The Suitcase I Carried Back Upstairs

But that was later. That night, Christmas Eve, Lorraine looked down the length of her table at all of us, and her eyes were wet, and she said, “Now somebody give your uncle Doug some stew before it’s stone cold. And somebody pass him the crackers.”

Jake, who is thirteen and had not said a word all evening, picked up the box of oyster crackers and walked it all the way down the table to his uncle.

Doug took it from him and put his arm around him, and held on a second longer than Jake expected.

After supper, Lorraine sent Matt and Doug to bring in wood for the stove in the front room. They were out in the cold a long time.

Through the kitchen window I could see the two of them standing by the woodpile under the yard light, not talking, just standing there with the snow coming down on their shoulders.

Then Doug said something, and Matt put his hand on the back of his brother’s neck and shook him a little, the way their father used to do both of them.

They came in red-faced, stamping snow, each with an armload of wood, and neither of them would tell me what had been said.

We stayed late. We always stay late on Christmas Eve.

Lorraine played the old upright piano in the front room, the carols she had played at church for forty years, and Hannah sang alto beside her, and Uncle Ron fell asleep in Dale’s chair the way he does every single year.

Tina came out about nine. Doug had called her from the porch. She came in quiet with her coat still on and sat beside him on the couch, and after a while she took his hand.

I don’t know what will happen with the two of them. But she came, and she stayed, and she helped with the dishes.

When it was time to go, Lorraine walked us all to the back door. She hugged every one of us.

When she got to me, she held on longest, and she whispered so only I could hear.

“I keep thinking about you going up those stairs,” she said. “With my suitcase in your hand. Like it was nothing. Like you were just putting my things where they belonged.”

“I was,” I said.

“I know,” she said. “That’s why I keep thinking about it.”

Before I put on my coat, I went upstairs to use the bathroom, and I stopped in her bedroom doorway on the way back.

Dale’s picture was on the dresser. The navy dress was hanging at the end of the closet. Her nightgown was under her pillow.

I knelt down and looked under the bed. The old brown suitcase was right there, latched and empty, with a little dust already settling on the top of it.

Nobody was going to need it for a long time.

On the way out, I stopped in the kitchen. Dale’s carving fork was hanging on its nail by the stove.

I touched the bone handle the way Lorraine had, with one finger, and then I went out into the snow.

Matt had the truck warming up. The kids were in the back, already half asleep. Doug and Tina’s car was still in the drive, and Hannah’s, and Aunt Jean’s.

Matt pulled out slow onto the gravel, and I turned around in my seat to look back.

The farmhouse was dark except for one window. It was the kitchen.

Lorraine was standing at her sink in the yellow light, washing up the last of the Christmas Eve dishes, in her own house, where she belonged.