Give It Up

The Clements twins climbed up onto the front deck at Samson’s place, where he was taking a break from splitting alder for the living room fireplace. He poured the last drops of McEwan’s Scotch Ale into his glass and finished off the rich, dark brew with a sigh, part contentment, part regret at the empty bottle, then a satisfying burp.

The kids were unusually quiet as they studied him. Something coming.

“Well?”

“What are you giving up, Samson?”

Alun posed the question. He and Jillian waited for Samson’s answer, which was a puzzled, “Giving what up?”

“For Lent,” sighed Jillian, as if to a slow learner. “Amber says we should make a sacrifice for forty days? Like God did?” Then, “What?”

“You’re doing that thing again. That uptalk. Where you’re incapable of speaking in simple declarative sentences. Every sentence ending in a question mark. You talk to people as if they’re idiots. As if you’re asking if they actually understand what you’re saying. I mean, how is anyone to know when you expect an answer?”

Jillian rolled her eyes … this again. She dismissed it with a shrug.

Alun said, “Jesus. It was Jesus. Not his dad. And he didn’t do it for Lent. He was out in the desert being tempted. Way before Easter was invented. People just use the forty days to see if you can last that long without going to the pub or having candy and stuff.”

Alun was born a minute before midnight, Jillian a minute after. Alun took it upon himself to correct the kid whenever the chance arose.

“Moses did it as well, but not at the same time,” added Jillian, who liked to fill in any glaring omissions by her brother. “And then there was all that rain for forty days and forty nights another time. Right, Samson?”

“Christ,” Samson said. Then he deflected the original question. “You said ‘Amber.’ Amber? Don’t you mean the Reverend Rawlings? We would never have called her father ‘Randall.’ Always Reverend. Respect, eh?”

“Randall?” Alun said. “Who would name anybody ‘Randall’? That’s funny.” And he laughed.

“What is Amber giving up?” Samson asked.

“I think she said chocolate chip cookies,” Jillian said.

Samson said, “I was right behind her in Gilbert’s Groceries a week ago when she said she was done with cookies—chocolate or otherwise—because they were going straight to her hips. So, nice try, Amber. Happy Lent.” He continued, “What about your mother—what’s her sacrifice going to be?”

“Mom told our dad that she might give up Sunday morning lie-ins, if he didn’t smarten up, but he said that was way too much to ask of anybody—or to, I think it was, impose on anybody—and she should think of something else.”

Alun said, “And we know what that’s all about, don’t we? I mean the Sunday morning lie-ins. Oh, yeah.”

Samson could swear he heard his eyeballs click. He managed a muffled, “Oh?” and hoped for a diversion, like the deck collapsing, or maybe a handy little tsunami.

“Of course,” Jillian observed. “First one to get up from the lie-in has to make breakfast and take it back to bed for the other one. It’s a rule.”

“Ah, right,” Samson murmured.

“Anyway, my mother said for you maybe beer,” Jillian noted, with a nod to the empty bottle. “She figured it would do you good. Or wine. ”

“She said and wine,” Alun added. “Both. Together. At the same time.”

Their mother, Julie, was principal of the elementary school.

“She would,” Samson said.

“So?” Jillian cocked her head and waited.

“Well, first of all it’s none of your mother’s concern what I give up or don’t.”

Jillian’s eyes widened at someone questioning her mother’s word. And then she grinned at the thought. She said, “You should get going on it. It starts after Pancake Tuesday, which was yesterday, when you had all those pancakes at our house. My mom said it seemed like you hadn’t eaten for about forty days, when she had to open another bottle of maple syrup. And that’s when she started about Lent, and wondered if you be giving up anything. Grandma wondered the same thing, but said probably not because you don’t have the self-discipline.”

Grandma was Sheila Martin, retired secondary school teacher, recently elected the first mayor of Spinner’s Inlet. Samson was one of the four by-default council members.

“She would,” Samson said.

“And she said you would get crabby if you tried it.”

“Crabbier,” Alun corrected her. “She said you’re already crabby.”

Jillian added, “Then Mom said Grandma should have said ‘more crabby’ not ‘crabbier’ because it didn’t sound like proper English.”

“She would know,” Samson agreed.

Jillian said, “And to do Lent properly, you have to make sure you wash some of your friends’ feet. Jesus did that for his apprentices. Washed them and dried them. They all wore those open sandals so it was probably easy to get dirt in them. He said they should do it for others, it would make them humble.” She added, “Grandma said you probably don’t know what that means, but you could still give it a try.”

Alun said, “You can get humble as well if you give a lot of money away like the Queen does. We saw her doing that on TV last year. Some pensioners and poor people. I think they said it happens on Laundry Thursday.”

“Maundy,” Samson corrected.

“Whatever,” Alun said. Then, “That’s the day they had the last supper. Mom said you could come and have that at our place, if you like.”

“My last supper?”

“She said you’ll be ready for a drink by then.”

“Tell your mother, and your grandma, that I appreciate their thoughtfulness and I will give the Lent thing serious consideration.” Then, “But what about you two? What are you giving up?”

Alun smiled. “Grandma said we were to tell you that we are just the messengers. The rest is up to you.”

“She would,” Samson said.