“You know who’s been on my mind a lot lately?” Patrick’s hand was wet from the condensation on his cup he’d tossed, so he wiped it on his shorts.
“God, you’re chatty.”
“Exhaustion. Coupled with sugar.”
Clara used her free hand to pull on her blouse and fan some air between the silk and her skin. “No, who?”
“Mom.”
“Oh,” Clara said. She swiped her milkshake cup in a smooth arc across her forehead, then looked like she wanted to throw it at an older, lumbering man wearing a lock her up tee. “Why?”
“I have a new appreciation, I guess. It’s a lot of work.”
“You should have her come out,” Clara suggested.
“No.” Patrick turned his face upward toward the misters; the water evaporated as quickly as it hit his skin.
“No?”
Patrick closed his eyes. “If they can’t have their mother, I don’t get mine. Sort of a bargain I made.” He stood on his toes and waited until he could feel water bead on his face like dew. “What prompted you to come?”
Clara pretended not to hear. She tucked her napkin into her blouse to wipe under her armpits as she looked into the store after the kids. “I don’t know how you live like this.”
It was as neat a bookend as this conversation would have.
The house was sparkling by the time they returned, and Rosa had even made sweet coconut and pineapple tamales for their holiday dessert, her own mother’s recipe. Patrick thanked her with a handful of cash he’d withdrawn in town and instructions to go home and “spend Christmas with her family”; Clara’s eyes rolled so far back in her head Patrick feared they might come all the way around.
By late afternoon Clara had made an about-face on celebrating, but she insisted if they were going to celebrate Christmas, they should do it right. There was no wrapping paper in the house, so they made do with pages they tore from old magazines for the smaller gifts, then cut up several paper shopping bags he had from the Saks outlet in Cabazon for the larger ones. The kids had to use kitchen scissors, but for some unknown reason their uncle had plenty of tape. He let Maisie and Grant draw snowmen with markers they picked up in town and Grant even attempted reindeer, although they looked more like some twisted lab creation—otters on stilts, with horns; Patrick looked forward to putting them out of their misery in the act of zealously opening a gift.
Clara argued for eating their turkey dinners in the formal dining area, a corner of the house Patrick was certain had never been used, and she set his table to look surprisingly festive. The candles he recognized, he’d burned them exactly once during a massage, but the rest of the table setting was a bit of a mystery.
“Where did you get those?” Patrick asked, pointing at both the cloth place mats and decorative runner. It was almost accusatory. Had she brought them with her in some attempt to assert parenting will? Children should eat off of proper place settings, or not eat at all?
“I found them in a drawer under all those shelves.”
“Those shelves?” Patrick pointed at the shelving unit he had constructed on the far wall in the living room.
“In the drawers. Under that funny paperweight.”
“MY GOLDEN GLOBE?”
“Whatever you call it.”
“Huh.” Perhaps Rosa smuggled them into the house in one of her early attempts to civilize him. Or maybe he’d moved them from a previous house, they could have even been Sara’s or Joe’s.
Clara taught Maisie about setting a table, including four different ways to fold napkins (in addition to rectangular and triangular, there was something called a cone fold, and a presentation with diagonal pockets in which to tuck a small flower or name card), and Maisie seemed to relish in learning. As much as she eschewed girls’ swimsuits, she seemed to have no problem indulging in tasks ripped from a housekeeping primer back when marriage for women was a career. An enigma, that one, Patrick thought.
When they were seated, Clara asked if they should say grace.
“No,” Patrick said, quickly squashing the idea.
“We can at least say something we’re thankful for.”
Patrick had plated their take-out turkey dinners, including mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce—the works. He cut his own turkey in small bites for Marlene and placed it in her bowl with a dollop of potatoes, then steamed himself an extra serving of vegetables. They were all more than ready to eat. “It’s not Thanksgiving.”
“It’s not Christmas either. It’s not anything!” Clara grabbed on to the table with both hands to calm herself. “Something we’re happy for, then. Before we eat this food.”
Patrick slammed his fists on the table and the silverware jumped. “Dammit, Clara.”
“What? I didn’t say before we put this food in our tummies!”
“It’s not . . .” Patrick reached for the salt and pepper. He ground pepper over his food like he was a server waiting for someone, anyone, to say Stop. “They just lost their mother. You and I lost a sister-in-law. I lost a friend. We’ve been getting comfortable in our unhappiness, with the fact that life is often unpleasant, and we don’t need to pretend otherwise tonight.”
Clara removed the napkin from her lap and set it forcefully on the table like she was about to get up. She hovered for a moment a few inches above her chair before deciding, for the sake of the children, to sit back down. “Well, the food looks delicious. We can be grateful for that.”
Patrick softened. “Amen.” He placed his hand on Clara’s forearm, an acknowledgment that he was the one on edge.
“Are dogs supposed to eat turkey?” Maisie asked, peering down at Marlene. If this was of genuine concern or if she sensed the need to change the room’s tone, Patrick wasn’t sure. But he could have kissed her for dialing the temperature down.
“Are people supposed to eat turkey? That’s the question.”
“YETH!” Grant bellowed with a mouth full of potato mush.
“There
