Читать книгу Ties That Bind - Marie Bostwick - Страница 17

I stood at the cutting board in Margot’s cheery kitchen, wearing a borrowed apron and chopping onions.

“Good knife work,” Charlie said as he looked over my shoulder. “You can always judge a cook by the way she handles an onion.”

Margot, who stood at the stove, stirring an enormous pot of mashed potatoes, turned to look at me. “Wow. You should feel very proud, Philippa. I’ve known Charlie for years and he’s yet to say anything nice about my cooking skills.”

Charlie walked over to the stove, picked up a spoon, dipped a tiny taste of potatoes from the pot, and frowned. “And today will do nothing to change that, Margot. You need more salt in these potatoes and more butter. A lot more butter. Christmas is a full-fat holiday. There’ll be no watching of waistlines today. Not in my kitchen.”

“Technically,” Margot said as she tossed a palmful of salt into the pot, “it’s my kitchen, Charlie. But I’m not trying to keep down the calorie count. I ran out of butter.”

“You ran out of butter?” he gasped. “On Christmas? How is that possible?”

“I had it on my list,” Margot said defensively, backing away as Charlie elbowed past her to turn off the burner under the potatoes, “but there was so much to buy ….”

“Never mind,” Charlie said, holding up his hand. “I’ll run to our house and get some more. Leave the potatoes until I get back. Take the rolls out of the oven when the timer goes off.” He slipped his arms inside the sleeves of his coat.

“Hey, Charlie? As long as you’re going out, check the temperature in there, will you?” Margot jerked her head toward the living room. “I don’t know where my sister could be. Dad hates it when people are late.”

“Don’t worry,” Charlie replied. “Evelyn’s on top of it. She’s used to dealing with grouchy old men. Anyway, your sister’s not late. Not yet. The way things are going it could be hours before we’re ready to serve.” He gave the swinging door that separated the kitchen from the living room a push and disappeared.

“Very funny!” Margot called before turning to me. “I know he sounds awful, but that’s just Charlie’s way. He’s really just a big teddy bear.”

As if to confirm this observation, the kitchen door swung in the opposite direction and Charlie stuck his head through it. “By the way, Margot, what you lack in culinary skills, you more than make up for in presentation. The table looks beautiful,” he said and, without waiting for her response, popped out just as quickly as he’d popped in.

“See? Charlie’s a bit rough around the edges, but he has a good heart.”

I nodded. “He’s fine. I’ve always enjoyed a good curmudgeon.”

Margot giggled. “You came to the right town for that. Wait until you meet Abigail. She makes Charlie look like a poseur but, if she likes you, you won’t find a better ally in this town than Abigail Spaulding.”

“Then I guess it’s a good thing she wasn’t at services. Don’t think I made many allies today.”

Margot carried the wastebasket over to my side of the kitchen. “Don’t talk like that,” she said as she scooped up the detritus of my handiwork, a pile of papery onion skins, and dumped them into the trash. “It was fine. I thought you made some very good points. It was fine,” she repeated, as if saying it twice would make it true and as if fine was the same as good.

“Waldo Smitherton was very taken with you, and Charlie spoke well of your knife skills. Coming from him, that’s a real compliment. I’m not kidding.”

She stood next to me, staring at the cutting board as I took the last onion, made six quick, deep cuts into the flesh, another six crossways, then chopped through the onion with a speed which was, I’ll admit, a little show-offy. But I think I can be forgiven for that. I’ve spent hours watching celebrity chefs perform this dazzling bit of showmanship and even more hours mastering it. Until now, I’d had no opportunity to display my skills to anyone besides Clementine. She hadn’t seemed that impressed.

“Wow!” Margot said. “Where’d you learn that?”

I shrugged, unwilling to admit how many late nights I spend watching Emeril and Rachael and Jamie. After Tim died, cooking shows became my sleeping aid of choice.

“I’ve always liked to cook. Tim used to say it was my beef bourguignon and chocolate lava cake that convinced him to marry me.”

Margot made a sympathetic little noise. I’d told her about Tim when we met at the parsonage, right after she’d told me about her breakup with her old boyfriend. Every psych textbook I’ve ever read says that the best way to draw someone out is just to listen, but I don’t think that’s always true. Sometimes, when a woman shares a secret, especially one you can tell she didn’t plan on sharing, it makes her feel better if you tell her one of your secrets in exchange, as a sort of pledge of good faith. There’s probably an official phrase for this in textbooks about interpersonal communications, but I’ve always called it “trading hostages.” That’s what I did with Margot.

I wasn’t surprised that she’d shared personal information with me and so quickly. People have always told me their stuff, even before I was ordained. Maybe I’m easy to talk to. I hope so. Sometimes people just need a safe place to unload their troubles.

Don’t get me wrong, telling Margot about my broken heart, how Tim’s death left me in mourning not just for my best friend and lover but the death of all the plans we’d made for children, a home, life as we had thought it would and should be, wasn’t just for her benefit. Sometimes I need to share my stuff too. A minister has to choose her confidantes with care. However, Margot seemed trustworthy and entirely honest, guileless even. More importantly, I liked her.

It was sweet of her to invite me to Christmas dinner, especially at the last minute. But as I stood in Margot’s kitchen chopping vegetables, I felt emotional, almost teary, and not because of the onion.

Christmas is a day for celebration and hope and gratitude. I know because I just preached a whole sermon on the subject. I have every reason to feel hopeful and grateful. God gave me a church for Christmas—a lovely church in a charming Norman Rockwell village filled with kind-hearted people who take in stray pastors and invite them to Christmas dinner at the last minute. I should be happy. Instead, I am suddenly swamped by loneliness and longing. I miss my family and I miss Tim. I miss all those connections and complications that make life such a struggle and give it such meaning.

This is a nice town, but I don’t know this place, these people. I am a stranger here and it feels strange. Things will look brighter after the holidays, I suppose, when my work will begin in earnest. On the other hand, maybe they won’t. The reaction to my sermon was, unfortunately, about what I’d expected it to be. That doesn’t bode well for my future in New Bern. But one way or another, I’ll soon be too busy for introspection. What a relief. It is more blessed to give than to receive and, for me, usually much easier.

Contrary to Charlie’s prediction, Margot’s sister was late for dinner. Very late. Repeated calls to her cell phone went unanswered. Margot’s dad grew increasingly irritated as the minutes ticked past. He paced in front of the fireplace, clanking his ice in his glass, occasionally fishing out a piece and chewing on it, and grumbling.

“Margot, did you tell her that dinner would be served at two?”

“Yes, Dad.”

“Well, why isn’t she here? It’s quarter to three. And here we all sit, waiting, while the turkey dries out.”

“Not at all,” Charlie assured him, though we both knew it wasn’t true. “The turkey is on schedule. Can I refill your glass, Werner? There’s plenty of eggnog.”

“I’ll do it,” Margot said, taking her father’s glass and scurrying into the kitchen.

“I’m sure she’ll be here soon,” Evelyn said. “She probably ran into traffic.”

“The roads were so icy coming down here,” Margot’s mother said, turning to Evelyn. “There were spots where we couldn’t go more than fifteen miles an hour.”

“We got here,” Werner harrumphed. “Right when we said we would.”

Margot returned from the kitchen with her father’s glass. Werner stood directly in front of the fire with one arm crossed over his chest, tossed back half his eggnog in one gulp, and started chewing on another ice cube. I’ve never known anyone who drank eggnog on the rocks, but I suspected, for Werner, the ice was more about giving him something to do than keeping his beverage cold.

“I tried Mari’s cell again,” Margot said. “No answer. Maybe we should go ahead and eat.”

The table was pretty, with a long, low line of white poinsettias wrapped in gold paper and ringed by white votive candles for the centerpiece and set with gold-rimmed china and tall crystal goblets that sparkled in the candlelight. Charlie and Evelyn had brought a bunch of white and gold Christmas crackers to the party, a gift sent by Charlie’s sisters in Ireland, and put one next to each place setting.

Charlie demonstrated how to pull on the strings to open the cracker. The resulting pop made everyone jump, and the sight of Charlie wearing a pink paper crown on his head made everyone laugh, easing the tension. For a few minutes the room was filled with sounds of popping paper and the sight of adults looking silly and pleased in their own paper crowns, showing off the cheap plastic trinkets they found inside the paper tubes.

Margot filled goblets with champagne. Charlie carried the turkey in from the kitchen and placed it on the sideboard, carving knife at the ready. Though it was his daughter’s table, Werner instinctively placed himself at the head of it. When everyone was seated, he bowed his head to bless the food, but his wife laid a hand on his arm.

“Werner, perhaps Reverend Clarkson should say the prayer?”

He looked at me, frowning. We were all members of the same denomination, but Werner Matthews seemed uncomfortable with the idea of a female minister. He’d barely talked to me all day. It didn’t bother me; I’d run into that sort of thing before and would again.

“Please, Mr. Matthews,” I said, bowing my head slightly, “you go ahead.”

After Mr. Matthews prayed, Charlie carved and served the bird while the rest of us passed bowls and platters from hand to hand, filling our plates until there wasn’t room for so much as an additional cranberry. The turkey was a little bit dry, but that didn’t seem to make any difference to anyone but Charlie, who grimaced slightly when he took his first bite. Everything else was delicious. Now that the food was on the table, Margot’s father was more relaxed, which seemed to come as a relief to Margot.

He was an interesting man, bristly, but clearly dedicated to his family and just as clearly used to being in charge of everything—his business, his wife, and his daughter. Margot was forty, a woman with a home of her own and a successful career, yet her father spoke to her and of her as though she were still a girl, a good girl and the apple of his eye, but a girl just the same. And Margot responded in kind, deferring to his opinions.

I wondered if she was aware of how her personality altered in the presence of her father. Was that the price of being her father’s favorite, a price she had decided was worth paying? Or had she and her sister, as so many siblings do, simply fallen into the roles assigned to them when they were born—good child, bad child, rebel, saint?

Being an only child does have some advantages. For me, there was no jockeying for position or need to curry favor, no fear of losing parental approval. I was always my father’s favorite, the tablet upon which he inscribed all his hopes and unfulfilled expectations. It’s something of a mixed blessing. Those tablets are heavy.

Still wearing his purple paper crown, Werner sawed a chunk of turkey breast into bite-sized pieces while talking to his daughter. “I gave your car a once-over before I came inside, honey. You need new tires. The tread is low on the back right side. It’s dangerous to drive on a tire like that, especially in this weather.”

“I know, Daddy. But I’m thinking of getting a new car, so I didn’t think it made sense to replace the tires now.”

“A new car?” Werner frowned, reached for the cranberry sauce, and heaped the last of it on his plate. Without being asked, Lillian got up from the table and carried the bowl into the kitchen, presumably to refill it. “What’s wrong with the car you’ve got?”

“Nothing, but it has a hundred and fifty thousand miles on it. And it’s not great in snow. I was thinking about looking for something with four-wheel drive.”

Werner speared a piece of turkey with his fork before carrying it to his mouth and nodded, all for keeping his daughter safe. “Well, you make sure you call me before you go buying anything. Remember what happened when you bought that Pinto wagon.”

Her cheeks flushed pink. “Dad,” she said quietly, “that was twenty years ago.”

“Biggest lemon on the lot,” he said, going on as if he hadn’t heard her, grinning and turning to address himself to Charlie. “Needed a new transmission. And that dealer knew it too. That’s why he gave her such a ‘deal’ on it. He sure saw her coming.” Werner chuckled and chewed. “Didn’t he, Bunny?”

Margot looked down at her plate and nodded.

“So you just make sure you call me before you sign anything this time,” he said, pointing his fork at Margot.

“Yes, Dad.”

“I can drive down, give it a test drive for you, and help negotiate the deal—make sure they don’t stick you for any of those crazy ‘extras’ and dealer fees.”

“I’d hate to make you drive all the way from Buffalo just to—”

Werner beamed and patted his daughter’s hand. “I’d go to the ends of the earth to help my little girl. You know that.”

A ringing sound, like an old-fashioned alarm clock, came from the kitchen. Margot jumped to her feet just as her mother came through the kitchen door holding a full bowl of cranberry sauce in one hand and Margot’s cell phone in the other.

“That’s probably Mari,” Margot said, smiling with relief.

“Hope she’s just late and not lost,” Werner said, addressing his comments to the table. “Or broken down somewhere. Wouldn’t surprise me. She drives an Audi.”

He rolled his eyes meaningfully and then, seeing that Margot had covered her ear with her hand so she could hear what the caller was saying, lowered his voice.

“Or she did the last I heard. She only lives a few hours south, but she can’t be bothered to come see us. And she never invites us down there, not even for Olivia’s kindergarten graduation. Never calls unless she wants something. I told her about buying an Audi, didn’t I, Lil? Those things are always breaking down and they cost a fortune to fix. I told her over and over, but would she listen?”

Lillian, who was only half listening to him, her attention (and mine) being divided between her husband’s monologue and Margot’s phone conversation, which was filled with too many long pauses and short responses to be a chat between sisters, frowned.

“Sweetheart,” she said, clamping her hand over her husband’s without looking at his face.

Werner put down his fork, looked at his wife with surprise and then at Margot. By that time, we were all looking at Margot.

“Yes. All right. We’ll be right there.” Margot ended the call and turned to face her parents. Her eyes were wide and her face drained of color.

Lillian rose from her chair. “What is it?”

“There was an accident. Black ice, the policeman said. Mari skidded off the road and went over an embankment. He didn’t know how long she’d been there before they found her. He found Mari’s phone on the floor and saw I was the last person to call ….”

Werner got up and stood next to his wife. “Where are they now?”

“In an ambulance. Two ambulances. One for Mari and one for Olivia.”

Lillian’s hand covered her mouth. For a moment, she dipped lower, as if her knees might give way, but Werner grasped her around the shoulders and pulled her body in close to his.

“How bad is it?”

Margot shook her head. “I don’t know. The officer just said we should get to the hospital as soon as possible. But,” she said, choking on her own words, “I think it’s bad, Daddy. I think it’s very bad.”