The Envelopes My Son Finally Read

“I should have stood up,” he said. “I sat there looking at my plate like a whipped dog. Dad would have stood up.”

“Your dad would have stood up and then not known what to say either,” I said. “He’d have stood there like a fence post. I was married to him for thirty-eight years. I know.”

That got a little smile out of him. Not much. But a little.

Then he told me the rest. How Gail had called that morning crying. How Kristin had hung up the phone and gone into my room and started packing without even thinking it through.

How she told him later she kept thinking, if I don’t do it today, Mom has nowhere to go Monday.

“She’s not a hard person, Mom,” he said. “She’s not. She was scared. Her dad did something terrible to her mom and she went a little crazy trying to fix it all at once. That doesn’t make it right. I’m just telling you.”

“I know she’s not hard,” I said. “I’ve watched her with those babies for ten years. I know who she is.”

“She wants to come see you,” he said. “She didn’t think you’d want her here today. She asked me to ask you.”

I said she could come whenever she was ready. Then Rodney leaned forward and said the thing he had come to say.

“Will you come home for Christmas? Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Gail’s there, I won’t lie to you. But I’m finishing out the basement room for her this month. Mike’s helping me hang the drywall. I want you at the table, Mom. The kids want you. I want you.”

I did not answer right away. I looked toward Marlene’s kitchen, where I could hear Ben telling her something about a dog at school, and Marlene saying, “Is that so,” every few seconds the way she does.

“I’ll come for Christmas,” I said. “I’ll come Christmas Eve, and I’ll stay for dinner Christmas Day. After that, I don’t know yet. Marlene’s been alone in this house four years. I think she likes the company more than she says.”

He nodded. I could see he wanted more, and I could see him decide not to push. That is his father in him too. Dale always knew when to let a fence post stand.

Kristin came on the Wednesday after. She came alone, in the middle of the afternoon, while the children were at school and Rodney was at work.

She knocked on Marlene’s door like she thought it might bite her.

She was holding a pie. A pumpkin pie, in my own Pyrex pie plate, the glass one with the fluted edge.

I recognized it before I recognized her face, which was red and swollen from crying in the car.

“It’s the one from Thanksgiving,” she said. “I mean, it’s not, I made a new one. But it’s the same recipe. Yours. From the card in your box. Ben said you were supposed to have the first piece, and you never got it. So I brought you the first piece. The whole thing. I’m sorry. I’m doing this badly.”

I took the pie from her and set it on the hall table. Then I took her by both arms, because she was shaking so hard I thought she might drop to the step.

“Come in,” I said.