Christmas Cake

by Lynne Hinton

  The women nodded.

  “Why did you quit being a pastor?” Rachel wanted to know.

  The women waited to hear how Charlotte was going to answer. They all thought they knew the reasons, but no one was really completely sure they understood why the young woman had left her work in the church.

  Charlotte could feel all the eyes on her. “I guess I figured most of the folks in church didn’t need me so much. And I think I like to be needed. So, I decided to go somewhere else where I thought I could do a little more, make more of a difference.”

  The women considered her response. It made sense to them all even though they missed having her in Hope Springs.

  “And you picked New Mexico because you had a dream?” Rachel recalled the conversation they had as they drove into Texas.

  “That’s right,” Charlotte replied.

  “And how is it for you?” Jessie asked. She and the young pastor had talked about the transition, and she thought she could tell it had been a good change for Charlotte; but she wanted to hear an update, hear how it was five years after leaving North Carolina.

  “Well, aside from missing all of the cookbook projects”—she smiled over in Beatrice’s direction—“I’d say it’s been perfect.”

  Margaret nodded at her young friend. She could tell how happy Charlotte was doing the work she did, living in the place she lived. She was very glad that Charlotte enjoyed her work and she was very pleased to have the opportunity to see her, to be with her in Texas.

  The food arrived and they all sat with their plates in front of them. They all turned to Charlotte, who reached out her hands. All the women took hands, including Rachel, who seemed a bit out of place with the religious demonstration.

  Everyone closed her eyes except Rachel. She watched as Charlotte led the prayer.

  It was short, mostly making note of the food and the traveling mercies they had all enjoyed. But Rachel watched Charlotte as she prayed, and she saw the young woman when she opened her eyes and looked at Margaret. As if being called out, Margaret had opened her eyes and looked too. At that part of the prayer, Charlotte thanked God for friends and for the allowance of possibilities to find peace. The two women smiled slightly at each other as Rachel then bowed her head. She knew it was a private moment between the two and she didn’t want to intrude.

  Once the prayer was over, the women ate their dinner. Everyone finished at about the same time except Margaret and Rachel. Both of them seemed to have more difficulty eating. Margaret was slow just because she had no appetite and was eating only because she knew she needed the nourishment. Rachel was slow because her jaw had only recently healed after being broken. It was still very painful to chew.

  “Do you have a toothache?” Beatrice asked Rachel, having noticed her wincing every time she bit down.

  Rachel shook her head.

  “Is it the steak?” Beatrice asked. She had ordered the fish, and she wondered how the steak tasted. “Is it tough?”

  Rachel shook her head again.

  Charlotte thought about trying to divert the conversation, worried that she should try to save Rachel from Beatrice’s line of questioning, but before she could switch subjects, Rachel seemed ready to answer.

  “I got beat up by my boyfriend,” she replied. She turned to Charlotte, who just looked at her. “He broke my cheekbone.”

  She was surprised that the young woman had decided to answer so honestly.

  “Why did he do that?” Beatrice asked. She had never met anyone who claimed to be a victim of violence.

  Rachel shrugged as she continued to try and finish her supper.

  “Bea.” Jessie tried to stop her friend from asking too many questions.

  “What?” she asked, understanding what Jessie was trying to do. “It’s a fair question, don’t you think?”

  “It’s not really fair for Rachel,” Louise noted.

  “Why?” Beatrice asked.

  “Because she probably doesn’t know the reason she was struck,” Jessie responded.

  “Is that true?” Beatrice asked. She was not getting the message from her friends to stop her questions. She didn’t think of herself as a busybody. “Do you not know why he hit you?”

  Rachel finished eating and wiped her mouth with her napkin. “I forgot the potted meat,” she replied.

  “What?” Louise asked. She sounded shocked to hear the answer.

  “He was mad because I had gone to the store and forgotten to get his potted meat,” she explained. “So he got out the baseball bat and he hit me across the face, crushed my jaw, then he hit me across the back and he broke my hip. And I landed in the hospital for about a month.”

  The women were silent around the table. They didn’t know the stories of violence that Charlotte had become accustomed to. They had no idea that a person could suffer so much for something so trivial.

  “And yet, you survived,” Margaret said. She had finished her meal by then too. “Look at you. You are to be honored. You’re strong and you’re sitting at a table eating dinner,” she added. “You survived.”

  Rachel peered at the woman who had taken as long to eat as she had and smiled. She had not thought of her survival as a cause for celebration. She had not thought that her coming through such a violent rage was reason for any honor. But somehow, with the way this woman said what she said, the way she looked at her, Rachel suddenly felt better about herself. She felt taller, stronger. She nodded.

  “You did the right thing,” Beatrice responded.

  All the women turned to her. They didn’t know what she was talking about. Rachel seemed confused.

  “You should never buy potted meat.” She was taking out money from her wallet to cover her meal.

  She looked up, and all the women were staring at her.

  “What?” she asked. “You all don’t buy potted meat, do you?” She looked at her friends. “I mean, even the name is disgusting. Who ever heard of meat in a pot?”

  Rachel was the first one to let out a giggle, and soon they were all laughing so hard, the cook had come out from behind the counter to get a look at who was making all the racket.

  “Beatrice, you are something,” Jessie said.

  The women all got up from their table. They put on their coats and gloves and scarves and went over to pay the waitress for their meals. It wasn’t until they walked outside and were gathered in the parking lot, just about to get in the van, that they heard all the sirens and saw the police cars moving in their direction.

  “Must be an accident down the road,” Jessie said.

  And then, within seconds, three cars had pulled in surrounding them and six policemen had jumped out and were pointing their guns in the direction of the stunned women.

  Apple Pound Cake

  2 cups sugar

  1½ cups vegetable oil

  3 large eggs

  3 cups flour

  1 teaspoon baking soda

  1 teaspoon salt

  1½ teaspoons vanilla

  3 cups diced apples

  ¾ cup flaked coconut

  1 cup chopped nuts

  Mix sugar and oil; add eggs and beat well. Combine flour, baking soda, and salt and add to oil mixture. Stir in vanilla, apples, coconut, and nuts and mix well. Spoon batter into greased 9-inch tube pan. Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour and 20 minutes or until cake tests done.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The funeral van had been reported stolen in North Carolina not long after the women left on the Saturday before Christmas. Dick got home after running a few errands that afternoon and noticed as soon as he pulled in his driveway that the vehicle was gone. He called the police and filed a report right away.

  He figured the thief had been watching the house and assumed that no one was at home, that the family was away for the holidays. He talked to the officer who had been dispatched to his house and gave a very detailed report about the model, make, and condition of the business vehicle. He chose not to call the owner of the funeral home, t
hinking that the stolen van was not cause to ruin a family’s holiday. He thought they would possibly recover the van before his boss returned.

  It never crossed Dick’s mind that his wife had taken the new funeral van to Texas. He knew there were more thefts during the holidays than any other time of the year, and he just thought he had been a victim. Since he had not actually spoken to Beatrice, only listened to her messages reporting that all her friends were fine, that they had traveled safely through Tennessee, Arkansas, and Oklahoma, he just never thought of the possibility that they were in his company’s vehicle. He thought she had rented a van from an agency in town since he knew she had been trying to make a reservation.

  It wasn’t until he saw James in church on Sunday that he learned the women had taken the missing vehicle. Jessie’s husband happened to mention how nice it was of Dick to allow the women to drive it all the way to Texas to visit Margaret’s people.

  After the service, Dick called the local police department to tell them what had happened, but the description of the van had already been dispatched across the country, and even though Dick went through the appropriate channels to explain what had transpired, the stolen vehicle report had not been rescinded.

  The deputies in Goodlett, Texas, had seen the van when it drove into town earlier that day. They were just up the road, parked in a small lot just where the speed limit changed from fifty-five miles per hour to thirty-five miles per hour, clocking incoming traffic. That was when they noticed the van and had witnessed what they described as erratic driving as it passed the Cotton Gin RV Park and then stopped abruptly, spun around, and headed back.

  The two deputies had intended to follow the van and give the driver a warning or a ticket for reckless driving, but just as they pulled out of the lot, they had gotten a call that they were needed on the interstate as there had been a huge wreck in Childress.

  They had managed to give a description of the van and report the number of the vehicle’s license plate, requesting information, just before they were called away to the accident. Later, when they saw the van pull into the diner, the one deputy facing the parking lot remembered that he had not followed up on the call he made before he had been instructed to head over to Childress.

  When he talked to the dispatcher to gather the information he had requested, just as he and his partner were finishing their meal, he discovered that the vehicle had been listed as stolen from North Carolina. And even though he thought it was a little odd that the thieves looked more like a group of grandmothers, one of whom was wearing a Santa hat, than hard-core criminals, he was sort of excited about apprehending car thieves. He was a new recruit to the sheriff’s department, and it was to be his first arrest.

  Once the women were surrounded by police cars and officers, ordered to put their hands on their heads, and then placed in custody in the rear section of the diner, Beatrice was allowed to call Dick. Another call was then placed from the police in Hope Springs, and everything was soon settled with the Goodlett sheriff. After the owner of the diner treated everyone to coffee and freshly baked apple pound cake that he was making for Christmas, everybody, including even the overzealous deputy, got a big kick out of what had happened.

  There were all kinds of jokes made about strip searches and spending Christmas in a Texas jail, and Margaret was even able to meet a few of her very extended family members who had come over to the diner. Dick had chastised Beatrice so completely that even Louise didn’t say anything else to her about what had happened.

  By the time the women got back to their cabins, they were all exhausted. They fell into their beds wondering if the ice and snow would keep them in Goodlett for more than a couple of days, and wondering if everybody in town would soon know who they were and how they arrived.

  It was early on Christmas Eve morning, an hour before the sun was expected to rise, that Margaret woke up. She was curious about the weather, and for some odd reason she couldn’t explain, wanted to be outside.

  She was quiet as she dressed in her warmest clothes, pulled the blanket around her, and headed out of the little cabin she shared with Jessie. She felt strangely alert, and everything about her felt vivid and clear in a way she hadn’t noticed in many months. She felt somewhat energized, and the feeling surprised her.

  The snow was falling. It looked like an inch or two already covered the ground, and Margaret was relieved to discover that she did not detect any ice, just large, heavy flakes of snow. Even though the clouds filled the sky, there was a tiny sliver of a moon; and by its light, Margaret was able to see her way to the park office and to the short row of rocking chairs that stood along the rear wall facing the pool.

  When she got to the chairs, she saw that someone was already sitting in one. She hesitated, not sure of who would be there, and then saw that it was Rachel, the young woman who had ridden with Charlotte from New Mexico. She was rocking, and she opened her eyes just as Margaret approached.

  “Are you warm enough?” she asked the teenager and then sat in the chair beside her.

  Rachel nodded and sat up a bit. She had a quilt wrapped around her, a wool cap on her head. “What time is it?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure exactly,” Margaret replied. “I guess around five o’clock maybe.” She studied the young woman, surprised to find her out of the cabin. “How long have you been here?” she asked.

  Rachel shrugged. “I think a couple of hours,” she said. “I woke up and just couldn’t sleep any more so I came out here to watch the snow.”

  “How long has it been coming down?” Margaret asked, pulling her blanket over her head and wrapping it tightly around her.

  “It was just starting when I came out,” she replied.

  The two women sat silently. They both watched the sky, the thick flakes of snow glistening in the narrow moonlight. They heard a dog barking in the distance, the hooting of an old barn owl nearby.

  “It’s pretty, isn’t it?” Margaret asked.

  Rachel nodded. “I love snow,” she remarked. “It was always real special when we got it here in Texas. We never had much.”

  “We didn’t get a lot in North Carolina either. Some, more than now, but not like some parts of the country,” Margaret responded.

  “When I left Texas I saw a lot more of it in New Mexico. I think if I lived in a place where we didn’t have it, I would miss it.”

  Margaret rocked a bit. The two women grew silent as a light wind blew around them. They bundled themselves even more inside their coverings.

  “I never thought about it but I suppose snow will be something I miss too.”

  “Are you moving away?” Rachel asked. “Like to Florida or somewhere warm like that?”

  Margaret seemed surprised. “Didn’t Charlotte tell you?” she asked. She just assumed everyone knew that she was terminal. She thought it must have been tattooed across her forehead the way everyone treated her. She had felt the special attention, the avoidances, the greetings that went on too long, the heavy stares, for more than a month.

  She simply figured that Charlotte would have told her young passenger why they were making this trip, why Margaret’s skin had taken a yellow tint, why she was so fatigued. She simply assumed that the young woman, just a passerby on Margaret’s short path of life, knew that she was going to die.

  Rachel shook her head. “She just said that you were sick, that you had cancer, and that you were coming here to make peace with your family.” She looked closely at the woman. “And I can tell that she cares a lot for you. She didn’t have to tell me that.”

  Margaret smiled. “Yes, all of that is true.” She thought about Charlotte, and her former pastor’s discretion made her value their friendship even more.

  She knew that lots of people would have thought they needed to explain a sick person’s condition to a new person they would be meeting. They would have thought that it was necessary to use words like “terminal” or “vulnerable.” She knew that lots of people would have wanted to use the
travel time on the way to see a friend who was dying to talk about the impending death, what it would mean, how it would affect them.

  Charlotte had apparently not done that. She had held confidence and not spoken of Margaret’s condition even though there were no vows of confidentiality that would have been broken under these circumstances. The young pastor had always valued discretion. It had been one of the qualities that Margaret had appreciated the most.

  “I’m dying,” she confessed.

  Rachel stopped rocking and sat up in her chair as if she was going to say something. But then she simply leaned back, the forward and backward sway of the chair maintaining a nice, easy rhythm.

  “Do you hurt anywhere?” she asked.

  Margaret looked over at the young woman. She found her questions innocent and refreshing. She did not mind at all the conversation she was having, even though she had thought she would be alone on this early Christmas Eve morning.

  “My stomach hurts a little. The cancer is in my liver,” she explained. “So sometimes after trying to digest a meal, I feel nauseated, sort of like how you feel when you have the flu.”

  Rachel nodded. “That’s no fun,” she responded.

  “What about you?” Margaret asked. “You said that you had been in the hospital. Are you feeling better?”

  “I was real bad for a while,” she replied. “I thought I was dying. Well, actually, I think I was dying. I think I died even.”

  “Yeah?” Margaret asked.

  “Yeah,” Rachel replied.

  “What was that like?”

  “I didn’t see no white light like everybody says,” Rachel responded. “I was in the intensive care unit. I guess I had been in the hospital a couple of nights already but something happened and I could hear my machines going off and I felt all of the excitement going on in my room.”

  Margaret was listening attentively.

  “There were lots of doctors and nurses all around my bed and it was like I floated above everything and watched them.”