green bean thing.”

I stood there in my bathroom with a bobby pin in my mouth. I took it out.

“I’m not coming, honey.”

There was a long silence. I could hear Owen and Lily in the background, arguing about the parade.

“What do you mean you’re not coming?”

“I mean I won’t be there. I’m going to be downtown serving dinner at the soup kitchen on Jennings Street. With Walt.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“I’m not. You told me I could come if I came alone. I thought about it, and I can’t. I won’t sit at your table and pretend there’s nobody in my life. That wouldn’t be fair to him, and it wouldn’t be honest with you.”

“So you’re punishing me.”

“No, sweetheart. I’m keeping my word to somebody. That’s different.” I picked up the bobby pin again. “I love you. Tell the kids I love them. There’s a pumpkin bread for them in my freezer, and you’ve got a key.”

“Mom…”

“Happy Thanksgiving, Mark.”

I hung up before I could take it back. Then I put my hair up, and put on my good walking shoes and the apron with the blue ticking stripe, and when Walt pulled into my driveway at seven sharp with eighteen pies belted into his back seat like children, I was waiting on the step.

The Line

By ten-thirty the parish hall was warm and loud and smelled like turkey and coffee and floor wax.

There were eleven of us on the crew. Sister Mary Agnes ran the room from a folding chair by the door with a metal clicker in her hand, the kind ushers use, and she clicked every tray that went out.

A retired Marine named Ron ran the ovens. Two college girls home from Ames did drinks. A husband and wife from the Lutheran church on the east side did dessert with Walt.

I was on turkey. Hairnet, gloves, tongs, a hotel pan of white and dark meat in front of me, and a stack of plates on my left.

“Two slices, one white, one dark, unless they ask,” Sister told me. “If they ask for more, give it to them. It’s Thanksgiving.”

The doors opened at eleven. I will tell you the truth: my stomach turned over when they did. I did not know what I was afraid of. I think I was afraid I would not know how to look at people.

The first man through the line was about my age, in a Carhartt coat with a torn sleeve and a Vietnam veteran cap. He held his tray out with both hands.

“Good afternoon,” I said. “White or dark?”

“Both, if it’s no trouble, ma’am.”

“It’s no trouble at all.”

And just like that it was the library again. People came to my desk. I gave them what they needed. I said good afternoon and I meant it.

There was a young mother with three little boys in matching orange stocking caps. There was an older lady with a walker who called me honey and told me the dressing was better than hers. There was a man who did not say anything at all, just nodded, and I nodded back, and that was enough.

Every so often I looked down the line at Walt. He was cutting pie with a long serrated knife, eight even slices, a little lift of the server to get the first piece out clean. He had his own apron on over that brown cardigan.

When the man in the Vietnam cap got to the end, Walt said, “What branch?”

“Army. Hundred and First.”

“My brother was First Cav,” Walt said. “Here. Take two.”

Sister Mary Agnes clicked her clicker and pretended not to see.