15

Cleveland hadn’t changed much in six weeks.

Lillian felt different, and had expected her environment to be different too.

The big city felt cold and rushed. Definitely more traffic than Darlington.

The tension that had driven her south in the first place remained. Both with her parents and when she sought out friends, the dance of pretense scraped against her nerves. She found herself cautious, as though some sense within her remained on high alert lest she do or say the wrong thing.

The kitchen smelled of roasting turkey. Every burner on the stove held a stainless steel pot, the moist heat reminding her of the homeless shelter. Her chest tightened with longing. But then memories of Roger’s behavior erased the joy. She had been unable to see him before she had come home. The crack in their friendship caused her to be even more unsettled.

Sitting on a kitchen barstool, elbows propped on the white marble slab, she watched as her mother cut the apple and pumpkin pies bought from the Frazier Bakery. Their holiday pastries always came from Frazier’s. Her mom declared them the best.

Lillian had agreed—until she ate Sandra’s.

What were Trina and Ted, Bill and Sandra, and little Jimmy having for Thanksgiving dinner? She missed them, but tried to squeeze the thoughts of Darlington from her mind. After all, she was home with her family, her real family. She belonged in Cleveland, not in Darlington.

“Lillian, are you listening to me?” Her mother’s voice cut through her musings. “You don’t seem yourself.” Martha Goodson wiped her hands on a white towel with a large, colorful turkey appliquéd in the center. The Thanksgiving towel always came out the day before the holiday and was returned to storage the day after. Her mother folded the towel into exact thirds, and placed it, turkey facing out, in the center of the bar by the sink. “Are you sure living in the south is good for you?” Her lips puckered as she stared at Lillian, her gaze a challenge.

Lillian offered a wisp of a smile. How could she possibly describe the past six weeks when she couldn’t wrap her mind around them herself? As an attorney, she had condensed the basest human actions into simple words, explainable to a jury. But now she couldn’t define her own life for her mother. “I’ve made some good friends, and I love my job.” No need to mention the fires, or the fact that her heart had awakened. Why spawn questions she was unwilling to answer?

Her mother’s stare drilled into her face. “Well, your dad and I think you are being foolish. But then, you always have gone your own way.”

The words stung as though she had been slapped. At the sound of rattling on the stove, her mom turned, lifted the lid off the front pot, stabbed at the potatoes with a fork, and then replaced the lid.

Simple actions completed through habit and routine. Should life be like that: a routine that one lived by, no matter what?

Nothing shook the stoic existence of her parents, and even though the predictability appealed to Lillian, the rigidity of their lives felt as false as hers had become lately.

In the letter of the law, her mother was right: she had gone her own way. Maybe it was time to grow up and come home. The time in Darlington had strengthened her, and she would miss Trina and the others immensely. Tears puddle in her eyes and she turned her back to her mother. Were the tears from her mother’s hurtful words, or were they for a life that had never really belonged to her?

God held the answer, and she tried to trust, she really did, but her brain remained conflicted. Did God care about her anymore? Roger didn’t seem to think so. She felt homeless as though the entire planet had cast her off, sending her spinning into the dark unknown.

“Lillian!” Her mother’s sharp voice cut through her thoughts. “Am I so beneath you that you can’t pay attention to me for even a few minutes?”

“Hey, Lilly!” Beth called from the next room. “Come help me set the table.”

Her mom heaved a deep sigh. “Go,” she said, brushing Lillian from the room with a swish of her hands.

Beth stood beside the table, a goofy grin spread across her face and one of the good china plates from the gold-rimmed set gripped in her hand. The white, linen, holiday tablecloth already covered the dark wood of the formal table.

Even though she was grateful to escape her mother’s probing accusations, the dining room failed to offer the expected relief. Something felt wrong.

“Thought you might need an excuse to get away from the hundred questions,” Beth said, setting the plate on the table.

“Thanks.” She hugged her younger sister, trying to ignore the uncomfortable itch.

Beth placed the second plate on the table.

“The table! That’s the problem!” She pumped her fist into the air as a sense of release filled her. One itch solved. Maybe life was doable.

“What’s wrong with the table?”

“You don’t know?”

The dining room had been the source of numerous arguments between her parents. Her mother thought the room too small and wanted to move in order to have a larger formal space for guests. But her father disagreed, stressing the quality of the current home and their history there.

“You didn’t put the table extensions in. Where is everyone going to sit?”

Beth stared with unblinking eyes. “They didn’t tell you.” She looked at the floor. “There’ll only be the four of us.”

Her parents entertaining skills shined during the holidays. Thanksgiving meant at least a dozen close friends sharing a feast.

She looked at the table again, diminished in size and importance, still draped in white, still adorned with the good china, but no longer filling the room with its imposing presence. “Just the four of us?”

“I guess they wanted you all to themselves.” Beth placed another plate on the table.

There had only been two pies. She had assumed there were more in the pantry. Her mother’s characteristic flutter had been replaced by jerking tension. She hadn’t seen it until now. Her breath hung in her throat. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Beth grasped her hands. Pools of pain filled her eyes. “I heard Mom and Dad talking.” Her words were tight. “They weren’t sure what you would be like when you came home.”

“What do you mean, what I would be like?” She snatched her hands away.

As the look of misery on Beth’s face grew deeper, Lillian thought of the two years when Beth had been her only friend, the only person willing to listen as she had poured out her pain over and over. “It’s you and me, Beth. We’re sisters. We’ve always been there for each other.” Her voice softened. “You can tell me. What did they expect would happen when I moved to Darlington?”

A tear dribbled down Beth’s cheek. “They thought you would fall apart, start doing strange things…or something. They thought when you came home you would be like you were after the fire.”

Lillian clenched her teeth, remembering the inconsolability, the consuming grief. The blank spaces in her memory, days that she simply couldn’t remember. She thought of her mother’s stories; how she had to be stopped from getting out of the house in the middle of the night, convinced that Susan or Craig needed her. But most frightening was her mother’s need to hide the matches after she tried to set fire to her bed.

At the time, Dr. Widder had reassured her parents, claiming these were normal reactions to trauma and not a permanent condition.

Over the months, her gaps from reality had become less, and now she felt as sane as she had ever been. In Darlington she had made friends. They trusted her. She had a good job. A life. Did her parents have such little faith in her strength?

Tightening her shoulders, she grabbed the stack of linen napkins off the sideboard and threw them on the left side of each plate, just as she had been taught as a child. But as a child, she had made sure the loose ends were toward the plate, the folded edge out. Now she didn’t care. “Let’s just get this meal over with.”

Once her duty had been served, she escaped to her room and shut the door. She grabbed her Bible off the nightstand, hugged it to her chest, and flopped on the bed. She had turned to God’s word less often over the course of the last six weeks. Guilt rose in her throat; she needed to be alone with God. He had not forgotten her, in spite of the fact that she had neglected Him. But He had been there. And He was here now. Tears spilled down her face.

God, what do You want me to do? She sat quietly and listened.

The murmured voices of her sister and mother swirled. The garage door rolled up and then down again. The furnace kicked on, sending the hated pine scent across the room.

But no words of comfort or instruction came from God. God, if you don’t want to tell me what to do, don’t complain when I mess it up. Frustrated, she threw her Bible onto the bedspread and strode back downstairs.

The next thirty minutes were busy with last-minute preparations. In spite of fewer mouths to feed, a dozen platters and bowls needed carried to the table: turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, corn, dressing, cranberry sauce, salad.

Her mother lit the orange tapered candles at each end of the table, slid the matches into the pocket of her silk pants, and took her seat opposite her husband. One person graced each side of the table.

Lillian stared at the food—enough to feed the homeless men for a week, and most of it would be tossed out, uneaten.

Her father rubbed his hands together. “Looks good, dear. You’ve outdone yourself again.” He reached for the turkey platter.

“Dad,” Lillian said quietly, “I would like to thank God for our meal.”

He stared at her.

“She wants to say grace, dear,” her mother added.

“I know what she means.” He narrowed his eyes. “This is why I didn’t want you to leave home.”

Lillian glanced at Beth, who sat primly in her place, both brown eyes crossed. Neither parent could see their younger daughter’s face. She and Beth had created this secret signal back in their elementary school days. When one violated a family code of conduct, and the other was forbidden to speak in defense, she showed support by crossing her eyes. The message was clear. This stinks; it will be over soon; I love you. Lillian’s burning anger tempered under Beth’s silent sympathy. “Thanking God for our blessings is a good thing.” She tried to keep her voice level. “Dad, if you remember, I’ve asked to say grace before.”

“Not for the past couple of years.” He crossed his arms over his chest, gold cufflinks sparkling in the candlelight sending incongruent vibes.

“Ralph, perhaps just this time…”

“This all started after she married that husband of hers.” Her father glared, his eyes becoming dark holes in a pinched face. “You marry beneath you, and look what you get.”

She refused to look at Beth, refused to allow sisterly support to compensate for her father’s hateful words. Her self-control dissolved under the pressure of the anger releasing through her pores. “Craig was not beneath me,” she said through clenched teeth. “He was a good man. He cared for me, and he showed me God’s love, something you never did.”

The single chime of the mantle clock announced the half hour. Its metallic tone sliced through the icy silence.

The muscles in her father’s jaw tightened. “I am eating my dinner, which my wife has prepared for me. You do whatever you want.” He grabbed the serving fork and plopped a large piece of turkey on his plate.

Lillian bowed her head. Father, thank you for this food. I know that You are the source of all things that I have. Please help my family to—

“Lillian!”

She jerked her head up to find her mother handing her the turkey platter.

Across the table Beth crossed her eyes.

“Mom and Dad, I love you, but I can hardly wait to go back to Darlington.”

A mouthful of half-chewed turkey flew from Beth’s side of the table.

The words had been unpremeditated, made in the tension of the moment. Had the decision come from God, or from Satan?