Chapter Eleven

Thanksgiving was rapidly approaching and preparations were underway at Granny Stillwell’s. Grace sat at Granny’s grey Formica table and worked on her grocery list. There was no holiday more special to Grace and her sisters. Thanksgiving embodied what they loved most about family. It was not only a celebration of Thanksgiving and the bounty they could offer one another, it was a time to enjoy each other without the gift-giving stress of Christmas.

All four girls could cook and cook well. The fall weather brought out those nesting instincts, the laughter and warmth of their sisterhood an impenetrable veil. They cooked together, spread out in Granny’s kitchen, every surface covered with a tidbit to be prepared. Granny would hand out white butcher’s aprons, wrapped double around the waist.

“Gracie, you have no idea how much I appreciate this. I hate like the devil to go in that grocery over to Columbia this time of year. All those people and cars. It makes a person jittery.”

“I don’t mind Columbia, Gran. Just call me if you’ve forgotten anything.” Grace had determined that to buy the items needed for the school supply donation box at school, Columbia would be the only place she could build up provisions at a reasonable price. She tackled the growing list, “Let’s see . . . nutmeg, fresh sage, kosher salt?” Granny Stillwell using kosher salt? Surely not.

“I saw that on the Cooking Channel over to Ellie’s. They soaked that bird in a brine of kosher salt and honey. Grandma Melch used to do that out in the country, back when we were comin’ up. She’d soak the bird for two or three days and the skin was so crisp it’d melt in your mouth. Of course, my grandma had never heard of kosher anything, she just used a salt rub and honey and some spice.” Grace kept writing. Granny Stillwell would always keep up with the times even when she stepped backward in her memory.

“Cooking pumpkins – fresh. Do you want me to get those in Columbia?”

“Go over to Darnell Whelan’s produce stand. He has the best pumpkins around and apples for pie.”

“Bacon, sweet potatoes” Grace grimaced. She could never tolerate the heavy flavor even when marshmallows were melted smoothly over the golden orange casserole at Thanksgiving. “You’ll have green beans, Granny?”

They continued with the list, her mouth watering as they went on, herbed bread crumbs to accompany Granny’s already prepared crumbled cornbread would make a fine stuffing, laced with giblets that had simmered all day in a bouquet of parsley, sage, peppercorn and bay leaf. Granny would sneak in mushrooms diced finely for those who thought they couldn’t tolerate them. A green-bean casserole, laced with bacon in the country style and a salad tossed with red leaf lettuce, Boston bib and elegant romaine would fill a large green glass bowl.

There would be roasted walnuts and pecans glazed with brown sugar, an acorn squash coated in butter and baked, the cavity sprinkled with cinnamon. Cranberry relish would fill small crystal bowls used only at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Mountains of mashed potatoes would flow, whipped with butter and fresh whole milk from the farm. Two mammoth turkeys would be placed at each end of the banquet for the traditional photo of the gathering, and then whisked away for carving.

Warm potato rolls would sit strategically at each elbow, sweet bread, banana nut loaf and pecan tarts nestled on platters surrounded by garnish of fragrant orange slices and frosted grapes. Golden brown pumpkin pies, an oak-leaf cutout of pastry on top, along with flaky cherry, rich buttery pecan and fragrant apple pies would line the kitchen counters, bowls of whipped cream at the ready, in a grand dessert parade that would leave no calorie unturned, unnamed or uneaten.

Granny would bring down a bottle of elderberry wine, kept in the back of the kitchen cupboard. The adults would sip merlot and a select white wine furnished by Katy, the connoisseur. Black, steaming coffee would follow dinner and dessert and then everyone would retreat to rockers and folding chairs, piling onto Granny’s couches, settees and ottomans, some taking up spots on the worn living room carpet to watch football or play Scrabble.

The smallest children would rake leaves piled in Granny’s yard to scatter them, shrieking with delight. Only to re-rake again and again, falling from the rope swing gleefully into the musty splendor of fall. Older teenagers would catch up on cousin business and investigate Grandpa Stillwell’s shed, which had been off limits for years when he ruled the Stillwell household. Then they would tromp back through Granny’s kitchen, begging for turkey sandwiches and more pie, please, Granny.

Grace knew that while Katy and Ellie’s spouses could have shared that holiday with their own families, no meal could rival what they would eat at Granny Stillwell’s celebration, a fact which their mothers-in-law did not enjoy, but had come to accept once they had also been invited to share in the feast.

The youngest Phillips girl, Victoria Alice Eliza Jane (affectionately known as Babe), would drive in from her Montana ranch retreat with Mercer, her boyfriend of ten years and constant companion. They would come bearing elk jerky and venison sausage from the fall hunt along with a local beer that would make Grace’s ears ring after just one drink. Wednesday morning before the celebration, Katy and Christopher would arrive from Des Moines with their brood of three, in time for Katy to join in the cooking.

Granny Stillwell’s kitchen was open to any wayfarer who had no home to go to at Thanksgiving. Grace and her sisters invited friends and companions who were without family. The long kitchen would be filled, three tables running the length of the room, covered with beautiful old antique tablecloths and the bounty of the household. It was a sharing that most families would envy. The love was unconditional in the offering and always full in the acceptance. Until Grace left her family for those years on the eastern shore she had not appreciated the depth of that love and the flow. It surrounded her like a river, as strong and sure as the one she had crossed to return to the fold.

Babe and Mercer arrived on Grace’s doorstep before dawn on Wednesday morning. Grace, suffering from intermittent insomnia, sat in the small bay window looking over a proposal for the used clothing drive that she wanted to present to Homer Emerson. She heard the rumble of the mammoth black Dodge truck with the sprawling fifth-wheel camper as it groaned into the driveway at 4:30. Babe and Mercer were bleary eyed but cheerful and glad to be off the long highway. Grace hugged her sister enthusiastically, feeling the still-narrow shoulders and small but muscular frame that Babe had attained by thirteen and never surpassed in adulthood..

“She just stopped growin’.” Granny Stillwell had said. “I reckon the little people would take her for one of their own, if they had a mind.” Babe might be small and compact but she could ride a stallion like a man and with the grace of an Olympic gymnast. Mercer towered over the small woman, hard, lean and a foot-and-a-half taller, height exaggerated by his ever-present weathered Stetson. He put his arm around Grace and squeezed with an uncharacteristic show of affection after so many holidays spent together.

“Glad to be home, Gracie girl?” he spoke in her ear. Grace answered with a smile, leaning up to smack her lips against his cheek.

“More than you know, cowboy. Believe it!”

Babe had always been a feisty companion to the taciturn Mercer but she seemed changed now to Grace. Mellow, with a look of seriousness about her, that restless girl no longer looked out from her dark eyes. Mercer, ever watchful, refused Grace’s offer of a bed to tumble into, but settled for hot coffee and scrambled eggs.

“We’ll hook up over at Ellie’s. There’s room for the fifth wheel there. Timothy can run a hard line and we’ll have a hot water and power in no time. Then we can unpack.”

Grace pondered Mercer and Babe’s bond as she scooped scrambled eggs out of a skillet and buttered the toast points. Babe had made it clear in every conversation she had ever had with Grace on the topic that the relationship did not include cohabitation of any kind. Babe owned the ranch and Mercer the adjoining land in Montana, and while they spent every waking hour together, Babe’s virtue was a hard-won prize. But something had changed between them, something finite and sure. When the sisters got Babe alone in the kitchen tomorrow morning, there would surely be some conversation about the sleeping arrangements in that fifth wheel.