The Forty One Families at Wednesday Supper

Wednesday

On Monday, Pastor Tom called. “Kristi’s not going to come to the office,” he said. “I think we both know that now. So we take it to the church, the way it says.”

“In front of everybody?”

“In front of the people who gave,” he said. “Wednesday supper, not Sunday morning. I’m not having this anywhere near the altar. You stand up during announcements, the way anybody does. You thank them. That’s all.”

“That’s all?”

“Thank every one of them by name,” he said. “They deserve that. You never got the chance. And then you ask Kristi to tell them what it bought. And then you sit down and you let her answer. Whatever she says, you let her say it.”

Ryan said the same thing when I told him, almost word for word. “Thank them,” he said. “Just thank them. Then let her talk. Don’t say flowers. Don’t say anything you can’t take back.”

I spent Tuesday night writing the list over again by hand, from Pastor Tom’s clipboard, so I could read it without my voice shaking.

Next to each name I wrote one thing, something that family had done for us since January that had nothing to do with money.

The Dahls, the recliner. Arnie Pederson, who plowed Joan’s driveway in Morris without being asked.

The Olsons, eighty dollars they did not have, two weeks after burying his mother. Three families who brought hotdish in the first week.

Paige saw me writing at the table. She asked what it was. I said it was a thank-you note for the church. She read a few of the names over my shoulder and said, “That’s a lot of people.”

“It is,” I said. “That’s a lot of people who love us.”

She went back to her library book and did not say anything, but she put her hand on my back for a second before she went to bed.

She had not touched me on her own since the fire.

The Supper

We sat at our regular table, the second one from the kitchen window.

Kristi was at the next table with Mark.

She had not been to Wednesday supper since the wedding, and when she saw us come in, she looked at me and then looked at her plate and did not look up again.

Mark looked thinner than I remembered. He nodded at Ryan, and Ryan nodded back, and nobody said anything.

Pastor Tom said the blessing. People ate. When the plates were mostly empty, he stood up at the end of the far table and said, “We’ve got a couple announcements,” which is what he always says.

The women’s circle announced the spring rummage sale. Then Pastor Tom said, “Amy Lindstrom has something she’d like to say,” and sat down.

I stood up. My legs were not good.

I had the list in my hand, folded twice, and I unfolded it and smoothed it against my cardigan, and every person in that fellowship hall looked up from their paper plates.