“Too bad,” we said. We clicked our tongues and shook our heads, then went back to the pleasures of a lazy warm Sunday. As the sun began to set in a blaze of gold and purple, the menfolks dressed the bucket of fish Daddy and Terry had caught while Minnie and I made cornbread and salad.
My back porch is fully screened and plenty big for a large round table and lots of chairs. The table was one I’d found in Robert’s barn and works just fine when I hide the water stains and scratches with a red-checkered tablecloth. The chairs at the moment are cheap white plastic deck chairs and I only have four. Even with the four from my dining area inside, we were going to have to fill in with those folding aluminum lawn chairs that are always just a little too low for any eating table.
Some of the kids don’t like fish, so I fetched a couple of twenties and was going to send Reese and A.K. out for pizzas, but they’d already conferred with the rest of their cousins and decided that the seven of them would stop somewhere on their way into Garner for a movie they all wanted to see at the new multiplex.
“But we sure do ’preciate your generosity,” said Reese, plucking the bills from my hand with a big grin.
Zach had to leave, too. “Barbara’ll be home soon and we’re supposed to go over and take supper with her sister.” He cast a regretful eye at Minnie’s cornbread.
With the dogs milling around his feet, Daddy sat on the porch steps downwind from Terry and lit a cigarette while they watched Andrew and Seth fuss with getting the charcoal hot enough. The grill was one that Haywood and Isabel gave me when they bought a new gas model last month and this was the first time I’d had it out.
April murmured sounds of dismay as she rummaged in my sparsely filled kitchen drawers and cabinets for plates, glasses and flatware. All she could find were three or four mismatched plates and mugs, four glasses and some odds and ends of tableware—discards Aunt Zell had given me till I could get around to buying new.
“Over there,” I said, gesturing toward the cupboards Will had built into the wall behind my dining table.
Mother was townbred and of the generation of young women that picked out table patterns by the time they were sixteen and registered them at Belk’s or Ivey’s. Her family was solidly middle-class, with a wide circle of equally well-to-do friends who gave her at least a dozen bridal showers, which means that she brought a ton of china, silver, and crystal to the farm when she married Daddy, a dirt farmer who’d never before even held a silver spoon, much less eaten from one.
She had willed it all to me, her only daughter, and when I moved into my new house, Daddy boxed it up and brought it over on the back of his old Chevy pickup. Full-service china for sixteen with meat platters, lidded bowls, and tureens. Silver for twenty. Enough crystal wine goblets to drink France under the table. It took up every inch of Will’s cabinets.
“You can’t serve cornbread and pond fish on Royal Doulton,” April protested. “Do you know how much it would cost to replace one of those plates?”
“Why?” I asked with a perfectly straight face. “Did you plan on breaking some?”
“Deborah!” It was the same voice she would have used on one of her sixth-grade students.
“Look,” I said. “This stuff hasn’t been used since Mother died and Christmas was about the only time she ever used it herself. It’s either that or paper plates and plastic forks and I hate plastic forks.”
We compromised. Paper plates, plastic cups, sterling silver.
“We should have given you a proper housewarming,” Minnie said and April nodded.
I laughed. “Come on, you two! Cotton Grove may
“We could have started a trend,” Minnie said regretfully.
“Never mind,” April told her. “It’ll make Christmas easy on all of us for the next few years. You’ve always been hard to shop for, Deborah. Now we can give you house stuff. Stainless flatware and water glasses.” An impish grin spread over her freckled face. “And cute little napkin rings and salt-and-pepper shakers shaped like kittycats.”
“Don’t forget Tupperware,” said Minnie.
“Teflon!”
“Aprons!”
“Oven mitts that look like vegetables!”
Laughing, they stepped onto the porch to set the table and Seth called through the screen. “I guess we’re skipping church tonight?”
Minnie gave him an inquiring look. “Unless
“Well, I believe I’d rather sit right here and give thanks for this fish and this company,” Seth said happily.
* * *
In the end, nine of us sat down to supper because Amy and Will arrived just as the first, smaller fish were coming off the grill.
“Sorry we couldn’t get here in time to help,” Amy said.
“That’s okay,” Terry said magnanimously, as if catching half the fish cleared him of further obligations. “You and Will can wash dishes.”
Will took one look at the disposable plates and cups and said, “Done!”
Amy took one look at the silver and said, “You don’t put
“Why not?” I asked.
April had just taken a bite of crusty cornbread, but she rolled her eyes at Minnie, who laughed and passed me the salad.
