ON WEDNESDAY, MRS. J. called to me as soon as I walked in her door. “In the living room, girl.”
The lights sparkled on the Christmas tree. She was sitting on the couch, staring at them, her walker within reach. “Just having a sit-down before we start work,” she explained.
“Shall I make you some tea?”
“No. Yes. Go into the kitchen and start the kettle. I’ll be right there.”
She wasn’t “right” there. I heard a muffled groan as she pulled herself up from the couch, then the soft swish of the walker’s rubber wheels as she navigated her way into the kitchen. “This thing’s kinda handy, once you get used to it,” she said. From the carrier basket she pulled out an empty glass, a mug and two plates and put them on the counter. “Had my lunch by the Christmas tree.”
Handy? “That damned thing” was what she’d called it when she first saw it. The kettle was boiling, so I poured water in the teapot to pre-warm it, then carried her dishes to the sink.
“Are you feeling okay, Mrs. J?”
“A bit tired, that’s all. Probably the thought of all the work ahead of me.”
“Work?”
“The family’s already started arriving. Right after Christmas they’ll all be over here, cluttering up the place, figuring out who gets what piece of furniture, packing away my china and digging around in the basement, looking for treasures.”
“Oh.”
“Go ahead, ask. You want to.”
“Have they found you a . . . a new home?”
“I chose one myself, put down the deposit. Move-in day is January fifteenth.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Told you, it’s not your fault. It’s life. How’s that tea coming?”
We made church window cookies: melted chocolate, nuts and tiny coloured marshmallows. “I’ve never had these cookies before,” I said.
“They’re actually more a candy than a cookie, but I used to make them for the boys. And the grandkids. They’ll all be here this Christmas. Thought they’d like them.”
“I’ll come to your new place and help you cook, Mrs. J. We can make them next year, too.”
“Not much of a kitchen where I’m going. Microwave, small fridge. Eat most of my meals in the dining room with the other old farts.”
“Maybe they’ll be nice old fa . . . people and you’ll like them.”
“Maybe.”
I didn’t know what to say next, so I focused on rolling up “logs” of cookie mixture in plastic wrap. The logs would go into the fridge and the cookies would be sliced off as needed. No baking. This was the easiest recipe I’d made in this kitchen. I scraped around the bowl, then licked the spoon. One of the best tasting recipes, too. Andrew would like this; I’d copy down the recipe before I left and add it to my collection.
It was barely five when Robin arrived. He helped me wash up, sampled a not-quite-firm (it hadn’t been in the fridge long enough to chill properly) church window cookie, then looked at his grandmother expectantly.
“Go ahead, have fun,” she said. “Don’t have anything else for the girl to do, might as well get the two of you out of my hair.”
“But . . .”
“No sense you sitting around here, girl. Take a roll of cookies and one of those Yule Logs you made.”
“I don’t want to leave so early again,” I protested.
Robin looked offended. “What? You’d prefer Gran’s company to mine?”
“No, it’s just that . . .”
“It’s all right. Go ahead, enjoy yourself. I don’t need you anymore.”
“But . . .”
“We’re leaving, Gran.”
“Okay, I’ll see you Monday, Mrs. J.”
“No, not until after Christmas. I’ve got lots of help right now; the house is going to be full of visitors wanting to look after me. Take some time off; you’ve earned it.”
“Until after Christmas? Are you sure?”
“What’s wrong with your ears? Go, scoot, skedaddle, leave.”
I took a foil-wrapped Yule Log and a roll of church window cookies out of the fridge.
“I hope you have a good Christmas, Mrs. J.”
“You too. Come over here for a moment. There’s something for you in the basket of that walker.”
“But I didn’t get you a present or even a card!”
“No need to. They’ll just get thrown out when I move.”
I picked up a thin package wrapped in shiny blue paper, no name on it. “This?”
“Yes. Mind you don’t open it until Christmas day. Promise?”
“I won’t. Thank you.”
She held out her hand. It took me a minute, but then I realized what she wanted me to do. I tucked the blue package, the cookies and the cake under my left arm, and reached out my right hand. Mrs. J. took it, but instead of shaking it, she held it for a few seconds, then put her other hand on top of it. “Have a good Christmas, Darrah.”
Robin and I spent a lot of time together the week before Christmas. We discovered Fong’s Chinese Market, just a street up from the big underground mall. That little store was packed full of things I’d never seen before: jars of pickled fishy stuff, all sorts of noodles, rice crackers of all shapes and sizes, shelves of sauces and spices and boxes of vegetables all piled together in such a small space you could hardly move. The owner, I guess she was Mrs. Fong, was very helpful when I told her I wanted to cook some Chinese dishes. She sold me a clump of something called baby bok choy. It had thick white stems on the bottom and a leafy green top, with one tiny yellow flower in the green part—it looked like a thicker-stemmed clump of celery topped with romaine lettuce. I also bought a bag of fortune cookies, a big bottle of soy sauce and a jar of something called hoisin sauce. Mrs. Fong explained how to use it. “First cook chicken in oven half hour, then put sauce on, cook another half hour, very good.”
“I’ve had it in restaurants,” said Robin. “I love hoisin chicken.”
Mrs. Fong nodded. “You also make fried rice, easy like pie. You fix stir-fry vegetables, too: carrots, bok choy, mushroom, broccoli, peppers, soy sauce. You come back another day and I tell you more Chinese food.”
The internet had lots of Chinese recipes; it was easy to find one for every dish she mentioned. I found recipes that didn’t look too complicated, nothing that called for making a sauce from scratch or using something I had never tasted, and wrote them down on cards for my recipe collection.
On Christmas Eve, I cooked Chinese food and it was better than any takeout we’d ever had. I bought a package of won tons in the frozen food section of the grocery store, made a chicken stock, added seasonings and the won tons. We started with soup, then we had stir-fried vegetables, hoisin chicken, fried rice and finished with ice cream and fortune cookies for dessert.
There wasn’t a bit of anything (except some ice cream and six fortune cookies) left over when the meal was over. Robin had joined us for dinner. He and Dad pushed back their chairs at almost the same moment.
“Excellent, Darrah,” said my father. “Well done.”
“Not bad,” said Robin. “Although, a few more mushrooms in the stir fry would have improved it.” I threw a fortune cookie at him.
“Food fight!” announced Andrew gleefully, grabbing for another fortune cookie.
“Not in my dining room,” said Mom. “Why don’t you go outside and have a snowball fight instead? Maybe shovel the walk, while you’re out there. I’ll clean up.”
“Nice try,” Mom said, “but you’re on kitchen duty with me.”
It had started snowing in the morning, and snow had kept coming down all day. There was a lot of the white stuff by now, clean and fluffy. Perfect for packing into snowballs.
When we came back inside, one lopsided snowman, three snow angels and a lot of snowballs later, the kitchen was spotless. Mom and Dad sat on the couch in the living room, Mom’s head on Dad’s shoulder, mugs of eggnog on the coffee table in front of them.
“Oh, yuck!” said Andrew. “Do you have to?”
Mom smiled at him. “It’s Christmas. Come over here and we’ll give you a snuggle, too.”
Andrew fled upstairs, muttering about parents who didn’t know how to behave in front of their children. Robin and I looked at each other, then retreated to the kitchen. “We’re going to have some hot chocolate, okay, Mom?” She didn’t answer, so I took that for a “yes.”
“Big dinner at Gran’s tomorrow,” said Robin. “Cousins, uncles, aunts, even David and Karen.”
“Mrs. J.’s cooking? Without me?”
“No she’s not cooking. Everything’s being made somewhere else and brought to her house. All she has to do is supervise setting the table and the clean-up. Gran wanted everyone there because it’s the last time she’ll be in her house at Christmas.”
“That’s hard on all of you, isn’t it?”
He didn’t answer for a few seconds. “I love that old house. I have many memories of it. Christmas dinners, birthday dinners, camping out in her backyard, eating fresh carrots from her garden. I caught Dad going all mushy and damp-eyed when he was talking to her on the phone, making plans for moving day. He has even more memories of that place than I do. It’s hard on all of us.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say that would make him feel better, so I took his hand and squeezed it instead.
He tried to smile. “Dad’s the only son who lives in town now, but his brothers are both coming home for Christmas this year. My two brothers will be here too, with their squealing kids.”
“Where will everyone sit?” I was thinking of the tidy but small dining room.
“That table stretches; it’s really quite big when all the bits are pulled out. But they’ll probably make me sit at the kid’s table in the kitchen with my nieces and nephew to keep the peace. I hate being the youngest uncle in the room; everyone thinks I’m a built-in babysitter.”
“Can you escape?” I asked, although I knew the answer to that question even before I asked it.
“I wish. Maybe after dinner; we’re eating early because of the three great-grandkids. I’ll call you if I can get away.”
We stood on the front porch saying goodnight until Andrew stuck his head out his window and yelled “Yuck!” Robin and I both laughed.
“I think that’s my signal to leave, Darrah. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Merry Christmas, Robin.”
I smiled to myself as I watched his car slowly make its way down the slippery road, the tail lights haloed by falling snow. Once more I tempted the fates by thinking how perfect the day had been, how happy I was.
But nothing happened; Andrew didn’t have a seizure on Christmas day, Mom loved the silk scarf I’d bought for her at a small store near Fong’s Market, Dad grew silent and almost teary over a picture of the two of us I’d found in one of the photo albums and had scanned, enlarged and framed. In the photo I was about four, wearing a sundress, sitting on a swing; Dad stood behind me, holding on to the ropes of the swing. I had my head tilted up toward him and was smiling; he was looking down at me as if I were the most adorable kid in the world. I don’t remember the swing, but it must have been suspended from a tree branch because we were both dappled with leaf shadows.
Andrew was thrilled when he opened my gift and saw the boxed set of Star Trek Voyager, The Complete Series (Seasons 1–7.) My new and improved allowance meant that I could get more expensive gifts this year, and I’d enjoyed spending time shopping.
I did well in the gift department, too: a new phone and gift certificates to my favourite stores. I’d begin shopping as soon as the Boxing Day sales started.
Andrew had made me a gift—a shoebox he’d covered with left-over wallpaper from my room, with a package of small file cards inside.
“It’s a recipe box,” he explained. “Mom helped me make it. It’s so you can organize all those recipes you’re writing down.”
The last gift under the tree was a small flat package wrapped in shiny blue paper. “That’s mine,” I said, as Andrew picked it up.
“How do you know? It doesn’t have your name on it. Maybe it’s mine.”
“Pass it over. It’s from Mrs. J.”
It was an old, red book, well used, the insides loosely attached to the cover with yellowing tape. Foods, Nutrition and Home Management, Revised 1955.
I ran my fingers over it, almost reverently, as if it were a holy book of some sort.
“That’s a crummy gift,” said Andrew. “It’s old and it’s falling apart.”
“I think it’s wonderful. It’s the best present she could have given me.”
“If you say so,” said Andrew, doubtfully. “Does it have a brownie recipe in it? You still haven’t made brownies like you promised you would.”
“No, I don’t think brownies are in it.” I scanned the table of contents. “There’s fudge cake, but no brownies. Sorry. But it does have the gingerbread recipe. I’ll make some before we go to Aunt Sophie’s for Christmas dinner.”
“But Darrah, your aunt will have tons of Christmas baking, she always makes too much. We don’t need to bring anything else for dessert,” Mom protested.
“She won’t have gingerbread just like Grandma used to make.”
Dad smiled. “No, she won’t. But I’d like some, and I’m sure everyone else will as soon they taste it. Go ahead and bake, Darrah, I’ll run to the store and pick up some whipping cream.”
He gave me a hug on his way out.