Every Friday at the Legion Fish Fry

Church

We are Lutheran, all of us, Grandpa and me and Marcia too.

We go to the same church on the hill, the white one, though Marcia goes to the early service and Grandpa and I go to the late one.

During Lent our church has a soup supper on Wednesday nights before the evening service.

The women of the church take turns making the soup, and everybody sits in the basement with the long tables and the coffee in the big percolator.

I wasn’t at the soup supper that week. I was working late. But my friend Kim, Grandpa’s home care girl, was, and she called me that night while I was folding towels.

“Debbie,” she said, “you should have heard it. Your aunt was at the table with the Altar Guild ladies. And Joan Peterson leans over and says, isn’t it the sweetest thing, Debbie bringing your dad to the fish fry every Friday.”

I stopped folding.

“And then Jan Hanson says yes, she’s seen them every week, and Walt’s got his own chair, and Debbie won’t let him pay. And then somebody else says her husband plays cards with Bud, and Bud says Walt’s never been happier.”

“What did Marcia say?”

“Nothing,” Kim said. “Not a word. She sat there with her soup. Then she got up before the service and left.”

Kim was quiet. “Debbie, I don’t think anybody knows anything. I think they just think it’s sweet.”

I believed her. Nobody in that basement knew about the ninety-six thousand dollars.

Grandpa had not told a soul, and neither had I, and neither had Tom. They only knew who brought Walt Lindquist to supper on Fridays.

That was the thing. I had never said one word against my aunt to anybody in that town. I did not have to.

A whole Legion hall full of people had watched me walk in that door every Friday for two months, and people talk about what they see.

I prayed about it that night. I’m not going to pretend I prayed the way a better woman would have.

Part of me was glad she had to sit there with her soup. But I asked God to let me be decent, whatever came next.