A gift.
The word drew her eyes to the front door. Next to it was still piled the mother lode she’d found when she got home from Noah’s Ark yesterday. She’d stood at the bottom of the stairs for a while, blinking away the tears that she finally felt comfortable shedding, trying to figure out what exactly she was looking at.
“I threatened them,” she said aloud, her voice more full of wonder than anger. “Surely they aren’t this stupid.”
But as she slowly made her way to the top of the stairs, her boots squeaking off the slush with each step, she could see that clearly they were that stupid. Gay bows and shiny paper and ribbons and Santas, and an enormous basket that looked as if Christmas had vomited in it.
She’d stood on the top stair and gazed at it. But why? Why would they be that stupid?
Her back creaked as she lugged the things inside her apartment, cursing and grumbling the whole while, and left them there, inside, by the front door. She would have to call the police, she supposed. She would have to tell them to take these things away and go arrest those fools.
But she hadn’t. Instead, she’d gone to bed and cried herself to sleep, and then had awakened to thoughts of Jamie and those damned coats while she bagged up Chuy’s belongings, all the effort at so-called Christmas cheer still sitting, unenjoyed, by the front door.
Hell of a thing, the way life works, she thought.
She went to the kitchen cupboard, where she kept the old yellow pages, and pulled them out. She searched for a few minutes, her finger running down the page, her mouth working over the words, and then picked up her phone and dialed. It rang and rang, and finally a machine picked up.
“Thank you for calling the R. Monte Belle Cancer Treatment Center. We will be closed on December twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth for the holiday. If you’d like to leave a message for scheduling, press one. . . .”
Virginia Mash hung up, then stared at the unopened gifts by the front door again. What was she supposed to do with all of that? Of course the cancer center would be closed today. Every place would be. And she was just one person. She didn’t need all of this junk. She didn’t want it. What gall those imbeciles had in assuming she would want it. Not everyone was all about things during the holidays. Not everyone was all about the holidays at all. Some people preferred their comfortable solitude while everyone else was out—I’m at the mall—picking up their precious things—I bought Jamie a coat for Christmas.
Some people were too busy dying to enjoy Christmas.
She would just throw it all out; that was what she’d do. Well, maybe not all of it. Maybe she would keep the cross-stitched pillowcase that was rolled up, tied with a red ribbon, and left to poke out of the basket. Even rolled up, the design clearly looked like old Chuy back when he was a pup, even though he never wore a blue collar. That gift was kind of special. That one she couldn’t part with.
She went back into the kitchen and dug through a drawer, finding a trash bag. She pulled it out and shook it open. This would show them what uninvited friendliness would get you.
But halfway toward the door, she stopped, the trash bag dangling from her fingers.
Not everyplace would be closed today. Not at all.
She went back to the yellow pages and searched until she found the number for the taxi company again.
“Yes, hello. I need a cab. I’ll be going to Vargo County Hospital. Not an emergency, no. And could you have the driver come upstairs and help me with some bags?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
For the first time in more than twenty years, Bren woke entangled in Gary’s arms. Her hair was a disaster from falling asleep on it wet, and she was wearing only a T-shirt and panties. Gary, on the other hand, hadn’t bothered with pajamas at all. Bren practically blushed when her leg stretched down the length of him, expecting to find his boxers and instead finding only flesh.
“Merry Christmas,” he said sleepily. He kissed her forehead. “My little ho-ho-ho.”
Bren chuckled and smacked at his chest. “Not funny. I wasn’t that naughty last night.”
But she had been that naughty—and naughtier!—and she wavered between feeling embarrassed and feeling energized by it. She ultimately decided to go with energized, especially given all of the events of recent months. She didn’t know what the future would hold for her and Gary, but she knew that waking up like this with him on Christmas Day was a good start.
“Breakfast?” she asked. “I can whip up some monkey bread. I know it’s your favorite.”
He stretched, groaning. “That sounds perfect,” he said on a yawn. But he had hooked his arm around her neck and was pulling her toward him again. “But first . . .”
• • •
Bren showered and dressed while the bread was cooking. The house smelled like cinnamon and brown sugar and butter and coffee. She could hear Gary downstairs in the basement, putting things back the way they’d been before the band. Readying it for who knew what hobby awaited him next. Kayaks. Beer making. Last night he’d talked about learning to oil paint.
At least oil painting was a mostly silent activity.
She put a few pieces of bacon on while he worked.
“Gare?” she called downstairs. “Breakfast!”
He came up, carrying a guitar in each hand. He set them on the floor next to the basement door.
“Just cleaning up,” he announced. “I’m going to leave these things in the den, if that’s okay with you. I thought maybe we could go see a movie this afternoon? Grab some dinner?”
She forked the bacon out of the skillet and onto a plate. “Okay,” she said. “I’m going to deliver these gifts before lunch. That way if she’s hungry, she’s got something.”
“You’re a much better person than I am, Bren Epperson,” he said.
But not really, she knew. She wasn’t doing it to be a good person. She was doing it because she’d promised herself that she would. She was doing it because she needed something, and she couldn’t explain why, but this felt like the right something. Maybe it was as simple as she needed to cook for someone, and Virginia Mash was someone.
She was doing it more for herself than she was for Virginia Mash. And she wished she could feel guilty about it, but she couldn’t.
• • •
The wind was brutal as Bren headed toward the square. The cold was refreezing everything that had melted, leaving slick patches on the roads that caught her by surprise. Bad weather meant dangerous roads, and Christmas was the one day a year that people would get out on them anyway, no matter what.
But the roads were pretty empty, actually. Everyone was home celebrating with their families. The stores were closed; the restaurants shuttered. And while lights strung across homes and storefronts would glow soft and warm and meaningful when night fell, in the sun and relentless wind, the decorations in store windows and wrapped on light poles just looked garish and tired.
Some of the grocery stores had already been stocking Valentine’s Day candy for a couple of weeks now. Booting out one holiday to make room for the next.
Everything on the square was closed. Not a single car was parked in the slanted slots that faced the storefronts. It was a ghost town. Probably just the way the old woman liked it best, she thought.
If she were thinking about that at all, she might have turned around and taken the food home. Fed it to Gary, or maybe taken it to the fire station to see if the firefighters would like a good, home-cooked meal on Christmas Day. She would have let the old woman have her blessed silence at last.
But she couldn’t make herself do it.
There was a light on in Virginia Mash’s apartment—she could see that much through the window—and if she’d only looked up at the window for a moment longer, she might have seen the old woman, roused by the sound of a car, curiously peek out at her.
Bren had packed all twelve
gifts into two boxes. They fit snugly enough that she could stack the boxes, one on top of the other, and carry both up at the same time, although the effort did make her arms shake and her breath come in huffs and puffs.
But it was worth it to get out of this wind.
Unfortunately, carrying such a big load meant she couldn’t walk as quietly as she would have liked to, her footfalls echoing loudly to her ears as they landed on each rubber-matted wooden step. God, why couldn’t the woman have chosen an apartment with carpet on the stairway?
When she got to the top, she arranged the boxes side by side, and stood with her hands on her hips for a moment, appraising things and catching her breath, before she made her move. It was probably cold enough even in the hallway to leave food outside for quite some time before any of it went bad, but she didn’t want to take any chances.
She took a deep breath, rearranged her stance, so that she was pointed down the stairs, her right foot already down one stair, legs bent at the ready to run, fist upraised and only inches from the door.
One, two, three, she thought to herself, and then knocked on the door.
But her knuckles made contact with the wood only once before the door was flung open, catching Bren so unprepared, she didn’t even get a chance to run down a single step. She stood there awkwardly in her run pose, her fist still upraised, as the old woman glared at her.
“I ought to call the authorities,” Virginia Mash shouted, thumping her cane on the floor, once, hard.
“I’m sorry,” Bren said. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.” She’d finally gotten the presence of mind to move. She stepped down a couple of steps.
“But you did.”
Bren gestured toward the food. “I just thought maybe you’d like a nice Christmas lunch.”
“So you butted in and left one, just like you’ve left all the other junk here, and that’s illegal. I got a restraining order, as you know. And I ought to call it in.”
Bren slumped. “But why?” The old woman looked at her, mouth working but nothing coming out. “Why did you get a restraining order?”
“You were disturbing me.”
“We were cooking. That’s all,” Bren said. “You could have joined us.”
Virginia Mash took a step out the door. “I can already cook. I don’t need you teaching me how to do it. And I don’t need you cooking for me, either, especially given how much you burn food down there.”
Touché, Bren thought. “You cost me a job,” Bren said. “You cost Paula a dream. And a lot of money.”
“This is harassment,” Virginia Mash said, using her cane to push one of the boxes precariously close to the edge of the top step.
Bren lunged for it, pushed it back. “This is lunch.”
“This is illegal,” the old woman said, pushing the box harder and farther this time.
But Bren’s hand was still on it and she shoved it back, harder still. “No, you mean old thing. This is friendship.” The old woman stepped back a step, her face looking like it had been slapped. “You may not know it when you see it, but that’s because you’re so bitter. People probably push you away, but that’s because you push first. You’re lucky we tried another way of pushing, and you’re too stubborn to see it. Now just take the damn food and be nice about it!”
Bren shoved the box so hard it bumped into the other, and a tub of gravy jumped out and rolled across the floor, stopping to butt against Virginia Mash’s shoe.
Bren steeled herself for the torrent of hate that would come at her, the woman possibly even adding “assault” to her “harassment” charges. She briefly thought about Gary, having to bail her out on Christmas Day, how he would probably say he told her so, that sometimes trying to do the right thing just didn’t pay off.
Instead, the old woman batted at the tub with her cane, righting it. “Does it have giblets in it?”
Bren hesitated, unsure where this was going, then made a face. “I hate giblet gravy,” she said.
The old woman nodded. “Then I suppose you’ll eat it with me.” She turned and thumped into the depths of her apartment without a word more. Bren stood, dumbfounded, on the second stair down. She wasn’t sure if she should feel victorious or terrified, but at the moment, she was a little bit of both. “You’re letting the cold in. You want to pay my electricity bill, too, I suppose?” she heard from inside the apartment. She scrambled and picked up the gravy, restacked the boxes, and carried them inside.
After she shut the front door, she put the boxes down again and dug her phone out of her pocket. To Gary, she texted, Let’s make it an evening movie?
And to Tammy Lynn, two words. It worked!
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
It wasn’t until the smell of the fat cook’s perfume filled her entire apartment that she realized she’d never had a guest in here before. Not ever.
Of course she hadn’t. She’d moved in for exactly that purpose, after all. Left their house, all of their things and memories, packed up Chuy, and came here to hide. She wanted to be alone. She just hadn’t realized that when she’d made that decision, she was making the decision to be alone for such a long time.
The fat cook brought in the boxes and dropped them—too hard; it would probably leave a mark—on the kitchen table. She began to unpack them before even taking her coat off.
“Have you had lunch?” the fat cook asked her.
The truth was, she wasn’t very sure when was the last time she’d had a proper lunch. She definitely couldn’t remember when was the last time she’d stocked up on food at the grocery store. She just wasn’t hungry anymore. Was this what it felt like to finally give up?
But something happened when the fat cook uncovered a foil pan to reveal a browned brisket inside. Her stomach rumbled so hard she was sure the fat cook could hear it all the way across the room.
The fat cook. Thinking of her this way made Virginia Mash feel washed over with shame. Shame irritated her.
“What’s your name again?” she asked. “If I’m going to be poisoned, I want to know who to tell the cops to go after.”
The fat cook stopped, a piece of hair fallen over her left eye. At first she looked indignant, perhaps even annoyed, but then that annoyance brewed over into something else. The fat cook threw her head back and laughed out loud. “Poisoned?”
Virginia Mash’s face remained straight. “I don’t know you.”
The fat cook laughed some more, shaking her head gleefully as she pulled out a plastic bag filled with rolls. “Bren,” she finally said. “My name is Bren Epperson.”
Bren Epperson walked over to Virginia’s stove and began pushing buttons, her fingers jabbing blindly. She was going to break something. Virginia lurched out of her chair, feeling for her cane. “Stop, stop, stop. You have no idea how to use an oven, do you? No wonder you were always crucifying the food down there.” She thumped to the stove. “What do you want it at? Three-fifty?”
Bren nodded. “And if you have a few saucepans . . .”
“Right under there,” Virginia Mash said crossly. “And hand me one. I’ll show you how to fix the texture on that gravy.”
Bren bent and brought out an armload of pots and pans that were dusty from lack of use. Virginia directed her to the cookie sheets and the bowls and the utensils. They moved around each other in the tiny apartment kitchen, a culinary orchestra played on yellowed linoleum and avocado-colored appliances. Virginia leaned her cane against the countertop and barked out instructions, and Bren followed them, whisking and handing off and beating and blending and tasting. They didn’t talk about anything else. They didn’t need to; Bren Epperson, the fat cook, was a remarkably good student.
In the end, Virginia even taught Bren how to make a flourless chocolate cake—Jamie’s favorite Christmas recipe. Virginia hadn’t made it since her daughter died. But she still had it committed to memory. They ate lunch
while they waited for it to bake.
“You’re right; you’re a good cook,” Bren said, spooning in a mouthful of potatoes. “This gravy is so much better now.”
Virginia grunted, but inside she was busy being wowed by Bren’s own talents. The brisket was melt-in-your-mouth tender. The sauce that went over it was tangy and spicy and belonged in a bottle on store shelves.
“Where did you learn to cook?” Bren asked.
“My mother,” Virginia Mash said. She refused to look up from her plate. “She’s been gone a long time now, of course,” she added.
“I’m sorry,” Bren said. They ate in silence for a while, during which time Virginia was aware of Bren’s neck craning to look around the apartment. “Where is the dog?” she finally asked.
It felt like a punch to the heart. She didn’t want to have to say it out loud. She never wanted to say these things out loud. Whom had she even told about Jamie, once she’d moved here? With whom had she shared Ernie’s death? Nobody.
Bren had stopped eating, though, and had put down her fork. “Oh. I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know.”
Virginia Mash grunted again, but the grunt was softer this time, as Bren’s hand snaked over and landed on top of hers. “He was a dog,” Virginia finally whispered, pulling her hand away. “Dogs die.”
“Yeah,” Bren said, after another pause. She picked up her fork and started eating again. “You want to hear something ridiculous?” Virginia Mash didn’t answer. “My son, Kevin, may have gotten married, but he doesn’t even know for sure.”
Virginia looked up. Bren was using her tongue to clean food out of her teeth.
“Yep. And my daughter is making boats out of bread for Christmas because Thailand is so beautiful. And two weeks ago I ate an entire dozen of the Hole Shebang’s glazed with basil. And my husband’s best friend kissed me right in my own kitchen, and it was kind of nice because my husband was too busy being sixteen again to notice me at all. And I freaked out over a mole.”
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