Dinner and After
Aunt Violet came and looked very matronly with a ruffled dress and a pill box hat in the color that matched her name. She was pleased to meet Walt and gasped when he kissed her hand. He was disappointed when she turned up her nose at the Italian masterpieces he made for the evening but pleased that she looked forward to the roast chicken.
David and Mitch were the last to arrive. Abby waited the meal for them. She absolutely refused to lay the table without her husband. The men arrived muddy and exhausted. They cleaned up and were at least a little refreshed by the time they sat to their meals. David announced their progress. “It’ll do. It’ll have to. We rebuilt the dykes and mucked out the ditches and braced up the sluice. I wish we had another day, but the rain is coming tomorrow afternoon. We’re gonna get back after it in the morning. Charlie, can you manage Mitch’s chores so we can get after it first thing?”
“Sure, Dad.”
“How did you and Law manage today? Any progress?”
I held up my hand before Charlie could speak. “Later, alright? This doesn’t seem like proper conversation around the table.”
David agreed and rubbed his hands together. “What’s for dinner? The kitchen smells incredible. What have the chefs created?”
Abby and Walt laid on antipasto salad with leafy greens, olives, pickled peppers, diced ham and cheeses, and other veggies. There was crusty fresh bread and butter and also a plain green salad for traditionalists. Everyone tucked in with gusto. When the salads were consumed, the chefs brought out the main courses. There was lasagna, braciole, cheese filled ravioli, plain pasta, a huge pot of Sunday gravy, and herb stuffed chicken. Walt also brought out more fresh bread, some plain and some he’d made into garlic loaves.
There were eighteen at the table and for the first time, there was too much food. Everyone ate themselves silly. Even Aunt Violet couldn’t continue to resist the Italian delicacies. She tried the braciole and liked it, then went for some lasagna, and finally a single ravioli.
Between dinner and dessert, Abby and the girls did a quick but thorough clean up from the meal. As soon as they were done, they laid on cheesecake, ice cream from Sven’s dairy, and strong coffee. By the time the farm laborers departed and the young people scattered, I was stuffed to the gills. Charlie went out to have an after-dinner cigarette. I was tempted to follow but was too full to move.
Aunt Violet managed to squeeze out some praise for Walt. “I was reticent, Walter; very reticent. Around here, we’re plain American folks and we like plain American food. I tried Italian once. The market had tinned spaghetti in tomato sauce. I didn’t think much of it. This was better.”
Walt’s indulgent smile became a pained grimace as his food was compared to reheated canned slop. The comparison was favorable, but still deeply insulting. Walt bore it better than I might have and even managed to sound gracious. “I’m so pleased you enjoyed yourself, Miss Violet.”
The old woman checked a pendant watch pinned to her dress and exclaimed that it was ‘quite late.’ She gathered herself, offered a kiss goodbye to Abby and no one else, and imposed upon Charlie for a ride home.
Walt held his tongue about the insult he suffered. Abby apologized for Aunt Violet’s gaff. “I’m so sorry about her.”
He exhaled a breath he seemed to have been holding. “You’ve got nothing to be sorry about. I’m still grateful for what she did for Law and David. I’ll even cook for her again if you invite her.”
I made a suggestion. “You could make coleslaw.”
He laughed, and I explained for David and Abby’s benefit. “Walt and I were comparing stories of bad things we’ve done. He told about when he spat in a customer’s coleslaw.”
We all laughed at the joke. When we finished, Abby offered some background on Aunt Violet. “She’s my father’s sister. My father was lovely, as kind and generous a man as there ever was. Aunt Violet was always the opposite. She’s a fault-finding, puritanical, bitter old woman. She hen-pecked her husband into an early grave and made poor Andy’s life miserable from the time he was a boy. The real sin is that her fault finding seems to bring her no joy. I don’t know why she is the way she is, but it makes her difficult to love.”
Walt sipped his coffee and nodded over it. “My sister is a little like that. She and I haven’t spoken in years. It hurts to be at odds with your family.”
Abby asked what the trouble was between Walt and his sister, then she tried to take the question back. “It’s none of my business.”
He shrugged his big shoulders and started to explain but didn’t have the words. I offered to tell the story and he agreed. “Walt’s father was a literature professor at Albright College. He never minded that Walt was queer. His mother and sister did. They held it against him. His father died of cancer when Walt was a young man. Walt tried to stay in touch with his mother and sister but found himself increasingly unwelcome. His mother remained cordial until she died in 1947. She left a house in Reading that Walt loved, and a very little bit of money.
“Walt’s sister, whose maiden name was Jane Austen Stack, kept the money, and Walt exacted a knotty pine kitchen table from the house. The siblings decided to keep the home as an escape of sorts, and both were supposed to pay for its upkeep. The trouble was, Jane’s husband was no good with money, so they never had any for their portion. We kept the house up, but they always used it. Anytime we wanted to use it, Jane already had plans for it.”
David grumbled over his coffee. “Doesn’t sound very fair.”
I agreed. “It wasn’t. Trouble over the arrangement came to a head a couple years later. The restaurant was doing well, and Jane’s husband hit a snag. She telephoned to borrow money, again. She’d borrowed small sums from time to time and always promised to pay them back but never did. This time, the sum was significant. I asked Walt to let me handle the request, and he agreed.
“I called Jane and told her she could have the money, and forgiveness of all the other debts, in return for her half of the house. I refused to grant it under any other circumstance. She raged at me, but eventually agreed out of necessity. We formalized the deal through a lawyer and I wrote a check. That was the last time she spoke to either of us.”
Abby dabbed her eyes with a napkin. “I’m so sorry for you.”
Walt sighed. “It’s alright. I’m glad for what Law did. I love my father’s house. It was our family home, but I think of it as his. My mother never liked it. Jane didn’t either. They lived there because he wanted to live there. My dad was a whimsical man, and he was especially fond of the original stone cottage part of the house. My mother didn’t like it because it was drafty and old. She wanted a modern house and tried to get my dad to move a hundred times. He always refused, and I’m so glad he did. Now, because of Law’s firm dealing, we have the house, and my sister can’t hurt me anymore.”
Abby sipped her coffee. “That’s as good a way to look at it as any. Look at what my poor David suffered because of a misunderstanding between him and his father. I didn’t even know he had a family until we were married for twenty years. Talk about a shock. I’m glad he reconciled with them. We don’t see them as often as we’d like, but we usually make a trip in the winter. His folks are getting on in years. Sometimes I worry about them, but it’s all in God’s hands.”
David agreed. He got up from the table to close the door between the kitchen and the hallway. He sat back down and asked what Charlie and I had done that day. I recounted my story of hiring the old codgers to watch the property and about seeing Chris the lawyer and Officer Koenig and the information from Sven. I also explained our plans to visit the research lab at Winnett the next day.
He rubbed his hands together and blew a noisy breath between pursed lips. “I don’t know about using those old timers. Makes me nervous.”
“For what it’s worth, I agree with you, but what choice do we have? The property needs to be watched, and you can’t spare the men to watch it. I can’t do it because I have to investigate and you can’t do it because you’ve got to run the farm. We could leave the place unguarded, but more bad things will happen. Maybe the barn will burn down next.”
David wasn’t sold on the idea. “I’d rather that than some innocent person getting shot.”
“I wouldn’t worry too much. I assume you won’t be spraying with the rain coming, so no one will be using the well head. The Krengel farm isn’t being used, so there should be no innocent people up there. There’s only the old guard and me and Charlie. The old timers have seen us and they’ve seen the Jeep and that damn thing makes so much noise, they’ll know it’s us long before we’re in range.
“They’re working for food and not much money and they’re serving a purpose. Who knows, maybe they’ll even catch someone. Charlie wired radio extensions into my room and his, so we can monitor it overnight. We parked the grain truck in the barn, so they’d have a way to reach us in an emergency. It’s the best I can do.”
He sighed and lifted his hands to the ceiling in resignation. “I left the matter to you, and you did something. I can’t criticize. I don’t like it, but I don’t know what else you could have done.”
I accepted his thoughts on the matter and took off on a tangent. “I won’t embarrass Charlie by saying this in front of him, but he’s a great kid. Mitch is too, but I’ve been working with Charlie and had the greatest chance to form an opinion. He’s smart and motivated. He thinks and solves problems. He’s not afraid of anything. I’ve really enjoyed working with him.”
David and Abby beamed. I liked to see them get excited over my appreciation of their son. David gripped the edge of the table with his huge hands like he was worried about something. “I’m hard on him. I’m hard on all the boys. I expect a lot from them. Charlie was one of the few who would talk back if he thought I was wrong. It used to make me mad when he was younger. I didn’t like getting challenged. He doesn’t do it much anymore. Maybe he agrees with me more than he used to. I don’t know. I’m proud of him no matter what. He did well in school and he works hard every day. I wish I was as smart as him.”
I told David something he might not know. “He admires the heck out of you. He was beside himself when you thought he burned the house down. He cares what you think. He’s also a wiseass and can spin a yarn almost as fast as I can. We’ve had our differences, but he’s still a great kid. I hope you don’t mind, but I invited him to Philly this winter. He said he wants to know Larry better. I offered to let him stay with me and Walt if he wanted.”
Abby shook her head. “I don’t know. What if he never comes back? Larry never came back. I don’t want to lose another son.”
“I don’t think you’ll have that problem with Charlie. First of all, he’s straight, so he doesn’t have to leave to be who he is. He also loves this farm and doesn’t ever want to leave it.”
David perked up. “Did he say that?”
“Word for word. I asked what he wanted to do when he grew up. He said he was already doing it.”
David clapped his hands. “I’m so happy I could bust! Let him go to the city. If he’s anything like me, once he sees it, he’ll know he belongs here.”
“He’s just like you, so I’m sure that’s what will happen.”
David smiled even wider. “You think so?”
“Trust me.”
Abby agreed. “Oh my, yes. Charlie is just like you. Mitch takes after me a bit, but sometimes I think you brought Charlie into the world all on your own.” She fished in her apron pocket and brought out the sapphire from earlier. She set it on the table between her and David. “What do we do about this?”
He picked it up to look at. “I’ve been thinking about these damn rocks all day.”
I didn’t understand why he swore. “Damn rocks? You sound like you’re upset to find them.”
“I am! I’m a farmer. I don’t want a sapphire mine. I want a dairy and land for pasture. If we go after those stones, it’ll spoil the land all over. A mine isn’t just a hole in the ground. It’s a big operation and it makes a big mess. Since we found those rocks, I’m extra glad to own the land instead of someone else because at least I can control it. What I really want more than anything is to leave those stones right where they are. I like my farm. I don’t want to ruin the land that’s been so good to me. I don’t want to watch all the green turn brown from the mud and the wastewater and the tailings. I don’t want to watch everything die. I’ve worked too hard to build this place up. I won’t destroy it for a mine.”
The screen door behind David opened and closed to let Charlie in. He hung his mother’s car keys on the hook by the door and came to the table. “I could hear you all the way outside. I don’t want a mine either.”
“Don’t you?”
“I want to be a farmer. I never wanted to be a miner.”
David looked to his wife. “What do you think, Abby?”
She held her hand out to ask for the stone. David put it in her palm. “I was excited earlier when Law told me. I thought we’d be rich. I never thought about what it would do to everything you built. I’ve seen mining land. It’s always so ugly. We can’t have both, can we? We can’t be farmers and miners? It’s one or the other, isn’t it?”
David said that was so. Abby put the stone on the table between them. “The land right next to this house is my papa’s land. The house I grew up in still stands on it. My son and his family live there. I don’t want to see my papa’s land covered in mud and ugly rocks. I don’t want to watch all the green turn brown. My daddy was a farmer, and so was his daddy and his daddy all the way back to the beginning of time. My husband is a farmer. My sons are farmers. I’m a farmer’s wife. Leave the stones in the ground and good riddance to them.”
David picked the sapphire up to comment on it. “It’s like money in the bank, Abby. It’s a safety deposit box up on the hill that we can reach into if anything bad ever happens. As long as we’re doing well, we’ll keep this pretty blue stone between us. God forbid something bad happens, like another depression, we’ve got a treasure up there that we can reach into if we ever need. Lord willing, we’ll never have to.”
“It’ll be our safety.”
David nodded. He stretched his arms over his head and yawned like a bored lion. “Excuse me. I’m tired. It’s been a long day and the dinner you and Walt gave me has me sleepy. I’m headed to bed.”
He wished us a ‘good night’ and left the kitchen. Abby watched after him. Walt spoke beside her. “Why don’t you join him? There’s only a little clean-up left. I’ll see to it.”
She shook her head. “I couldn’t.”
Walt insisted. “Yes, you could. He needs you. He’s got a lot on his mind.”
I agreed with Walt. “There’s rain coming and he’s worried about the old men I hired and the mischief on the Krengel property and about what you would say about his desire to leave a fortune underground. He needs the comfort of the woman he loves. I’ll help Walt clean up. Run along and look after David.”
She allowed herself to be persuaded and hurried after her husband. The sapphire remained on the table. I handed it to Charlie. “Put that away somewhere safe and get to bed. You’ve got double chores to do in the morning, and we’ve got a busy day ahead of us.”
He jerked his head toward the dishes in the sink. “Don’t you want me to…”
I shook my head. “Nope. There isn’t much to do and you need your rest. Good job today.”
“Thanks, Law. Good night.”
“Night.”
He went to bed and left Walt and me alone. I stood from the table and gathered up my cup and saucer. “You got a spare apron?”
He took the dishes from me. “Don’t be silly. As bad as your hands are, you’ve got no business scrubbing. I’ll wash up. Keep me company. I’ve barely seen you since we got here.” He shook some soap flakes in the sink and turned the hot water on to let it fill. “Things really move around here, don’t they?”
I leaned against the counter and wished I could be more useful. “It’s a busy place. Are you having fun with Abby?”
“She’s great! She loves to cook and learn. She’s also a dear, sweet woman. I like her a lot. You seem to be having fun with Charlie.”
“He’s great. Smart as a whip and funny as hell. He doesn’t back down from anything.”
Walt shut the water off and started to wash. I dunked a dishcloth in the sink and took it to wipe the table. I had to come back several times because the table was so big. It was like trying to wipe down a bowling alley. Walt finished washing and came to dry behind my wiping. I re-asked my question from before because he hadn’t answered it. “Are you having fun?”
“I am. I like being useful again. I feel like I’m coming back to life. I missed cooking and experimenting and seeing people enjoy my food. A part of me wishes we could just stay here.”
“Would you want to live here? Charlie told me there’s only five hundred people in town. We could be five-oh-one and five-oh-two.”
“I might have said yes before today. While we were shopping earlier, Abby told me how hard the winters are. It gets down to twenty below and they had eight feet of snow last year.”
“EIGHT FEET!”
“Eight feet.”
“To hell with that. No wonder no one lives here. Let’s come once a year then, in the summer. I worried things would be awkward between us and David, but they’re not. I worried the kids wouldn’t be comfortable around us, but they are. I worried we wouldn’t have anything to do, and we’d be underfoot all the time, but you and Abby are great partners, and I’ve got a mystery to solve. This has been a great trip so far.”
Walt deadpanned. “And you’ve only been thrown in jail once.”
I teased in response. “My husband always says in every life a little rain must fall.”
He chuckled and traded my dishrag for his towel so I could dry my hands before the dampness got into the joints. “David said he left the whole thing up to you. Is that true?”
“He did. He came up to the property today when we were meeting with the prospector. When I asked about having the place guarded, he got mad because he’s overwhelmed. I get the impression that no matter what time of year it is, there’s never enough hours in the day to do everything that needs to be done. He’s spread thin. I’m glad he’s getting Mitch and Charlie involved. He needs the help.”
Walt took the towel and hung it to dry by the sink. “I wonder why people farm. It seems like so much work. Why not take a job in a factory and live in town and have a regular life?”
I was incredulous that of all people, he would ask something like that. “Probably for the same reason people work and save for fifteen years to open a restaurant only to spend every waking moment for the next twenty-one years making sure it thrives.”
He ducked his head sheepishly. “Silly question, huh?”
“Very. I get it, though. I never had the drive to build anything permanent. The only reason I did was because you had a dream that was big enough for us to share. David’s dream is big enough for generations to share. He’s so proud of this place. He took me to the very center of the property and had me look in every direction. Everything I could see belonged to him. It was amazing.”
“Sounds impressive. I’d like to see it.”
“I’m sure he’d be happy to show you, but he’ll tell you it’s all because of me and not him. It’s a shame the way he minimizes himself. He thought I could see the future, like somehow I knew what he’d do with the money I gave him. He acted like I gave him this place. I didn’t do anything. He did all this. It’s his accomplishment.
“I appreciate what Abby said earlier about judging the value of the contribution by what it means to the person receiving it, but I’m not entirely sold on the idea. I didn’t earn the money I gave David. I didn’t save it. I had it simply because I couldn’t spend it fast enough. It would be like if I found a nickel on the street and dropped it in the collection plate.”
Walt didn’t agree. “I understand what you mean about the money not meaning anything. The meaning David attaches to your action is because you cared enough about him to force the money into his hands without asking for anything in return. From what you told me, you had to practically chase him out of the city. That’s where the meaning comes from. You saw someone who needed help and you helped him. How you helped doesn’t matter.”
I saw his point, but I still wasn’t entirely comfortable with the weight of David’s gratitude. “I guess. You ready for bed?”
“Almost.” He opened a kitchen drawer and took out a big cigar and a box of matches. “Look what I got for us in town today. Care to indulge with me?” He held the tightly rolled tobacco under my nose. It smelled rich, like an excellent cigar should.
“What are we waiting for?”
We went onto the patio and sat down. He offered the cigar to me, but I demurred. “You light it. Light it like you used to light my cigars when you were pleased with me.”
He looked into my eyes while he trimmed the end of the cigar with his teeth and smoothed the bite with his full lips and thick tongue. He teased the end and moistened it with his mouth to mellow the smoke. He even licked it from one end to the other and back again. He finally lit three matches at once and roasted the end to establish an ember. He drew on it and blew a mouthful of smoke into the night. He offered the cigar to my mouth. I accepted greedily.
I tasted the smoke and rolled it over my tongue. “This is a good cigar. I’m impressed you found it in this little town.” I drew more smoke from it and savored it. I offered it back to Walt. He teased the end some more and drew smoke from it. His antics made me burn for him. “You’re still sexy as hell, you know that? I want you just as much now as I ever did.”
He passed the cigar back over. “Do you, really?”
“Of course, I do. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me. You changed my life. You made it possible for me to be the man I am instead of the animal I was. I love you and I desire you. I enjoy our time together and look forward to more of it.” I smoked a little and watched the dense smoke rise toward the patio roof.
I offered the cigar back. He accepted and drew on it. “This is a good cigar. We haven’t done this in years. We used to do it all the time. I forget why we stopped.”
“I switched to cigarettes after we opened the restaurant. There didn’t seem to be time for cigars. I quit smoking in ’53. You were after me to stop. I made up my mind to quit when I watched poor Smokey cough like he’d been gassed. We were in the middle of that big fight when David was in town and Larry was in jail. I came home and you were teaching yourself to smoke because you were afraid I’d die and you’d be stuck here without me. I threw the pack away that night and never smoked again.”
He passed the cigar back with an apology attached to it. “I shouldn’t have fought you about selling the restaurant. I’m sorry I hurt you. After your old life disintegrated in 1944 and you came to live with me, you threw yourself into everything I wanted. You took the job I got for you in the cafeteria at the Navy Yard. You lived cheaply and put all your money toward my dream. You did everything you could to make Walt’s Special a reality. All you wanted in return was me. After my heart attack, I tried to deny myself to you.”
I smoked and thought about what he said. I appreciated the apology. He hurt me deeply when he was recovering. I understood why he did it. “I never had a dream like you did. I thought I would be a tailor, but that wasn’t my dream, it was my old man’s. That dream died when he threw me away. After the war, I just worked and lived from one day to the next. My detective agency was more of a ‘fuck you’ to the police force that refused to have me than it was a dream. I’m a good investigator and I thought I could make a living on my own terms. I was wrong.
“The difference between my business and yours was mine was a gradual failure. I could see the inevitable a mile away. You were a roaring success right from the day you opened. Your dream worked. You got to have what you always wanted and you got to keep it. Once you earned your Firestone stars, the world literally beat a path to your door. Your heart attack ripped you away from all of that with no warning. One day you were the master of your fate, the next you were subject to the fickle whims of chance. I understand why you fought. It hurt like hell, but we got through it and we’re better for it.”
He held his hand out and accepted the cigar back. “You’re a good man, Love. I’m glad I waited for you. It was worth it. Our life together has been good. I always knew you were a good man. I’m glad you finally found it out.”
“I’m glad you were able to prove it to me.”
He drew smoke it and rolled it over his tongue. He held the cigar up between us. “I never thought much of tobacco, but this is an enjoyable way to end a meal. Could you have an occasional cigar and not want to start smoking again?”
“If we smoked them like this I could. I couldn’t have a box to reach into anytime I wanted, but if you wanted to split one in the evenings, I could do that.”
“I’m surprised you’re not on me about the smoke being bad for my heart.”
I accepted the cigar back and shrugged over it. “Even if we smoked every night, it’s not like you live with one in your face. Besides, we’re pushing seventy. Maybe we’ve got ten years left, fifteen at the outside. I don’t figure a cigar now and then or even every night is going to make much difference. I tried to get on you about eating less fat, but you were right when you asked me to let you live the best way you knew how. That’s all we can do. Take our pleasure where we can get it and don’t worry about the end because it’s going to come whether we’re ready for it or not.”
“I hope it doesn’t come for a long while. I kind of like this slower pace of living. Maybe when we get home, we can do more things, all the things we meant to do but never made time for. Larry and Stephan are always offering tickets to the shows they’re working on. We should go see them. We should go to the art museum and look around.
“We could drive up to that artists’ colony in New Hope where the boys went on their honeymoon and see what goes on up there. Maybe we could stay at the queer bed-and-breakfast like Larry and Stephan did. They said it was a great time, and no one cared that they were queer. There’s so much nearby that we’ve never done. We can take day trips and do whatever we want. We should do as much as we can while we can still get around.”
I savored more of the mellow smoke. “Have you heard about those gardens in Kennett Square?”
“What gardens?”
“They’re called Longwood.”
He chuckled because he thought I was making a lewd joke. “Sure they are.”
“No, really. Longwood Gardens. Some rich guy owned a lot of property and made it into a rich guy’s garden. I think he was a DuPont or somebody like that. I don’t know if he couldn’t afford it anymore or what, but he donated it and now it’s open to the public. There’s all these crazy plants and a big greenhouse where you can walk, and you can picnic and all that. We could spend the whole day.”
“That sounds like fun. We’ll go when we get back.”
I passed the cigar over. He drew on it and passed it back. “You can finish it if you want. I’ve had enough.”
I tasted the smoke again. “Your dinner was incredible. I don’t care what the old bag thinks. My biggest regret about having to surrender this body someday is that I won’t be able to eat your food anymore. You take such care with everything you do. You never compromise. Every bite was heaven.”
“It helps that I get to see the people enjoy. We didn’t get much of that at the restaurant. I had to send the food out and hope for the best. We heard more complaints than compliments. Here, I get to see the faces light up as they enjoy. They’re so appreciative.”
“They work hard. They all do, from David to Abby to the children and all the hands. They look forward to the end of their work and the dinner they earned. You’ve made them feel even more appreciated with the finest food they’ve ever eaten.”
“It’s fun to cook for people like this, simple, appreciative people. They don’t expect much and when you provide more, they act like you gave them a gift.”
“You have. You gave them the gift of your talent and your artistry.” I stubbed the cigar out in the tray, stretched and yawned. “I’m all in. Let’s get in bed.”
I stood up and found myself wrapped in Walt’s arms. “I love you. Thank you for being my husband.”
I hugged him back. “Thank you for being mine.”
“Let’s go to bed.”
We went inside and closed the door behind.
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