All through the Spaghetti Casserole Feast that afternoon, I feel queasy. Apparently, I also don’t say much, because Mom keeps asking, “Tretch, everything okay?” I nod and wonder why she’s asking me specifically. It’s not like I’m the only quiet one at the table. For the most part, nobody’s speaking. Everyone just kind of eats, and that is that.
I start looking at my spaghetti really hard and think about Where the Red Fern Grows. I read it years ago, but there’s that scene when the boy falls on the ax and the kid sees it, and then he has to go home, where his mom is cooking up spaghetti. He takes one look at the slimy red noodles and starts thinking about all the blood and stuff—
This is when I know I’m going to hurl.
Mom and Grandma are clearing the table, Dad is helping Granddad out of his chair by holding on to the crook of his arm, and Joe is doing all he can to avoid falling asleep into the mush on his plate. I push back my chair and walk as smoothly as I can into the guest restroom down the hall. I run water into the sink. My face in the mirror is red along the forehead, little spots of sweat, bloodshot eyes. It’s happening.
I kneel to the floor in front of the toilet and retch. Then I see what it looks like inside the toilet bowl and throw up again.
After my two throw-ups, I wipe tears from my eyes and stand slowly. I throw cold water on my face and search in the cabinet for a toothbrush and toothpaste.
There’s no toothpaste, but there is baking soda; and the only toothbrush I can find looks to be about forty years old, but I use it anyway, along with the baking soda.
When I step out of the bathroom, my teeth feel like they’re coated with wax. I make my way back down the hallway, where Grandma stands washing dishes. I’m not sure where Mom is. Normally she keeps Grandma company. Joe is missing, too, probably gone back to sleep.
“Hey, Grandma,” I say. I step up next to her for a moment, but the sight of the spaghetti casserole pan in the sink—gooey cakes of noodle and red hunks of sauce now doused with soapy sink water—makes me feel sick again.
“How’s it going, Junior Junior?” Grandma asks.
I take a seat at the table. “Good,” I answer. And then, from out of nowhere, I start crying.
I cry too much, I know. But sometimes it feels nice, even if I don’t quite understand what it’s all about or why I’m doing it. Sometimes it just feels like the only thing to do. And I’ve never been good at putting it off. I’m trying to keep quiet about it now, but after just one snort, Grandma turns around.
Panic floods her electric-green eyes. “Oh, Tretch, oh, baby.” The plate she’s washing slides from her hands and splashes into the soapy sink bath. She takes the seat next to me and grabs hold of my hand. “What is it, Tretch, dear? What’s the matter?”
“Grandma.” I’m sobbing now. “Is it back?”
“Is what back?”
“Your c—” I nearly choke on the word. “C-c-cancer.”
“Oh, heavens, Tretch.” She grabs me by the shoulders and pulls me toward her. I feel a little stubble from her chin along the back of my neck.
It’s been almost two years since the doctors said she was clear.
“No, Tretch,” she whispers beside my ear. “It’s not back. It isn’t back.”
What? I lift my head and look her in the eyes, everything blurry through my tears. I smile. “Well, good,” I say. Some snot catches at the back of my throat as I try to laugh. But then what’s wrong? What does multiple—?
There are footsteps on the tile behind me, and I turn. Mom stands with hands on her hips. “Tretch,” she says. The expression on her face is soft but serious. “Tretch, why don’t you walk with me to the Christmas-tree room? I haven’t even had a chance to play with the train.”
I look back at Grandma, my eyes drying up so that I can see the wetness in hers. “Yes, how ’bout you go play with the train, Tretch?” She pats my back, and I stand. I feel like I’m about six years old.
“I’ll be back to help with dishes,” I tell her. Grandma smiles. Then I turn and walk alongside Mom down the hallway. She doesn’t speak until we’re at the door of the Christmas-tree room.
“If anyone ever asks me how much your grandparents love Christmas, I always say, ‘Well, they’ve got a room in the house dedicated to it that stays that way the whole year round, if that means anything.’ ”
The room is dark at the moment, except for the Christmas-tree lights. But when Mom flips the switch, the whole room bursts into colorful life. The train set roars, encircling the tree and the presents underneath.
Everything is bright. Everything is festive.
Three plastic Santa Clauses line the far side of the room. They’re each about four feet tall and wear different suits with individual color schemes: one with a red-and-white suit (Classic Santa), one with a white suit with gold trim (Angel Santa), and one with a long green cape and a crown of holly leaves on his head (Recycling/Composting Santa). Grandma bought them as a set. On a desktop there’s a collection of snow globes Grandma and Granddad have gathered over the years—most of them souvenirs from country music festivals—and on the wall hangs a gigantic drawing Granddad did of Santa going surfing. He has fluffy trim around his swim trunks. It used to be my favorite as a kid. I stare at it now. Santa with a slight sunburn on his cheeks. Or maybe that’s just how Santa’s cheeks are—all rosy and whatnot.
Remember how tan Grandma got with the chemo?
A big shelf in the corner of the room opposite the Santa picture holds old photos from earlier Farm Farm Christmases. There’s even one of my dad, nine years old I think, holding up a bright red sweater. He doesn’t look super excited about it, and that always makes me laugh. What would Dad have wanted for Christmas when he was nine? I can’t even imagine, but surely not a bright red sweater. In that same picture, a man sits off in the corner holding a present of his own. He hasn’t opened it yet. And he isn’t smiling or looking at the camera. That man is my great-uncle. Uncle Dennis. It’s the only picture I’ve ever seen of him.
Other pictures are of all of us: Grandma, Granddad, Dad, Mom, Joe, and me. There’s one of Mom and Dad holding up an ornament with the words OUR FIRST CHRISTMAS on it. There’s even one of the two of them in college, visiting Farm Farm for the holidays.
The more I think about it, the more I realize just how much Farm Farm is a part of everything about me. Everything that made me.
I step over the train tracks and jiggle a tiny bell-shaped tree ornament.
“Tretch, what’s upsetting you?” Mom asks.
I don’t turn around. I just keep messing with the ornament. “Something is happening, and no one will tell me what,” I say.
“What do you mean, babe?” She doesn’t sound annoyed exactly.
“Everyone seems … I don’t know … worried or something.”
“Are you worried, Tretch?”
“Yes.”
“What are you worried about?”
“What I saw on that Post-it note on the kitchen table.” I stop jiggling the ornament and turn to face Mom now.
Multiple—
She gives a long sigh. “Tretch—”
“But Grandma said—”
Mom clears her throat. I notice how perfectly still she stands, with her hands in her pockets. “Grandma’s fine,” she says. For a moment she glances up. I think she might be looking at the angel on top of the Christmas tree. “It’s, uh—”
She looks down again. Not at me. Just down.
“It’s Granddad this time, Tretch.”
I shake my head.
No, I think. What about everything? What about how happy we were when Grandma got cleared? What about how two Christmases ago was the best Christmas of them all because we knew we’d be able to have more of them? Many more of them. Many more Farm Farm Christmas Feasts, many more gingerbread-house-building contests, many more viewings of It’s a Wonderful Life and hearing the story of how Grandma once met Jimmy Stewart on a steamboat.
Many more nights sleeping on the floor of Dad’s old room.
Many more card games and cups of coffee.
Many more trips out to Granddad’s shop to see him.
My throat has a cottony feeling. Like I’ve swallowed socks. Like I’m about to choke. I am about to choke. I am choking, I think, and Mom just stands there watching.
“Now, Tretch,” she says, soothing. “It won’t be—”
“Is he?” I don’t know how to ask. My voice rattles. “How long?”
Mom brings a hand to her face. She pulls at the corner of her eye. “There’s no way to know for sure, baby,” she tells me. With the words come tears. “But he’s got time.” She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a tissue. “They said it could even be a few years.”
I think the tissue is for her, but Mom steps over the train tracks and brings it up to my nose. She smiles as a couple tears slide down her cheeks. She starts to say “Blow” but instead all she manages is a quiet giggle. It takes me by surprise.
And I start giggling a little, too.
Because we both know I’m too old for her to be doing this for me. Holding a tissue up for me to blow my nose.
Well, she is my mom, after all, I think. And we are sad. And who really cares, anyway?
She pulls me close to her and holds me until our shoulders stop shaking, until we are breathing normally again, until our eyes have finally dried.