The Deed I Set Beside His Plate

The Party

The third Saturday of October came in cold and clear, the kind of evening where the elevator lights at the edge of town look close enough to touch.

Tom and I got to the Legion hall at four to set up. The Auxiliary ladies were already there, in aprons, arguing about the gravy. Somebody had brought a crockpot of little smokies nobody asked for.

I put white tablecloths on the long tables, eight of them in rows, and clusters of purple balloons tied down at the head table, because purple has been my mother’s color since before I was born.

The cake went on the head table, right at Mom’s place. Somebody’s grandson hung a banner. The coffee urns started gurgling.

At five-thirty people began to come in, and they did not stop.

They came in their church clothes and their good jackets. They came with walkers and with grandchildren. They came with cards and with casseroles even though I had said no gifts. By six there were 140 people in that hall, and I had to send Tom to the back for more folding chairs.

I had told Ron to bring Mom at six-fifteen.

At six-fifteen the doors opened and my mother walked in on Ron’s arm in her lavender blouse, her white curls set that morning, and every single person in that hall stood up.

She stopped walking. She put her hand over her mouth.

Somebody at the back started clapping, and then all of them were clapping, and my mother stood there in the doorway of the Legion hall with her eyes running and said, “Oh, you didn’t. Oh, Jenna, you didn’t.”

Ron was standing beside her with his hat in his hand. He looked out at all those faces, 140 of them, and I saw him understand something.

He understood that these were her people. That every one of them had a story about Bev Holt. That he was the newcomer in this room, and he would be for a long time.

I went and kissed my mother. Then I shook Ron’s hand.

“Glad you could make it, Ron,” I said. And I meant it, as far as it went.

“Quite a crowd,” he said.

“She fed most of them,” I said. “Every school day for forty-six years.”