Rise: How a House Built a Family(35)

“I smell roast beast,” I told him.

Roman laughed, twisting to get down. I pulled the slippers off before I set him free.

Hope and my mom put the finishing touches on a spectacular meal while I set Great-Grandmother’s china around the table. My pumpkin and apple pies went in the oven just before we sat down. They would be piping hot by the time we finished, though no one except Drew would have room for pie. The rest of us would save it for our midnight snack.

Dinner conversation centered on Hope’s college list, Drew’s latest inventions, and Jada’s plans for the WNBA.

Roman fell asleep with his spoon dipped into the last of his dressing. A smear of mashed potatoes formed a Nike swish above his left ear. Jada looked ready to doze, too, blinking frequently, eyes locked on her empty plate.

We spent a lazy day around the fire with Christmas movies. Mom jumped up frequently to clean or fix something around the house or fold a load of laundry. Near dark she went out and weeded my front flower bed, even though the house was up for sale and it wouldn’t be mine much longer. She held strong to her forgiving heart and her attitude of helping everyone else tend their garden even when her own heart was heavy with loneliness and endless frustration caring for my disabled brother. She had a habit of staying excessively busy in order to keep from looking too closely at her own problems. Boy was I glad I didn’t inherit that trait.

Jada and Mom were up the next morning singing over breakfast preparations. Mom had always sung her way through chores when I was a kid, and I picked up the habit from her. But while she had a beautiful soprano voice, mine was a croaky alto. The kids learned young to turn the radio up loud for my sing-alongs.

One day off was more than we could afford, so we slipped into our construction clothes and headed out to work while the rest of America hit the mall for sweater sales and marked-down tinsel.

Mom took on the task of organizing our jumbled mess of muddy tools in the shop. She designed shelves for the back wall and helped Drew hang his long-awaited pegboards over a sturdy table that became our workbench. Drew had adopted an annoying habit of saying “Cool beans,” and Roman chose that day to mimic him, shouting “Cold bean!” when he found a lump of sparkly white quartz or a fat squirrel to chase around a hickory tree.

I was restless and a little irritated, feeling like we were wasting time when the house was so far behind schedule. But other than shuffling blocks around, there was little work to be done until I figured out how to lay the foundation. And since the edge of the pond was iced over, it was clearly too cold for mortar to set properly. The real source of my irritation was exhaustion. We were only a month into the project and the weather was as awful as the work. I wanted to quit so badly that I spent hours making mental lists of excuses to pack it all in, and followed that with hours overwhelmed with disappointment for my own weakness.

My stomach rumbled while I filled the wheelbarrow with rocks and dumped them into the tire ruts from parking in the muddy backyard. While I generally organized meals of crackers, granola, and jerky on the job site, Mom had planned ahead with a gallon of chili, cooking it on her dad’s old tripod over the fire that Jada and Roman fed with sticks, two-by-four scraps, and popping sweetgum balls.

When Mom called us all over for a late lunch, we washed up with a thermos of icy water and tipped over five-gallon pails for our chairs. Mom had lifted a length of plywood across two sawhorses and lined it with Styrofoam bowls, Fritos, and shredded cheese—a construction-site buffet. We ate slowly, cupping the bowls and warming our noses over the chili steam.

“It’s hot,” I told Roman. “Even after you blow on it, be careful of the beans.”

“Cold beans, Drew! Hot chili, cold beans,” he sang.

Hershey roamed our fire circle, watching closely. She had always been a fire dog, shoving me out of the way if I got too close and barking if a flame escaped along a leaf trail. Drew gave her a small bowl of his leftovers and she settled by his feet, eyes shifting hopefully between the rest of us.

Mom told stories about her own childhood in rural Wisconsin after her dad returned silent and dreamless from World War II. We listened until the half of our bodies facing the fire was toasty.

“Cold beans, cold butt,” Roman adapted his song.

Warm heart, I added silently.

I still wanted to quit, don’t get me wrong. But I knew I wouldn’t, and neither would the kids. We had navigated the worst of our isolation and crossed over the bridge that had held us apart. The construction project was still half impossible, but building our family no longer was.

We closed up the shop and moved concrete blocks around until our numb toes and red ears led us home to defrost. None of us would list that year as the best Christmas ever, but in a dozen quiet ways it may have been the most important.





–10–

Fall

Karma Points

My phone rang just as I was climbing into bed, and I froze, balanced in an awkward yoga pose that would be titled startled half-recline. I tried to talk myself out of answering it. My heartbeat stampeded through my chest and ears as I remembered other late-night calls. I wondered if I would ever hear a phone ring after dark without remembering. I sat, drew my knees to my chest, and answered, my voice weak and insignificant.

“Hi,” said Sophie, Adam’s sister, making the short word somehow apologetic. “I just left the hospital. Adam got a really good doctor, Dr. Christe.”