Family Blessings (28 page)

When Lee and the kids arrived, Peg came to answer the door herself, still an impeccably groomed woman in spite of the faint roundness at her middle. "Darlings. Happy Thanksgiving." They all exchanged kisses and hugs, juggling pies and a casserole dish while Orrin came to take their coats and offer hugs, too.

Peg said, "We're having drinks in the study so go right on in."

Lee said, "I had to stop and pick up the ice cream on the way and the carton was a mess. I've got to wash my sticky hands, then I'll be right with you."

In the bathroom a clover-leaf-shaped whirlpool tub was surrounded by carefully placed pots of leafless corkscrew sticks and immense baskets of black and white towels. While Lee washed and dried her hands she heard Sylvia's laugh and a rustle of voices raised in greeting. She opened a drawer, found her mother's brush and ran it through her hair.

The doorbell rang. Someone else arrived and voices blended, then faded off toward the study. Sylvia's little granddaughter, Marnie, came running down the hall and into the bathroom, her patent-leather shoes slapping against the tile.

"Hi, Auntie Lee," she said.

"Hi, Marnie!"

"I got a new dress!" It was frosted with lace and ruffled as a tutu.

"Ooo, is it ever pretty!"

"Mommy said to blow my nose." She went up on tiptoe but couldn't reach the tissue box on the vanity counter. Lee helped her and the child chattered all the while . . . about her new white tights and how her mom had brought along her snow pants and boots today so she and her brothers could go out and play in the snow later.

Lee snapped off the light and the two of them left the bathroom together.

"Want to go see the flowers?" Lee asked.

The child nodded and offered her hand.

They cut across one end of the entry hall where a great-aunt and uncle were arriving, and moved on toward the rear of the house where the side-by-side dining room and living room looked out over a view that was the house's greatest asset. Roosting high over the river, the building's entire eastern exposure was made of glass, and the view beyond it was splendid today with the water still tumbling between the white wooded banks where squirrels and blue jays added a touch that no decorator, whatever her credits, could have provided.

The tables--two of them butted--were spread in unabashed resplendence, stretching across the archway and spanning both rooms, which were carpeted in palest taupe and decorated with a lot of white upholstery on straight-lined functional furniture.

The tables were spread with white damask and set with Bavarian bone china chosen by the decorator to complement the traditional decor.

If there was one thing Peg prided herself on, it was good taste.

Marnie was dancing around, holding one foot up behind her, touching the backs of chairs, too young to be impressed by the lavish layout of finery that glittered and shone before the long, bright windows.

Lee checked the flowers: They looked truly worthy of a Peg Hillier table setting. She wandered along, passing several place settings, noting that her mother had paid her usual attention to every detail.

Who but Peg Hillier used place cards anymore?

"Did you make those flowers?" Marnie asked, still dancing on one foot.

"Yes, I did."

"They're pretty."

"Thank you."

Marnie scampered off. Lee took one last look at the flowers and turned toward the sound of happy chatter coming from the study. It was a large room at the front of the house with a brass-screened fireplace where a festive fire burned. Relatives sat on the brown leather sofas or stood in groups chatting with the usual exuberance of arrival time.

Peg stood beside a skirted round table ladling hot cider into a crystal cup, adding a cinnamon stick and handing it to . . .

Christopher Lallek!

Lee felt her face go red and her chest constrict.

He took the cup and napkin, smiled and thanked Peg, then put it to his mouth to sip while turning toward Janice, who was talking and smiling up at him, already holding a cup of her own.

She said something and he laughed, then drank again. Over the rim of his cup he saw Lee for the first time, standing stricken in the doorway. Of the two, he managed far more poise than she. No one would have guessed there was the slightest strain between them as he lowered the cup--smile intact--and said to Janice, "Oh, there's your mother."

Lee moved into the room toward him--what else could she do?

Janice turned and said, excitedly, "Mom, why didn't you tell me Christopher was coming?"

"I thought he had to work."

"Not until three, it turned out," he said, then leaned to kiss her cheek. "Happy Thanksgiving, Mrs. Reston. I'm glad I could make it after all."

"So am I," she responded, finding that deep in her heart it was true.

Lord, how she'd missed him. They had parted at her request, but she'd come to believe that request--prompted by forces other than what she felt for him--was one of the most misguided of her life. She had said to him once that she was not a lonely woman, then yesterday to Sylvia she'd said just the opposite. Her loneliness had begun, she realized now, since he had come into her life and then been exiled from it.

He was dressed in gray wool trousers, white shirt, blue floral tie and a finely knit shawl collar sweater of navy blue. He was well proportioned, fit, trim, and wore clothing well. So rarely had she seen him in anything other than his uniform or jeans.

Shorts in the summer, of course, but his clothing today lent him a new aspect that brought to Lee feelings she hadn't experienced since Bill was alive.

It was sexual attraction, pure and simple. And for the first time, she admitted it.

She watched him with her family. Every person in the room knew him.

Everyone liked him. But what, exactly, would their reaction be if she started dating him? Really dating him.

Janice looked radiant. She stood beside him, looking up, adoring, offering small talk that often made him laugh. Once she touched his arm, it was only briefly, but Lee understood what kind of feelings women put into touches like that. It was flirtation of the subtlest kind. Studying the two of them as they stood talking, Lee admitted to herself what a beautiful couple they made. He, at thirty, so healthy and well groomed.

She, at twenty-three, with her dark wavy hair and perfect skin, not a.-wrinkle beside her mouth or eyes, in the full flush of youth. Lord in heaven, Lee didn't understand this. How could such a bizarre attraction have happened? Why herself? Why not Janice, who was so much more suitable?

Peg called from the kitchen that she needed help, and Orrin rounded up a few of the women to fill wineglasses and carry bowls. He himself went along to carve the turkey and dig the stuffing from inside the bird.

As Lee circled the table with the wine decanter, she noted what she'd missed earlier: Christopher's place card at a chair between her own and Janice's.

Without asking, she went to the refrigerator, found some cranberry juice and filled his glass with that.

The placement of guests began amid far less than the usual shuffling and shifting, due to Peg's carefully calligraphic place cards.

Christopher found himself between the two Reston women and politely seated them both, pulling out their chairs before taking his own.

Orrin said, "Let's all join hands now for a prayer."

Around the table everyone formed a ring. Lee took Joey's hand, on her left, and Christopher's, on her right. His hand was smooth and warm.

She was momentarily conscious of her own being rough and dry from too many prickly flower stems and too many dunkings in chlorine water. She was more conscious of a current flowing between them during the warm, firm contact of flesh that seemed to link more than their hands.

Orrin bowed his head.

"Dear Lord, on this day of thanksgiving we give special thanks for everyone around this table, for their health and prosperity and happiness. We thank you for the bounty you've given us, and ask that you watch over us all in the year to come. We also ask that you look after Greg, who's missing from this table this year, but is there with you . .." Lee felt Christopher's fingers tighten on her own and returned the pressure. ". . . and that you help each of us accept his absence and not question your reason for taking him. Give special strength to Lee, Janice and Joey in the year ahead. Until we gather again next year at this time . .

. thank you, Lord, for everything."

Few at the table lifted their heads immediately after the prayer.

Neither did Christopher release Lee's hand but held it under the tablecloth a moment longer and looked over at the tears in her downturned eyes.

"I'm glad to be here," he whispered, giving her hand an extra squeeze before finally releasing it.

Oh, that meal. That beautiful, awful, high-tension meal, with Christopher so close she could smell the wool of his sweater, and touch his sleeve, and watch his hands moving over the silverware, all the while pretending none of it meant anything out of the ordinary. The family probably attributed her unusual quiet to Orrin's prayer, though everyone recovered from it nicely and began chattering.

She forced herself to speak to Christopher lest the others wonder at her reticence.

"Your glass is filled with cranberry juice," she said.

"Thank you."

"So you're on mid-shift today."

"Yes. Three to eleven."

"Will it be busy?"

"Tonight it will. Lot of college kids home for the weekend, getting together at bars. You know kids and alcohol."

Askance, she watched him put away a helping of potatoes and gravy that covered half his plate.

"So how about you?" he asked. "Tomorrow's the biggie, huh?"

"That's right--biggest shopping days of the year, tomorrow and Saturday.

I'm not looking forward to it."

"And after that you're into the Christmas rush."

"That's already started. In my business we have to start preparing permanent Christmas arrangements so they're ready to sell on Thanksgiving weekend."

They talked about superficialities only, locking away what really mattered and behaving like Greg's friend and Greg's mother with Janice and Joey near enough to hear every word they said.

At two o'clock Chris checked his watch and said to Peg, "I'm sorry to do a hit-and-run, but I have to be at roll call in thirty minutes, dressed like a cop." He pushed back his chair and rose, holding back his tie. "That means a stop at home first."

Peg looked disappointed. "So soon? But you haven't even had your pie."

"Someone else can have my piece. I'm so full."

"I'll send one with you."

"Oh, no, that's not necessary. Everything was so delicious."

They went on exchanging dialogue while he moved away from the table and Peg rose to disregard his polite refusal of the pie.

Orrin stood and those around the table bid Christopher farewell.

After a moment of indecision, Lee got up too and went with him to the foyer while Orrin got his gray wool chesterfield coat and plaid scarf, holding them as Christopher slipped them on. Peg emerged from the kitchen with a triangular piece of tinfoil.

"Here's your pie. A Thanksgiving dinner just isn't complete without pumpkin pie. Lee made it."

"Thank you," he said. "I see where Lee gets her compulsion to send leftovers home with everybody. And thank you for another wonderful holiday." He kissed Peg's cheek, shook Orrin's hand and kissed Lee's cheek.

She opened the door and said, " Bye."

""Bye, and thanks again."

She lined the edge of the door with one hand while watching him walk down the wet driveway to his Explorer, which waited in a turnaround some distance away.

The wind had come up and lifted the end of his scarf as he opened the truck door and waved before getting in. He always did that-waved that way--and Lee was struck with warm familiarity watching him do so again.

As usual, from the moment he drove away the ebullience went out of the day.

Lee and the kids stayed till 6:30 P.M then Janice said she wanted to get home and change clothes: She, too, was going out with a bunch of friends that night.

At home, Joey and Lee changed into sweat suits and turned on the TV while Janice switched on the radio in the bathroom and spent time redoing her makeup and hair. Jane and Sandy came by for her at 8:30, leaving Lee and Joey watching an old rerun of a Waltons Thanksgiving movie.

At 9:15 the doorbell rang.

Lee glanced over at Joey, sprawled on the sofa, and discovered he was sound asleep She got up from her chair and went to answer.

Christopher stood on the front step, dressed in uniform, his squad car parked in the driveway behind him with its engine still running and the parking lights on.

She opened the storm door and he held it that way while she stood on the level above him in her sweat suit and slippers.

"I want to talk to you," he said--no smile, no softness, just a statement of fact. "Could you come out to the car for a minute?"

"Joey is here."

"Tell him where you're going and come outside, please."

"Can't we talk in the house?"

"No, not with Joey there."

Suddenly, things inside her began trembling. How indomitable he was to face this head on, far more than she, who had eluded the confrontation in various temporizing ways.

"All right," she said, "let me get my jacket." She opened a coat-closet door and called into the living room, "Joey, Christopher is here. I'm going out in the car to talk to him a minute."

He shifted onto his left side, facing the back of the sofa, and mumbled something while the TV played behind him.

Outside, she preceded Christopher down the walk to his squad car.

He opened the passenger door and waited while she got in. Inside it was warm, the heater blowing. A multitude of gear formed a barricade between his half of the seat and hers. A rifle stood barrel-up beside her left knee. On the dash a large radio, glowing with red lights, was mounted beside a larger speaker pointed at the driver's seat. On the seat itself a wooden cup holder was secured in place with space behind it for a bunch of notebooks that were wedged upright. Behind the driver's seat a glass partition divided the front from the back, while behind her a steel mesh partition did the same.