Mack brought out the crocheted tablecloth that he kept for special occasions, a web of a cloth that had belonged to Sam's grandmother Lydia, dead before he was born. Some of the holes were meant to be there, a pattern of stars; others Sam had poked in when he was five, to surprise Mack.
Had Lydia really been his grandmother?
Sam helped put out the plates, taking quick looks at Mack. He'd thought about Mack all day. When he was five or six, he'd lean his head back to see Mack's blue eyes crinkling, the lines around them deepening, convinced that Mack was a giant; Mack could do anything, even though he limped sometimes, bending to rub his leg. Lately flecks of gray were coming into his dark hair and beard, and Onji would nudge Sam: “Your grandfather's getting to be an old guy.” Onji, who had only a fringe of hair around the edges.
Mack was quiet, and that was fine with Sam. They spent hours in the workroom, Mack humming, with just a word here or there: “Onji's cooking roast beef in the deli, smells good.….A hawk's circling above the river. … “Mack running his hands over a shelf Sam had finished: “I couldn't have done better.”
Could it be that Mack wasn't his grandfather? But didn't everyone say they looked alike, even though Sam was bone thin? A walking skeleton, Onji said, a Halloween costume. Sam touched his nose, ran his fingers over his mouth. How could he tell if his face was really like Mack's?
And hadn't Mack showed him a picture of his parents, Julia and Luke ? He had no memory of either of them; both had died, his father in the army, Mack had told him, and Julia from a heart problem.
Just before dark, Anima came upstairs to their apartment from her restaurant, her dark shiny braid bouncing on her back. Her arms were filled with trays of food. “Ah, please take these, Mack. Watch, they're hot.”
Anima's voice was clear and high, laughter always just behind her words. She touched Sam's shoulder. “How's my boy?” She moved lightly, like one of the small yellow finches that flew by every fall. The sari she wore tonight was yellow too, floating behind her.
“Beef curry because it's your favorite, Sam,” she said, a little breathless. “So spicy you'll taste it on your tongue until bedtime. And chicken korma for Mack with lots of coconut milk.” She winked at Sam. “I have to be nice to him until he finishes making the cabinet for the restaurant.”
Mack looked up at the ceiling, his eyes crinkling. “And after that you want shelves in the hallway, a bookcase for your living room—”
“All the chicken you want forever,” she said.
Sam looked from one to the other. Did Anima know about him?
She helped them set everything out, talking about the cabinet, which would have glass doors and carved feet. She glanced at him. “Quiet tonight, Sam?”
Before he could answer, heavy footsteps came up the stairs, and Onji filled the kitchen, carrying a huge chocolate birthday cake that had SAM scrawled across the top. All of Onji was wide and round, his face, his nose, even his thick ears that looked as if they'd been stuck on the side of his head like blobs of clay.
Onji clamped his hand on Sam's shoulder: “Eleven years old, this skinny little kid. Who could believe it?”
“Some cake, Onji! Thanks.”
Mack nodded. “That's a pretty good-looking cake for a guy who does nothing but slice roast beef all day.”
“Not bad at all,” Anima said.
“Believe it,” Onji said, setting the cake on the counter.
Sam knew they were waiting for him to slide his finger around the edge of the plate and scoop up a dab of icing. He reached out and took a mouthful of the sweet chocolate. “Terrific.”
He looked at the three of them, and then at the table with its cloth as they sat down. The paneled kitchen was always cozy, with flames from the fireplace casting orange light over them, but now everything seemed strange, almost as if he didn't belong.
Sam had dreamed of another kitchen last night, white, cold. He'd reached for an apple on the counter, and a woman had come toward him, her arm raised. Night Cat had darted under the table, and Sam had backed up against the huge refrigerator, terrified.
Concentrate on dinner, on now, he told himself. Think about the birthday cake that Onji covered with candles. He caught the word pipe.
Onji looked at Sam from under bushy eyebrows. “It's falling off the side of the wall, banging back and forth.”
Everyone was looking at him.
“Last week he lost an oar,” Onji said. “The week before, the shed door was off its hinges.”
Onji was teasing, and Mack and Anima were laughing, but Sam couldn't stop himself. “Not me,” he said. “I didn't touch the pipe.”
“You sure?” Onji grinned.
“Sure I'm sure.”
It was too late to take the lie back, too late to say yes, he'd been up at night, up in that attic, and to please tell him what that clipping was all about.
“For the first time,” Anima said, “we found a perfect place to hide your presents.”
Mack stood up and opened the oven door. He turned to Sam, smiling.
“Fooled you this time.” Anima's teeth were white against her warm dark skin.
If only he'd looked in the oven. He never would have gone up to the attic, never would have known about the clipping, never would have had to find out more.
Anima handed him a square package wrapped in blue paper. “Wait, I have to tell you—” She leaned over him. “It's a book but you won't have much to read.”
He tore the paper away and opened it to see drawings, patterns, measurements: dozens of wood projects, and very few words. He looked up at her. “You're the best, Anima.”
She smiled. “Banana crepes later in my apartment.” Her favorites. She'd learned to make them as a child in Kerala, and told him once that her mother's recipe book was one of the few things she'd brought to America with her.
“But wait,” Onji said, putting a bag in front of Sam. “Here comes a terrific present.” Mack and Anima were laughing again.
“Not one of those T-shirts.” Sam held it up. It was a blinding yellow, miles too big, ONJI'S DELI—MEAT AND MORE spelled out in green.
“You'll grow into it,” Onji said.
Sam laughed too, feeling better. The clipping in the attic had to be a mistake.
Mack took the last package out of the oven and put it on the table. “Heavy,” he said, and Sam could see how pleased he was about it.
Under the paper was a second wrapping of flannel. Sam pulled the cloth away and sat back to look at his present. It was much older than he was, older even than Mack, and the handle was worn from years of use: a plane, a tool to smooth wood.
Sam rested his hand on the knob that would move almost by itself. It would take only a little pressure to run the bottom of the plane across the wood, to curl the roughness away from whatever he was making, until the wood felt like satin.
“It was my father's.” Mack spread his hands wide. “You're old enough, you deserve it.”
Sam looked across the table; it was a wonderful thing to have, to add to the tools on his worktable, but even more special because it had been in his family. His family? His grandfather? His great-grandfather?
He reached out to hug Mack. Please let things be the same.
It didn't take long to finish dinner. Mack lighted the candles on the cake. “He's only eleven, Onji,” he said. “There must be thirty here.”
Onji ran his hand over his bald head. “Thirty-three.” He turned to Sam. “Mack can't count very well. Three for every year.” He looked up at the ceiling as Mack and Anima laughed. “Is that right? Yes.”
They sang “Happy Birthday,” and afterward Anima said, “If Night Cat could sing, he'd sound like Mack and Onji.”
“Better,” Sam said. He blew out the candles, and everything did seem the same: all of them smiling at him, the taste of the cake, the presents.
They hurried to put the plates in the dishwasher. It was time for them to go to Anima's. They walked through her restaurant, where small yellow flowers in baskets decorated the tables. Anima stopped to say hello to people, to nod at the waiters, and then they went upstairs to her living room, as they had almost every night since they found out Sam had trouble reading.
He remembered it vaguely, the beginning of her reading to them. He pictured himself sitting on Anima's couch, Mack next to him, Anima opposite, and Onji coming up the stairs. “Sam has to know the world,” Anima had said. “If he can't read yet, one thing we can do while we try to help him is to give him the world of books.”
Mack had nodded.
And Onji: “How?”
“I'll read aloud every night.” So when things quieted in the restaurant, Anima read to all of them for at least an hour. And what she read! Long poems, the Bible, stories about a kid who dug holes, about a spider who saved a pig. Anima's accent made her sound like an English queen.
Sometimes they loved what she read, and sometimes they didn't. She'd shrug, reading about copper mining or sea routes. Onji would fall asleep, his snores almost drowning her out. And sometimes Mack put his head back, his eyes closed. But Sam never slept.
Tonight Anima began an Iroquois legend as they ate the crepes that had been made downstairs in the restaurant. Mack shook his head; he must have heard this one before. He reached out with one hand as if he'd stop her.
But Anima kept going. “The Creator promised land to the people if they'd stop fighting. They tried, but the arguing began again. Angry, God scooped up the land to carry it back to the sky. But ah! It fell and broke into a thousand pieces, some so small you could get your arms around them. They became islands, floating in a river so large it was almost an ocean.”
Sam knew that story; someone had told it to him long ago. And somehow, he remembered that river, too.