The Friday before Thanksgiving, I spent the entire day at Marvel’s house cutting, gutting, roasting, and pureeing pumpkins for the men to bake into pies the next week. At noon, Albert dropped Hugo off from school.
The poor boy still got absolutely worn out from his mornings in kindergarten, especially that day. It was all I could do to make sure he got half his lunch in him before he fell asleep on his plate.
Once he was wrapped in a blanket and fast asleep on the couch, I went back to work with Marvel in the kitchen.
By midday we’d hardly made a dent in all we’d need to do, but we took a break right around one thirty to eat a little lunch and put our feet up.
“When I was little, Mom used to make me scrape out the innards of the pumpkins,” Marvel said, spreading a dollop of mayonnaise on her ham sandwich. “Of course, then we were only making pies for family, so we had far less to do.”
“Not 124 of them?” I said, resting my head against the back of my chair.
“Not even close.” She slapped the bread on top and cut the sandwich in half with the knife. “She told me to take the gunk from the pumpkins outside to the burn barrel, so I gathered it all in an old newspaper and lugged it out there. But I tripped when I stepped out onto the porch, falling face-first into the pile of goo.”
“Oh no,” I said, shaking my head.
“Do you want to know what I tripped on?” she asked. “Normie’s football helmet.”
“He always did like to leave things lying around, didn’t he?”
“So I picked up every last bit of the pumpkin guts and dropped them into the helmet.” She laughed. “My biggest regret was that I wasn’t there to see him put it on.”
She took a big bite of sandwich.
But then we heard the sound of the front door opening and closing.
“Who’s that?” she asked, getting up and going to the door between the kitchen and the living room. “Boys?”
Marvel stood, her back to me, with hands on hips. The boys, in front of her, both looked confused.
“What are you two doing home already?” she asked. “It’s not even two o’clock.”
“I don’t know,” Nick answered.
“Did you get in trouble again?” She raised an eyebrow. “What am I going to do with you boys?”
“No, Mom. We didn’t,” Dick said. “Teacher sent everybody home.”
“She said we should ask our mothers why,” Nick added.
Marvel shook her head. “I don’t believe that for a minute.”
“Honest to goodness,” Nick said.
The telephone rang, and Marvel put a finger up next to her face. “That is probably your teacher. So help me, if you boys got suspended again . . . don’t you move an inch.”
She stormed over to the phone and answered it, making her voice sound friendly, a jarring sound after her fire and vinegar from a moment earlier.
“DeYoung residence,” she said, her back to me. “What, Stan?”
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
“Turn on the television,” she said, hanging up the phone.
The four of us rushed to the living room and waited for the television to warm up before we could see what was going on.
Walter Cronkite at a desk covered with papers and telephones and what looked like an apple. He turned toward the camera.
“There’s been an attempt on the life of the president,” he said.
“Oh gosh,” Marvel said, dropping into the easy chair.
I folded my legs and sat on the floor, Nick and Dick on either side of me.
“What’s going on . . .” one of the twins started, but stopped when Marvel shushed him.
“. . . condition as of yet unknown,” Cronkite went on.
“He’ll be fine,” Marvel said. “They’ll have the best doctors in the world . . .”
I leaned back against the easy chair behind me, not wanting to get up, not wanting to move until Mr. Cronkite told us that President Kennedy was going to be all right. Praying that he would.
We huddled together, the twins and I, watching with eyes wide and mouths silent. Every moment I expected to hear that all would be fine. Every moment I feared the opposite would be true.
“ . . . a bullet wound in the head . . .”
Lifting a hand, I covered my mouth, hoping that I hadn’t gasped without realizing it.
Rumors that the president was dead, Cronkite reassuring that it was unconfirmed. Still my heart sank. Marvel moved to the floor to sit with us. Nick or Dick put his head on his mother’s shoulder and cried quietly.
The television showed images of a large room in Dallas where the president had been meant to deliver a speech. Hundreds of people wandered about in their finest clothes.
The front door opened, letting Stan, Albert, and Pop in. All three of them with white and drawn faces.
“Is he . . .” Stan started.
“We don’t know yet,” Marvel said. “Not for certain.”
Albert put a hand across his mouth, and Pop shook his head.
“It is official. The president has been assassinated in Dallas, Texas . . .”
“Have mercy,” Pop said.
“What does that mean?” Nick asked.
“He died, honey,” Marvel whispered.
“What’s going to happen now?” Dick asked.
No one had an answer.