STRATTON SUGGESTED the idea of Thanksgiving dinner at the house before he’d considered what that might mean for himself, and others too. He had been busy at work, a mercy considering how empty time had a way of putting its heavy hand over him. But his classes had been good, attended by students who were curious and attentive. A few of them even gifted. He’d had to write half a dozen recommendation letters for the University of Tennessee, one for Vanderbilt. Now with the Thanksgiving break the semester was largely complete. Only grades to be submitted and then the gulf of jobless December to cross.
His friend Josh Callum turned up at about nine Thanksgiving morning with a brace of Irish whiskey bottles and half-cranky demands that he be served. Stratton put on a second pot of coffee and began to whip the cream and sugar until it was the texture of soft candy. He liked working in the kitchen. Serving those who visited. He’d learned the habit from his mother, this standing by and anticipating what might content someone, perhaps even before they had realized the desire themselves. He poured the whiskey and then the coffee over it, topped it all with the whipped cream and a small spoon tilted at the rim.
“By God, the best Irish coffee in Christendom,” Josh said before he had yet put it to his lips. “Compliments to the chef.”
Stratton wiped his hands on the oven towel and sat down, tested his own coffee.
“Where’s the barbarian princess?” Josh asked, leaned back in his chair to shoot a glance down the back hall. Was satisfied that Rain couldn’t have heard him, that he was safe for the time being.
“She ran out to the store to get a few things. Might have sent her out for Advil if I would have known you were coming this early.”
“Aww hell. You’re happy to see me. Need some friction in your holiday. Besides, I already told my sister I wasn’t coming up. I’m here for the turkey and the football. I hope the company won’t disagree too much.”
“I imagine it’ll meet your standards.”
They drank the coffee, just sat and visited for a while.
“You heard anything about selling the house?”
“Not a peep. You interested?”
“Naw. I’m thinking of running away to join the circus. I’m afraid I’m too much of a flight risk. Bankers can see that on you. You need a hand with any of the cooking? I can boil a mean pan of water.”
“No, that’s all right. You’re our designated drinker for the day.”
“I can handle that.”
Rain came in the front door with four plastic sacks of groceries hanging from her arms. Josh all but broke his legs trying to get there to help her.
“Hold on there, girl. I’m on the way,” he said.
But she had crossed the hall and flung everything onto the kitchen counter before he could relieve her.
“I see you’re living with one of those independent women,” Josh said to Stratton.
“Yeah, looks that way,” he said.
Rain frowned, shook her head, began pulling out the vegetables and cans of mushroom soup.
“You two drunk already? I should have known not to have left you alone for long.”
“Just a cup of holiday cheer,” Josh said. “I would have thunk to have fixed you one as well. I do love to take a drink in mixed company. I’d even go so far as to call it civilizing.”
“Well,” she said. “Go ahead and pour me one, then. If there’s anything around here we need it’s a bit of civilizing.”
Stratton got up and assembled the drink, placed it next to her on the counter where she chopped onions on the cutting board for dressing. She cut down in short aggressive strokes, as if from a desire to commit some crime in haste. He worried she might hurt herself but knew not to say anything. She had been short with him when she’d found out that he had invited Loyal to dinner. They still saw each other, he knew, though not like they had before. He had meant to be kind only, but she had seen it as a piece of interference.
“Hey, bud. You up for a little bit of manual labor?” Stratton asked Josh. “I’ve got a load of wood out there we could split and get this fire snapping before the company shows up. Rain can take over in the kitchen for a while, can’t you?”
She said that she could, didn’t bother to look up when she answered.
“Well, I could do with a spell of exercise,” Josh said, rose and swallowed what was left of his coffee. “Come on, Jeremiah Johnson. Show me this woodpile of yours.”
They walked out into the cold in their shirtsleeves, each with an axe from the end of the porch, and began to split dried logs that had been stacked along the side of the house where the old garden had been. The work quickly warmed them and their motions became easy and repetitive; the wood halves steadily mounted.
“You and your girl get into a lover’s spat?” Josh asked as he drove the head into a block of persimmon that broke and clattered.
“I wish you’d cut that shit out,” Stratton told him as he tossed a couple of pieces into the pile. “She’s got a boyfriend for chrissake.”
“Hell, I’m just paying attention. That girl’s peeved at you about something. Usually that comes down to what’s swinging between your legs.”
Stratton paused, said, “You know, for somebody who’s educated, you might be the biggest philistine I’ve ever met.”
“Thank you.”
“That wasn’t a compliment.”
“Thank you just the same.”
As they finished chopping the wood a battered silver sedan fumbled up the drive and pulled into the front yard. Wendy, sequined, hair-sprayed, and rolling on some oily swell of pharmaceuticals, tumbled out from the passenger’s side.
“There’s the man himself,” she called to Stratton. A cigarette juddered from between her lips when she talked.
“Lord God,” he said under his breath.
Josh reached a hand across and squeezed him by the shoulder blade so hard it hurt.
“I think this is what the intellectuals like to call Appalachian Gothic,” he said from behind his pained smile.
They went up to say hello. Stratton introduced Josh to Wendy first, then Wes. They talked a little, then Wes handed over a twelve pack of Bud Light, said he was glad to be invited, glad to have a chance to see the old farmhouse he’d heard so much about.
“Hell, come on then. Let’s give you the full tour,” Stratton said. He told Josh, “You won’t mind toting the wood in and getting the fire started, will you, bud? Hospitality calls and all that.”
“You go on. I see how it is. Takes a real man to perform the necessary duties. You run off and play Martha Stewart.”
“I appreciate it.”
“I bet you do.”
“Y’all don’t mind him. He’s just upset because he knows he’s going have to watch the Cowboys lose later.”
“I thought you were the one from Texas?” Wendy said.
“Yeah, that’s right. Losing’s in the blood for me.”
They went up the front steps with Wes steadying Wendy. Stratton was unsure if she was aware of the hand there at her elbow. Once they were inside, she gazed around at the front room with eyes as big as noon.
“Real pretty,” she said. It took her a moment to realize Rain had come up, was standing in front of her, expecting to be hugged.
“Hey, darling. I’m sorry. I’m just running a loop today. Don’t mind me. This place is beautiful, though. Really something else to behold.”
Wes tried to hide his awkwardness over Wendy’s behavior, asked if he could take the beer to the fridge. Stratton said he’d go on and show him where it was.
Stratton poured Wes one of his signature coffees and then led him around the back rooms and after that upstairs, showed him the full run of the place. All of it presented to its best advantage, the furnishings arranged now not so much with the idea of selling the house as to reflect the life it sheltered. He enjoyed pointing out his home’s particularities—the troubled floorboards, the solid oak door frame slightly out of square, the gentle heaving warp of the master bedroom wall. Not imperfections exactly, but distinctions. The broken lines that gave it shape. The small ways he was touched by something that was supposed to be limited to cold geometry.
“I remember driving past this place when I was a little boy,” Wes told him. “My grandparents, they lived up the road and we’d come through. I thought it was about the best kind of perfect I could get my head around. If I can tell you the truth, I think you’re crazy for wanting to let it go.”
“You think so, huh?”
“I do. This house has roots. It’s permanently part of something. It’s good to take hold of that.”
By the time they had gone back downstairs, Rain had gotten Wendy to come to the kitchen to help her with the side dishes and Josh was kneeling by the fireplace with a newly charged tumbler of whiskey, a couple of fat chips of ice floating at the top.
“We ready to turn this sucker loose?” he asked.
“By all means,” Stratton said, handed him a lighter as he went to the side table to pour out a couple more glasses of brown liquor. They all drank and quietly watched the fire twist into something more.
SHE HAD steadied Wendy with a cup of black coffee and now had her mashing a bowl of potatoes. The activity alone might have been enough to bring her back from the floating world she occupied, but Rain made sure to have her talking too, even if it was about nothing of consequence, because even then there would be the assurance of hearing a human voice, the compulsion of finding a trail of words that held meaning. Anything to fill that absence the medicine carved into her.
“How long you been taking this new stuff?” Rain asked after a while.
“Hmmm? Oh, the pills? I don’t know. A week or so. It levels me out quite a bit. I’ve been keeping the house up, though. It’s not like it was when you came over. Wes, he’s been helping me out when he can, you know.”
“You two look like you’ve made up pretty well.”
“Yeah, it looks that way, don’t it? Hell, I’m happy to be dragged through this life however I can get to the end in one piece.”
Rain heard the front door open and the men welcoming Loyal in. The sound of his voice was like something catching in her own throat.
“You got this for a minute?” she asked Wendy, who said everything was fine, to go on and see her man. She dried her hands and went out.
“There you are, stranger,” Loyal said, came forward and hugged her tight to him as he placed a chaste kiss against her cheek. “I’ve started to forget what you looked like.”
“It’s just been busy, Loyal. I’ve told you that.”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s what I’ve been hearing. You need any help in the kitchen?”
“We’ll get to visit after dinner, okay? Why don’t you watch football out here with Stratton and his friend?”
“Well, can I get a beer at least?”
“Just go on out there and I’ll bring you one.”
He dragged his boots heavily as he went on to the side room where they had pulled the TV out, the announcer talking about how the Dallas Cowboys were still America’s team and how it was sure to be another holiday classic. He sunk down into the armchair as heavily as if his skeleton were cut from concrete. Just like a scolded child, she thought.
She carried out three Budweisers to where the men sat, then headed back to the kitchen without a word. Wendy was there bent over in front of the oven, peeking at the bagged turkey.
“What the hell is wrong with men?” Rain asked her and nobody at all.
“That’s the question of the ages, honey,” she said, shut the oven door. “You want to talk about it or drink about it?”
And before she could answer, Wendy had reached into the refrigerator, got them both a beer. When Rain drank it was so cold that it was like freezing her mind shut, so she saw no reason to stop.
LOYAL TURNED the beer bottle in his fingers and looked out the window while the other men hooted at the football game. He’d rather be out there walking the woods, maybe kicking up a rabbit or some quail. Take Rain along with him. Maybe she’d even enjoy it. Lord knows that’s all he wanted to do for her, to make her feel like life could hold a little basic pleasure, though everything had seemed to sour in the past few weeks. He couldn’t put his finger on why, though he’d started to suspect something was off about how she was with Stratton. It was like one of those funny pictures that you’d see in a personality test. There was one picture that was clear as day when you first looked at it, but when you realized the image was just negative space for another picture—an old woman’s hooked nose swapped out for a beautiful woman’s cheek, or a candlestick where a pair of facing lovers were supposed to be—there was no way to keep looking at it without the feeling that you had been deliberately tricked. After a while all you could see was the trick and that put a feeling in your stomach that was all mixed up with sickness and anger.
“Loyal, you okay on that beer?” Stratton asked.
“Yeah, I’m peachy.”
Stratton kept his eyes on him a minute. Loyal was about to tell him to get his goddamn face out of his just as he turned and went into the kitchen to bring some snacks back for everybody else who wanted them.
“You alright there, Loyal?” Callum asked.
Both he and Wes were watching him. His scalp started to prickle, embarrassed.
“I think I need to move on,” he said, set the half-full beer on the window ledge, touched his fingers to his temples and massaged small circles there. “Something’s gone wrong with my head. I might need to just lay down for a bit.”
“I’m sure there’s somewhere upstairs they could put you.”
“No, no. That’s fine. You all have a good Thanksgiving.”
He didn’t tell Stratton or Rain goodbye. When he was back on the road he was happy to put as much distance behind him as quickly as he could.