After the pie
Rhonda did not stay for pie. When the plates came out I looked for her at the second table and found her chair empty, the green sweater gone from the hook by the porch door. Her pan of potatoes sat on the counter with the foil still crimped over it.
Nobody said her name. In our family that is how a thing gets said. Helen found the reading glasses on the rug by the kitchen door, where they had fallen when her daughter slid down the wall, folded the arms in, and slipped them into her apron pocket.
Later, while I dried the big roasting pans, Helen stood beside me at the sink and spoke without looking up from the water.
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“They cut her aide in August. She has been sitting in her car in the garage every night so Doug will not see her. Doug saw her. He told me in October.”
“I know about the aide, Helen. Rhonda told me herself, over your fence on Labor Day.”
“I know you do.” She scrubbed a corner of the pan that was already clean. “I am not telling you so you will let it go. I am telling you because she is mine, and I wanted somebody to know it who will not use it.”
I did not answer that. There was nothing in it to answer.
“That Bible was always going to Rhonda,” Helen said. “She is the oldest. Arthur and I settled it years ago. She has carried it to the sideboard every Christmas Eve since she was twelve years old.”
“And tonight you put it in Eli’s hands.”
“I told her in November that I would. I told her why, too.” Helen dried her fingers on her apron. “She did not say one word. She picked up her dish towel and went on wiping the stove.”
She went to the sideboard, brought the Bible back to the kitchen, and laid it in my arms. The gold on the cover was worn nearly smooth under my thumb.
“It goes home with Eli,” she said. “For this winter and as long after as he wants it. Whoever wants to hear Luke next Christmas can ask him.”
At the door, with everyone hunting for mittens, Nate lifted the foil on his sister’s potatoes, looked at them for a second, and put it back down. He carried the pan out to the truck himself and set it on the floor of the cab where it would not tip.
He said nothing about it, then or after. I did not ask whether he meant it as peace. I do not think he knew. It was a pan that belonged to somebody, and it was going back to her on Sunday.