—Grace
Some people are latecomers to themselves, but who we are will soon enough surround us.
Kim stands back. She’s wearing pajamas and an apron over them that reads chef. stand back. She wishes me a merry Christmas and helps me with my bags—the gifts and desserts. Soon as my hands are free, I hike for the bathroom, where I run the sink till the water steams and run my hands in the hot stream and rub my hands on my face to unthaw. When I come out, she’s laid my desserts on the counter. She stands by the stove with a rolled bundle under her arm. She snaps it open, shows off an apron that says number one chef.
How about that? I say.
I’ve been making holiday dinners since Mom was alive, and I wonder when was Kim’s first dinner, how much she knows about these kinds of meals.
I should get to it, I say. Or we’ll be eating at midnight.
Don’t you need help? she says. I was hoping I could help, she says.
Later, I say. I do my best work alone.
Don’t mean to exclude but what could she know about the frying or baking or broiling, what it means to season with heart? Go ahead and rest while I get things going, I say. She skulks into the front room and sprawls on the couch and powers the TV—the screen’s so big the actors are life-sized!—and raises the volume to a level that might peeve the neighbors. Champ lazes in a commercial or so later wearing long johns with his hands dug in his crotch. He stoops by Kim and whispers in her ear and she sits up and shakes her head. He calls me into the room and I take seasonings out of the cupboard and follow him. He mutes the TV and throws his eyes, those big innocent eyes, from me to Kim, from Kim to me. Kim has something she wants to tell you, he says. We have something we’d like to tell you, he says. He pushes Kim closer and takes my hand and lays it on her stomach. Feel, he says. Can you feel it?
Her stomach is firm and swollen.
I drop on the couch and shake my head.
This is a blessing, I say. Such a blessing. How far are you along?
Sixteen weeks, Champ says.
Amazing, I say. Your first child. My first grandchild.
One look at them together and you can see into their trials. How tough it will be to hold a baby above all else. But they will have me. This is another shot for me.
I get up and go into the kitchen and Champ follows. He stands behind me, his chin on my shoulder, while I prep. Mmmm, can’t wait, he says. He turns me around and pecks me under an eye. He grabs milk from the fridge and gulps and puts it right back on the shelf—a sin in my home. He smirks, a little rim of white over his lip. Yeah, I know, I know, he says, wiping the white with his shirt. But I’m grown, he says. Overgrown.
So grown you lost your manners, I say. I sure hope that isn’t what you teach your own child. That’s not what I taught you.
Geesh, so serious, he says. He does a shuffle. It’s the dance he’d do when he was young and wanted something I couldn’t afford. Before there was little I could afford. Before he stopped asking me for anything at all.
Boy, stop, I say. It won’t work.
It’s Christmas, Mom, cut me some slack. And a little time too, he says. I need to let some water run on this overnight funk. Let me shower and dress and it’s Chef Champ at your beckon.
This is a joke. He has to know he’s no help whatsoever in the kitchen. It’s a miracle that he and she don’t eat out evermore or starve. His brothers have been cooking full meals for years, but Champ might burn down a house, though you can’t blame anybody but me. Frying a burger or boiling wieners is about all I ever tried to teach him, which almost doesn’t count since I never let him practice. He’d amble into my room at all hours—mashing a fist in his eye and complaining he was starved. Whenever he did, I’d stir and fix him a snack or meal or whatever he thought he wanted—a response, God knows, that never once felt wrong.
A firstborn could be the most we’ll ever see of bliss.
The food cooks, and I stroll into the living room. The tree’s decked in gold and silver, and presents that match the color scheme. This sure is a beautiful tree, I say. You think you guys bought enough gifts? I lift a box tagged for KJ and feel its bulk—pounds of it.
You know your son, Kim says. Too much isn’t enough.
There was a time when Thanksgivings Champ would produce a Christmas list with his gifts ranked. He’d give me the list and ply me with the sweetest gapped smile and I’d appease him with the promise that I’d do what I could. Every year for years too, that’s what I did. Why wouldn’t I? He kept A’s in school, never got time-outs or notes home or suspensions, not to mention in those days Kenny was paying most of the bills. If ever there was a time, that was the era when the world felt abundant. When I felt big in the world.
Champ lazes out and we open gifts. You should have seen me last night wrapping and rewrapping what I bought, fussing over the tape and folds. Kim opens hers first, detaching the bow with care, pulling the tape gentle. Not the fancy you’re used to, I say. But it’s the best I could do on a budget. She pulls out the pants and rubs the cotton against her cheek and tells me they’re so soft and kisses me on the cheek. Thank you, thank you. I love them, she says.
Champ don’t go at his gifts like he used to; he used to shake the box and guess and guess what it was, but now he peels the tape back slow and lifts his gift into view—a Bible. He touches the gold-painted finger tabs and fans the pages. Oooooh, good-lookin, he says. The Good Book. Been looking high and low for a new one, but my fair luck, they been sold out since Black Friday.
Funny, I say. But I was hoping you’d think it was thoughtful.
Sheesh, Mom, he says. Where’s our sense of humor? Thank you. Thank you so much for the gift.
You’re welcome, I say, and ask him if he remembers our Christmas Eve plays, how he used to whine and pout the years he wasn’t cast as Jesus.
Sure do, he says. Jesus of Nazareth, that was me. But now I know for sure that paying for the next man’s sins ain’t the shot.
There’s snow left from last week’s storm and winter’s glow is a presence among us. Champ hands me a long box topped with a yellow bow and I strip the wrapping as if I might reuse it—waste not, want not—and uncover a three-quarter-length lamb’s-wool coat, dead-on the one I’ve been eyeing for months.
Only the best for me and mines, he says. He leans back, full of himself, a munificent smile. You shouldn’t have, I say, and trace the arms and the shoulders and around the collar. He helps me try it on, tells me to go into the room and check it out in the full-length mirror. I flit in his room and check myself in the mirrored closet doors, turning one way and then the other and flipping the collar and fingering the buttons, having my moment.
He or she has left one side of the closet half closed and you can see an open safe on the floor among boxes. Easy, I slide the door to get a better look inside, see stacks and stacks of bills—not sure how much, but I’d guess more than I ever made in a year of work—see gold jewelry, see what could be hard dope wrapped in plastic. Of all what I see the drugs are what shoot the air right out of me, and all the light.
I am new.
I am good.
I am strong.
I am powerless over people.
I am powerless over my children.
I drag out working to fix my face.
So what’s the full-length verdict? Champ says.
Can I ask a question? I say. How much did you pay for this?
Mom, it’s a Christmas gift. A gift. Asking about price is bad etiquette.
Champ, how much?
It’s a gift, he says. He makes a face he made as a boy. And I’d give the world for him to be that boy again, without ever worrying when I might come home, whether or not I’m safe, where I’ve been, without ever the wonder of why I’m not myself.
Okay, I say. You’re right. It’s Christmas. I’ll let it go for now. Let’s enjoy.
Later, Champ sets the table and Kim serves the drinks and I bring out the food, the turkey and dressing, the candied yams, the macaroni and cheese, the collard greens, the roast, the deviled eggs—a feast to last for days. He carves the turkey and says grace as well. We eat with the TV showing sports. They don’t have much to say and I have less to say than that. It takes much too much strength to fight what I see. My son on a corner, his pockets swollen with a sack of shards, or him holed in a dank house. You wonder if he treats them as the worst of them do. How could he let me see it when I told him not to let me see it; now how can I ever see past it? Canaan and KJ call after dinner and wish us all aloha. I leave with unopened gifts under the tree.
New Years, the morning of my first day off in forever, and this return is a resolution. I lug a Hefty bag laden with all Champ has bought me these last months into the building: the coat, the clothes, the clock, everything. He answers wearing a wrinkled V-neck T-shirt and tuxedo pants, a gold chain lying over his shirt, bright diamonds in his ear. I drop the bag by his feet and by his eyes he can’t believe it.
What’s this? he says.
It’s yours, I say. I can’t.
Can’t do what? he says.
I told you not to let me see, I say. You should’ve kept it from me.
See what? he says.
Too much, I say. It was all there. I saw it all.
What time is it? he says. It’s too early for this. Come inside.
No, I say. I take the car keys out of my pocket and drop them on the bag.
Oh boy, he says. Ooooh boy. That Bible got you tripping like this? What the Bible teach us but how to suffer? he says. That’s what you want for us? Suffering?
Son, we can get away from Him, I say. But no one gets so far they can’t get back. I leave, track the line of lambent bulbs to the stairs. There’s a cold that belongs outside, belongs out of this world, in the lobby and through the lobby glass there’s the Honda, parked by the curb, its wheels flecked with dirt. I totter outside and into the street and face the building and search the windows, and there’s my son gazing at me with his arms crossed and a face I can’t make out. I turn away from him and close my coat, this nothing coat, and march off against a treacherous wind.