For some reason, Jane Ann and I are the only ones in the whole family who like them. Even Dwight, who eats everything from raw oysters to calamari, thinks they’re an abomination.
“Don’t worry, I’ll serve them separately,” said the chef, who admitted he couldn’t stand them either.
Ruth said she could tolerate their smell as long as she didn’t have to eat any, and she took a chair on the other side of me. “I uploaded pictures of us making cookies Saturday, Aunt Deborah, and I sent you the link. Did you see them? There’s a real cute one of you and Cal.”
“I got the link,” I told her, “but I haven’t had a chance to look at the pictures yet.”
Carols sung in Italian formed a seasonal backdrop to the happy chatter of my nieces and nephews as the ones who’d been away at college caught up with the kids still in high school. Suggestions were batted back and forth for get-togethers that would include girl-and boyfriends after Christmas, but for tonight they seemed to enjoy just being with each other, part of the close-knit clan we’ve all known since infancy. I know that some of them will eventually scatter to the four corners of the country, like Adam, Frank, Ben, and Jack, who come home so infrequently that their children are like strangers to us. Haywood and Isabel are mildly worried that Jane Ann seems interested in a classmate from Oregon, and who knows where Will and Amy’s Jackson will wind up if he does make it to the major leagues after college?
My bittersweet musings were interrupted by an Italian version of “Jingle Bells” that made everyone laugh.
Our pizzas came, hot and crispy and fragrant with oregano and basil. I went ahead and ordered a final large pie to take home if the others didn’t get there in time. At the rate the slices were disappearing, that would be in about fifteen minutes. A.K. sat on the other side of his sister and could almost eat a whole one by himself. Ruth had to snake a slice of the mushrooms and sausage he was working on before it was all gone. I paid with my credit card, and when my copy of the receipt arrived, she picked it up and said, “I wish whoever threw out that trash last week had paid with a credit card.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, my mouth full of hot melted mozzarella and salty anchovies.
“I told you about it. Remember? When the others were fixing the memorial where Mallory crashed? I picked up all the trash I saw along both sides of the road so it’d look nice. One of the things on the opposite shoulder of the road was a Bojangles’ box, and a receipt had blown a little further down the road in the ditch. When we pick up the trash on our road, I always look to see if there’s any way to tell who dumped it, don’t you?”
I swallowed and nodded. It’s amazing how many people will litter without realizing they might be tossing stuff with their names and addresses on it: credit card receipts, sales slips, old bills, junk mail. Our family has adopted the main road past the farm, and one or another of us is out there a couple of times a month to clean the shoulders and ditches. Haywood’s occasionally taken garbage over to the address of the people who dumped it and politely asked them to quit littering on our road. Haywood’s six feet tall and built like a Hummer, so most folks don’t argue with him. Especially when he waves a soiled envelope with their name on it in their face.
Ruth took another bite of her pizza and caught a mushroom that threatened to drop onto her shirt. “The thing is, it was from that Bojangles’ at the edge of Cotton Grove and it was time-stamped ten-something the same night Mallory died. I was thinking that since Mallory crashed around ten-thirty, maybe they were driving past and saw something, but they paid cash, so there was no name on the receipt.”
“Too bad you didn’t save it,” I said.
“I almost did. Along with all the other garbage. I stuck the bag in the trunk of Jess’s car and then forgot about it till we were at your house Saturday morning. I guess I should have mentioned it to Uncle Dwight instead of just dumping it in y’all’s garbage pail.”
Which meant that it was gone, because Dwight always takes our garbage to the dump on Saturday mornings.
“Don’t worry about it,” I told Ruth as Jane Ann slid my half of the third pizza slice onto my plate. “The troopers probably would have picked it up if they’d thought it had any use.”
When we got back to the house around nine-thirty, I saw flashlights bobbing around down by the pond.
“Who’s that?” I asked, pausing on the porch to squint out into the darkness.
“Just Reese and Stevie,” said Annie Sue, who had come out on the porch when she heard all the cars pull up. “Bandit got out and we heard him barking down there so they went to see if it was a deer or something.”
“I hope Reese didn’t have his rifle with him,” I said. “He knows better than to jacklight a deer.”
“Oh, Aunt Deborah!” Ruth said. “You know Reese wouldn’t do something like that.”
The others laughed and I just shook my head at her innocence.
Bandit came bounding up, his paws wet and muddy. I grabbed his collar and reached for the old towel I keep hanging on a nail so that I could wipe him down before he tracked mud into the house.
“What was it?” I called when the two boys were within hearing distance.
“What was what?” asked Reese as he and Stevie came up on the porch.
“What Bandit was barking at,” Annie Sue said quickly. “I told her y’all went to see if it was a deer that got him so excited.”
“Oh.” Reese switched off his flashlight. He carried a screwdriver in his other hand.
I laughed. “What were you going to do? Stab it with that?”
“No telling what spooked him,” Stevie said. “Is that pizza I smell? I’m starving.”
We went inside and unboxed the food. In addition to a whole pizza, we had brought back several uneaten slices from our supper. Emma’s brother Lee had turned up while we were gone and he dug in, too. Some of the kids played with Dwight’s train while I made fresh coffee and brought out the jug of iced tea I keep in the refrigerator. A.K. and Lee asked to microwave some popcorn. When everyone had a beverage of choice and a bowl of popcorn within easy reach, I slid the DVD of Jean Shepherd’s sweet tale of boyhood Christmas yearning into the player and we settled down to watch, some on the couches and chairs, others stretched out on the floor with cushions under their chins. We know all the best lines and a running obbligato echoed the soundtrack—“You’ll shoot your eye out” and “You stay away from that turkey.” It still cracks us up when Ralphie comes downstairs in those bunny pajamas.
