Love, Aubrey

by Suzanne LaFleur

  Bridget’s mother drove us to the party. Most people were already there when we arrived. The party was in the basement. The only lights were from flickering jack-o’-lanterns with battery lamps and strings of orange bulbs dangling from the ceiling. Christian and his mom were stringing up doughnuts. Christian’s dad had set up a pumpkin-carving station on a tarp on the floor. A lot of the boys were there flinging pumpkin guts at each other. I headed over to choose a pumpkin, but Bridget grabbed my hand and pulled me to the doughnuts instead.

  “Why are they hanging up doughnuts?” I whispered.

  “It’s a game,” Bridget explained. “You can’t use your hands and you have to eat the doughnut.” Then she raised her voice. “Hi, Christian.”

  “Hi, girls,” Christian’s mother answered instead. “Go ahead on the doughnuts.”

  I approached a doughnut and got powdered sugar all over my nose as I ate it. Bridget laughed at me but obviously wasn’t going to risk looking ridiculous in front of Christian.

  “Come check out the coffin,” Christian said.

  “What?” I asked.

  Christian pointed toward the back of the room. There was one of those fake cardboard coffins where you reach in and feel the rotting corpse. It was probably just junk like spaghetti guts and peeled-grape eyeballs.

  “I’ll go,” Bridget said.

  “You go ahead,” I told them. I didn’t really want to check out a coffin.

  I wandered over to the food table. Sitting on the wall side was Marcus, building a pyramid of candy corn.

  “Hi, Marcus,” I said, sliding into the chair next to him and taking off my cowgirl hat.

  I wasn’t sure how to talk to him about what I wanted to. “I saw you at Amy’s today.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Does she help you?”

  He shrugged. “She’s nice.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Why do you see her?”

  “Family stuff,” he said.

  “Oh,” I said. “Me too.”

  I was ready to leave it there, but Marcus kept talking.

  “My dad left. He left last year.”

  “I’m really sorry,” I said.

  “My dad left because I was bad.”

  “No, Marcus, that’s not why.”

  “It was. I could never sit still. I was never quiet. I wouldn’t eat my dinner. That’s what he used to say to me. ‘Sit still!’ ‘Be quiet!’ ‘Eat your dinner!’”

  I don’t know what made me do it. It was probably only okay because it was kind of dark at the party, and our hands were hidden behind the black crepe-paper tablecloth. I took Marcus’s hand and held it. It was sticky and hot, but I held it anyway. Marcus looked surprised.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” I said.

  Marcus shook his head. He did it for a few minutes, his hair flopping into his face. He shook his head like he was trying to shake memories right out of his ears.

  * * *

  The next day at lunch, before I found Bridget, I spotted Marcus sitting alone and picking at his school lunch. I sat down across from him.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Hi,” he said without looking up.

  “Listen,” I said. “I want to tell you something.”

  He looked up and shrugged. I guess he meant I could go ahead.

  “My mom left, too. I mean, like your dad did. I should have told you last night.”

  Marcus nodded and went back to stirring his veggie medley. Carrots, corn, green beans, limas.

  “Did she leave because of you?” he asked.

  I thought very carefully for a few minutes.

  “She didn’t stay because of me,” I said.

  I could tell that under the table, Marcus was starting to tap his foot. Above the table, he nodded, letting his bangs fall into his eyes. I stood up to leave. As I walked away, even though there had been a table between us, I felt like Marcus had given me a hug.

  Mom

  Dear Mama,

  What’s Colorado like? I’ve never been there.

  Well, you know that. You know all the places I have been.

  Why

  Hi Mom,

  I wish that

  Hi Dad,

  I really, really miss you, and I wish you were here

  I sat on the couch, doing my homework with the TV on. My binder was open in my lap. My feet rested on the coffee table, my math book balancing on my knees. Gram came in and stood behind me and put her hands on either side of my head.

  “I want to talk to you about Thanksgiving,” she said.

  Holidays. Not listening, not listening. Not. Listening. I kept my eyes on the TV screen, then lowered them to copy the next equation out of the book.

  “Aubrey.” She pressed on my head a little, to make me listen. “We got invitations from your aunts and uncles, who all dearly want you to come. And we got another invite that I thought you might like better, so I said yes to that.”

  My heart fluttered. Had she called again? Would we see her for Thanksgiving?

  “We’re going next door,” Gram finished.

  Next door … to Bridget’s.

  I tried to push aside the hurt that Mom hadn’t called and tried to be with me for Thanksgiving. Of course I would love to be with Bridget for the holiday. It was nice of Gram to think of that instead of having us go off to relatives’ houses.

  “What’s Mom doing?” I asked.

  “Uncle David is going to be with her up until Thanksgiving, and then he is going home to be with his own family. Your mom said she didn’t want to be with family on the holiday just yet. She is going to be with some older women from church who have Thanksgiving together.”

  “That sounds good,” I said. “Bridget’s, I mean. That’s what I want to do.”

  “We can call your mom, you know. To say happy Thanksgiving.”

  I shook my head.

  “It’s all right,” Gram said. “You don’t have to.” Then she leaned over and kissed the top of my head.

  “There’s the list of food for Thanksgiving. Let me know if there’s anything else you want. I’m bringing the things with stars.”

  I scanned the list: Turkey, stuffing, gravy, rolls, *mashed potatoes, *corn, *cranberry sauce …

  It all seemed pretty standard, but I thought hard. Something was missing.

  “Where are the sweet potatoes?”

  “Oh. You like sweet potatoes? That’s easy, I’ll pick up a few, throw them in the oven, and bake them.”

  “No, not like that. It’s like a dish, you know, with marshmallows.”

  “I don’t know, honey. Do you know what it’s called?”

  “Sweet potato … no. I don’t know. Dad … Dad always made it.”

  That was the part I remembered. He loved that dish, would cook it himself, always, and talk about it all day, make Savannah and me come and smell it when he took it out of the oven. I’d watch him sneak a taste before it was time to eat, smooth out the missing bite so Mom wouldn’t know. It was so sticky sweet that I didn’t even always like it, but now that was all I wanted for Thanksgiving.

  “Do you know what was in it? Besides the marsh-mallows?”

  “I—I think I might.”

  “Can you tell me, and maybe I could look up the recipe?”

  “No, no, that’s all right. I—I’ll do it.”

  Gram looked at me, softly.

  “I’ll get you the sweet potatoes and the marshmallows, then. You can take care of it.”

  “Savannah, the parade’s on!”

  “Ooh! The parade!”

  Savannah runs into the living room, holding Bunny, her limp stuffed rabbit. She crashes into me as she sits down, facing the TV, eyes eager.

  “Girls! Do you smell this? All this wonderful food?” Dad calls from the kitchen.

  “No!” I call back.

  “Yes!” calls Savannah.

  “Just kidding, I can!” I say. I get up, dropping my own stuffed giraffe, and head to the kitchen.

  Mom strains the tur
key juice for the gravy. She smiles at me. When she finishes, she wipes her hands on her apron and announces that she is heading to the bathroom. When she leaves the room, Dad waves me over to the stove. He finds a big spoon and gets me a steaming taste of everything that is cooking, blowing on each spoonful and holding one hand under it as he passes it to me. I am chewing on only slightly softened carrots when Mom comes back.

  “What are you doing?” she asks.

  “Nothing,” Dad says. “Just getting ready to mash the sweet potatoes. Aubrey, can you get me the brown sugar?”

  I drag a chair to the counter, climb up, and open the cabinet….

  “How’s it going?” Gram entered the kitchen, peering into my mixing bowls with a look that hinted at suspicion.

  “Fine,” I answered, stirring some more.

  “You look like something went wrong,” she said.

  “No, I’m just… trying to remember.”

  “I see,” Gram said.

  I closed my eyes again.

  “Aubrey, get me the nutmeg.”

  “Gram, do we have nutmeg?”

  When we got to Bridget’s at five o’clock, I was holding my sweet potatoes in two hands with pot holders. Gram had brought over the mashed potatoes and was going back for the corn. The can of cranberry sauce was in the deep pocket of my winter coat.

  “They’re here!” Bridget cried, flinging the door open. She must have been watching for us out the window.

  “She’s been waiting for you all day,” her father explained, stepping behind her and opening the door a little wider. “She’s always wanted to have a friend over on a holiday.”

  That was something I had always wanted, too, but I couldn’t say that, not when it felt so strange and lonely, this first holiday without my family. Watching Bridget’s dad pull her gently backward by her ponytail to make room for us to come through the door made me miss Dad again.

  “These are the sweet potatoes. My dad used to make them like this,” I said stiffly, holding them out to him. I wanted him to understand. Maybe he did, because he nodded and smiled at me as he took the casserole.

  “Aubrey made them herself,” Gram said. “Here, take my dish, too. I’ll run back and get the last thing.”

  Gram left me there, alone. No, I wasn’t alone, of course not. Bridget must have been instructed in being a hostess, because she pulled on the sleeve of my coat to help me out of it and put it in the coat closet. I had never put my coat there before on all my visits to her house.

  The turkey was already on the table, and there were plates set. Bridget’s dad put our dishes on empty spots in the middle of the table. Danny was already in his high chair, gnawing on a soft roll. Mabel skipped in, offering me a hat like the one on her own head: a brown construction-paper circle with construction-paper feathers.

  “We made them at school!” she said excitedly. “This one is for you!”

  “Thank you,” I said, taking the hat and slipping it onto my head. It was too tight, and my stomach jumped a little as my fingers passed over my scar. “Oh! Bridget, there’s a can in my coat.”

  She looked at me. It had been an odd thing to say, I realized. “The cranberry sauce.”

  “Oh!” Bridget ran off to get it. She insisted on opening it herself. She splunked it into a bowl and brought it to the table in one wobbly cylinder.

  Bridget’s mother appeared in the kitchen. “Hello, Aubrey,” she said, touching my shoulder and giving me a kiss on the cheek. “Happy Thanksgiving. Pick a spot, have a seat.”

  Everyone was gathering at the table. Gram was back even before I sat down. She sat on one side of me, and Bridget on the other. Mabel sat next to Bridget. Danny’s high chair was pushed close to his parents’ seats.

  “Do you have anything you do as a tradition before dinner?” Bridget’s mom asked me kindly.

  “Take the bread, sweetie,” Mom says, tearing a piece off a round loaf. “Pass it to your sister and help her tear some.” I hold the loaf out to Savannah, and she grips a small piece in her fist and we both pull….

  “No,” I said, but I felt like I was choking.

  “At our house we like to go around the table and say what we are thankful for. Does that sound all right?”

  “Fine,” I whispered.

  “I’ll go,” Bridget’s dad volunteered. “I’m thankful that we are all able to sit and share this wonderful meal together.”

  I didn’t listen as Bridget’s mother shared hers, and Danny didn’t get a turn, obviously. Mabel chirped that she was thankful for Mommy and Daddy and kitties and puppies, though two of those things she didn’t have.

  “I’m thankful that a new friend moved in,” Bridget said, smiling at me with a little embarrassment.

  It was my turn. There was nothing I could say. I was thankful, I really was, to be included in this nice family on their holiday, that they thought of inviting me to make things easier. I was thankful that Gram had found me, that she helped me. But I couldn’t say any of this, because it would mean I was forgetting where I really should be, who my real family was.

  I took Bridget’s hand, the one next to me, and reached for Gram’s. Both of them squeezed back. I looked around the table, seeing Bridget’s parents gazing at me, tears gathering in the corners of her mother’s eyes.

  “I am thankful”—Gram interrupted the heavy silence I had caused—“for my granddaughter, whose life is as much a gift to me today as the day she was born.”

  Bridget’s dad broke the next pause a moment later. “Let’s say grace.” He took his wife’s hand and Danny’s small one. Soon we were all linked around the table. As he recited the prayer, I looked at all of them, their heads lowered ever so slightly, except for Mabel’s. She looked right at me, and I was glad that I did have some family to be with, even if I missed mine.

  Daddy,

  I miss you the most, you know. It’s strange to say that, because I don’t really think that way. I don’t think of you more than them. But I always thought of our family as you&me and Savannah&Mom. With you two gone, Mom is still closer to Savannah. Or, I mean, she wants to be. She won’t have me. She doesn’t want me the way you always did.

  I’m not mad at you, because there’s a difference between choosing to leave and not choosing to leave. You didn’t choose to leave. Maybe Mom did. I don’t know what she was thinking, but she could have chosen to come back since then and she hasn’t.

  I want to tell you about that, what happened with Mom. And I want to tell you about being with Gram and about school and about how writing to you was Amy’s idea and how it took me a long time to do it.

  I want to tell you about how I made the sweet potatoes for Thanksgiving and I made them just right. And I want to tell you about how everyone liked them even though they had never eaten them before—even baby Danny ate them. You don’t know him. He’s Bridget’s little brother. You don’t know Bridget, either. She’s my best friend.

  Anyway, the sweet potatoes got passed around the table again and again, until they were all gone. It made me happy because it was like you came to dinner, too, in a way.

  Maybe you know all this already, or maybe you are reading this letter over my shoulder. That makes me feel good, to think that. Or maybe when I seal it and take it outside and let it go, then you will know what it says.

  This is what I want you to know: that I love you. I miss you. I hope even though I’m growing you would still recognize me if you saw me. I will always be your Aubrey. You will always be the best dad. I wish you hadn’t had to go.

  Goodbye for now,

  Love,

  Aubrey

  I woke up to find the brown, cold, frozen world still cold and frozen but soft white.

  “Gram!” I yelled. I abandoned the window in my room and raced downstairs barefoot.

  Gram stood at the kitchen stove, apparently unexcited. The radio was on. “I know about the snow already. School’s canceled. It’s supposed to keep up like this all day.”

  That was awesome ne
ws.

  “What are you cooking?” I asked.

  “Pancakes. You’re going to need a good breakfast.”

  “Why? There’s no school.”

  “You’ll be playing outside all day. You’ll see.”

  After feeding me a pile of pancakes, Gram helped me bundle up from head to toe. She dug a partially deflated snow tube out of the back closet. We took turns adding air to it. Then she shoved me out the back door.

  Like I remembered from visiting Gram in the winter before, Vermont’s snow was deeper, dryer, and thicker than Virginia’s. True to the forecast, the snow was still coming down. I clumped through the heaps in the backyard for maybe five minutes before the back door opened at Bridget’s and she came out, all ready to go sledding, too.

  “Oh good, you’re out here. My whole family is coming!” she said. “There’s a great sledding hill across the street. Come on.”

  We trooped to the hill and took a few trudgy rides down.

  “It’s not working so good,” I said.

  “Dad will come out soon. He can push us and it’ll be really good.”

  We climbed back up and waited. Not too much later her family came out, Mabel skipping along, holding tight to her dad’s arm so that she could jump through the snow heaps while he carried her snow tube. Bridget’s mom held a pudgy, bundled Danny, whose nose was already turning pink.

  “Push us, Daddy,” Bridget demanded.

  “Is that how you ask for things?” he asked.

  “Please!” we both cried.

  “You got it,” he said. Bridget sat on her snow tube first, holding the handles. Her dad put his hands over hers and started to run behind her. When she was going very fast, he let go, and she whooshed down the hill, screaming happily.

  I was next. He ran behind me, and when he let go, I was flying, holding tight to the handles. My heart, too, picked up speed. At the bottom of the hill I crashed into Bridget. We laughed. A minute later a zooming Mabel toppled into us. When she stopped moving, her eyes were big and terrified.