Twelve Turkeys for Mom’s Widows

Lettie’s Question

“Wayne,” she said. Not loud. She did not need to be loud. The table got quiet on its own, the way a room does when an old woman says a man’s name in that particular tone.

“Yes ma’am?” Wayne said. He had a forkful of dressing halfway to his mouth.

“Last Saturday morning, your mother came up my front step with a turkey,” Lettie said. “Eighty-two years old. She went up twelve front steps that morning, Wayne. I watched her do the last one.”

Wayne put his fork down.

“So I want to ask you, in front of your mother,” Lettie said, “where did her three hundred dollars go?”

Nobody moved. Maxine had her napkin in both hands. Royal held the carving knife over the platter and did not cut.

Even the children at the card table had gone quiet, the way children do when they can tell something real is happening.

Wayne looked at Lettie. Then he looked at his wife.

And I could see on his face that Maxine had not known, that she was finding out right then, at her mother-in-law’s table, along with everyone else.

“Wayne?” Maxine said, very quietly.

He did not try to lie. I will give him that. He sat there a long moment with his hands flat on the tablecloth, and then he said it.

“I kept it,” he said. “My hours got cut. I was behind on the truck. I figured nobody would check.”

He swallowed. “I figured those ladies would just think Mama got too old to do it anymore.”

The Quiet After

Nobody said anything. I want to tell you that somebody made a speech, but nobody did. Lettie picked up her roll and took a bite of it. Mom looked at her plate.

Maxine put her napkin down and got up from the table and went out the back door onto the porch. Wayne watched her go. Then he looked at Mom.

“Mama,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

Mom looked up from her plate. She looked at him a long time, her oldest child, fifty-nine years old with gray coming in at his temples and his work-rough hands flat on her good tablecloth.

“I know you are,” she said. “Go see about your wife.”

He went. Through the window over the sink, I could see the two of them standing out by Mom’s clothesline in the bright afternoon, Maxine with her arms crossed and Wayne with his hands in his pockets, talking low.

Royal started carving again. He put a slice of white meat on Lettie’s plate without asking, and one on Mom’s.

“These rolls are good, Eudora,” he said, in a perfectly ordinary voice, and somehow the table started breathing again.

Lettie leaned over and said something quietly to Mom that I did not hear. Mom shook her head and patted her hand. That was all.

After about fifteen minutes, Wayne and Maxine came back inside. Maxine’s eyes were red, but she sat down and put her napkin back in her lap.

Wayne sat down beside her. Royal passed him the rolls without a word, and Wayne took one.

We finished dinner. We had pie. The children went outside to throw a football in the yard while the sun was still high. It was, in the strangest way, a good Thanksgiving.