Chapter 15 - Pull Up a Chair
"They're early," Karen said.
"They usually are."
We'd invited them with Dad's knowledge.
He'd considered it for a day, then said he wouldn't spend the rest of his life ducking people who owed him manners.
Karen had spoken to her parents beforehand.
No remarks about work, money, clothes, or who belonged.
If they couldn't manage that, dinner would end for them.
I opened the door.
Howard held a bakery box.
Elaine carried flowers.
From the kitchen, Dad called, "Rick, your potatoes are boiling over."
I turned instinctively.
Karen touched my arm.
"I've got them."
She went back to the kitchen.
I stepped aside.
Elaine saw the jacket first.
Brown canvas.
Frayed cuff.
A faint smell of oil that no amount of washing had ever quite removed.
Her lips tightened.
Then she looked at me and unclenched them.
Dad came into the hall carrying a dish towel.
"Happy Thanksgiving."
Howard shifted the bakery box.
"Jack."
The two men stood facing each other.
I could hear the kitchen faucet running.
"I behaved badly at your house," Howard said.
"I shouldn't have spoken to you that way."
Dad nodded once.
"No. You shouldn't have."
Howard waited for more.
Dad didn't give him more.
After a moment, he took the pie and carried it into the kitchen.
Elaine approached Karen there.
Her apology was stiff and brief, but it included Jack's name and no excuse about a crowded table.
Karen listened.
Then she handed her mother a bowl of green beans.
"These go beside Jack."
By noon, the house was loud.
Megan arrived with cold cheeks and an appetite.
Karen's brother argued with me about football.
Someone dropped a roll and Dad called the five-second rule an engineering estimate.
I caught Karen laughing before she remembered to check whether her mother approved.
Then she kept laughing anyway.
When we sat down, Dad touched his place card.
"Fancy," he said.
"You can take it home," Karen told him.
"What for? Planning to forget my name?"
She smiled, but her eyes filled.
"No. Never again."
I didn't make a speech about what he'd sacrificed.
He didn't need to earn his dinner by being extraordinary.
He was my father.
He belonged at the table even on days when all he had to offer was an old story and a stubborn opinion.
I passed him the potatoes.
He took too many.
Karen offered him more gravy.
Halfway through dinner, he leaned toward me.
"Got plans Saturday?"
My phone vibrated in my pocket.
I left it there.
"What time, Dad?"
"Nine. Bring coffee."
May you like
"I'll be there."
And on Saturday, at five minutes to nine, I was.
