The Christmas Table

by Donna VanLiere

  Bud uses the back of his hand to rub his cheek. “Are there any names on the cards?”

  “No.”

  “The mother never used the daughter’s name?”

  Lauren shakes her head. “She didn’t. But she would buy whole milk from you and make yogurt. She would buy cream and make all sorts of recipes, telling her daughter that fresh milk made for the best recipes.”

  “Do you know when the recipes were written?”

  “Not really. But there’s no mention of anything modern. She mentions hayrides at Hurleys’ Tree Farm.”

  “The Hurleys did that thirty or so years ago. I haven’t heard of them doing that in recent years.”

  “So, the cards could be at least thirty years old,” Lauren says. “The mother said on the cards that she would pick up her milk on Saturday morning. Do you remember a woman who would come by on Saturdays who talked about cooking at all?”

  Bud’s face looks disappointed. “I’m sorry. A lot of people came to the farm and my wife or kids dealt with them more than I did.”

  Lauren realizes something and pulls her phone out of her purse. “I just remembered that I took a picture of some of the cards. Maybe the handwriting will look familiar.” She stands up and walks to the recliner, kneeling down next to it and holding the phone so he can see. “On second thought, I should’ve just brought the cards. That would have made more sense than taking a picture.” She accidentally taps the wrong thing on her phone and the photos she took weeks ago from Halloween at Clausen’s, decorating at Glory’s Place, and from the parks department Christmas party pop up. “Oops. Hold on. I need to scroll down and—”

  “Is that Gigi?” Bud asks, looking at a picture on the phone.

  “Who?”

  He indicates he wants to see a picture she passed and she scrolls back, stopping when he points to a picture. “Gigi. She and her mother Joan used to come here. Whatever happened to them?”

  Lauren beams at the picture and leans up, hugging Bud’s neck. “You did it!”

  “Did what?” Bud asks, surprised.

  “You solved the mystery!”

  “Well, how’d I do that?”

  “By being brilliant,” she says, smiling. She stands to her feet. “If I invited you to my house for dinner, would you come?”

  “Of course!”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  December 2012

  “Who can come to our house for dinner on Friday night?” Lauren asks at a meeting inside Gloria’s office where Dalton and Heddy, Andrea, Miriam, Amy, and Gloria are discussing the annual fund-raiser taking place in two weeks. “Gloria, feel free to bring Marshall, Andrea, please bring Bill, and Amy, you have to bring Gabe and Maddie.”

  Dalton and Heddy accept the invitation right away, along with Gloria and Miriam. “That seems like so many people,” Andrea says. “Are you sure?”

  “The more the merrier,” Lauren says. “Larry and his wife are coming, and Robert and Kate Layton and…”

  “So many people,” Gloria says. “What can we all bring?”

  “Nothing. Travis and I are taking care of everything. We want to say thank you for all you’ve done.”

  “We could at least bring the appetizers,” Gloria says.

  “Nope. They’re covered. Everything’s covered,” Lauren says, grinning.

  * * *

  On Friday evening, Lauren opens the door and smiles at Bud, who’s wearing a bright red sweater and a green knit cap pulled tight over his ears. “You look all Christmassy,” she says, moving aside so he can come in. “Bud, this is my husband, Travis.”

  Travis extends his hand, smiling. “So glad you could come, Bud. Lauren was excited to track you down.”

  Bud gives a sheepish smile. “Well, I don’t know how helpful I was…”

  “Very,” Lauren says, closing the door. “Come on in. Would you like an appetizer? I have a delicious chocolate chip cheeseball with gingersnap cookies and a Vidalia onion dip with tortilla chips.” She leads him into the kitchen and hands him a small plate for the appetizers, which she has laid out on the table. “Here’s some punch. Or I have tea or water.”

  “Punch is fine,” Bud says. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had punch. My daughter-in-law says it’s too sugary and I shouldn’t drink it.”

  Lauren pats Bud on the arm. “It’s a special night and I won’t tell her.” She hands him a small glass of punch. “This is the table I told you about. See, this drawer contained all the recipes.”

  The doorbell rings, and Travis walks to the front door as Bud stands and admires the table. “And you bought this at a garage sale with the recipes in the drawer?” he asks Lauren.

  “No, no. I bought it from a man named Larry who found it at a garage sale years ago. He refinished it.”

  “Bud?”

  Bud and Lauren both turn toward the voice that came from the kitchen doorway. Bud takes a moment looking at the man and pieces memories together. “John?”

  Lauren doesn’t know this gentleman who looks to be seventy-something. She watches as John walks to Bud and sticks out his hand. “Look at you after all these years. I’m so sorry about Elaine.” He glances to the doorway and says, “You remember my daughter…”

  “Gigi,” Bud says, smiling. “Of course.”

  Lauren smiles. “Gigi?”

  “My parents called me Andi,” Andrea says, standing next to her husband, Bill. “My brother tried to say Andi but it came out as Angie. Then it morphed into Gigi and it stuck. Like glue. Forever. Until I had kids and then I put my foot down,” she says, chuckling.

  “I’m so sorry,” John says, moving to Lauren. “You must be Lauren! Andrea has spoken so highly of you and said you’re about to be parents any day now,” he says, smiling at Travis. “Boy or a girl?”

  “It’s going to be a surprise,” Lauren says.

  “That’s great,” John says. “Sorry to be tagging along unexpected. We just drove in today.”

  “Not at all,” Lauren says. “The more the merrier! I told Andrea we have plenty of food.”

  John smiles. “It’s so good to see Bud after all these years!”

  “How do you know Bud?” Andrea asks Lauren.

  “I don’t,” Lauren says. “I tracked him down.”

  “Like a bloodhound,” Bud says, winking at her.

  “Remember that day in the tutoring room when I asked if you bought milk from a local farmer?” Lauren asks. Andrea nods. “I wish I had asked you if you knew a farmer named Bud! That would have solved everything a whole lot quicker!”

  “Solved what?” Andrea says, noticing the front door opening. “This is my mom, Joan, by the way.” A simple-looking woman in her seventies is carrying a Christmas gift bag as she follows Travis into the kitchen, smiling. “Mom, this is Lauren.”

  Joan hands the gift bag to her. “I forgot this in the car and had to get it. We can’t drop in like this without bringing you something.”

  Lauren takes the bag, smiling, as Andrea says, “Mom, you remember Bud Waters.”

  Joan turns to Bud and her face opens wide in surprise. “Bud Waters! How many years has it been? I still complain that even the organic milk I buy in the store is nothing like what you sold to us.” Lauren can barely contain herself watching and listening to them catch up.

  “Solved what?” Andrea asks Lauren again.

  Lauren looks at Bud, smiling, and waits for a break in their conversation. “Well, I found some things, but I knew the owner would want them back.” She steps to the table. “It took me a while, but I hoped Bud could help.” Everyone glances at Bud, confused. “I opened my phone at his house, and he happened to see a picture of Andrea, whom he recognized as Gigi.” Andrea looks surprised, listening as Lauren opens a drawer under the table. “I think the owner of these is Andrea.” She pulls out the recipes as John, Andrea, Bill, and Joan’s mouths drop open.

  Andrea rushes to grab the recipes from Lauren. “It can’t be.” She shuffles through them. “Mom! Oh my gosh! Your recipes! D
ad! It’s your table!” Her eyes fill with tears and she snaps her head to look at Lauren. “Where did you … How did you find…”

  “I bought the table from Larry,” Lauren says. “Remember? Miriam went with me and we found it.”

  “How did Larry have the table?” Andrea asks, sitting down on a chair and running a hand over the tabletop.

  “He said he bought it at a garage sale years ago and it was in bad shape. Covered in nail polish, had dings in it and whatever. Said the drawer was sealed shut. It sat in his shop for a couple of years before he refinished it.”

  Andrea shakes her head in disbelief. “It was all a mistake. Mom and Dad gave me the table right before Bill and I married. Dad knew how much I loved that table and everything it meant.” She stops, recalling that difficult time forty years earlier. “He was making this table when Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer that ended up moving to her lungs.” Her voice catches and she uses a finger to swipe beneath an eye. “This table inspired Mom to learn how to cook from recipes my grandmother had given her. My brother, Christopher, and I would jump in and help, and then Mom got sick and Dad helped, Grandma helped, and people from Elmore Community Church helped and they didn’t even know us!” She looks at Joan and John, remembering. “What a scary, horrible time for my parents, but the love and the help that our family received is unbelievable to this day.”

  “Your recipes don’t mention anything about cancer,” Lauren says to Joan.

  Joan shakes her head. “No. It was such a huge part of our lives for so long that I didn’t want Andrea to look at a recipe and think of the cancer, but rather to think of the person who gave me the recipe. We gathered a lot of recipes from wonderful cooks during that time,” she says, smiling.

  “But how did the table get lost in the first place?” Travis wonders out loud.

  Andrea sighs. “The lid to my recipe box had broken and I put the recipes in the drawer just until I could replace the box. Then we…” She looks up at Bill.

  “We were moving to a different house,” Bill says. “We had a garage sale with some neighbors, and I don’t even know how it happened, but somehow the table that was set aside for the move got sold, and Andrea was devastated.”

  “She cried for days,” Joan says.

  “Weeks!” John adds.

  “Because the table you had made was gone—and all of Mom’s recipes!” Andrea says, running her hand again over the top of the table.

  “Larry thinks it was probably used for children,” Lauren says. “And they probably never bothered to try to open the drawer once they managed to seal it shut. He said he couldn’t open it at all and had to work away at it, which is the only explanation for why the recipes were still in there.”

  Joan sits at the table across from Andrea. “I can’t believe it. I haven’t seen the table in years,” she says, her hands tracing the edge of it. “Oh, my goodness, John.” She glances up at him. “All those months of making this.” She looks at Lauren. “What in the world made you track down the owner of those recipes?”

  Lauren smiles, leaning into Travis. “It’s going to sound weird, but I just knew that whoever wrote those recipes really loved her daughter and there was no way that daughter would willingly give them away. And in another weird way, I felt close to all of you. I wanted to learn to cook because of the recipes, and Travis and I have cooked a lot of things together. I actually think I’m a pretty good cook now,” she says, laughing.

  “You never know what’s going to happen in life, do you?” Joan says.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  December 2012

  The doorbell rings, and Travis walks to the front hallway and opens it. “Hey, Travis!” Lauren can hear Larry’s voice on the front porch. “Gloria needed these for the fund-raiser, and I was passing by, so I thought I’d drop them off.”

  “Come on in,” Travis says. He takes two wooden keepsake boxes from Larry, setting them down on a side table in the living room.

  “I’m sorry,” Larry says. “I didn’t know you had company.”

  “No!” Lauren says. “Larry, come in! This is perfect.” She looks at Joan and John. “This is Larry, the man who refinished the table. Larry, this is John and he made this table back in…” She realizes she doesn’t know when John made the table and stops.

  “In 1972,” John says, looking at Larry. He steps to him and sticks out his hand. “John Creighton.”

  “Nice to meet you, John,” Larry says, shaking his hand.

  “And you’re Larry.” John stops, looking at Larry’s face. “Larry! Larry from the hospital.”

  “Just Larry from Grandon,” Larry says. He pauses for several moments before his mouth turns up in a grin of realization. “John?” he says, whispering. “John from the hospital!” The men pump each other’s hands before embracing and laughing together.

  “Joan! This is Larry. Remember after your first surgery I told you I met him in the cafeteria.”

  Joan’s eyes get misty looking at him. “The man who taught John how to pray.”

  Larry shakes his head. “No, I just talked about wood.”

  “No,” Joan says. “John changed after he met you. God put you there for him that day.” Larry begins to shake his head. “He did! John didn’t believe anything at that time. Neither did I. But you were there, and you said what John needed. Christmas became new to us because of you! You set John on a journey to discover who God and His Son are.” She steps to him and hugs Larry. “Just like a woman named Ronnie was there in the chemo room one day with her son and she said what I needed. Just like a man named Ed from church showed up at John’s workshop door at the time he needed him. And just like you had this table when Lauren needed one. God doesn’t waste any opportunities. We do.” She turns to look at Lauren. “I’m so glad you didn’t waste this opportunity.” She hugs Lauren, and Lauren beams from ear to ear.

  “These,” Lauren says, picking up the rest of the recipes on the table and handing them to Andrea, “belong to you. I hope you don’t mind, but I made a copy of each one of them.”

  “I made her,” Travis says. “Hope we didn’t infringe on any copyright laws.” Andrea laughs, shaking her head.

  “And the table is yours, too,” Lauren says.

  “I can’t take the table,” Andrea says. “You bought it.”

  “It’s yours,” Lauren says. “It belongs in your family for as long as possible.”

  “I’ll make you a new one,” John says to Lauren.

  “We can make you a new one,” Larry pipes in, winking at John. “Do you still work with wood, John?”

  “I still dabble.”

  “He doesn’t dabble,” Joan says. “He makes beautiful things.”

  “Don’t tell me you live in Grandon and we’ve not seen each other all these years?” Larry asks.

  “We never lived in Grandon,” John says. “Just over the line in Elmore.”

  “And we met at City Hospital twenty miles from each one of us,” Larry says, amazed. “When was that?” He searches his brain for the answer. “Forty years ago!” Larry looks at Joan. “You had part of your lung removed.”

  Joan nods. “And then later I had more of it removed. And it was a long recovery, but it seems the entire community rallied around us. Elaine would bring me milk,” she says, looking at Bud.

  “I remember that,” Bud says.

  “And she never charged me a dime for all that milk and cream she dropped off.”

  “Oh, I didn’t know that,” Bud says, making everyone laugh.

  “She’s been cancer-free as long as I’ve been in the family,” Bill says.

  “She was a wrecking ball against cancer,” Andrea says. “She and Dad both were. They were a team. Mom even has the robe to prove it.” Joan laughs, thinking about that silly robe from Halloween that still hangs in her closet.

  “Who’s ready to eat?” Lauren says.

  Andrea looks out the kitchen window to the driveway. “What about Gloria and Marshall, Miriam, Dalton and—”
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  “Oh! They weren’t really invited,” Lauren says, grinning. “I told them before the meeting that day that I had a surprise for you and needed all of them to agree to come here just so you’d come. I even made up Robert and Kate Layton to make it sound like a party. I couldn’t believe it when you called today and said your parents had driven into town and asked if it would be okay to bring them! This turned out better than I ever imagined!”

  “I feel like a party crasher,” Larry says sheepishly.

  “You have made the party!” Lauren says, opening her arms wide and running to him to give him a hug. “You were definitely meant to be here!”

  Lauren passes out punch to those who don’t have any and raises her glass. “To a table that brought us all together!”

  “And to beating cancer,” Andrea says.

  “And to wood!” Larry adds, looking at John.

  “And hospital cafeterias,” Joan says.

  “And to dairy farmers,” John says.

  “And to handwritten family recipes,” Bud says, laughing.

  “And to old friends and family memories,” Bill says.

  “And to babies who are about to be born,” Travis says, putting his arm around Lauren.

  “And to mysteries that are solved,” Lauren shouts as they clink their glasses together.

  TWENTY-NINE

  December 2012

  Lauren works alongside Miriam as they set silent auction items onto tables near the gazebo for the annual Glory’s Place fund-raiser. Nearby, Travis, Dalton, Gabe, and Amy set up chairs. In just a few hours the children from Glory’s Place will be performing Christmas songs and carols for what they hope will be their most successful fund-raiser ever. “Whose idea was it to start having this fund-raiser outside in December?” Miriam sneers.

  “Uh, it was mine,” Lauren says, grinning.

  Miriam stops her work, looking at Lauren. “Oh, that’s right. If you weren’t pregnant, I’d say something, but I won’t for fear the baby will hear and won’t like me.”