All or Nothing (38 page)

“Or a green plastic Batman ring out of a cereal box,” M.B. noted. Cin took another swig of wine and looked sour.

“Or the key ring off a pop can,” Pluto said and rolled his eyes. “Women are big for that option.”

“You've tried it?” Jen teased and he laughed.

“Not with any success. C'mon let's see your rock.”

Jen shrugged. “I don't have one.”

“No time to charter a plane to fly to New York with your busy schedule?” Gerry asked, his tone acid. “I suppose planning a huge wedding does cut into your leisure time.”

“I'm not planning a big wedding,” Jen said.

“But the Coxwells are,” Natalie said.

Jen left that one alone.

“I think the biggest diamond on the eastern seaboard was his ambition, wasn't it?” Gerry sneered.

Jen met the older man's gaze and decided she'd had enough of his bullying. “Hasn't it ever occurred to you, Gerry, that some people will sometimes say something untrue just to pull your chain?”

Pluto laughed. M.B. coughed into his hand, but when Jen looked, his eyes were twinkling.

Gerry inhaled and straightened. “I don't see anything funny about my expressing a concern for the future of the planet...”

“Except that you're so serious about it,” Natalie interjected. “Whatever happened to mutual tolerance? Remember ‘peace, love, and understanding'? We don't have to all have the same answer to every question.”

Natalie and Gerry eyed each other from across the kitchen, and Jen sensed an unfamiliar vibration between them. It looked to her as if Gerry was waiting for Natalie to blink, while Natalie simply smiled back at him, her chin held high. The expression in her eyes was a bit harder than it tended to be when she looked at Gerry. They stared at each other for a long moment, then his lips turned and he strode back across the kitchen to the stove.

He slammed a pot lid and Natalie ignored him.

“I don't have a ring because Zach and I aren't getting married,” Jen said quietly, feeling it was best to make the truth clear to her family.

“Yet,” Natalie supplied with vigor. “It's in your charts that you'll be together and really, there's nothing wrong with taking your time.”

“You mean we won't be going to a wedding at the big Episcopalian church in Rosemount after all?” Gran demanded. “I've told all my friends and I've already bought a hat.”

“It'll happen, Mom,” Natalie reassured her mother before Jen could say anything. “All Jen and Zach need is a little space.”

Jen felt everyone look at her, then look away.

Cin, of course, hadn't really been interested in the conversation around her. “I'm sure Ian has a girlfriend,” she complained, taking the conversation back to her own woes once again.

“Well, if you turned him down, it's hard to blame him, isn't it?” Pluto asked.

“He wasn't serious!” Cin wailed.

“Sounds like he was,” Jen couldn't help but note.

“Maybe you should ask him,” M.B. suggested.

“While you can,” Pluto added quietly, but Cin ignored them all. She was too busy draining her glass of wine and getting herself another one.

“We're almost ready,” Gerry said, sounding long-suffering.

“Don't forget my bo-bo balls,” Gran said with anticipation and Natalie got to her feet. “They're so good.”

“Of course, Mom.” Natalie returned to the kitchen, opened the fridge and removed the little brown paper bag. Jen could see her mother over the island that separated the eating area from the work area of the kitchen. Natalie hummed a little as put a pan on the stove with a bit of oil in the bottom, waited until it was hot, then popped the deep fried balls of chicken into the fat again.

What Jen could also see but Natalie could not see was Gerry's face. He stood beside the sink, watching Natalie work, his expression one of horror.

“What are those?” he asked in a tone that indicated he already knew the answer.

“Bo bo balls,” Natalie said. “Mom's favorite. They have chicken in them and are deep fried. I'm sure you've had them before.”

“But this is a vegetarian kitchen!”

“Live and let live, Gerry,” Natalie said impatiently.

“Is that what they said to the chickens before they were slaughtered?”

Natalie turned to face Gerry, the take-out dish of bright red sauce in her hand. “Would you please put this in the microwave for a minute?”

Gerry recoiled. “What is that stuff?”

Natalie shrugged. “The sauce.”

“Sweet and sour sauce,” Gran contributed cheerfully. “It has pineapple chunks in it.”

“Oh,” Gerry said in an arch tone. “From one of those New England organic pineapple farms?”

Natalie glared at him and held the dish closer to him. “Just heat it up.”

“How many kinds of food coloring are in this crap, Natalie?” Gerry demanded. “What kind of toxins are you putting into your body?”

“The same kind I've put into it for eighty years,” Gran said as she pulled up a chair to the table. “Seems to be working out just fine so far.”

Gerry looked at Natalie. “You can't mean to let anyone ingest this kind of garbage in your house?”

Natalie took a step back, her expression hardening in a way that Jen had rarely witnessed. Natalie's children were completely silent, knowing the portent of that look well despite its rarity, and Natalie spoke very softly. “There are things, Gerry, that are more important than abstract principles.”

“Name one.”

“Love. Respect. Tolerance. There's three.” Natalie pushed past him and put the Styrofoam bowl into the microwave, then punched in the time and hit start. “I am blessed to have my mother in my home this holiday season. We don't agree on everything, but a bo-bo ball here and there isn't going to condemn the planet to oblivion.”

“How can you talk like this?” Gerry demanded. “You know about pineapple plantations. You know about the ill effects of food additives like color and preservatives. This stuff probably wouldn't degenerate in a hundred years.”

“Then if I eat enough of it, they won't have to embalm me,” Gran said cheerfully. “That'll save chemicals.”

The microwave beeped and the chicken balls sizzled in the pan.

“Peace, love, and understanding to you this holiday season,” Natalie said sweetly as she reached around Gerry and took the sauce out of the microwave.

“I can't believe it!” Gerry said. “First you let Jen eat turkey...”

“She needs animal protein,” Natalie said mildly. “The doctor said she was anemic and it was the only solution. And Mom bought an organically raised bird.”

“Shockingly expensive,” Gran said with a shake of her head. “But it was good, wasn't it, dear?”

“It was delicious, Gran,” Jen agreed. “The best turkey dinner ever.”

Gran beamed and gave Jen a hug. “Worth every dime to see your blood built back up again,” she said huskily. “I'm glad you'll have Zach to take care of you in future.”

“What's the matter with all of you?” Gerry asked, coming to the table. “Can't you see that eating this kind of garbage is what made Jen sick in the first place? Can't you see that you're poisoning yourselves? Cancer...”

Natalie slammed the pot on the stove and silence claimed the kitchen completely. Jen looked down. Gran laid a hand over Jen's. M.B. came to stand behind her, putting his hands on her shoulders. Cin put down her glass and looked daggers at Gerry.

“Hey,” Pluto protested. “You're out of line, man.”

“We don't say the C word here,” M.B. said softly.

“Denial doesn't change anything,” Gerry said and Jen caught her breath. “We're poisoning the planet and poisoning ourselves and every single goddamn bo-bo ball just makes it worse. We are what we eat and by careless consumption, we sicken ourselves and weaken our own population with disease.”

Natalie poured the chicken balls into a bowl and brought them to the table, putting the bowl down with a thump. She put her hands on her hips and glared up at Gerry. “Are you suggesting that my daughter deserved to be sick?”

“I'm saying it's inescapable, if we don't respect...”

“Respect seems to be a problem here tonight,” Natalie said, interrupting him so sharply that Gerry fell silent. “As does common courtesy.”

“But...” he protested.

“But
nothing
,” Natalie said fiercely. “My daughter never did anything to deserve her illness: no one could be sufficiently evil to have to endure what Jen went through. I have fed my children with the best food I could find and I have nurtured them with all the love in my heart and I have kept them safe and I have taught them everything I know, and shit still can happen. And no one who believes otherwise has any right to be in my house.”

“Are you asking me to leave?” Gerry asked, clearly confident that this could not be the case.

“No,” Natalie said and waited a beat. “I'm telling you to.”

He stared at her, shocked.

“And don't bother coming back,” she said, tossing him his coat and opening the door to the porch.

Gerry sputtered. He turned to the closely packed group at the table as if seeking support. It was a long shot, no matter how you looked at it.

Pluto stood up and started to clap. “Right on, Mom,” he said, his eyes a colder blue than they usually were.

“Don't let the door hit you in the ass,” Cin said, joining his applause.

“Well said, Mom,” M.B. contributed.

Gran held fast to Jen's hand.

Gerry looked at them all, shook his head, swore, then strode into the night. Natalie slammed the door behind him and turned the lock, leaning her back against it to regard her family. There were tears shimmering in her eyes, Jen saw.

“Don't you dare believe any of that,” she told Jen.

Jen shook her head. “The oncologist told me it was a random mutation that couldn't be traced to any single event or cause.”

“And after a decade in medical school, he probably knew more about it than Gerry,” M.B. said flatly. He gave Jen's shoulders a squeeze, then went to take his place. There was a bustle of food getting to the table and people seating themselves and Cin sharing her wine.

Then Cin surprised Jen once again. She whistled for silence and lifted her glass high, smiling at Jen across the steaming food. “To our Jen and her first anniversary of testing ‘clear'. Let's drink to many many more.”

They cheered and drank and then Jen lifted her own glass. “One more,” she said. “To all of you, for helping me get through it.”

“To family,” Natalie said. “Because no matter how we argue, we're here for each other when it counts.”

“Which is a good thing,” Pluto said. “'Cause you can pick your nose, man, but you can't pick your relatives.”

Cin threw a napkin at him as everyone groaned. They drank the toast, then Gran looked over the table.

“Doesn't this look nice?” she asked no one in particular, then insisted that Jen begin to ladle out her soup.

J
en's knitted gifts were well received that night. Natalie exclaimed over the socks and put them on right away. M.B. pledged he'd wear the mittens home that night. Cin tried on the hat, then returned to her excessive wine consumption with the hat still on her head. Pluto declared the shoulder sling bag to be the perfect thing and immediately moved stuff from his canvas sling bag into the “much more funky” knitted one.

Gran wrapped herself in her lacy shawl and beamed with pride. “I never imagined that when you learned to knit, you'd one day make something like this,” she said, her voice warm with affection. “Now, you go and get that envelope in the side of my purse.”

Jen got the envelope, thinking her grandmother had brought a Christmas card for the household. To her surprise, it was addressed to her.

Gran smiled. “Go on. Open it.”

Jen was embarrassed, feeling that she had been singled out from her siblings. They didn't seem to have any issues with it, though, and she wondered what they knew that she didn't.

“Go on,” M.B. urged, bumping his shoulder against hers. “Open it. Cin's dying of curiosity.”

Cin snorted, but she put her wine aside. “Do it, Jen.”

“A little music to set the tone,” Pluto said, and strummed on his guitar. He chose
White Christmas
which made Jen think about doing a fake foxtrot down Lee Street in the snow with Zach.

Would that happen again?

Was once enough?

Her throat tightened and she tore open the envelope without further ado.

There was a bank statement inside the envelope. It was hard to read the tally of numbers in the candlelight, so Jen looked to her grandmother for an explanation.

“Once upon a time, a baby girl was born,” Gran said, her fingers entwined in the ends of the shawl Jen had knit for her. “And the grandparents of that little girl were very excited, even though they were already grandparents three times over.”

“She's talking about you,” Pluto said to Jen.

“Thanks for the clarification,” Jen said and they all laughed.

Gran continued. “Now, because the grandfather of that little girl was the kind of man who worried a great deal about the future, and because the father of that little girl was not the kind of man who worried much about anything at all, the baby's grandfather opened a savings account for that baby. He put fifty dollars in that account and he left it there. And every time that little girl had a birthday or lost a tooth or got a good grade in class or won a blue ribbon at a track meet, he put a little bit more money into that account. Sometimes it was twenty-five dollars and sometimes it was only ten. He put fifty dollars in when she was baptized, and a little bit every Christmas. And he never took any money out.“