Only Child(67)

When he got to the kitchen door, Mommy said, “It’s because she was going to be all alone today,” and she let out some more crying sounds. “She had no one. After Ricky died…it was just her. We should have had her here today….”

“Oh, honey, it’s not your fault,” Mimi said, and rubbed Mommy’s back.

“I know,” Mommy said, and she stopped hugging Mimi and took a step to the side and looked at Daddy. He was standing by the door, but he didn’t turn around. Mommy pointed at Daddy’s back. “It’s his.”

Grandma and Aunt Mary looked at each other, and Grandma pulled her eyebrows all the way up like how Daddy did earlier when Mommy made the loud “Oooohh!” sound. Daddy started to turn around. His face was white all over, and his bottom lip was shaking.

“I should have invited her. I shouldn’t have listened to you,” Mommy said. She kept talking like she didn’t notice Daddy’s face or she didn’t care. “She was facing this day all by herself, and it was too much for her,” Mommy cried, but her voice sounded mad. “And because you didn’t want to invite…strangers…”

Daddy stared at Mommy for a long time with his white face and his shaking lip. Mommy stared back like they were having a staring contest, but then Mommy looked down and lost the contest. Daddy turned around and walked in the hallway and left through the front door. He never even said anything the whole time. Everyone in the kitchen looked at the place where Daddy was standing a minute ago. It was like the air was all heavy, like it was sitting on top of me, my shoulders, my head, my whole body.

“Excuse me,” Mommy said in a quiet voice, and she didn’t look at anyone. She also left the kitchen and then went upstairs.

No one said anything for a while, but then Aunt Mary started talking: “Monkey, want to help me make those Brussels sprouts?” And she helped me pull a chair up to the sink and I had to pull all the leaves off from the outside of the Brussels sprouts, and there were a lot of them and I was glad we had a job to do.

Me and Mimi and Grandma and Aunt Mary got all the dinner ready and we set the table in the dining room. Mimi and Grandma didn’t say anything, so Aunt Mary did all the talking, and she talked a lot, probably because when she wasn’t talking, it was too quiet and it made the air heavy again.

“Zach, we need one, two, three, four, five big forks and one little fork for you. Five knives. Which napkins do you think we should use? Yes, I like those. Let’s fold these up like this….” Aunt Mary talked to me about all the things we had to do in kind of a happy voice. I think she was trying to cheer me up, because Mommy and Daddy had another fight and Daddy left, even though it was Thanksgiving, and now it wasn’t going to be nice at all.

“I’m calling him,” Grandma said after a while and picked up our kitchen phone and called Daddy. It rang for a long time, and then Grandma pressed the “off” button. “No answer.”

“Well, the turkey has been done for a long time. It’s probably all dried out by now,” Mimi said. “I’m going upstairs to get Melissa. We should eat.” After a while Mimi came back with Mommy and we all sat down at the table.

We didn’t go around the table to say what we were thankful for. We started to eat, and mostly you could just hear the clinking sound from the forks and knives on the plates. It was like clink, clink. “The turkey isn’t as dry as I thought.” Clink-clink. “The Brussels sprouts turned out tasty, Mary.” “That’s because of the bacon. That’s my secret weapon.” Clink-clink.

I looked at Daddy’s empty seat, and I could feel tears coming in my eyes. The doorbell rang, and for a second I thought Daddy was home, but he had a key, so why would he ring the doorbell? Mommy got up to open the door and I followed her.

A policeman was standing outside. “Mrs. Taylor?” he asked.

“Yes?” Mommy said.

“May I come in for a minute?”

Mommy opened the door all the way, and the policeman came inside.

“Hey, buddy,” the policeman said, and put out his hand for a high five. I high-fived him.

Mimi and Grandma and Aunt Mary all came out of the dining room. Grandma made a sound like she was pulling in a lot of air through her mouth. “Is this about my son? Jim Taylor? Did something happen to him?” Grandma asked, and my stomach started to hurt a lot.

“Well, I was hoping to speak with Mr. Taylor. Is he not home?” the policeman asked.

“No…no, he’s not here,” Mommy said.

“Why do you think something happened to him?” the policeman asked.

“No, he just…left…a while ago, and when you came to the door, that was my first thought,” Grandma said.

“As far as I know, nothing happened to him,” the policeman said. “I had a few questions regarding…” He looked over at me and stopped talking. “Is there a place we can talk privately?” he asked Mommy, and she said sure, in the living room, and they went there together, and Grandma and Aunt Mary went, too. I wasn’t allowed to go and listen. Mimi took me back in the dining room.

The policeman wasn’t there for long. In the hallway I could hear him say to Mommy, “Please have your husband give me a call when he returns. I’m sorry to have interrupted your dinner. Good day. Happy Thanksgiving.”