Eleven Keys Under the Christmas Tree

What Curt did

He stood there in the lamplight with the pen in his hand and read his mother’s handwriting. I watched his lips move. “Came home for supper. My grandchildren’s house. God bless it.”

He read it again. Then he set the pen down very carefully, the way you set something down when you are not sure your hand is steady, and he turned around and sat down on the third step of the staircase.

A big man, fifty-eight years old, in his good dance shirt, sitting on the stairs of the house he grew up in with his elbows on his knees, the same way his daughter had sat there four days before.

“When was she here?” he asked. His voice was rough.

“Last night,” Jordyn said. “I brought her for supper. Ethan made hot dish.”

“She didn’t tell me.” He rubbed his face with both hands. “I asked her at Christmas if she wanted to come to the house, and she said she was too tired. She said it wasn’t her house anymore.”

“She came anyway,” Jordyn said softly. “She asked if you’d given out keys, Dad. Nobody told her. She just knew.”

Curt nodded slowly. Then, before anybody else could say anything, Rick started to laugh. Not a mean laugh. A big, helpless, red-faced laugh, the kind that sneaks up on a man after a few beers at the Legion.

“Oh, Mom,” Rick said, wiping his eyes. “Oh, she got you, Curt. She got all of us.”

He dug his wallet out of his back pocket, pulled out two twenties, and stuffed them into the jar. “I’m good for the other five, Ethan.”

“You’re fine, Rick,” I said.

“No, I’m not,” he said, still grinning. “I’ve been drinking your coffee first thing in the morning all week. I’ll bring you a case of the good stuff from the co-op.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “Fair is fair.”

Lori was already writing their names in the book under Agnes’s. “Rick and Lori Halvorsen. New Year’s. Sorry about the coffee.” She underlined “sorry” twice and laughed at herself.

Deanna had not said a word. She stood by the door with her coat still on, looking at the guest book and then at her husband sitting on the stairs.

I could not tell what she was thinking. I am not sure she could either.

Then she stepped up to the little table, picked up the pen Curt had put down, and wrote “Curt and Deanna” in small neat letters under Lori’s line.

She did not write anything else. She did not put anything in the jar, because they were not staying.

She just set the pen down, squeezed Jordyn’s arm once on her way past, and went to stand by her husband.

Curt sat on that step a long time. Jordyn sat down beside him, and after a minute he put his arm around her the way he must have when she was little, and he talked to her, and I stood in the hall and listened.